Airplane II: The Sequel (1982, directed by Ken Finkleman)

Posted on January 2, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

It isn’t the past. It isn’t the present. It’s the future.

The moon has been colonized and, on Earth, the Mayflower II is preparing for its first international flight. It will be carrying passengers from Houston to the lunar station. Test pilot Ted Striker (Robert Hays) claims that the Mayflower II is not ready to make the trip but he’s been in the Ronald Reagan Hospital For The Mentally Ill ever since he had a nervous breakdown after losing his squadron during “the war.”

Aboard the Mayflower II is Ted’s ex-wife, Elaine (Julie Haggerty), and her new boyfriend, Simon (Chad Everett). Simon says the Mayflower II is in perfect shape but he also turns into jelly whenever things get too rough. Piloting the Mayflower II is Captain Clarence Oveur (Peter Graves) and waiting on the Moon is Commander Buck Murdock (William Shatner). The crew of the Mayflower II is going to have a tough flight ahead of them. Not only is the shipboard computer making plans of its own but one of the passengers (Sonny Bono) has a bomb in his briefcase. Also, Ted has broken out of the hospital and is on the flight, boring people with his long stories.

Every successful film gets a sequel and when Airplane! was a surprise hit in 1980, it was inevitable that there would be an Airplane II. Robert Hays, Julie Haggerty, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, and Stephen Stucker all returned. Unfortunately, Jim Abrahams, the Zucker brothers, Robert Stack, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Leslie Nielsen did not. (The directors and Nielsen were all working on Police Squad and their absence is strong felt.) Airplane II recreates many of the same jokes as the first Airplane! but without the first film’s good nature or genuine affection for the disaster genre. Airplane! was made for the love of comedy. Airplane II was made for the love of money and, while there are more than a few amusing moments, the difference is obvious and there for all to see.

Not surprisingly, Airplane II is at its funniest whenever William Shatner is on screen. In the role of Bud Murdock, Shatner pokes fun at his own image and shows himself to be a good sport. He’s still not as funny as Leslie Nielsen or Robert Stack in the first film but that’s because, unlike Stack and Nielsen in their pre-Airplane! days, there had always been a hint of self-parody to Shatner, even in his most dramatic roles. If Stack and Nielsen shocked people by showing that they could do deadpan comedy, Shatner’s performance just confirmed what most suspected, that he had always been in on the joke. Still, he’s the funniest thing in Airplane II and, whenever I rewatch this movie, I am happy he was there.

Airplane II was a box office failure, which is why the world never got an Airplane III. Fortunately, the world did get Hot Shots and The Naked Gun.

Horror Film Review: Godzilla 1985 (dir by R.J. Kizer and Koji Hashimoto)

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Nine years after The Terror of Mechagodzilla, Godzilla finally returned to Japanese movie screens in The Return of Godzilla!

One year later, Raymond Burr joined him when The Return of Godzilla was released in the United States as Godzilla 1985.

The film’s plot is a simple one, though it does have an interesting subtext. Godzilla is once again roaming the planet and, after spending the last few years as humanity’s champion, he is once again destroying everything in his path. (This is a rare later Godzilla film that features only Godzilla. Mothra, Rodan, Ghidorah, and that weird armadillo that always used to follow Godzilla around, none of them are present. The son of Godzilla is not mentioned, to the regret of no one.) Looking to prevent a mass panic, the Prime Minister of Japan tries to cover up the news of Godzilla’s return. But when a Russian submarine is destroyed by Godzilla and the Russians blame the Americans and bring the world to the verge of atomic war, the Prime Minister is forced to reveal the truth. The Super X, an experimental new airplane, is deployed to take Godzilla out but it turns out that Godzilla is not that easy to get rid of.

Now, as I said, there is an interesting subtext here. If the first Godzilla films were all about the trauma of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this version of Godzilla is all about being trapped between the whims of two super powers. For the most part, Godzilla only attacks Japan. At the time this movie came out, he had been attacking Japan for nearly 30 years and the rest of the world was content to allow Japan to deal with the consequences alone. However, when Godzilla sinks that Russian sub, both the Russians and the Americans blame each other and bring the world to the brink of annihilation. Japan, like the rest of the world, finds itself caught in the middle. In the end, it’s up to Japan to not only defeat Godzilla but to keep the Americans and Russians from blowing up the rest of the world. Godzilla may be bad, this movie tells us, but he’s nowhere near as bad as the idiots with all of the atomic missiles.

