Tag Archives: Michael O’Herlihy

Insomnia Files #71 and #72: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (dir by Bruce Bilson) and Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders II (dir by Michael O’Herlihy)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were having trouble getting to sleep last night, you could have gone over to YouTube and watched 1979’s Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders!  And then, if you were still having trouble getting to sleep, you could have followed it up with 1980’s Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders II!  And then if you were somehow still not able to get any rest …. well, sorry.  There’s only two of them.  I guess you could watch that Making the Team show.  I don’t know.

Anyway, back to the movies!

The first Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders stars Jane Seymour as a serious journalist who at first scoffs at the idea of going undercover as a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader.  But her ex-boyfriend and editor (Bert Convy) insists that she take the assignment.  Jane goes undercover and even makes the squad!  (It’s never mentioned whether she has any sort of dance or cheerleading experience so I find it a bit odd that she actually made it onto a professional cheerleading squad but whatever….)  Seymour gets to know the other members of the Squad, including the Love Boat’s Lauren Tewes.  She comes to realize that she doesn’t want to write up a tabloid story about the cheerleaders.  These are “good, down home girls,” she tells Convy.  Convy doesn’t care.  He wants scandal!

He’s not going to get it, though.  The main message of this film is that the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders are basically saints with pom poms.  Sure, one of them has a loser ex-boyfriend.  And another one of them struggles a bit with the routines.  It’s not an easy job but, in the end, everyone does their bit to support the team!

It’s all pretty silly but I’m from Dallas and I’m surrounded by Cowboy fans who have been complaining nonstop about the team for as long as I can remember so I enjoyed watching a movie that portrayed the Cowboys organization as being the greatest group of people on the planet.  (No drug or gun problems here!)  It’s very much a film of the 70s, made for television and straddling the line between being exploitive and being wholesome.  Yes, the costumes are skimpy but no one smokes, drinks, or curses.  The film features soapy drama, actual Dallas locations, 70s fashion, a great disco soundtrack, and dorky Bert Convy as a womanizer.  Plus, like me, Jane Seymour has mismatched eyes.  How can you not love this film!?

As for the sequel, it ditches almost everyone from the first film.  Only Laraine Stephens, as the squad’s no-nonsense coach, returns.  She’s got a whole new squad to deal with and only a limited amount of time to perfect the cheer that will win the Cowboys the Super….sorry, I mean to say the playoff game.  Whenever anyone in the film says, “playoff game,” their lips read “Super Bowl,” so I guess there was some last-minute tinkering after shooting was completed.  The squad also has to get ready to tour with the USO and to perform at a children’s hospital.  (Ray Wise appears as a doctor at the children’s hospital.)  The Cheerleaders are not only going to bring peace to the world but they’re also going to give those children the inspiration they need to get better.  Yay!

This one isn’t as much fun, largely because Laraine Stephens’s character isn’t that much fun.  The first film featured the very British Jane Seymour in Texas, somehow becoming a member of an all-American football team’s cheerleading squad and it was impossible not to enjoy the implausibility of it all.  The second film is just Laraine Stephens getting mad at people for not having the routine down to perfection.  No thanks, movie, I’m done with dealing with demanding choreographers.  There’s a reason why I turned down all of those offers to join the cheer squad in high school.  (For the record, my sister was the greatest cheerleader our high school ever had or ever will have!  Erin watched the first movie with me a few weeks ago.  She said it was okay but she didn’t think Jane Seymour was a convincing cheerleader.)

According to what I’ve read online, the first Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders film was a huge rating success.  The second film was less so, which I guess is why there was never a third.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
  64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary
  65. Girl Lost
  66. Ghosts Can’t Do It
  67. Heist
  68. Mind, Body & Soul
  69. Candy
  70. Shortcut to Happiness

Shattered Politics: The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (dir by Michael O’Herlihy)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1968, The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band is an old school Disney family film that almost feels like a rather mean-spirited parody of an old school Disney family film.  The songs are forgettable, the film has a cheap made-for-TV look to it, and the whole thing feels a bit too manufactured to  produce any sort of genuine emotion.

