Retro Television Reviews: Dragnet 1966 (dir by Jack Webb)

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1969’s Dragnet 1966! It can be viewed on YouTube!

“This is the city….”

So begins Dragnet, a television movie version of the classic cop show that was the Law & Order of it’s day. Dragnet began as a radio program in 1949 before making it’s way over to television in 1951. Each episode starred (and the majority were directed by) Jack Webb, who played a no-nonsense cop named Joe Friday. Friday narrated every episode, dropping trivia about the history of Los Angeles while also showing viewers how the cops went about catching criminals. Despite what is commonly believed, Joe Friday never said, “Just the facts, ma’m,” but he did investigate each case with the cool determination of a professional who kept his emotions under control. The majority of Dragnet’s episodes were based on actual cases that were worked by the LAPD, hence the opening declaration of, “The story you are about to see is true.”

On television, Dragnet originally ran from 1951 to 1959, during which time Dragnet also became the first television series to be adapted into a feature film. Jack Webb decided to relaunch Dragnet in 1966 and he produced a made-for-television movie that followed Friday and his latest partner, the far more talkative Bill Gannon (Harry Morgan), as they worked multiple cases over the course of one long weekend. The pilot movie did lead to a new show, one that lasted from 1967 to 1970 and which is today fondly remembered for scenes of Friday and Gannon debating the merits of the legal system with hippies. However, for whatever reason, the 1966 pilot movie was not actually aired until 1969.

The made-for-TV movie features Friday and Gannon searching not for LSD dealers and draft dodgers but instead for a crazed photographer (Vic Perrin) who hires women to pose for him and then ties them up and takes their picture right before her murders them. The photographer is based on real-life serial killer Harvey Glatman and Perrin is perfectly creepy in the role. Though Friday never loses his composure, his disgust at the photographer and his crimes is palpable and it adds an extra charge to the scene where, in the middle of a drenching rain storm, Friday tries to sneak up on the trailer where he believes the photographer is holding his latest victim. It’s actually a pretty exciting scene and definitely one that will take by surprise anyone who thinks of the 60s Dragnet as just being a campy exercise in establishment resentment.

Of course, catching a serial killer is not all that Friday and Gannon deal with. It’s a long weekend so Friday and Gannon end up investigating the murder of a French tourist and Friday helps a younger, black detective deal with a racist criminal. (The scene where Friday stands up to the racist was obviously meant to answer those who claimed the LAPD was a racist organization.) At the start of the film, Joe almost gets collared into working security for a visiting Russian diplomat and the Russian’s paranoid security team is contrasted to the level-headed and capable men of the LAPD. Some of these scenes are better than others. The French tourist subplot features some truly risible acting and the scene with the racist is well-intentioned but still feels a bit condescending in its portrayal of the black detective needing Friday to help him deal with the suspect. That said, I did enjoy listening to Bill Gannon talking about his plans for retirement and how working for the LAPD was destroying his teeth. Harry Morgan’s folksy humor was always the perfect counterpart to Jack Webb’s perpetually rational Friday.

Finally, I appreciated that the movie featured a scene with Friday and Gannon went undercover at a lonely hearts club. If you’ve watched the 1960s version of Dragnet, you know that, for all the times that Friday and Gannon went undercover, they never really put much effort into it. I mean, they didn’t ever bother to take off their jackets!

Though I was disappointed by the lack of hippies, Dragnet 1966 was still not only a good police procedural but also a fun time capsule of its era.

Horror Book Review: Into the Dark by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First published in 1997, Into the Dark tells the story of Paulette Fox. Paulette has been blind since birth but she hasn’t let that stand in her away. She’s one of the most popular students at Shadyside High. She has two best friends, Jonathan and Cindy, who are devoted to her. She enjoys eating the pizza at Pete’s Pizza, watching silly slasher films with her friends, and taking piano lessons at the Music Academy. And, assuming that she can get her overprotective parents to sign off on it, she’s looking forward to taking self-defense classes.

Best of all, she’s got a boyfriend! Brad has just moved to Shadyside. Like Paulette, Brad loves music and wants to make it his life. Unfortunately, Brad does not come from a rich family so he has to work as a janitor at the Music Academy. Brad seems to be sweet and considerate and he treats Paulette like an adult. Paulette touches his face and discovers that not only is he very handsome but he also a scar on his eyebrow. Scars are sexy!