Of course, when The Return of Godzilla came to America, extra scenes were shot to make it clear that America had Japan’s back. For that reason, Raymond Burr returns as journalist Steve Martin. Martin is called in to share his first-hand knowledge of what Godzilla is capable of. One has to wonder who thought that was a good idea as Martin basically comes across as being a grouchy crank who just wants to tell everyone to get off his lawn. As opposed to the first Americanized Godzilla film, which was edited to make it appear as if Burr was actually talking to characters from Gojira, Godzilla 1985 just features a lot of scenes of Burr staring at a screen in the Pentagon and making ominous comments about what Godzilla is capable of doing. It’s a wasted cameo but I guess the film’s American distributors didn’t have faith that Godzilla could pull in the audiences on his own.

Fortunately, Raymond Burr’s time-consuming cameo can’t keep this film from being a lot of fun. It’s a Godzilla film, after all. Godzilla stomps on a lot of buildings and breathes a lot of fire and wisely, the film doesn’t wait too long before allowing him to go on his rampage. After spending several films as an almost comic character, this film reminds audiences that Godzilla was always meant to be frightening. Of course, lest anyone take this film too seriously, the size of the Super X changes from scene to scene, depending on which miniature was being used. Godzilla loses his temper and falls into a volcano but there’s never any doubt that he’ll be back. You can’t stop Godzilla!

Previous Godzilla Reviews:

Horror Film Review: Godzilla (dir by Luigi Cozzi, Inshiro Honda, and Terry Morse)

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The year was 1976 and the flamboyant Italian producer, Dino de Laurentiis, was drumming up a lot of publicity for his remake of the monster classic, King Kong. In Italy, the journalist, screenwriter, and director Luigi Cozzi assumed that the King Kong remake would be a huge hit and decided to get in on the action himself. If Italian audiences loved a film about a big monkey, how about a film about a big radioactive lizard?

Cozzi’s original plan was to buy the distribution rights to Gojira but Toho Studios turned him down. They did, however, agree to allow Cozzi to distribute the American cut of Gojira, Godzilla, King of the Monsters. (That’s the version where Raymond Burr appears as American reporter Steve Martin and, through some clever editing tricks, appears to be interacting with the characters from the original Japanese version.)

Cozzi immediately ran into two huge problems when it came to distributing Godzilla, King of the Monsters. First off, the film was in black-and-white and most Italian theater owners refused to show black-and-white films. Cozzi’s solution was to “colorize” the film by putting translucent gel over the frame, resulting in random splotches of color that gave the entire film what could generously be called a radioactive glow. Secondly, the American cut was considered to be too short for theatrical distribution. Cozzi proceeded to re-cut the re-cut, adding in scenes of actual war footage and clips from other 50s monster movies. As a result Cozzi’s film opens not with Tokyo on fire but instead stock footage of Hiroshima before the bomb was dropped. Later, footage of actual victims of the bomb would he used as footage of victims of Godzilla.

Having re-cut the film, Cozzi then decided that the movie could use a synthesizer-heavy soundtrack, which was provided by Vince Tempera, Fabio Frizzi, and Franco Bixio.

The end result …. well, the end result is a mess but it’s a mess that fascinating for fans of Godzilla. The colorization creates an odd effect, in which the images are all familiar but still seem different, as if being viewed in a dream. Often times, the splashes of color are so harsh and random that it makes it difficult to actually see what’s happening in the scene. I had to look away a few times, due to the harshness brightness of some of the yellows. There are a few times — and by that, I mean a very few times –when the color effects oddly work. In those rare moments, Godzilla’s atomic nature seems to be radiating through the entire movie.

As for the “new footage,” it’s thoroughly tasteless to use actual footage from Hiroshima and Nagasaki but, at the same time, it also serves to remind the viewer of the national trauma that inspired the creation of Godzilla in the first place. The footage reminds the viewer of the horrors of war while also leaving viewers wondering they really should be watching it used in the way that it’s used in this movie. (For his part, Cozzi said he used actual war footage because modern audiences would expect more violence and destruction than was present in the original film. It’s reasonable to assume that any subtext was purely accidental.)

