Tag Archives: Norman Alden

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 3.12 “The Cheerleaders/Marooned”

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 entire show is currently streaming is on Youtube!

Let’s see what’s happening on the Island this week….

Episode 3.12 “The Cheerleaders/Marooned”

(Dir by Earl Bellamy, originally aired on December 8th, 1979)

I’m just going to be honest here.  This week’s episode of Fantasy Island is not a good one.  Neither one of the fantasies work.  In fact, they’re both really, really annoying.  Usually, this show does a fairly good job of balancing a fun fantasy with a serious fantasy.  This episode, though, both fantasies are meant to be humorous.  They’re not.  They are both rather shrill.

That said, this episode did feature the return of Roarke and Tattoo bantering before going to meet their guests.  When Roarke steps out of his office to meet the plane, he’s surprised to see that Tattoo is hiding in a red fire hydrant costume.  When Roarke demands to know what Tattoo is doing, Tattoo explains that he’s training to be a secret agent.  Roarke rolls his eyes so violently that I’m surprised he didn’t injure himself.  Later, Tattoo attempts to disguises himself as a bale of hay and ends up getting chased by an enraged bull that just happens to be wandering around the Island.  Roarke laughs and laughs because there’s nothing that makes him happier than the idea of his assistant suffering a terrible injury.  That said, though it was all a bit mean-spirted, it was nice to see the return of the banter.

As for the two fantasies …. God, I don’t even want to talk about them.

The marginally more interesting one featured Vic Tayback as a blue collar guy named Melvyn whose fantasy was to spend some time with his favorite movie star, a total diva named Liz Merrill (Jayne Meadows).  When Liz shows up on the Island, it turns out that her fantasy is for everyone to think that she’s lost at sea before she’s eventually found on a tropical island.  She’s told that Melvyn has been hired to row the boat taking her to the island.  Instead, Melvyn and Liz get lost and really do end up on a deserted island, where Liz eventually drops her arrogant attitude and Melvyn wins her love by barking orders at her.  The fact that this was the “better” fantasy should tell you just how bad the other fantasy was.

The other fantasy features Georgia Engel and Patty McCormack as Cathy and Marg, two roommates whose fantasy is to be cheerleaders for their favorite football team, the Titans.  Fortunately, the Titans training camp happens to be on Fantasy Island!  Marg has a crush on quarterback Roger Mosely (played by Dan Pastorini) but Roger is more interested in Cathy.  This leads to the two friends not being friends anymore but then Mr. Roarke tells them that there’s nothing more important than friendship.  It’s a nice message but it’s hard to believe either Georgia Engel or Patty McCormack as cheerleaders and Engel and Pastorini had absolutely zero chemistry.  The whole thing just felt too silly for its own good.

(I even forced Erin to watch this episode with me so that I could get her perspective as a former cheerleader.  She agreed with me.  As far as cheerleader stories go, this was no Bring It On.)

Sigh.  This week’s episode was not great.  Hopefully, next week’s will be better!

30 More Days of Noir #9: The Walking Target (dir by Edward L. Cahn)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this 1960 noir, Nick Harbin (Ronald Foster) is a walking target!

That’s because he’s just been released from prison.  As the only survivor of a gang that pulled off a daring payroll robbery, Nick has done his time and he’s ready to get on with his life.  He even got himself an education while he was behind bars.  He’s decided to reform and no longer be the angry criminal that he once was.

But first, there’s a little matter of some money.

Only Nick knows where he buried the loot from the robbery.  Everyone wants it.  The press wants to know because it’ll make a great story.  A nosy detective wants to know because he’s convinced that Nick hasn’t changed his ways.  Susan (Merry Anders), who used to be involved with one of Nick’s criminal associates, wants to know because she’s only in it for the cash.  Susan’s current boyfriend, Dave (Robert Christopher) wants to know because …. well, again, it all comes down to greed.  Greed is also what’s motivating a local gangster to provide backing for Susan and Dave in their quest to find the money.  Dave is even willing to send Susan to seduce Nick.

However, all Nick wants to do is find the money and then split it with Gail (Joan Evans).  Gail is the widow of one of the robbers and Nick wants to do the right thing for her.  Of course, Nick is himself kind of in love with Gail.  Can Nick get the money, find love with Gail, and avoid slipping back into his criminal ways?  It won’t be easy.  Life is never easy when you’re….