However, no sooner has Paulette started hanging out with Brad than strange things start to happen to her. Twice, she is nearly run over by a car despite the fact that Paulette is always careful while crossing the street. (The second time, Paulette is convinced that someone pushed her, even though everyone tells her that they didn’t see it happen.) She starts to get weird phone calls. According to Cindy, someone has broken into Paulette’s bedroom and painted all sorts of threatening messages on the wall. Even worse, Brad starts to act strange. Sometimes, he’s the considerate and nice Brad that she wants to date. Other times, he acts possessive and creepy. Her friends tell her that she needs to stay away from Brad, especially after he’s accused of robbing Pete’s Pizza! But Paulette remains convinced that only she can figure out what is truly happening with Brad….

This is an R.L Stine novel so there’s really no way that you won’t guess what the big twist is. In fact, if I remember correctly, it’s a twist that Stine has used in quite a few of his other books. Because I’m a nice reviewer, I will not spoil what the twist is but …. I mean, seriously, you figured it out while reading the previous paragraph, right?

Obviously, Into The Dark won’t win any points for originality but still, as far as the Fear Street books are concerned, Into the Dark is an entertaining and quick read and Paulette is a likable and relatable heroine. Indeed, Stine actually appears to have done some research for this book and the passages where he describes how Paulette navigates every-day life without being able to see ring true. Paulette may be blind but she’s also a typical teenager. It’s easy to roll your eyes when she repeatedly refuses to call the police despite the number of weird things that happen to her but seriously, what teenager wants to call the police for anything? When I was 17, I was woken up by what I thought was the sound of someone breaking into my house and, even though I had a phone and could have easily called the police, I instead grabbed a golf club and walked around the house in my t-shirt and underwear, searching for the thieves. When you’re 17, you think you’re immortal and, even more importantly, you don’t want to have to deal with any authority figures.

(Incidentally, there were no thieves and it was all just my imagination. Yay!)

Finally, who couldn’t relate to Paulette’s confusion about Brad? Sometimes, Brad is extremely nice and caring. Sometimes, Brad is cold and kind of a jerk. That sounds like every guy I knew when I was in high school. Like the best of Stine’s book, Into the Dark works because the reader can relate to it, even if they’ve never lived on Fear Street or been threatened by …. well, I won’t spoil it. But you already figured it out, right?

October True Crime: The Honeymoon Killers (dir by Leonard Kastle)

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1970 film, The Honeymoon Killers, takes place in the late 40s. Martha Beck (Shirley Stoler) is an overweight nurse who lives in Alabama with her senile mother (Dortha Duckworth) and her best friend, Bunny (Doris Roberts). Knowing that Martha is lonely, Bunny signs Martha up for a “lonely hearts club,” which was basically the Tinder and Craig’s List of the pre-Internet age. Though Martha is initially reluctant, she soon starts to receive letters from a conman named Ray Fernandez (Tony Lo Bianco). Ray specializes in swindling the women who respond to his letters. After Ray travels to Alabama and tricks Martha into giving him a “loan,” Ray sends her a letter telling him that he can no longer correspond with her. Martha responds by getting Bunny to call Ray and tell him that she attempted suicide.

Recognizing Martha as a fellow con artist, Ray invites Martha to his home in New York. He shows her the pictures that he’s received from other women and reveals how he makes his money. Martha soon becomes Ray’s partner in crime, traveling across the country with Ray and meeting the women, most of whom are elderly, that Ray has corresponded with. Ray claims that his name is Charles Martin and that Martha is his sister. He also swears to Martha that he won’t sleep with any of the women while he’s swindling them. Even though Martha knows that Ray is a pathological liar, she chooses to believe him whenever he swears that he’s actually in love with her.

The first murder occurs when Martha realizes that one of Ray’s victims is determined to sleep with him. Martha gives her an overdose of sleeping pills and then Martha and Ray dump her on a bus, where she subsequently dies. More murders occur, usually due Martha and Ray making sloppy mistakes that reveal their actual plans to their victims. At first, Ray claims that he’s disgusted with killing and he says that Martha is the one who has to do it because she’s a nurse. But eventually, Ray shows his true colors.