Finally, the soundtrack …. actually, I like this version’s score. It’s wonderfully ominous, especially at the start of the film.

Nicknamed Cozilla by Cozzi himself, 1977’s Godzilla is a bizarre experiment that doesn’t quite work but I would say it’s still one that should be seen by anyone who is interested in the history of either Godzilla or exploitation films in general. (And make no mistake, this version of Godzilla is definitely an exploitation film.) For years, the film was impossible to see outside of Italy. Now, of course, you can find a copy on just about every torrent site.

Previous Godzilla Reviews:

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 2.18 and 2.19 “Alas, Poor Dwyer/After the War/Itsy Bitsy/Ticket to Ride/Disco Baby”

Posted on June 14, 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!

This week, it’s disco, high school, and alcoholism on The Love Boat!

Episodes 1.18 and 1.19 “Alas, Poor Dwyer/After the War/Itsy Bitsy/Ticket to Ride/Disco Baby”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on February 3rd, 1979)

It’s time for the Haney High class reunion and one of the school’s most beloved graduate, Julie McCoy, has arranged for her former classmates to celebrate their 10-year reunion on the Pacific Princess!

This was a special double-sized episode of The Love Boat. (It was split into two episodes for syndication.) Along with being twice as long, this episode also features twice as many guest stars and a twice as much romance and drama. It turns out that Haney High’s Class of ’69 was a large one indeed.

(It’s not really made clear as to whether everyone on the cruise is there for the reunion or if there are passengers on the cruise who are just trying to enjoy a vacation. I have to say that I would be a bit annoyed if I boarded a cruise just to discover that it was being used for someone else’s loud and crowded high school reunion. Seeing as how the entire boat has been decorated with signs welcoming the “class of Haney High,” I hope that it was just Hany High alumni on the cruise. Otherwise, some people definitely ended up feeling left out of all the fun.)

Along with being a supersized episode, quite a bit of this episode was filmed while the ship was on an actual cruise. (The Love Boat would always take one or two actual cruises during each season. That was one reason why so many actors were eager to be on a show that was never really a critical favorite.) As a result, the characters in this episode spend far less time in their cabins than usual. Instead, almost every scene takes place on one of the decks. The ocean looks lovely. A scene where Doc talks to Gopher and Isaac features a striking sunset in the background.

As for the storylines, it’s a little bit hard to know where to start with this episode. Not only did the passengers all get storylines but so did Captain Stubing, Doc Bricker, and Julie McCoy. I guess as good a place to start as any would be with Malcolm Dwyer (Raymond Burr), the high school’s beloved drama teacher. Mr. Dwyer boards the ship and, rather than talk to any of his former students, he immediately starts drinking. It quickly becomes apparent to everyone that Mr. Dwyer has a drinking problem. He’s haunted by the fact that, rather than becoming a star himself, he instead just became a teacher. Fortunately, Captain Stubing immediately realizes what is going on with Mr. Dwyer and he takes it upon himself to help. When Mr. Dwyer demands to know why Stubing cares so much about his drinking, the Captain lets down his guard and reveals that he too is an alcoholic.

This episode was the first time that the show directly acknowledged that Captain Stubing was a recovering alcoholic, though it was something that was occasionally hinted at. While Raymond Burr occasionally seems to be trying too hard to turn Mr. Dwyer into a grandly tragic figure, the scene where the Captain talks about his alcoholism is still a surprisingly poignant moment. Gavin MacLeod really captures the vulnerability of the moment as the normally reserved Captain opens up about something in which he takes no pride. Gavin MacLeod was, himself, a recovering alcoholic and, when he warns Dwyer about his drinking, it’s obvious that it’s not just Captain Stubing talking to a passenger. It’s also Gavin MacLeod talking to the show’s audience. It’s a surprisingly poignant moment.

Speaking of poignant moments, Jack Forbes (John Rubinstein) is on the cruise with his wife, Kathy (Judi West). When Jack sees Mike Kelly (Michael Cole), he freaks out. Mike was the king of Haney High, the high school quarterback with a bright future ahead of him. In school, he was Jack’s best friend. After they graduated, both Jack and Mike received their draft notices. Mike went to Vietnam and returned in a wheelchair. Jack fled to Canada with Kathy. When Jack sees Mike, he feels ashamed of himself and lies about what he did during the war. Jack worries that, if everyone finds out that he was a cowardly draft dodger, they’ll toss him overboard.