THE WALKING TARGET!

Okay, that was a little bit melodramatic on my part but then again, it’s a melodramatic film.  Everyone is constantly plotting and double-crossing.  Appropriately, it all leads to a battle in the desert as modern-day outlaws prove themselves to be no more trustworthy than their vintage ancestors.

The Walking Target is a low-budget noir, one that clocks in at only 70 minutes and which, as a result, doesn’t waste much time when it comes to jumping into its story.  That’s one good thing about these B-movies.  They had neither the budget nor the time for red herrings.  As a result, you pretty much know what you’re going to get before the movies even begins.  The Walking Target features all of the usual tough dialogue and morally ambiguous characters that you would expect to see in a noir.  Merry Anders is an adequate femme fatale, though I do wish that Susan had been a smarter character.  (Nick sees through her way too easily.)  The film opens with the prison’s warden telling Nick that, even though he’s done his time, he’ll always be a no-good crook and that’s the perfect way for a noir to open.  Unfortunately, the film’s cinematography doesn’t really have the right noir look.  There aren’t enough shadows and the film often looks like it could just be an episode of an old TV show.  I guess that’d due to the budget but it really does keep the film from making the transition from being good to being great.

The Walking Target is a diverting-enough film.  I liked Ronald Foster’s uneasy performance as Nick and it was enjoyable to watch everyone plotting and scheming.  The Walking Target is currently available on Prime and I recommend it to anyone looking for a good, if lesser-known, B-noir.

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #66: Desperate Lives (dir by Robert Michael Lewis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

DL-cov2YouTube, my old friend, you have failed me.

For the longest time, the 1982 anti-drug melodrama Desperate Lives has been available for viewing on YouTube.  I first watched it two years ago, after I read an online article about a scene in which a teenage Helen Hunt takes PCP and jumps through a window.  And, when I watched it, I was stunned.  I knew that the film was going to be over-the-top and silly, largely because it’s hard to imagine how a film featuring a teenage Helen Hunt taking PCP could be anything other than that.  But, even with my experience of watching over the top message movies, nothing could have quite prepared me for Desperate Lives.

So, I figured, for this review, that I’d say a few snarky words about Desperate Lives and then I’d just add something like, “And you can watch it below!”  And then I would embed the entire movie and all of y’all could just click on play and watch a movie on the Lens.

Unfortunately, Desperate Lives has been taken off of YouTube.  I assume the upload violated some sort of copyright thing.  And really, it’s kinda stupid because seriously, Desperate Lives is one of those films that really deserves to be seen for free on YouTube.

Oh well.  You can still watch a video of Helen Hunt jumping through that window.  The video below also features some additional elements from Desperate Lives.

For instance, you get to see Diana Scarwid playing the angriest high school guidance counselor in the world.  Scarwid knows that students like Helen Hunt are using drugs and that her fellow faculty members are turning a blind eye to everything’s that’s happening.  From the minute she first appears on screen, Scarwid is shouting at someone and she doesn’t stop screaming until the film ends.

And you also get to see Doug McKeon, playing Helen Hunt’s brother.  McKeon goes for a drive with his girlfriend, who has just taken PCP herself.  As their car goes flying off a mountain, she says, “Wheeee!”

In the video below, you also get to see that the only reason Helen Hunt used drugs was because her boyfriend begged her to.  That’s a scenario that seems to show up in a lot of high school drug films and it’s strange because it’s something that I’ve never actually seen happen or heard about happening in real life.  In fact, in real life, most users of hard drugs are actually very happy to not share their supply.

Unfortunately, the video below does not feature any scenes of Sam Bottoms as the world’s most charming drug dealer and that’s a shame because he gives the only good performance in the entire film (sorry, Helen!).

Even worse, the video doesn’t include any scenes from the film’s memorably insane conclusion, in which Scarwid searches every single locker in the school and then interrupts a pep rally so she can set everyone’s stash on fire in the middle of the gym.  Making it even better is that all the students are so moved by Scarwid’s final speech that they start tossing all of the drugs that they have on them into the fire.

Which means that the film essentially ends with the entire school getting high off of a huge marijuana bonfire.

No, that scene cannot be found in the video below.  But you can find Helen Hunt jumping through a window so enjoy.