Buddy and Portia’s Story”

Posted on August 16, 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!

The Love Boat sets sail for season 3!

Episode 3.1 and 3.2 “The Alaskan Wedding Cruise: Carol and Doug’s Story/Peter and Alicia’s Story/Julie’s Story/Buddy and Portia’s Story”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on September 15th, 1979)

The third season of The Love Boat starts with a special voyage to Alaska and a two-hour running time. It’s double the guest stars, double the melodrama, double the goofiness, and double the romance! The opening also features new clips for Doc, Gopher, and Julie. Whereas the first two seasons introduced Doc listening to his own heartbeat, the third season opening features him laughing while leaning against a railing. Gopher’s new opening credit features him looking wistfully out at the ocean and it’s a much more mature look for him. As for Julie, she’s still smiling and perky but she’s let her hair grow out. If the first two seasons of The Love Boat featured Julie looking like the star of the high school drama department, she looks more like the most popular cheerleader now. As for the Captain, he continues to salute the camera and Isaac continues to do his signature pointing.

The episode opens in Canada. The boat is docked in Vancouver, where it has been rented out by a huge and wealthy wedding party. The boat will be sailing to Alaska. Isaac has been reading everything that he can find about Alaska and he spends most of the episode sharing trivia about the state’s history. Gopher, preparing for Alaska’s cold weather, buys a gigantic coat. Meanwhile, Doc Bricker makes jokes about his ex-wives and Capt. Stubing tries to keep everything professional. (“You’re not going to the North Pole!” he snaps at Gopher when he sees the size of his new fur coat.)

As for Julie, her mind is elsewhere. Alaska is where Jack (Tony Roberts) lives. Who is Jack? During the second season, he was a passenger who fell in love with Julie and who asked Julie to marry him. She knows that she’s going to see Jack in Alaska and she’s going to give him an answer as far as his proposal is concerned. (If you don’t remember Jack asking Julie to marry him, don’t feel bad. I had forgotten about it, too. Fortunately, the first hour of this episode is full of flashbacks to Jack’s previous episode.) Is Julie ready to settle down? While Julie tries to make up her mind, she also has to deal with the romantic intentions of the wedding party’s dorky best man (Donny Most).

As for the wedding party, Carol (Lisa Hartman) and Doug (Mark Harmon, sporting a truly unfortunate haircut) are looking forward to getting married, even though Doug’s ex-girlfriend (Caren Kaye) is also on the boat and determined to win Doug back. If that means jumping out a cake while wearing a bikini, she’ll do it. Doug is more concerned about the fact that his estranged, alcoholic father, Peter (Ray Milland) had turned up on the cruise despite having not been invited to or even informed about the wedding. Peter has stopped drinking and is trying to make peace with his son and his ex-wife, Alicia (Eleanor Parker). What Doug and Alicia do not know is that Peter is terminally ill. And what neither Doug nor Peter knows is that Alicia is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, Carol’s plain-spoken grandfather (Lorne Greene) feels uncomfortable with all of the rich folks but then he meets Doug’s equally plain-spoken aunt (Audra Lindley). Could we be heading for a double wedding? It is The Love Boat, after all!

There aren’t really any big surprises on this episode but it’s likable nonetheless. For this episode, the crew and the cast actually sailed to Alaska and all the action was filmed during an actual cruise. The scenery is gorgeous, even if it’s obvious that the cast was frequently freezing while filming their scenes. By this point, the show’s regulars had their chemistry down perfectly and all of the 3rd season premiere’s guest stars are well-selected. I especially liked the performances of Lorne Greene, Audra Lindley, the great Ray Milland, and Tony Roberts. Julie and Jack’s reunion was far more touching that I think anyone would expect from a show like The Love Boat, with Tony Roberts playing the role of Jack so well that the viewer really did believe that, under different circumstances, he and Julie truly would have had a wonderful life together. This was a great way to start the third season.

Retro Television Review: After The Promise (dir by David Greene)

Posted on February 5, 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 Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1987’s After the Promise! It can be viewed on YouTube!