(To be honest, if Jack should be worried about anything, it should be running into the guy who got sent to Vietnam in his place. When someone dodged the draft, that meant someone else has to go in his place and that person was usually someone who didn’t have the resources to just pick up and leave the country.)

With Kathy’s encouragement, Jack finally confesses to Mike and Mike tells Jack that he already knew. Mike forgives Jack and, again, it’s a surprisingly poignant moment. John Rubinstein and Michael Cole both gave heartfelt and committed performances and the show approached the issue with the type of nuance that I don’t most people would necessarily expect from an episode of The Love Boat.

While this is going on, Doc is spending the cruise with Bitsy (Conchata Ferrell). When Doc saw Bity’s high school yearbook photo, he insisted that Julie sit him up with her. (Yeah, that’s not creepy at all.) Doc is shocked to discover that Bitsy has gained weight since high school. Gopher and Isaac give Doc a hard time for dating Bitsy during the cruise. After getting to know her and discovering her quick wit, Doc announces that Bitsy is beautiful even if she is “chubby” and, believe it or not, as bad as it is to read about it, the whole thing feels even more cringey and awkward when you watch the episode. This was another storyline that existed to confirm that Doc and Gopher were walking HR nightmares.

Meanwhile, Wendy (Kim Darby) is trying to figure out which one of her former classmates anonymously paid for her ticket and sent her a love poem. Was it Ross Randall (Christopher George), who is now a television star? Was it former class clown Pete DeLuca (Kelly Monteith)? Or was it the class hippie, Jason Markham (Bob Denver)? What was odd about this storyline was that the cruise was for Julie’s ten-year class reunion but both Christopher George and especially Bob Denver were obviously quite a bit older than the other members of their class. (If either one of them was 28, one can only assume they spent the past decade drinking 24/7.) Ross, at one point, talked about how Mr. Dwyer was the teacher who inspired him but Ross appeared to be roughly the same age as Mr. Dwyer. It was weird but hey, that’s The Love Boat!

As for who sent Wendy the ticket, it turned out that her secret admirer was her husband, Tom (David Landberg). Tom and Wendy were separated so Tom decided to send her on the cruise so she could find someone better. (That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever written.) In the end, Wendy realizes that she still loves Tom. Yay!

Finally, Julie is super-excited because her ex-boyfriend, Joey (Michael Lembeck), is on the cruise. Joey is now a disco instruction (yay!) and he works with Sherry (Lisa Hartman), who was the most popular girl at Haney High. Julie wants to rekindle her romance with Joey but it soon becomes clear that Sherry has feelings for Joey too. Sherry even asks Julie to back off a little when it comes to Joey. However, when Gopher and Isaac take a break from fat-shaming Bitsy and Doc, they encourage Julie to fight for what she wants. Julie pursues Joey even more aggressively. In the end, Julie, Joey, and Sherry all realize that Joey and Sherry belong together but it was still interesting to see Julie in a less than heroic role for once.

Of course, the best thing about the Julie/Joey/Sherry love triangle is that it featured disco! Joey not only taught everyone how to dance but he also turned the ship’s ballroom into a huge discotheque. By the end of the episode, everyone was dancing while a disco version of the Love Boat theme played. It was great!

As you may have guessed, I really enjoyed this episode. Yes, the stuff with Bitsy was cringey and it was annoying that Bitsy never got a chance to really stand up for herself and tell everyone to just accept her for who she was. (Conchata Ferrell was an actress who was at her best when she was telling people off.) But the rest of the episode was surprisingly well-written and acted and the fact that the cast and crew went on an actual cruise while filming only added to the fun. If nothing else, this episode showed why the cruise industry continues to go strong, despite all of the shipwrecks, hijackings, and pandemics that have plagued it for the past few decades. This was a fun episode, one that definitely made me want to set sail for adventure!

12 Oscar Snubs From the 1950s

Posted on March 12, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Audrey Hepburn and her Oscar. At least the Academy didn’t snub her!

Continuing our look at the Oscar snubs of the past, it’s now time to enter the 50s!

World War II was over. Eisenhower was President. Everyone was worried about communist spies. And the Hollywood studios still reigned supreme, even while actors like Marlon Brando and James Dean challenged the establishment. There were a lot great film released in the 50s. There were also some glaring snubs on the part of the Academy. Here’s twelve of them.