When talking about The Honeymoon Killers, one has to start by mentioning that this film was nearly Martin Scorsese’s second feature film. (Fresh out of film school, Scorsese had previously turned a student film, Who’s That Knocking At My Door?, into his feature debut.) Scorsese was fired from the film because the film’s producers felt that he was taking too long to set up the shots and, according to Scorsese himself, he was only shooting master shots. That said, there are a few Scorsese-directed scenes to be found in The Honeymoon Killers and they’re pretty easy to spot. The film opens with a tracking shot of Shirley Stoler walking through her hospital and reprimanding two interns. I was not surprised to learn that was one of the Scorsese scenes. After Scorsese left the project, he was replaced by Leonard Kastle, who wrote the script. The Honeymoon Killers was both Kastle’s directorial debut and his swan song.

The film’s harsh and grainy black-and-white cinematography gives the film a documentary-style feel and while there are moments of dark humor, The Honeymoon Killers is overall a grim movie. It plays out like a creeping nightmare, one where the viewer knows that there’s something terrible waiting right around the corner. The bickering between Martha and Ray may occasionally inspire a chuckle, but there’s nothing funny about the murders and the film, to its credit, it totally on the side of Martha and Ray’s victims. Martha and Ray may look down upon them but the film itself portrays them as being lonely people who are struggling to adjust to a changing world. (In the role of the couple’s second victim, Mary Jane Highby is just heartbreaking.) Ray is a bit of ludicrous figure, with his swagger and his exagerated accent but he’s been able to get away with his crimes because people want him to be the charming gentleman that he claim to be. Even after Martha discovers who he really is, she still finds herself under the spell of Ray’s con.

Shirley Stoler and Tony Lo Bianco both give excellent performances as Martha and Ray, with Stoler especially doing a good job in the role of Martha. At first, it’s easy to feel sorry for Martha. At the start of the movie, she’s just as lonely as any of Ray’s victims. At the film progresses, Martha’s true self is revealed and yet, as soulless as she can be, her love for Ray is strangely sincere. As Ray, Tony Lo Bianco is all swagger and charm until he loses control of the situation and he reveals just how spineless he actually is.

The film presents Martha Beck and Ray Fernandez as a couple who became murderers after they found each other. In reality, it’s suspected that Ray Fernandez murdered at least one woman before he met Martha and it’s also been suggested that Martha killed a few patients while she was working as a nurse. Ray and Martha were both executed on the same day, going to electric chair on March 8th, 1951.

Horror Film Review: Oasis of the Zombies (dir by Jesus Franco)

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1982’s Oasis of the Zombies opens with two girls in a jeep who just happen to be driving through the middle of a desert in Africa. When they come across an oasis, they decided to stop so that they can walk around and allow the camera to focus on their rear ends as they explore the area while wearing short shorts. Unfortunately, it turns out that they’re not very good when it comes observing details because they totally miss the skulls and the pieces of metal that have been decorated with swastikas. One girl thinks that the oasis is creepy. The other wants to keep exploring. Decayed hands suddenly rise out of the ground and attack both of them.

(Oddly enough, the girls reminded me of myself and my BFF, Evelyn. I called Evelyn after I watched the movie and we both agreed that getting attacked by desert zombies is definitely something that will probably happen to us in the near future.)

After the two girls are zombied, the film cuts to an old man named Captain Blabert (Javier Maiza) telling another man named Kurt Meitzell (either Henri Lambert or Eduardo Fajardo, depending on which version of the film you see) about a shipment of Nazi gold that, for the past few decades, has been sitting in the middle of an oasis in the desert. Kurt kills Blabert and then heads off with his wife (Myriam Landson or Lina Romay, again depending on which version of the film you see) to track down the gold.

We then cut to London, where college student Robert Blabert (Manuel Gelin) receives not only a message informing him of the death of his father, Captain Blabert, but also a journal that leads to several flashbacks of Captain Blabert serving in Africa during World War II and getting involved with the Nazis and a sheik.

Eventually, Robert and several of his friends end up going to Morocco, where they randomly meet two filmmakers and everyone decides to head into the desert to search for the oasis and the gold. Fortunately, the oasis and the gold are both easy to find. However, the oasis is still defended by the Nazis who were assigned to transport the gold. Of course, the Nazis are all zombies now!