That said, it’s memorable for two reasons.  First off, it may be the only film ever made that centers on the presidential election of 1888.  In the Dakota territories, the citizens wait to see whether or not Democrat Grover Cleveland will be reelected or whether he’ll be defeated by Republican Benjamin Harrison.  Those who support the Dakotas joining the Union as one state hope to see Cleveland returned to the White House.  Those who favor the creation of a North and South Dakota hope that Benjamin Harrison will win the election, allowing for four new Republican senators to be sent to Washington.

Confederate veteran Renssaeler “Grandpa” Brown (Walter Brennan) supports the Democrats and he’s got his family singing songs to promote the cause of Grover Cleveland.  Grandpa’s son, Calvin (Buddy Ebsen), is a Republican who still has no problem performing at the Democratic Convention because he, much like his children, is a born performer.  His oldest son, Sidney (Kurt Russell, who was 16 at the time of filming), is not old enough to vote but I imagine he’d probably vote for the Republican ticket because he’s Kurt Russell and it’s hard to imagine Kurt voting for a Democrat.  The other children want to keep both Grandpa and their father happy.  Meanwhile, daughter Alice (Lesley Ann Warren) has fallen in love with newspaper editor, Joe Carder (a very bland John Davidson).  Joe’s a Republican and supports Benjamin Harrison.  Grandpa’s not happy but really Grandpa should just mind his own darn business.  At least, that’s my take on it.  (Also, I gave up cursing for Lent.)

On the one hand, the Bowman sisters are pretty evenly split politically, with two voting for the Democrats and the other two tending to vote Republican so I could definitely relate to the idea of a family that didn’t always agree on politics  At the same time, this film’s premise means that there are a lot of songs about Benjamin and Grover Cleveland in this film and they’re about as memorable and exciting as you would expect a bunch of songs about two of America’s forgotten presidents to be.  If you learn anything about the election of 1888 from this film, you’ll learn that Cleveland’s full name was Stephen Grover Cleveland.  You might also note that, for all the talk about how the country have never been as divided as it is today, people were saying the exact same thing in 1888.

The other thing that makes this otherwise forgettable film stand-out is that it features the film debut of Goldie Hawn, who appears as a Republican dancer in the film’s climax.  This was not only Hawn’s debut but it was also the first film that she made with Kurt Russell.  That said, don’t panic.  Hawn was 22 to Kurt’s 16 when she made this film but the two of them didn’t become a couple until they met again in 1983, while filming Swing Shift.  I read an interview with Kurt where, when asked whether he noticed Goldie Hawn in her film debut, he said that he did but he didn’t even think of talking to her because, “I didn’t even have a car.”

Fortunately, everything worked out in the end.  Benjamin Harrison vanquished Grover Cleveland (though Grover returned in 1892, becoming the first of two president to serve non-consecutive terms) and, after their second film together, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn are together to this day.

 

 

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 2.8 “Tale of the Goat”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, things get weird.

Episode 2.8 “Tale of the Goat”

(Dir by Michael O’Herlihy, originally aired on November 15th, 1985)

It’s hard to know where to begin with this one.

Legba (Clarence Williams III) is a drug lord that Sonny has been trying to take down for three years.  While hiding out in Haiti, Legba reportedly dies.  When his body is flown back to Miami, Crockett and Tubbs are waiting in the airport so that Crockett can snap a picture of Legba in his casket.  Legba does indeed appear to be dead.  But, at his voodoo-themed funeral, a man on a motorcycle riddles the casket with bullets.  When Crockett and Tubbs (who were staking out the ceremony) open up the casket, they discover only a dead goat.

“Zombie!” a priest exclaims.