1950: The Third Man Is Not Nominated For Best Picture

….and Orson Welles was not nominated for Best Supporting Actor! The Third Man received three Oscar nominations, for Director, Cinematography, and Editing. The fact that Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, and the film’s score were not nominated (and that King Solomon’s Mines was nominated for Best Picture instead of The Third Man) remains one of the more surprising snubs in Oscar history.

1952: Singin’ In The Rain Is Not Nominated For Best Picture

What the Heck, Academy!? This was the year that The Greatest Show On Earth won the Best Picture Oscar. Personally, I don’t think The Greatest Show On Earth is as bad as its reputation but still, Singin’ In The Rain is a hundred times better.

1953: Alan Ladd Is Not Nominated For Best Actor For Shane

How could Shane score a nomination for Best Picture without Shane himself receiving a nomination?

1954: Rear Window Is Not Nominated For Best Picture

Rear Window was not totally ignored by the Academy. Alfred Hitchcock received a nomination for directing. It also received nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, and Sound. However, Rear Window was not nominated for Best Picture and James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr, and Thelma Ritter all went unnominated as well. Today, Rear Window is definitely better-remembered than the majority of 1954’s Best Picture nominees. Certainly, it deserved a nomination more than Seven Brides For Seven Brothers and Three Coins in The Fountain.

1955: Ralph Meeker Is Not Nominated For Best Actor For Kiss Me Deadly

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. If the Academy wasn’t going to nominate Rear Window for Best Picture, there was no way that they would have nominated Ralph Meeker for playing a sociopathic private detective who, even if inadvetedly, helps to bring about the end of the world.

1955: Rebel Without A Cause Is Not Nominated For Best Picture or Best Actor

The 1955 Best Picture lineup was a remarkably weak one. The eventual winner was Marty, a likeable film that never quite escapes its TV roots. Picnic has that great dance scene but is otherwise flawed. Mister Roberts was overlong. Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing and The Rose Tattoo are really only remembered by those of us who have occasionally come across them on TCM. Perhaps the best-remembered film of 1955, Rebel Without A Cause, received quite a few nominations but it was not nominated for Best Picture. And while the Rebel himself, James Dean, was nominated for Best Actor, it was for his performance in East of Eden. 1955 was a strange year.

1955: Robert Mitchum Is Not Nominated For Best Actor For The Night of the Hunter

Robert Mitchum only received one Oscar nomination over the course of his entire career, for 1945’s The Story of G.I. Joe. He deserved several more. His performance as the villainous preacher in The Night of Hunter made Reverend Harry Powell into one of the most iconic film characters of all time.

1956: Cecil B. DeMille Is Not Nominated For Best Director For The Ten Commandments

Cecil B. DeMille was only nominated once for Best Director, for 1952’s The Greatest Show On Earth. DeMille, however, deserved to be nominated for The Ten Commandments. As campy as DeMille’s films can seem today, he was an expert storyteller and that’s certainly evident when one watches The Ten Commandments, a film that holds the viewer’s attention for nearly four hours. DeMille deserved a nomination for the Angel of Death scene alone. The screams in the night are haunting.

1957: Henry Fonda Is Not Nominated For Best Actor For 12 Angry Men

With 12 Angry Men, Fonda did something that very few actors can. He made human decency compelling. One gets the feeling that, much like Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips, Fonda made it look so easy that the Academy took him for granted.

1958: Touch Of Evil Is Totally Ignored

Anyone who had researched the history of the Academy knows that there was no way that the 1950s membership would have ever honored Orson Welles’s pulp masterpiece, Touch of Evil. That said, it still would have been nice if they had. Touch of Evil has certainly go on to have a greater legacy than Gigi, the film that won Best Picture that year.

1958: Vertigo Is Almost Totally Ignored

Vertigo did receive nominations for Art Direction and Sound but Alfred Hitchcock, James Stewart, and the film itself were snubbed.

1959: Some Like It Hot Is Not Nominated For Best Picture or Best Actress

Some Like It Hot received 6 Oscar nominations, including nominations for Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It did not receive a nomination for Best Picture and, sadly, Marilyn Monroe did not receive a nomination for Best Actress. Much as with Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men, one gets the feeling that the Academy took Monroe for granted. It’s sad to realize that, while two actresses have been nominated for playing Marilyn Monroe, Monroe herself would never be nominated.