Oasis of the Zombies is a Jesus Franco film and, like many of his later films, it’s more than a little disjointed. The film’s scenes don’t always seem to follow any sort of conventional narrative logic. Instead, the scenes often feel as if they’ve been randomly assembled and the end result is a low-budget zombie film that plays out like a fragmented dream, one that seems to feature more stock footage than actual plot. Franco himself frequently seems as if he’s having trouble concentrating on just what exactly Oasis of the Zombies is supposed to be about. Random zoom shots are mixed in with shots of a spider building its web and, more than once, the action comes to a stop so the film can turn into an extended travelogue. As was so often the case with Franco’s later films, some of the shots are striking. There’s a shot of a man standing on a roof announcing the call to prayer that achieves a surreal grandeur and, as bad as the zombie makeup is, the shots of the living dead silhouetted in the desert are effective. But for every effective shot, there’s shots of people looking straight at the camera. Franco was director who could both frame a memorable shot and also be remarkably sloppy. As such, his aesthetic transcends conventional definitions of good and bad. Viewers either get him and his semi-improvised excursions into existential horror or they don’t.

Myself, I thought there were enough good shots in Oasis of the Zombies to make it worth watching. Certainly, it’s not comparable to Franco’s better films, like The Awful Dr. Orlof or Faceless. But it’s also not quite as bad as its online reputation might suggest. The zombies relentlessly emerging in the desert are creepy and, in its better moments, the film does capture the feeling of being stranded in the middle of nowhere. One could argue that the film actually does have a deeper meaning, with the Nazi zombies representing the fact that, for all of its defeats, the hate that fueled the Nazis is still alive and still dangerous. In the end, it’s a zombie flick, featuring less than impressive zombie makeup and some adequate gore and it’s undoubtedly a Jess Franco film. There’s no mistaking Franco’s vision for anyone else’s.

Finally, there are two versions of the film. The French-language version features Henri Lambert and Myriam Landson as Kurt and his wife. The Spanish-language version features Franco regulars Eduardo Fajardo and Lina Romay as the couple. Other than the scenes with Kurt, the two versions of Oasis of the Zombies are pretty much the same. As far as I know, the French-language version is the only one that is available in the States. That’s the one that I watched for this review.

Horror Film Review: Frogs (dir by George McGowan)

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1972’s Frogs opens with Pickett Smith (played by a youngish Sam Elliott) canoeing through the bayou, taking pictures of all of the local sights. Pickett is a nature photographer and someone who is very concerned about what pollution is doing to the local wildlife. Eventually, Pickett ends up meeting the Crocketts, the wealthy family that owns and lives on an isolated island. Wheelchair-bound family patriarch Jason Crockett (Ray Milland) is looking forward to celebrating the 4th of July. It’s a tradition and he goes all out, decorating the mansion with American flags and listening to patriotic music. The Crockett family always celebrates with Jason, though it quickly becomes apparent that Jason would be just as comfortable celebrating without any of them.

The last thing that Jason Crockett wants is some preachy environmentalist showing up at his mansion and ruining the 4th of July with a bunch of complaints about the pesticides that he’s been using to keep away the island’s wildlife. The only thing worse than having to deal with an environmentalist would be having to deal with an invasion of alligators, snakes, and frogs. Unfortunately, Jason is going to have to spend his holiday dealing with all of those things. Soon, the mansion is surrounded by frogs and servants and family members are showing up dead all over the place.

I’ve seen Frogs a handful of times. It’s one of those films that many of my friends seem to like much more than I do. I have to admit that, for whatever reason, I always find myself struggling to focus on the film. Some of that is because there are more than a few slow spots. But the main problem is that frogs really aren’t that menacing. Frogs are cute and kind of goofy-looking, much like Sam Elliott without his mustache. The alligators are certainly scary. And there’s an attack by a cottonmouth that makes me go, “Agck!” every time that I see it. But frogs just look cute when they start hopping around. Our cat gets excited whenever he sees a frog because he knows that he can put his paw on their back and make them jump. Frogs aren’t threatening but I suspect that’s probably the point of the film. Frogs is not a film that is meant to be taken too seriously and all of the close-ups of the frogs staring at Ray Milland, Sam Elliott, Joan Van Ark, and Adam Roarke are obviously meant to be more humorous than scary. By the end of the film, the frogs are hopping over American flags, like a group of rebellious amphibians that have decided to stage their own 1968 Democratic Convention.