Legba has come back, though not as a member of the undead.  Instead, while in Haiti, he ingested a toxin that put him in a 48-hour coma.  Unlike a lot of people who take the toxin, Legba survives.  However, when he is revived, he has suffered brain damage and is now walking and talking slowly.  That doesn’t stop Legba from getting his old gang back together (including a dwarf who carries a pickaxe) and going after everyone who he feels has betrayed him.  This includes his former lieutenant (Mykelti Williamson) and an obnoxious money launderer (Ray Sharkey) who owns a used car lot.

Tubbs doesn’t believe in voodoo, despite Crockett warning him of the dangers.  Tubbs is more interested in Marie (Denise Thompson), Legba’s ex-girlfriend.  Looking to keep Marie safe from Legba, Tubbs attempts to infiltrate a voodoo ceremony.  You might think this would give Tubbs the perfect excuse to trot out the fake Caribbean accent that he occasionally used during the first season but instead, Tubbs is captured before he can even utter a word.  He’s injected with the toxin and spends 48 hours in a coma, haunted by visions of Legba staring at him!

Eventually, Tubbs does come out of his coma and, amazingly, it takes him about five minutes to fully recover.  The episode ends with another raid on a yacht.  This time, Tubbs manages to kill the villain, shooting him in the back!  In Tubbs’s defense, he was still having visions and he thought Legba was facing him.  Legba dies and Marie is found in a coma but alive.

This was a weird episode, one that had enough plot for a two-parter.  As it is, the story felt rather rushed.  No sooner had Mykleti Williamson and Ray Sharkey made their appearances as criminals then Legba was doing away with them.  No sooner had Marie stepped onto Crockett’s boat then she was being kidnapped by Legba’s men.  No sooner had Tubbs decided to infiltrate Legba’s cult then he was getting injected with the voodoo toxin.  And no sooner had Tubbs woken up from his coma then he was preparing to raid the yacht.  Add to that, Clarence Williams III gave a performance that was without a hint of subtlety, speaking in accent that was impossible to describe.  This wasn’t really a good episode but it was so weird that it was undeniably entertaining.

Next week, Dean Stockwell appears as an old friend of Castillo’s!  Hopefully, he won’t be a voodoo priest.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 2.7 “Junk Love”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, Sonny and Rico somehow still manage to work undercover.

Episode 2.7 “Junk Love”

(Dir by Michael O’Herlihy, originally aired on November 8th, 1985)

“What’s a four letter word for dirt?” Switek asks, while on a stakeout.

“Mud,” Zito offers before correcting himself, “I mean …. sand!”

However, according to Switek, the correct answer is Vice!

And indeed, there’s a lot of dirt to be found in this week’s rather sordid episode of Miami Vice.  A raid on a brothel leads the Vice Squad to arrest a notorious smuggler and pimp named Ivory Jones (legendary Jazz musician, Miles Davis) and one of Ivory’s girls, a strung-out junkie named Rosella (Ely Pouget).  When they find out that Rosella is apparently the girlfriend of a notorious dealer named Juan Carlos Silva (Jose Perez), they decide to use her and Ivory to take Silva down.  While Tubbs is convinced that Rosella will say anything get her next fix, Crockett is convinced that Rosella is someone who truly wants to change her life.  Hmmm …. isn’t Crockett usually the cynical one?

Silva is sexually obsessed with Rosella, to the extent that he’ll even kill the members of his own organization if he thinks they’re interested in her.  The episode’s twist comes towards the end, when Gina does some research and discovers that Silva is not only Rosella’s lover but also her …. ick! …. father!  Ewwwww!  As with so many episodes of Miami Vice, Junk Love ends with Sonny watching helplessly as a victimized woman throws away her freedom so that she can shoot her tormenter.  Miami Vice was a show that always managed to be downbeat, even when the bad guys met a deserved end.

