Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!
Let’s get back on the highway!
Episode 3.6 “Love At Second Sight”
(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on November 5th, 1986)
Jonathan and Mark are working as recreation directors at a retirement community and….
Again?
Actually, I can’t really remember if Jonathan and Mark have worked as a recreation director at a retirement community before but I do know that this is not the first time that they’ve been assigned to work at such a place. And, if I remember correctly, both Mark and Jonathan have been assigned to work as a coach at other places. In other words, Jonathan and Mark have a specific set of skills and they seem to center around athletics and the elderly.
Mark thinks that this assignment is going to be easy but then again, Mark thinks that about every assignment. He might have a point here as he and Jonathan are only supposed to be helping out another angel named Ted (John McLiam). Ted’s assignment is to help Roy (Harvey Vernon) and Laura (Martha Scott) fall in love and find happiness in their twilight years. The complication is that Laura is Ted’s widow! Ted doesn’t want to help his widow fall in love with another man so, instead, he goes out of his way to sabotage Roy and Laura’s relationship. In fact, Ted starts to romance Laura himself and even proposes marriage to her.
Jonathan confronts Ted and tells him that “the Boss” isn’t going to let this happen. Jonathan then takes Ted into the future, where he discovers that Laura has died of a broken heart and that their daughter, Margaret (Nana Visitor), is now heading in the same direction. Realizing that he was being selfish and that he has a responsibility to help Laura move on, Ted returns to the present and pretends to be a jerk and a conman so that Laura will fall out of love with him and instead fall in love with Roy. Ted even gets Roy to punch him so that Laura will be impressed with him. Back to the Future, anyone?
That’s the power of love!
I have two issues with this episode. The lesser of the two is that Ted pretending to suddenly be a jerk seems like the sort of thing that would make Laura even more hesitant about trusting another man as opposed to something that would automatically make her fall in love with Roy. However, my main issue with this episode is that it all felt very familiar. Last season, Jonathan was assigned to help his widow move on and he had mixed feelings about it. (As I would think any angel would.) This season, God gives the same assignment to another angel and again, it nearly backfires on everyone. It actually seems a bit mean-spirited on the part of the Boss to continually give this assignment to the very people that it would most hurt, though I understand that the idea is that Ted and Jonathan both needed to move on as well. That said, at no point does Jonathan say, “Hey, the exact same thing happened to me!” (This was a rare episode that Landon didn’t write so it’s always possible that the actual writer wasn’t aware that he was repeating a storyline from the show’s past.) This episode felt like a missed opportunity.
It’s hard to know where to really start with Megalopolis.
Directed, written, produced, and financed by Francis Ford Coppola, Megalopolis takes place in an alternate version of the United States of America. In this alternative world, New York is called New Rome and it is dominated by a handful of wealthy families. Former District Attorney Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) has been elected mayor. Everyone seems to hate Cicero and the character tends to come across as being a bit whiny so you really do have to wonder how he got elected in the first place.
Cicero is obsessed with the powerful Crassus-Catallina family, which is headed by banker Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight). Hamilton’s nephew is Cesar Catallina (Adam Driver), a brilliant architect who won a Nobel Prize for inventing a type of invisible material. Ever since Cesar’s wife vanished under mysterious circumstances, a cloud of scandal has hung over Cesar’s name and with that scandal has come popularity with both the masses and the tabloid press. When Cesar was tried for murder, the prosecutor was Franklin Cicero. Cesar was acquitted but he now spends his time drinking and mourning his wife. Cesar also has the power to stop time for everyone but him. Why he has this power and how he came to possess it is never made clear, though Cesar compares it to the way that a great painter or writer can capture one moment for eternity.
Cesar is driven through the rainy streets of New York by his chauffeur, Fundi Romaine (Laurence Fishburne). Fundi also serves as the film’s narrator, ruminating about how the Roman Empire eventually became a victim of its own decadence. Just in case the viewer somehow doesn’t pick up on the fact that the movie is comparing modern America to ancient Rome, Fundi informs us of this fact. Thanks, Fundi!
After Cesar publicly denounces Cicero’s plans to turn New Rome into a casino, Cicero’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) decides to take a break from decadent partying to follow Cesar around and try to discover whether or not he actually murdered his wife. Julia discovers that Cesar is not only still mourning his wife but she also witnesses him stopping time. Soon, Julia is working for Cesar’s design firm. At some point, she and Cesar become lovers.