The majority of the cast is adequate if not exactly outstanding, with most of them doing what they can to try to look terrified of a bunch of frogs. That said, the only one who really makes a strong impression is Ray Milland, who appears to relish the opportunity to play someone who dislikes literally everyone that he sees. As played by Milland, Jason is so honest about being a miserable old man that it’s hard not to like him. He doesn’t like humanity and he’s not going to pretend otherwise. One gets the feeling that, when this film was released, he was meant to represent the same establishment that got America into Vietnam. When viewed today, he comes across like the one person who would be smart enough to never get on social media.

Reportedly, this was one of Andy Warhol’s favorite films. I’m glad he enjoyed it.

Horror Film Review: House of Frankenstein (dir by Erle C. Kenton)

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

House of Frankenstein opens in a prison. Dr. Gustav Neimann (Boris Karloff), the bother of one of Baron Frankenstein’s assistants, has been convicted of robbing graves and attempting to carry on the Baron’s work. Dr. Neimann’s faithful assistant is the hunchback, Daniel (J. Carroll Naish). Daniel is loyal to Neimann because Neimann has promised to someday place Daniel’s brain in a stronger body.

When a sudden earthquake allows Neimann and Daniel to escape, they waste no time in getting revenge on Neimann’s enemies. First, they murder a traveling showman named Prof. Lampini (George Zucco) and steal both his identity and his mobile horror exhibit. Included in the exhibit is a coffin that Lampini claimed held the skeleton of Dracula. (There’s even a stake sticking out of the skeleton’s chest.) When Neimann returns to his original hometown, he removes the stake from the skeleton so that he might use it on the Burgomaster, Hussman (Sig Ruman). The skeleton transforms into Dracula (John Carradine). Because he is relieved to have been brought back to life, Dracula does not attack Neimann but instead agrees to help Neimann get revenge on Hussman in return for Neimann looking after his coffin. Dracula soon learns that he should have thought twice before trusting either Neimann or Daniel.

Neimann moves on, stopping off at Frankenstein’s village and recovering the bodies of both Frankenstein’s Monster (Glenn Strange) and Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) from the frozen chamber in which they were trapped at the end of Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man. Revived from suspended animation, Larry immediately starts whining about how much his life sucks. (I love The Wolf Man but subsequent films turned Larry into the whiniest of the Universal monsters.) Neimann promises to put Larry’s brain in a new body if he helps to revive the Monster. Larry agrees. Meanwhile, Daniel falls in love with a gypsy girl named Ilonka (Elena Verdugo) while Ilonka falls in love with Larry. Daniel wants Neimann to put his brain in Larry’s body, Larry won’t stop whining about the approaching full moon, and the villagers are getting suspicious!

House of Frankenstein has never been a favorite of critics or horror historians and the film does have its share of flaws. For instance, though it would have been fun to see Bela Lugosi return to his signature role, John Carradine seems like ideal casting for Dracula. Unfortunately, Dracula is only in the film for about ten minutes and he comes to an end that really doesn’t feel worthy of a character of his stature. The film reduces Larry Talbot to just being a dumb lug who won’t stop feeling sorry for himself. Finally, Glenn Strange has the right physique for the Monster but, much as with John Carradine, he is underused.

That said, I still enjoyed House of Frankenstein. A lot of that is because of Boris Karloff, who brings a lot of sly humor to his performance as the mad scientist. (That said, Karloff himself later said that he did the role solely for the money and was bored with the whole thing.) J. Carroll Naish turns Daniel into a rather sympathetic henchman, one who is so desperate to be “normal” that he’s willfully blinded himself to the fact that Neiman really doesn’t care about anyone other than himself. (In many ways, he’s the equivalent of the hapless characters that Michael Ripper later played for Hammer Films.) Finally, Elena Verdugo brings a lot of life to the stock role of the dancing gypsy girl who falls in love with Larry Talbot despite the fact that Larry is kind of a dumb lug.

For a modern viewer, the main appeal of House of Frankenstein is that it is one of the original Universal horror films, even if it came out long after the first Dracula and Frankenstein films. As such, it has all the things that we associate with and love about those films. There’s a ruined castle. There’s angry villagers. The cast is full of Universal horror mainstays, including Lionel Atwell and Anne Gwynne. And, yes, the film features a mob descending on the castle with torches. Flaws and all, House of Frankenstein is an enjoyable time capsule. It’s a horror film from a far more innocent age and it’s one that remains a fun watch.