Agree? Disagree? Do you have an Oscar snub that you think is even worse than the 12 listed here? Let us know in the comments!

Up next: Things get wild with the 6os!

Night of the Hunter (United Artists 1955; D: Charles Laughton)

Horror on the Lens: Bride of the Gorilla (dir by Curt Siodmak)

Posted on October 13, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the 1951 film, Bride of the Gorilla, Raymond Burr plays a plantation manager who commits a murder. Unfortunately, for him, the murder is observed by a witch who promptly puts a curse of Burr. Now, every time the sun goes down, Burr transforms into a gorilla and goes wild in the jungle.

Basically, it’s kind of like The Wolf Man, just with a less sympathetic protagonist and a gorilla instead of a werewolf. Just in case we missed the similarities, Lon Chaney, Jr. plays the film’s nominal hero, a police commissioner who suspects that something weird might be happening with Burr. Apparently, the plan was originally for Chaney to play the gorilla and for Burr to play the policeman but, because Chaney was dealing with a serious alcohol problem at the time, the roles were reversed.

Also in the cast, playing the role of Dina, is Barbara Payton, the tragic actress who is best known for being at the center of a love triangle involving actors Tom Neal and Franchot Tone. In 195000, Neal attacked Tone and beat him so severely that Tone spent 18 hours in a coma. Tone was notably shaky onscreen for the rest of his film career while Neal spent a few years in prison. After the incident between Tone and Neal, Payton could only get roles in B-movies like this one. Tragically, she would pass away, in 1967, of heart and live failure. She was only 39 years old.

Disaster on the Coastliner (1980, directed by Richard C. Sarafian)

Posted on July 16, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

A completely computerized passenger train is traveling across the country, with the Vice President’s wife as one of the passengers. When Jim Waterman (Paul L. Smith), a man who blames the railroad for the death of his family, manages to hijack the train he plans to ram into a locomotive until his demands a met. He wants railroad president Estes Hill (Raymond Burr) to take responsibility for the crash that killed his wife and children. With Waterman determined to crash the two trains, it falls to dispatchers Al Mitchell (Lloyd Bridges) and Roy Snyder (E.G. Marshall) to try to figure out a way to stop the collision. Helping them out on the train is a con artist named Stuart Peters (William Shatner!) who may be wanted by the police but who is still willing to do whatever it takes to save his fellow passengers.

Disaster on the Coastliner is an above-average made-for-TV disaster movie. Even though it was obviously made for a low-budget and that the majority of the money was probably spent on securing the B-list cast, there are enough shots of the train careening on the tracks to bring happiness to the hearts of most disaster movie fans. The cast is full of the type of people who you would typically expect to find in a movie like this, people like Raymond Burr, Lloyd Bridges, and William Shatner. Bridges, interestingly enough, gives the same performance here that he gave in Airplane! and when he starts ranting about how everything’s computerized, he sounds like he could be reciting dialogue from that film. The only difference is that Airplane! was a comedy while Disaster On The Coastliner is meant to be a drama. Raymond Burr also does a good job hamming it up as the president of the railroad. He spends most of the movie sitting behind his desk and looking annoyed, which was pretty typical of Burr in the years after Perry Mason and Ironside.

For a lot of people, the main appeal of this film will be seeing what William Shatner was doing in between Star Trek movies. This is a typical early 80s Shatner performance, when he was still trying too hard to win that first Emmy but also when he had just starting to develop the self-awareness necessary to poke fun at his own image. Shatner really digs into the role of a conman with a heart of gold. He delivers his lines in his trademark overdramatic style but, in scenes like the one where he sheepishly discovers that a door that he’s been pounding on was unlocked all the time, Shatner actually seems to be in on the joke. Shatner also did his own stunts in this film, including one where he had stand on top of a speeding train. In his autobiography, Shatner wrote that he wasn’t even wearing a safety harness in the scene so give it up for Bill Shatner. That took guts!

Fast-paced and agreeably unpretentious, Disaster On The Coastliner is an enjoyable runaway train movie.