Mark Harmon is, in many ways, the ideal television actor. He’s handsome in a distinguished but not overwhelming sort of way. He projects a pleasant personality. He’s likably low-key. He’s a talented actor but he’s also a bit of a safe and predictable actor. It’s been said that the difference between a TV star and a movie star is that a movie star combines charisma with danger whereas a TV star combines a likable screen presence with reliability. Mark Harmon’s been a reliable TV presence for longer than I’ve been alive.

In 1987’s After the Promise, Harmon plays Elmer Jackson, a carpenter who is just trying to survive day-to-day in Depression-era California. Though his wife (who is implied to be a Christian Scientist) begs him not to take her to the hospital when she gets ill, Elmer goes against her wishes. When he gets her to the hospital, he is treated rudely by the staff. A cop approaches him in the waiting room and brusquely orders him to move his car. When a doctor finally does approach Elmer, he calmly explains that Elmer’s wife has did of TB and that she should have been brought to the hospital weeks ago.

Now a widower, Elmer is determined to keep the last promise that he made to his wife and give his four sons the best life that he possibly can. Unfortunately, the government is determined to keep Elmer from doing that. When Elmer goes to the government to try to get temporary financial assistance, the government reacts by taking his children away from him and forcing them into foster care. When Elmer, during one of his weekly visits, tries to take the children for a ride, the government bans him from having any contact with his children. When Elmer’s sons try to escape from the foster home, they’re separated and sent to separate facilities.

Informed that he can only get his children back if he proves that he’s financially stable, Elmer becomes an itinerant worker. It’s only after he meets and marries Anna (Diana Scarwid) that Elmer finally gets a chance to be reunited with his sons but, after years of abuse, his sons have their own traumas to deal with before they can accept Elmer as being their father.

This is a movie that really pulls at your heartstrings! There’s nothing subtle about it but, at the same time, its portrait of bureaucrats without empathy is one that feels very real and contemporary. Over the course of the film, Elmer learns that the rules are not being written to help out a blue collar worker who doesn’t have a lot of money and, watching the film, it’s hard not to consider that the rules haven’t really changed that much over the years. Elmer isn’t just fighting to reunited his family. His fighting to save them from a system that is designed to dehumanize. It’s an ideal role for a television star like Mark Harmon, as Elmer isn’t a terribly complex man but he is a very determined one. It’s a role that demands a lot of sincerity and Harmon certainly delivers. For that matter, so does this simple but emotionally resonant film.

Under the Sea: Goliath Awaits (1981, directed by Kevin Connor)

Posted on October 17, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

1939. War is breaking out across Europe. The British luxury liner Goliath is torpedoed by a German U-boat. Presumed to be lost with the ship are a swashbuckling film star, Ronald Bentley (John Carradine), and U.S. Senator Oliver Barthowlemew (John McIntire), who may have been carrying a forged letter from Hitler to Roosevelt when the boat went down.

1981. Oceanographer Peter Cabot (Mark Harmon, with a mustache) comes across the sunken wreck of the Goliath. When he dives to check out his discovery, he is shocked to hear big band music coming from inside the ship. He also thinks that he can hear someone tapping out an S.O.S. signal. When he looks into a porthole, he is stunned to discover a beautiful young woman (Emma Samms) staring back at him.

Under the command of Admiral Sloan (Eddie Albert), who wants to retrieve the forged letter before it does any damage to the NATO alliance, Cabot and Command Jeff Selkirk (Robert Forster) are assigned to head an expedition to explore Goliath. What they discover is that, for 40 years, the passengers and crew have survived within an air bubble. Under the leadership of Captain John McKenzie (Christopher Lee), they have created a new, apparently perfect society within the sunken ship. Cabot discovers that the woman that he saw was McKenzie’s daughter, Lea.

McKenzie is friendly to Cabot and his crew, explaining to them the scientific developments that have allowed the passengers and crew to not only survive but thrive underwater. The only problems are a group of outcasts — the Bow People — who refuse to follow McKenzie’s orders and Palmer’s Disease, an infection that only seems to infect people who are no longer strong enough to perform the daily tasks necessary to keep McKenzie’s utopia functioning. Even when people on the boat die, they continue to play their part by being cremated in Goliath’s engine room and helping to power the ship.