Meanwhile, Cesar’s former lover, Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), has married Crassus and is plotting to take control of his bank. Working with Wow is Cesar’s buffoonish cousin, Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), who organizes the angry citizens of New Rome into a mob that threatens the safety and power of both Cicero and Cesar. “Make Rome Great Again,” a sign reads at one of Clodio’s rallies, just in case anyone was missing Coppola’s point.
Clodio is obsessed with destroying Cesar. First, he frames Cesar for deflowering New Rome’s vestal virgin, the singer Vesta Sweetwater (Grace VanderWaal). Then, he sends a 12 year-old assassin after Cesar. Cesar fears that he’s lost his ability to stop time. Julia falls more and more in love with him. Cicero gets booed everywhere he goes and, after his fixer (Dustin Hoffman) is mysteriously killed, he finds himself helpless against Clodio’s mob. Can Cesar be convinced to abandon his self-pity long enough to stand up to Clodio?
And what about the Russian spy satellite that just crashed into New Rome? Who will rebuild the city?
And …. well, let’s just say that there’s a lot going on in New Rome.
Francis Ford Coppola originally came up with the idea for Megalopolis in 1977 and he spent decades trying to bring the film to the big screen. Eventually, Coppola ended up producing and financing the film himself. From 2023 to the the day of the film’s Cannes premiere, the trade papers were full of stories about how difficult the production had been, with the underlying theme being that everything was Francis Ford Coppola’s fault and that the movie would be an unmitigated disaster. (In the coverage found in both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, there seemed to be a good deal of hostility directed at Coppola’s decision to work outside of the Hollywood system.) Disgruntled members of the crew complained that Coppola was an undisciplined director who spent most of the production high. A half-baked attempt to generate a #MeToo scandal around the film made it obvious that Coppola had burned a lot of bridges with both Hollywood and the media. The film was released to critical derision and poor box office returns. Coppola is 85 years old and it’s entirely possible that Megalopolis will be his final film.
Critics be damned, I liked the majority of Megalopolis. Though the film may be thematically and narratively incoherent, it is a feast for the eyes and it’s hard not to respect the fact that, in this age of overwhelming conformity, Coppola brought his own unique vision to the screen. There are a few moments of genuinely macabre beauty to be found in the film. When the Russian satellite crashes into New York, we don’t see the impact but, on the city walls, we do see the shadows of people screaming in fear. When a drunk Cesar is driven through New Rome, he sees gigantic statues stepping off of their bases and slumping to the ground, exhausted with being on display. Coppola films New Rome like a beautiful, open-air prison. It’s an amazing view but don’t even think about trying to escape. The scenes in New Rome’s Coliseum are filled with an epic yet seedy grandeur. At times, the film’s scenes seem to be almost randomly assembled, leaving us to wonder if we’re seeing the past, the present, or maybe just something that Cesar is imagining in his head.
What is the film actually about? It’s not always easy to say. Even in his best films, Coppola has had a tendency to be self-indulgent. Sometimes, that self-indulgence pays off. Though few would admit it now, The Godfather Part II is one of the most self-indulgent films ever made. But it’s also brilliant so it doesn’t matter. However, with Megalopolis, it’s hard not to feel that this film was such a passion project for Coppola that he didn’t stop to consider whether or not he really had anything new to say. Megalopolis is hardly the first film to compare the supposed decline of America to the fall of the Roman Empire. As much as I enjoyed the film’s visuals, I cringed at the film’s ending. One can only imagine how a past Coppola collaborator like John Milius would have reacted to a bunch of children reciting a pledge to take care of the “one Earth.”
It’s a random film, one in which plot points are raised and often quickly abandoned. At one point, Cesar starts to recite Hamlet’s famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy. The cast is huge and everyone seems to be acting in a different movie. Surprisingly enough, neither Esposito nor Adam Driver are particularly believable in their roles, though I think that has more to do with the film’s loose narrative structure than anything else. Shia LaBeouf is convincingly feral as Clodio while Jon Voight seems to be having fun as the wealthy and crude Crassus. The best performance in the film comes from Aubrey Plaza, who plays her role like a vampish femme fatale who has somehow found herself in a science fiction story. Plaza holds nothing back with her performance and she actually manages to bring some genuine human emotion to Coppola’s surreal epic.