This episode felt like an attempt to recreate the emotional drama of the season one episode that featured Bruce Willis as an arms dealer with an abused wife.  Both episodes even feature the same basic ending, just with the setting moved from the courthouse steps to a yacht.  Unfortunately, this episode doesn’t work anywhere half as well as any of the episodes that aired during the first season.  Jose Perez may be playing an evil character but he simply does not have an intimidating enough screen presence to be convincing in the role.  Miles Davis, meanwhile, delivers his lines convincingly enough but his character disappears in such a way that it almost feels as if he left the set before all of his scenes were filmed.

The main thing that I found myself thinking about, as I watched this episode, was how could Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs still convincingly go undercover after two years of busting drug kingpin after drug kingpin.  You would think the entire Miami underworld would be on the lookout for them.  Instead, Sonny is still somehow convincing everyone that he’s actually “Sonny Burnett,” aspiring drug dealer.  I’m starting to think the criminals in Miami might not be that smart.

Hoover vs. The Kennedys: The Second Civil War (1987, directed by Michael O’Herlihy)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The year is 1961 and the young and dynamic John F. Kennedy (Robert Pine) has been elected president.  While the rest of the nation waits to see how Kennedy will lead, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover (Jack Warden) is convinced that he will continue to do what he’s always done.  As he explains it to his aide and only friend, Clyde Tolson, Hoover is a longtime friend of President Kennedy’s father, Joseph (Barry Morse).  Hoover knows how the Kennedys made their money and he also knows that the Kennedys probably stole the election.

Hoover quickly discovers that John F. Kennedy isn’t going to be like the other presidents under which he has served.  Kennedy appoints his self-righteous brother, Robert (Nicholas Campbell), as attorney general and Robert immediately sets out to make Hoover’s life unbearable.  When Hoover brings the brothers evidence that civil rights leader Martin Luther King (Leland Gantt) is not only associating with known radicals but that he also cheats on his wife, John and Bobby just laugh at him.  While John pursues an affair with Marilyn Monroe (Heather Thomas) and Bobby tries to reign in the FBI’s excesses, Hoover continues to collect information for his files and schemes to outlast both Kennedys.

Hoover vs. The Kennedys was a made-for-TV movie, one of the many films that have been made about the conflicts between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover.  Since a good deal of the film is made up of Hoover and the Kennedy Brothers snapping at each other on the phone and then telling their closest aides about how much they dislike each other, it seems hyperbolic to call their relationship the “second civil war.”  Though the film does go as far as to suggest that Hoover didn’t make much of an effort to investigate the background of Lee Harvey Oswald, it doesn’t go any further when it comes to the theories surrounding John Kennedy’s assassination.  As well, the film is one of the rare ones to not speculate that Hoover and Clyde Tolson were more than just friends.  Instead, Hoover vs. The Kennedys concentrates more on all of the scandalous stories surrounding the Kennedy brothers.  The mob connections.  The womanizing.  The arrogance.  It’s all recreated here.  Perhaps because this was a Canadian production, Hoover vs The Kennedys doesn’t portray anyone positively.

The acting is a mixed bag.  Nicholas Campbell is believably abrasive as Bobby while Robert Pine was several years too old to be a convincing JFK.  Heather Thomas is an adequate Marilyn Monroe while Leland Gantt comes across as too emotional to be a believable Martin Luther King.  (In Gantt’s defense, the movie does not seem to know what to do with the character of King, treating the civil rights icon like a prop to be trotted out whenever some Hoover/Kennedy conflict is needed.)  The film’s best performance comes from Jack Warden, who plays Hoover as being a puritanical hypocrite who knows that, no matter who tries to push him out, he’s not going anywhere unless he wants to.  Hoover outlasted several presidents and Warden portrays him as being the ultimate political survivor.

As far as Kennedy films are concerned, Hoover vs. The Kennedys is okay but it doesn’t offer up anything new.  Some of the most important roles are miscast and the movie never goes into much depth, beyond repeating all of the usual rumors.  Jack Warden’s a good J. Edgar Hoover, though.  The movie is not easy to find but it has been uploaded on to YouTube.  And, if you can’t find the movie, you can always order the novelization off of Amazon.