Everything seems perfect until Cabot announces that he has come to rescue the survivors of the Goliath. Even though Goliath is starting to decay and will soon no longer be safe, McKenzie is not ready to give up the perfect society that he’s created. McKenzie sets out to prevent anyone from escaping the Goliath.

Goliath Awaits is a massive, 3-hour production that was made for television and originally aired over two nights. (The entire 200-minute production has been uploaded to YouTube. Avoid the heavily edited, 91-minute version that was released on VHS in the 90s.) It’s surprisingly good for a made-for-TV movie. Because a large portion of the film was shot on the RMS Queen Mary, a retired cruise ship that was moored in Long Beach, California, Goliath looks luxurious enough that you understand why some of the passengers might want to stay there instead of returning to the surface. Beyond that, Goliath Awaits takes the time to fully explore the society that McKenzie has created and what it’s like to live on the ship. McKenzie may not be as benevolent as he first appears to be but neither is he a one-dimensional villain.

Mark Harmon is a dull lead but Robert Forster is just as cool as always and Christopher Lee is perfect for the role of misguided Capt. McKenzie. The movie is really stolen by Frank Gorshin, who is coldly sinister as Dan Wesker, the Goliath’s head of security. McKenzie may by Goliath’s leader but Wesker is the one who does the dirty work necessary to keep the society running.

Goliath Awaits also features several character actors in small roles, with John Carradine, Duncan Regehr, Jean Marsh, John McIntire, Jeanette Nolan, Alex Cord, Emma Samms, and John Ratzenberger all getting to make a good impression. (Ignore, if you can, a very young Kirk Cameron as one of the children born on the Goliath.)

Goliath Awaits is far better than your average made-for-TV movie from the 80s. With any luck, it will someday get the home video release that it deserves.

A Movie A Day #217: Wyatt Earp (1994, directed by Lawrence Kasdan)

Posted on August 13, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Once upon a time, there were two movies about the legendary Western lawman (or outlaw, depending on who is telling the story) Wyatt Earp. One came out in 1993 and the other came out in 1994.

The 1993 movie was called Tombstone. That is the one that starred Kurt Russell was Wyatt, with Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton in the roles of his brothers and Val Kilmer playing Doc Holliday. Tombstone deals with the circumstances that led to the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. “I’m your huckleberry,” Doc Holliday says right before his gunfight with Michael Biehn’s Johnny Ringo. Tombstone is the movie that everyone remembers.

The 1994 movies was called Wyatt Earp. This was a big budget extravaganza that was directed by Lawrence Kasdan and starred Kevin Costner as Wyatt. Dennis Quaid played Doc Holliday and supporting roles were played by almost everyone who was an active SAG member in 1994. If they were not in Tombstone, they were probably in Wyatt Earp. Gene Hackman, Michael Madsen, Tom Sizemore, Jeff Fahey, Mark Harmon, Annabeth Gish, Gene Hackman, Bill Pullman, Isabella Rossellini, JoBeth Williams, Mare Winningham, and many others all appeared as supporting characters in the (very) long story of Wyatt Earp’s life.

Of course, Wyatt Earp features the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral but it also deals with every other chapter of Earp’s life, including his multiple marriages, his career as a buffalo hunter, and his time as a gold prospector. With a three-hour running time, there is little about Wyatt Earp’s life that is not included. Unfortunately, with the exception of his time in Tomstone, Wyatt Earp’s life was not that interesting. Neither was Kevin Costner’s performance. Costner tried to channel Gary Cooper in his performance but Cooper would have known better than to have starred in a slowly paced, three-hour movie. The film is so centered around Costner and his all-American persona that, with the exception of Dennis Quaid, the impressive cast is wasted in glorified cameos. Wyatt Earp the movie tries to be an elegy for the old west but neither Wyatt Earp as a character nor Kevin Costner’s performance was strong enough to carry such heavy symbolism. A good western should never be boring and that is a rule that Wyatt Earp breaks from the minute that Costner delivers his first line.