Megalopolis is a monument to self-indulgence but it’s always watchable. Coppola may not know what he’s trying to say but he captures the surreal beauty that comes from getting trapped in one’s own imagination. Megalopolis is not a film for everyone but I’m glad it exists. At a time when artistic freedom seems to be under constant attack, it’s hard not to be happy that Coppola did things his way.
One of the ten films to be nominated for Best Picture of 1937, In Old Chicago tells the story of the O’Leary family.
When we first meet the O’Learys, they’re riding across the Illinois frontier in a covered wagon. After patriarch Patrick O’Leary (J. Anthony Hughes) is killed in a freak accident, Hazel O’Leary (Alice Brady) decides to settle in the bustling town of Chicago. Hazel and her three sons build a life for themselves in a poor, largely Irish neighborhood known as the Patch. Hazel makes a living as a laundress and soon, her home is big enough for her to take in a cow named Daisy. Better not put that lantern too close to Daisy, Mrs. O’Leary….
As for the O’Leary boys, they all build a life of their own in 19th century Chicago.
Free-spirited Dion (Tyrone Power) hangs out in the saloon owned by sinister Gil Warren (Brian Donlevy) and, to his mother’s consternation, he falls for a singer named Belle (Alice Faye). Eventually, Dion and Belle open up their own saloon and go into competition with Warren. Dion soon emerges as one of the leaders of the Patch, a rogue with a charming smile and zero ethics but a total love for his family.
The youngest, Bob (Tom Brown), falls in love with a German immigrant named Gretchen (June Storey). Bob asks Gretchen to marry him while Mrs. O’Leary’s cow stares straight at camera.
Finally, the oldest of the O’Leary boys is Jack (Don Ameche). Jack become a crusading lawyer and eventually, he runs for mayor on a reform ticket. With Dion’s help, Jack is able to defeat Gil Warren. But now that Jack is mayor, he immediately sets his sights on tearing down the Patch and, in his words, “starting over.”
In Old Chicago has a two-hour running time and a lot happens in those two hours. Not only is there all the drama between the brothers but also there’s a handful of production numbers featuring Alice Faye. (Considering that she’s performing at a saloon in the slums of Chicago, it’s impressive that Belle can put on such an elaborate show.) Of course, anyone with a knowledge of history knows that every minute of In Old Chicago is building up to the moment when Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicks over that lantern and all the wooden buildings in Chicago go up in flames. In Old Chicago is an early disaster movie and, talented cast aside, the main reason that anyone will be watching will be for the recreation of the Great Chicago Fire. As flames roar around them and cattle stampede through the streets, hundreds of extras run for their lives. As Alice Brady, Tom Brown, and Alice Faye stare off to the horizon, the city of Chicago explodes in front of them. Even today, the scenes of the city on fire are impressive.
As for the rest of the film, I enjoyed the melodramatic excess of it all. The stars weren’t exactly the most dynamic actors of the 1930s but Tyrone Power and Don Ameche were both handsome and likable enough to carry the film and it’s easy to see why In Old Chicago was, at the time of its production, the most expensive film ever made. It’s a big film, with ornate sets, hundreds of extras, and elaborate production numbers. It’s entertaining, even though I did occasionally find myself growing impatient as I waited for the fire to finally start burning.
One thing this film is not is historically accurate. Not only is it now generally agreed that Mrs. O’Leary’s cow was innocent of starting the fire but Mrs. O’Leary’s son was never mayor of Chicago. It is true that Chicago caught fire in 1871 and that the mayor turned to General Philip Sheridan (played here by Sidney Blackmer) for help in both putting out the fire and keeping order in the streets. For the most part, though, In Old Chicago is total fiction. That didn’t bother me but then again, I don’t live in Chicago.
In Old Chicago was nominated for Best Picture of the Year but lost to The Life of Emile Zola. However, Alice Brady won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
Well, I guess it’s time to get back to reviewing this show….
Episode 1.22 “Mom’s Gift”
(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on April 25th, 1999)
After using the money that their Dad gave them to buy themselves a Nintendo, Jason and Scott realize that they’ve forgotten to get a birthday gift for their mom. They panic, though I’m not sure why. Their mother is living in Saudi Arabia, with her new husband and his family. It’s time for Jason and Scott to admit that she no longer cares about them. And even if she is expecting a gift, it takes a while to ship something from California to Saudi Arabia. It’s not like she’s going to somehow know that they waited until the last minute. Stupid Jason! Stupid Scott!