Previous Universal Horror Reviews:

Horror on the Lens: The Avenging Conscience (dir by D.W. Griffith)

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi there and welcome to October! This is our favorite time of the year here at the Shattered Lens because October is our annual horrorthon! For the past several years (seriously, we’ve been doing this for a while), we have celebrated every October by reviewing and showing some of our favorite horror movies, shows, books, and music. That’s a tradition that I’m looking forward to helping to continue this year.

This year, we’re getting things started with a movie that has been called “the first American horror film.” In 1914, D.W. Griffith released The Avenging Conscience, a melodrama that was based on Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart and Annabel Lee. In this film, The Nephew (Henry B. Walthall) falls in love with the Sweetheart (Blanche Sweet). However, the Uncle (Spottiswoode Aiken) is opposed to the relationship, mostly because the Sweetheart is a “common” woman. Despite having been raised by the Uncle, the Nephew snaps and murders him. The Nephew then finds himself tortured not just by his own guilt and fear but also by vivid hallucinations. This is a film that invites us to come for the murder and stay for the reminder that “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”

Like a lot of the films of the silent era, it will require a bit of patience on the part of modern viewers. It takes a while to get going but the surreal imagery and Henry B. Walthall’s increasingly unhinged performance make it worth sticking with. If nothing else, the film’s historical significance makes it one worthy to be seen by all serious horror fans.

Enjoy!

Horror Insomnia File #61: Replica (dir by James Nguyen)

Posted on October 1, 2023 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 logged onto Tubi and watched James Nguyen’s Replica.

Filmed in 2005 but not released until 2018, Replica tells the story of Joe Thomas (James David Braddock), a computer chip salesman who has been in a bit of a funk ever since he received a new kidney. His sales are down. His pet bird is mocking him by chirping loudly. His morning drive is boring. (We know this because, for some reason, the film shows us almost every mundane moment of that commute.) He’s in danger of losing his job but then, while hanging out at the Golden Gate Bridge, he happens to spot Dr. Evelyn Tyler (Lana Dykstra) jogging by. Evelyn is the same doctor who performed Joe’s kidney transplant! Joe strikes up a conversation with her and soon, they’re dating!

(In this movie, dating means eating at a San Francisco theme restaurant, riding a carousel, and running along the beach before heading back home so that Evelyn can model a bikini for a slack-jawed Joe.)

Life is perfect! Joe’s in love and he’s even managed to sell a gigantic amount of computer chips to Evelyn’s boss, Dr. G (Rick Camp)! But then Evelyn is killed as the result of a very slow car collision. Joe is in mourning. Detective Le (David Nguyen) keeps popping up and suggesting that the car accident that took Evelyn’s life may not have been an accident at all. (“We found semen in the body,” Detective Le earnestly says while speaking to Evelyn’s boyfriend.) But then, one day, Joe happens to spot a woman who looks just like Evelyn, except for the fact that she has dark hair and tramp stamp that identifies her as not being Evelyn. Quicker than you can say Vertigo, Joe is trying to get his new girlfriend to wear a blonde wig and dress just like Evelyn!

Director James Nguyen is best known for directing the Birdemic films. Replica was actually filmed long before Birdemic but it shows that, even early in his career, Nguyen had his own definite aesthetic. Everything that made Birdemic so memorable — the terrible sound quality, the pointless shots of people driving, the nonstop references to Hitchcock, the falling-in-love montages that suggest that Nguyen has never actually been on a date, and the suggestion that we’re supposed to take this film seriously — is present in Replica. If Birdemic claimed to actually be about the dangers of harming the environment, Replica claims to be a film about the ethics of cloning. While Birdemic featured the characters going out to see An Inconvenient Truth, Replica opens with Joe watching Christopher Reeve advocate for stem cell research. Reeve is listed in the film’s credits, even though it’s obvious that Nguyen just taped an appearance that he made on a talk show. Tippi Hedren and Kim Novak are also credited, even though both are only featured in archival footage that shows up on Joe’s television.

In typical Nguyen fashion, any attempt to say anything serious about cloning is negated by the fact that the film’s villain has invented something that he insists on calling “a clone-a-tron.” (That said, the actor playing Dr. G overacts to such an extent that it’s hard not to appreciate his effort to bring a little life to the movie.) The film comes out against cloning, despite the fact that Joe pretty much owes what little happiness he has to it. All in all, it’s a pretty stupid movie but it’s also short so there’s something to be said for that. In the end, for better or worse, this is a film that could have only been made by James Nguyen. If you got a good laugh out of Birdemic, prepare for more of the same with Replica.