Costner was originally cast in Tombstone, just to leave the project so he could produce his own Wyatt Earp film. As a big, Oscar-winnng star, Costner went as far as to try to have production of Tombstone canceled. Ironically, Tombstone turned out to be the film that everyone remember while Wyatt Earp is the film that most people want to forget.

Pure 80s Hokum: Let’s Get Harry (1986, directed by Alan Smithee)

Posted on May 4, 2016 by Jedadiah Leland

Let’s Get Harry opens deep in the jungles of Columbia. The newly appointed American Ambassador (Bruce Gray) is touring a newly constructed water pipeline when suddenly, terrorist drug smugglers attack! The Ambassador, along with chief engineer Harry Burck (Mark Harmon, long before NCIS), is taken hostage. Drug Lord Carlos Ochobar announces that both the Ambassador and Harry will be executed unless the U.S. government immediately releases Ochobar’s men. However, the policy of the U.S. government is to not negotiate with terrorists. As grizzled mercenary Norman Shrike (Robert Duvall) explains it, nobody gives a damn about a minor ambassador.

Nobody in a small blue-collar town in Illinois gives a damn about the ambassador either. But they do give a damn about their friend Harry! When its obvious that the bureaucrats up in Washington are not going to do anything, Harry’s younger brother, Corey (Michael Shoeffling, Sixteen Candles), decides that he and his friends are going to go to Columbia themselves and get Harry! Helping him out are Bob (Thomas F. Wilson, Back to the Future), Kurt (Rick Rossovich, Top Gun), Spence (Glenn Frey!), and Jack (Gary Busey). If Jake Ryan, Biff Tannen, Slider, Buddy Holly, and the guy from the Eagles who wasn’t Don Henley can’t get Harry, then who can!?

There were a lot of these “American rescue mission” movies made in the 80s, everything from Uncommon Valor to The Delta Force to the Rambo films. Plotwise, Let’s Get Harry adds little to the genre. It’s about as simplistic and implausible as a Donald Trump campaign speech. A bunch of terrorists are holding American hostages and making us all look bad while the establishment refuses to do anything about it? Don’t worry! Here come a bunch of heavily armed, no-nonsense American citizens to save the day and make America great again!

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There are two things that distinguish Let’s Get Harry. First, Let’s Get Harry is one of the many films to have been credited to Alan Smithee. From 1968 to 2000, Alan Smithee was the official pseudonym used by directors who wanted to disown a project. Smithee has been credited as directing everything from Solar Crisis to Morgan Stewart’s Coming Home to The O.J. Simpson Story. In the case of Let’s Get Harry, Smithee was standing in for veteran director Stuart Rosenberg (probably best known for Cool Hand Luke). Rosenberg originally only planned for Mark Harmon to be seen only at the end of the film, much like Matt Damon in Saving Private Ryan. When TriStar Pictures demanded extra scenes featuring Harmon being taken and held hostage, Rosenberg took his name off the film.

(Before Rosenberg signed on to direct, Let’s Get Harry started out as a Sam Fuller project and he received a story credit on the film. With the exception of some of the scenes with Harmon, which may have been shot by a different director, Rosenberg’s direction was adequate but Let’s Get Harry really does cry out for a director like Sam Fuller.)

Secondly, there is the cast, which is a lot more interesting than would be typically found in a low-budget, 80s action film. Not surprisingly, by respectively underplaying and overplaying, Duvall and Busy give the two best performances. Meanwhile, lightweight Mark Harmon gives the worst. Perhaps because of the conflict between Rosenberg and the studio over his character, Harmon spends the entire movie looking lost.

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As an exercise in patriotic wish fulfillment, Let’s Get Harry is pure 80s hokum. It may be dumb but it is also entertaining. After all, any film that features not only Robert Duvall, Gary Busey, and Ben Johnson, but also Glenn Frey is going to be worth watching. Let’s Get Harry has never been released on DVD and is currently only available on VHS. Somebody needs to do something about this.

Let’s get Harry on DVD!

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