Jason and Scott decide to make their mom a video tape of their lives in Malibu. (Yeah, guys, that’s a lot better than jewelry.) They invite Sam and Stads to share their favorite Scott and Jason memories and then both Murray and Traycee decide to get in on it as well and….
Yep, it’s a clip show.
Oh, clip shows! Every show, good or bad, has them. They’re cheap. They’re easy to produce. And they certainly are boring to watch. That’s especially true when the clips come from a show, like Malibu CA, that still hasn’t figured out what type of story it’s trying to tell. Hey, remember when Dennis Haskins ran for mayor of Malibu? Remember when Stads and Jason were briefly a couple? Remember when Scott and Sam were even more briefly a couple? This show was all over the place and the clips in this episode mostly serve to remind us that Malibu CA never really settled on a consistent tone.
Probably the most interesting thing about the clips was that they revealed that Sam and Stads used to actually have personalities beyond just being killjoys. When this show started, Stads actually had a sense of humor and Sam actually …. well, Sam never really had much of a personality but still, at least she used to do more than just sit in the background and comment on Murray’s weekly shenanigans. The clips also reminded us me that Jason and Scott used to both be sociopathic. Now, at least, Scott is vaguely responsible and level-headed. Jason, meanwhile, remains a douchebag.
Happy birthday, mom!
Oh well. What can you really say about a clip show? It’s so rare to see a good one. Even the clip show they did for The Office sucked. I guess I should be happy that this was the first episode of Malibu CA that I reviewed for 2025. The clips reminded me of why I was so happy to have an excuse to take a break from reviewing this stupid show but still, a clip show of Malibu CA is still less painful to review than an episode where you actually have to pay attention to the plot.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga opens with the sound of nervous Australian citizens and commentators, narrating us through the collapse of civilization. We hear about riots. We hear about the breakdown of civilization. We hear that people are literally running out of water.
It’s an effective opening but, for those of us who have seen the other movies set in the Mad Max universe, it also feels a bit redundant. We already know the story of how our world came to an end. Mad Max opened with society in its death throes. The Road Warrior and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome both took place a few years after the apocalypse, with the majority of humanity reduced back to a feral existence of scrounging and fighting to survive. Finally, Mad Max: Fury Road took place so far in the future that the only thing that really remained of the old ways were the cars and the guns that were obsessively cared for by the inhabitants of what was once Australia. (Not even the collapse of civilization could halt car culture.)
Furiosa opens 45 years after the apocalypse, with young Furiosa (Alyla Brown) living in the Green Place, one of the few areas of Australia not to be reduced to a waterless desert. When she’s kidnapped by Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) and the Biker Horde, she can only watch in horror as her mother (Charlee Fraser) is crucified by the Horde. Dementus, who was driven mad by the death of his own family, adopts Furiosa as his own and spends years hoping that she will lead him to the Green Place. Instead, Furiosa is eventually “traded” to Dementus’s rival, Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), and, under the tutelage of Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), she eventually grows up to become both Anya Taylor-Joy and the fierce warrior who was at the center of Mad Max: Fury Road.
Like that opening montage of panicky voices describing the apocalypse, Furiosa is well-made but, narratively, it can feel a bit redundant. There’s really nothing major about Furiosa’s backstory that wasn’t previously revealed in Mad Max: Fury Road. Yes, we learn the exact circumstances of how she lost her arm and it’s a scene that definitely establishes Furiosa as a badass but it’s also reveals that she lost her arm in the way that I imagine 99% of Fury Road‘s audience assumed it happened the first place. That’s the problem with both prequels and sequels. If the first movie is effective, that usually means that the audience has been given all of the information that they needed to understand a character’s past and motivation. As a result, prequels often feel narratively unnecessary. Furiosa spends the majority of this movie plotting her escape from Immortan Joe but we already know that it’s not going to happen because Furiosa still has to be at the Citadel for Fury Road.