Previous Insomnia Files:

Story of Mankind
Stag
Love Is A Gun
Nina Takes A Lover
Black Ice
Frogs For Snakes
Fair Game
From The Hip
Born Killers
Eye For An Eye
Summer Catch
Beyond the Law
Spring Broke
Promise
George Wallace
Kill The Messenger
The Suburbans
Only The Strong
Great Expectations
Casual Sex?
Truth
Insomina
Death Do Us Part
A Star is Born
The Winning Season
Rabbit Run
Remember My Name
The Arrangement
Day of the Animals
Still of The Night
Arsenal
Smooth Talk
The Comedian
The Minus Man
Donnie Brasco
Punchline
Evita
Six: The Mark Unleashed
Disclosure
The Spanish Prisoner
Elektra
Revenge
Legend
Cat Run
The Pyramid
Enter the Ninja
Downhill
Malice
Mystery Date
Zola
Ira & Abby
The Next Karate Kid
A Nightmare on Drug Street
Jud
FTA
Exterminators of the Year 3000
Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
The Haunting of Helen Walker
True Spirit
Project Kill

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 9/24/23 — 9/30/23

Posted on September 30, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bleh! I have been sick this entire week! (And I don’t mean “sick” as in I had allergies or a headache. I mean I was seriously ill, with fevers and fatigue and everything else.) I haven’t even gotten to watch the Survivor and The Amazing Race premieres yet! Here’s a few thoughts on what I have watched:

All You Need Is Love (NightFlight Plus)

I watched an episode of this old music documentary series on Saturday morning. It dealt with ragtime music and the tragic life of Scott Joplin. It was interesting stuff. Joplin was a fascinating character and it’s a shame that his final years were not happier ones.

Big Brother (24/7, Paramount Plus and CBS)

I wrote about Big Brother here!

Dr. Phil (YouTube)

Bleh. I swore to myself that I would never watch this show again but I hate to admit but it does work well as background noise and watching it on YouTube does help me get my thoughts together. I do make a point of only watching YouTube videos that were not uploaded by the show’s official account. But basically, I’m a hypocrite.

Anyway, on Sunday, I watched (or, to be honest, listened) to an episode about a daughter that worried her mother was suffering from paranoid delusions that led her to believe that she was being stalked by a “hook-up” app.

On Monday, I watched an episode featuring an annoying guy named Anthony who claimed to be a millionaire rap star, despite the fact that he was homeless. Anthony was obnoxious and rude to both the audience and Dr. Phil. It’s always fun when someone tells Dr. Phil to go to Hell.

Gun (Tubi)

I watched the first episode of this Robert Altman-produced 90s anthology series on Thursday. Look for my review this upcoming week!

Hell’s Kitchen (Thursday Night, FOX)

Hell’s Kitchen, one of the few classic reality shows to still retain its bite, is back! The Quidditch player is definitely going to be a liability for the Blue Team but he’s so weird that I have a feeling that the show will find excuses to keep him around for at least a few weeks.

The Hitchhiker (YouTube)

I watched episodes of this anthology series throughout the week while preparing for Horrothon.

The Montel Williams Show (YouTube)

On Monday, I came across an episode of this show on YouTube. Montel tried to understand goth kids and was shocked to discover that being rude and condescending is never a good way to win over a teenager. It was good for a smile.

Night Flight (NightFlight Plus)

The episode that I watched on Friday night was all about animation in music videos. The videos were pretty trippy.

Police Woman (Monday Morning, GetTV)

Police woman Angie Dickinson went undercover as a flight attendant to catch a smuggler played by Larry Hagman. It was all very 70s.

Red Dwarf (Monday Morning, PBS)

I watched an episode of this British sci-fi satire on Monday morning. A robot was briefly transformed into a human being and struggled to adjust. The episode ended with the robot-turned-human once again being transformed and turning into a miniature version of Robocop. It was amusing, though I get the feeling I would have gotten a lot more out of the show if I was a regular viewer. As is, this was only my second time to watch an episode of Red Dwarf and I spent a lot of time trying to catch up with who everyone was and why they were in space.

Saved By The Bell (Sunday Morning, Me TV)

On Sunday morning, as I got ready for me day, I watched the episode where Lisa overspent on her credit card and was shocked when her father refused to punish her for being irresponsible. Seriously, if you can avoid getting punished for being stupid, don’t question it. Just go with the flow.