Horror on the Lens: Bride of the Gorilla (dir by Curt Siodmak)

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

6 Good Films That Were Not Nominated For Best Pictures: The 1950s

Posted on February 24, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Governor’s Ball, 1958

Continuing our look at good films that were not nominated for best picture, here are 6 films from the 1950s.

The Third Man (1950, dir by Carol Reed)

Now, it should be noted that The Third Man was not ignored by the Academy. It won the Oscar for Best Cinematography and it was nominated for both editing and Carol Reed’s direction. But, even with that in mind, it’s somewhat amazing to consider all of the nominations that it didn’t get. The screenplay went unnominated. So did the famous zither score. No nominations for Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard, or even Orson Welles! And finally, no Best Picture nomination. 1950 was a good year for the movies so competition was tight but still, it’s hard to believe that the Academy found room to nominate King Solomon’s Mines but not The Third Man.

Rear Window (1954, dir by Alfred Hitchcock)

Alfred Hitchcock directed some of his best films in the 50s, though few of them really got the recognition that they deserved upon their initial release. Vertigo is often described as being Hitchcock’s masterpiece but, to be honest, I actually prefer Rear Window. This film finds the master of suspense at his most playful and, at the same time, at his most subversive. Casting Jimmy Stewart as a voyeur was a brilliant decision. This film features one of my favorite Grace Kelly performances. Meanwhile, Raymond Burr is the perfect schlubby murderer. Like The Third Man, Rear Window was not ignored by the academy. Hitchcock was nominated and the film also picked up nods for its screenplay, cinematography, and sound design. However, it was not nominated for best picture.

Rebel Without A Cause (1955, dir by Nicholas Ray)

Nicholas Ray’s classic film changed the way that teenagers were portrayed on film and it still remains influential today. James Dean is still pretty much the standard to which most young, male actors are held. Dean was not nominated for his performance here. (He was, however, nominated for East of Eden that same year.) Instead, nominations went to Sal Mineo, Natalie Wood, and the film’s screenplay. Amazingly, in the same year that the forgettable Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing was nominated for best picture, this popular and influential film was not.

Kiss Me Deadly (1955, dir by Robert Aldrich)

It’s unfortunate but not surprising that Kiss Me Deadly was totally ignored by the Academy. In the mid-to-late 50s, the Academy tended to embrace big productions. There was no way they were going to nominate a satirical film noir that featured a psychotic hero and ended with the end of the world. That’s a shame, of course, because Kiss Me Deadly has proven itself to be more memorable and influential than many of the films that were nominated in its place.

Touch of Evil (1958, dir by Orson Welles)

Speaking of underappreciated film noirs, Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil is one of the craftiest and most brilliant films ever made. So, of course, no one appreciated it when it was originally released. This cheerfully sordid film features Welles at his best. Starting with a memorable (and oft-imitated) tracking shot, the film proceeds to take the audience into the darkest and most eccentric corners of a small border town. Everyone in the cast, from the stars to the bit players, is memorably odd. Even the much mocked casting of Charlton Heston as a Mexican pays off wonderfully in the end.

The 400 Blows (1959, dir by Francois Truffaut)

Francois Truffaut’s autobiographical directorial debut was released in the United States in 1959 and it was Oscar-eligible. Unfortunately, it only picked up a screenplay nomination. Of course, in the late 50s, the last thing that the Academy was going to embrace was a French art film from a leftist director. However, The 400 Blows didn’t need a best picture nomination to inspire a generation of new filmmakers.

Up next, in an hour or so, we continue on to the 60s!

Look At Me Look At You: Alfred Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW (Paramount 1954)

Posted on July 24, 2017 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

When you go out to the neighborhood cinema, you’re indulging in a voyeuristic experience, watching the lives of people unfold before you on the screen. The theme of viewer as voyeur, peeping in on the privacy of total strangers, has never been done better than in Alfred Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW, nor more entertainingly. Like James Stewart’s protagonist L.B. Jeffries, we the audience are the voyeurs in the shadows watching from afar, stumbling onto things not meant for our eyes, and powerless to stop them without outside assistance. Hitchcock is not only the Master of Suspense, but a master of audience manipulation, and this dazzling piece of moviemaking is not only a hell of a thrill ride but a technical marvel as well.

The world of globetrotting photojournalist Jeffries has been boiled down to the view of the courtyard outside his apartment window, just as the audience’s world is now focused on…

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