Compared to Fury Road (in which the action took place over a handful of days as opposed to the decade that is covered in the prequel), Furiosa can feel a little slow. At times, it can even seem a bit draggy. Furiosa devotes as much time to exploring post-apocalyptic society as it does to action sequences. (It has more in common with Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome than The Road Warrior.) That said, there’s a lot about Furiosa that works wonderfully. No one directs a chase or a battle as well as George Miller. Chris Hemsworth gives a good performance as Dementus, playing him as a tyrant who learned how to lead from watching the Marvel movies that made Hemsworth famous. Hemsworth is particularly strong in his final scene with Furiosa. Dementus may be hateful but, in a strange way, he can be understood. Having lost everything he once cherished in life, Dementus’s actions are as much about his own self-destructive impulses as his own thirst for pwoer. Though she doesn’t take over the role until fairly late in the film, Anya Taylor-Joy gives a fierce performance as Furiosa. Furiosa doesn’t speak much in the film but, when she does, both Anya Taylor-Joy and Alyla Brown make those words count.
Furiosa is an uneven film that falls victim to the same trap that has hindered many prequels. But, ultimately, it’s still a watchable and frequently compelling vision of a disturbing future.
In honor of National Science Fiction Day, today’s song of the day comes from the film that sent James Bond into space!
Released in 1979, Moonrakermay not get as much respect as some of the Bond films but I’ve always liked it. The theme song was the third and final Bond song to be performed by Shirley Bassey. The song was originally written for Frank Sinatra but he turned it down. Johnny Mathis then agreed to perform the song but he backed out at the last minute. Shirley Bassey came in to record the song just weeks before the film was due to premiere.
Because this is a 70s film, there were two versions of this song, the original and the disco. Because I’m the one writing this post, we’re going with the disco version.
Where are you, why do you hide Where is that moonlight trail that leads to your side? Just like the moonraker goes in search of his dream of gold I search for love, for someone to have and hold
I’ve seen your smile in a thousand dreams Felt your touch, and it always seems You love me, you love me
Where are you, when will we meet? Take my unfinished life and make it complete Just like the moonraker knows His dream will come true someday I know that you are only a kiss away
I’ve seen your smile in a thousand dreams Felt your touch, and it always seems You love me, you love me
1973’s Save The Tiger tells the story of Harry Stoner (Jack Lemmon).
When Harry was a young man, he loved baseball and he felt like he could conquer the world. He saw combat in World War II and spent the final part of the war on the Island of Capri, recuperating after being wounded in battle. Harry went on to partner up with Phil Greene (Jack Gilford) and they started a clothing company in Los Angeles, Capri Casuals.
Now, Harry is a middle-aged man who is still haunted by nightmares about the war. He’s married. He has a daughter attending school in Switzerland. He’s respected in the industry. He lives in a nice house in Beverly Hills. And he’s totally miserable. He wakes up every day and wonders what is happening to the country. He talks about witnessing a wild pitch at a baseball game, missing the days when something like that could seem like the most important thing in his life. He spends all of his time at work, cheating to balance the books and keeping clients happy by setting them up with a sophisticated prostitute named Margo (played, with a weary cynicism, by Lara Parker).
Save The Tiger covers just a few days in the life of Harry Stoner, as he searches for some sort of meaning in his life. He gives a ride to a free-spirited hippie (Laurie Heineman) who offers to have sex with him. (Harry replies that he’s late for work.) He accepts an award at an industry dinner and, as he tries to give his acceptance speech, he is haunted by the sight of dead soldiers sitting in the audience. With Phil, he debates whether or not to balance the books by setting fire to one of their warehouses in order to collect the insurance. Harry sees a poster imploring him to “Save the Tigers.” Who can save Harry as he finds himself increasingly overwhelmed by the realities of his life?
As I watched Save the Tiger, I found myself thinking about two other films of the era that featured a middle-aged man dealing with a midlife crisis while searching for meaning in the counterculture. In Petulia and Breezy, George C. Scott and William Holden each found meaning in a relationship with a younger woman. And while Petulia and Breezy are both good films, Save The Tiger is far more realistic in its portrayal of Harry’s ennui. There is no easy solution for Harry. Even if he accepted the hippie’s offer to “ball” or if he acted on the obvious attraction between himself and Margo, one gets the feeling that Harry would still feel lost. Harry’s problem isn’t that he’s merely bored with his life. Harry’s problem is that he yearns for a past that can never be recaptured and which may only exist in his imagination. If George C. Scott and William Holden were two actors who excelled at playing characters who refused to yield to the world’s demands, Jack Lemmon was an actor who played characters who often seemed to be desperate in their search for happiness. Save The Tiger features Lemmon at his most desperate, playing a character who has yielded so often and compromised so much that he now has nowhere left to go.
It’s not exactly a cheerful film but it is one that sticks with you. Jack Lemmon won his second Oscar for his performance as Harry and he certainly deserved it. Lemmon does a wonderful job generating some sympathy for a character who is not always particularly likable. Many of Harry’s problems are due to his own bad decisions. No one forced him to use “ballet with the books” to keep his business open and no one is forcing him to hire arsonist Charlie Robbins (Thayer David, giving a performance that is both witty and sinister at the same time) to burn down not only his warehouse but also an adjoining business that belongs to an acquaintance. Harry could admit the truth and shut down his business but then how would he afford the home in Beverly Hills and all the other symbols of his success? Harry yearns for a time when he was young and his decisions didn’t have consequences but that time has passed.
This isn’t exactly the type of film that many would expect from the director of Rocky but director John G. Avildsen does a good job of putting the viewer into Harry’s seedy world. I especially liked Avilden’s handling of the scene where Harry hallucinates a platoon of wounded soldiers listening to his awards speech. Instead of lingering on the soldiers, Avildsen instead uses a series of a quick cuts that initially leave the audience as confused as Harry as to what Harry is seeing. Both Rocky and Save The Tiger are about a man who refuses to give up. The difference is that perhaps Harry Stoner should.
“You can’t play with us, mister!” a kid yells at Harry when he attempts to recreate the wild pitch that so impressed him as a youth. In the end, Harry is a man trapped by his memories of the past and his dissatisfaction with the present. He’s made his decisions and he’ll have to live with the consequences but one is left with the knowledge that, no matter what happens, Harry will be never find the happiness or the satisfaction that he desires. The tigers can be saved but Harry might be a lost cause.
“The Don is Dead!” shouts the title of this 1973 film and it’s not lying.
After the powerful and respect leader of the Regalbuto crime family dies, the Mafia’s governing body meets in Las Vegas to debate who should be allowed to take over the family’s operations. Frank Regalbuto (a smoldering Robert Forster) wants to take over the family but it’s agreed that he’s still too young and hot-headed. Instead, control of the family is given Don Angelo DiMorra (Anthony Quinn), an old school Mafia chieftain who everyone agrees is a man of respect. Don DiMorra will serve as a mentor to Frank while Frank’s main enforcers, The Fargo Brothers, will be allowed to operate independently with the understanding that they will still respond if the mob needs them to do a job. Tony Fargo (Forrest) wants to get out of the rackets all together while his older brother, Vince (Al Lettieri), remains loyal to the old ways of doing things.
Frank is not happy with the arrangement but he has other things to worry about. He knows that there’s a traitor in his family. While he and the Fargo brothers work to uncover the man’s identity so that they can take their revenge, Don Angelo falls in love with a Vegas showgirl named Ruby Dunne (Angel Tompkins). However, Ruby is engaged to marry Frank and, when Frank returns from taking care of the traitor, he is tipped off as to what has been happening in his absence. Frank goes crazy, nearly beating Ruby to death. Don Angelo declares war on Frank and the Fargo brothers are forced to decide which side they’ll serve.
In the 1970s, almost every crime film was either a rip-off of The French Connection or The Godfather.The Don Is Dead is unique in that it attempts to rip off both of them at the same time. The film opens French Connection-style with a couple of hoods trying to double-cross Frank during a drug deal, leading to shoot-out. (Keep an eye out for Sid Haig as one of Frank’s men.) The film is full of scenes that are meant to duplicate the gritty feel of The French Connection though, needless to say, none of them are directed with the cinema verité intensity that William Friedkin brought to that classic film. Meanwhile, Anthony Quinn plays a character who is very much reminiscent of Don Vito Corleone, even pausing at one point to tell Frank that “drugs are a dirty business.” The Godfather‘s Abe Vigoda and Al Lettieri show up in supporting roles and Robert Forster gives a performance that owes more than a little to James Caan’s Oscar-nominated turn as Sonny Corleone. (Interestingly enough, both Quinn and Forster were among the many actors considered for roles in The Godfather.)
Unfortunately, the film itself is slowly-paced and never really draws us into the plot. Director Richard Fleischer, who directed a lot of films without ever developing a signature style, brings none of the intensity that William Friedkin brough to The French Connection nor can he duplicate Francis Ford Coppola’s operatic grandeur. The Don is Dead plays out like a particularly violent made-for-TV movie. There’s a lot of talented people in the cast but they’re defeated by thinly drawn characters. Robert Evans often said that Coppola was hired to direct The Godfather because, as an Italian-American, he would bring an authenticity to the material that a non-Italian director would not be able to do. The Don Is Dead would seem to indicate that Evans knew what he was talking about.
Today’s music video of the day comes to us from Tears For Fears and their seventh studio album, The Tipping Point.
This song is a mix of melancholy emotions and hope for a better future. As the video shows it can be easy to feel like you’re drowning in today’s world, with its constant flood of negativity and disturbing imagery. As I sit here typing this post, I still can’t go on twitter without immediately being confronted by a video of a woman being burned alive in a New York subway car. There’s only so much of that ugliness that one can see before it becomes tempting to assume that the human race is defined solely by the worst members of it. The majority of the people that I know, though, are kind, loving, and tolerant. And if they see you drowning, they’ll be the first to reach out and pull you to safety.
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 find yourself having trouble getting to sleep tonight or tomorrow, you may want to try watching 1989’s Ghosts Can’t Do It. It won’t necessarily put you to sleep but it will give you something to ponder while you lie in bed and stare up at the ceiling. For instance, how exactly did this movie get produced without anyone coming up with a better title than Ghosts Can’t Do It?
Bo Derek plays Kate, the wife of elderly billionaire Scott (played by Anthony Quinn, who appears to be drunk in the majority of his scenes). Despite their age difference, Kate and Scott are deeply in love. When they’re not playing in the snow and riding horses around the ranch, they’re having sex. “Sex, sex, sex, sex!” the movie seems to chant in almost every scene. But then Anthony Quinn has a heart attack, which in this film means that he spends what appears to be hours lying in the snow while trading jokes with Kate. (It’s important to be able to joke with your partner but if my man had a heart attack, my first reaction would be to get a doctor.)
Scott survives his heart attack but he’s told that, in his weakened state, he can no longer have sex. Also, he can’t get a new heart because he’s too old. Facing a future without sex, Scott shoots himself. Fortunately, Scott’s guardian angel (Julie Newmar) takes sympathy on him and sends his spirt back down to Earth. Only Kate can see and hear him and, while she’s happy to be reunited with him, they are both upset to discover that ghosts can’t do it.
Scott comes up with a plan. Kate needs to find a young, virile lover and then murder him so that Scott can possess his body and then he and Kate can have sex whenever they feel like it. Because that plan makes total sense and there’s no way that it could lead to Kate’s soul being damned to an eternity in Hell, Kate agrees. Kate travels the world, having sex and looking for a man who will be able to please her after she has murdered him. Eventually, Kate meets a charming young criminal named Fausto (Leo Damian) and decides that he’ll do. Scott can’t wait to inhabit Fausto’s body but Kate suddenly realizes that she might not have it in her to be a murderer! Well, she’ll never know unless she tries. (I never thought that I would be able to shoot down a drone but then, one night in December….)
While all of this is going on, Kate is handling Scott’s business affairs. This leads to a meeting with a famous and ruthless businessman named Donald Trump. Yes, the 45 and 47th President of the United States plays himself in this film. Kate and Trump meet in a conference room to discuss a deal. Kate mentions that she read Trump’s book. Trump smiles and nods. They have hard-boiled business dialogue. Kate tells Trump that he’s “too pretty” to be as ruthless as he is. ‘You noticed,” Trump says. It’s a pretty dumb scene but, from a historical point-of-view, it’s a reminder of the fact that, long before he was elected President, Trump was already a ubiquitous figure on the American pop cultural scene.
Ghosts Can’t Do It is definitely a misfire, albeit one that is such a huge misfire that it become interesting in the same way that trainwrecks are often interesting. Almost everything about it, from the dialogue to the attempts at humor to the nearly unreadable font that is used for the opening credits, feels wrong. There is one brief moment that works, in which Kate dances with her ghost husband and, for the first and only time in the film, we see a flicker of genuine chemistry between Bo Derek and Anthony Quinn. (Bo Derek, I will mention, is not quite as bad an actress as her reputation suggests. It’s just that she should have been playing campy soap opera villainesses on late night television as opposed to starring in her husband’s crackpot films.) Otherwise, this movie is perhaps the worst movie to ever feature both a two-time Oscar winner and a future President. And, for that reason, it’s a watchable curiosity. It’s just what insomnia demands.
Through the Shattered Lens 