Yes, Prime Minister (Monday Morning, PBS)

This week’s episode featured one of the rare occurrences in which Prime Minister Hacker got the better of Sir Humphrey and I have to admit that, as much as I enjoy watched both this show and Yes, Minister, it just didn’t feel right. I know that the point of the episode was that Hacker is finally learning how to use the self-importance of the civil service against itself (i.e., by threatening to take away Sir Humphrey’s key to Number 10) but I like Hacker more when he acts like a well-meaning incompetent than a Machiavellian game player. By the end of last night’s episode, Sir Humphrey would probably agree.

Retro Television Reviews: Welcome Back Kotter 2.11 “Sweathog Clinic for the Cure of Smoking” and 2.12 “Hark, The Sweatking”

Posted on September 30, 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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1979. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Epstein smokes and the Sweathogs learn the true meaning of Christmas!

Episode 2.11 “Sweathog Clinic for the Cure of Smoking”

(Dir by Bob LaHendro, originally aired on December 16th, 1976)

Gabe tells Julie a joke about his uncle, a doctor who used to trick his patients into sticking their tongue out and staring out his office window as a way to anger the people on the other side of the street.

At school, Horshack is stunned to see Epstein lighting up a cigarette in the boys room. (Epstein hides his cigarettes in the paper towel dispenser.) Horshack says that he is shocked and he points out that smoking is against the school rules. (Since when do Sweathogs care about the school rules?) Epstein responds by blowing smoke in Horshack’s face. Then, Gabe and Woodman step into the restroom and Epstein desperately flushes his cigarette but not before everyone sees him exhaling a cloud of smoke.

Woodman takes Epstein to the office of the perpetually unseen Principal Lazarus. Woodman tells Gabe that he can’t wait to see how Epstein gets punished but it turns out that Epstein is the only person at the school who Lazarus likes. Disillusioned at the lack of punishment for Epstein, Woodman announces that he’s moving to Scarsdale and goes into his office. Epstein, meanwhile, promises both Gabe and Barbarino (who just happens to be in the front office for some reason) that he’ll quit smoking.

However, the next day, Gabe again catches Epstein in the boys room, smoking. Epstein confesses that he can’t quit smoking. Gabe tells a story about how, when he was 12, he was addicted to potato knishes. Gabe explains that his knish habit led him to moving onto harder junk food, like Twinkies. In order to break his habit, Gabe says he went cold turkey.

“Cold turkey!?” Epstein says.

“That’s right. For five days, I ate nothing but cold turkey!”

Gabe says that he and the Sweathogs will help Epstein break his smoking habit through aversion therapy.

“Oh yeah,” Barbarino nods, “Perversion therapy. We’ll torture Juan until he quits smoking.”

The next day, Gabe, Epstein, Woodman, and the Sweathogs gather in Gabe’s classroom to make Epstein “unlearn” smoking. After talking about his own struggle to quit smoking, Woodman leaves the classroom. It’s probably for the best because one can imagine how Woodman would have reacted to Juan smoking a cigarette while Barbarino and Freddie walked in place on a red carpet in an attempt to generate enough static electricity to shock Epstein every time that he took a puff.

When shock therapy proves ineffective (for some reason, Gabe is the one who keeps getting shocked), Horshack comes into the classroom, dressed like a doctor. While twirling his stethoscope, Horshack asks Epstein about his sex life because “I thought it would be fun to hear about.” Gabe suggests that Horshack not ask anyone about their sex life until “you get one yourself.” Freddie then says, “Hi, there,” and pretends to be someone who has been smoking for four years and can now only say a few words without coughing. Gabe then forces Epstein to smell a cup full of soggy cigarettes. They then force Epstein to smoke three cigarettes at once.

“Doesn’t taste so good, does it, Mr. Puff!?” Gabe shouts.

Epstein gives up cigarettes but, seven days later, he shows up at school with a pipe. Gabe says that he’s disappointed in Epstein but then Epstein points out that Gabe is eating a knish. Gabe agrees to give up knishes if Epstein gives up smoking. Epstein agrees and he and Gabe dramatically toss all of the tobacco and knishes into the trash. It turns out that Gabe had a knish hidden in every corner of the classroom.

Back at the apartment, a knish-free Gabe tells Julie about his uncle, who was a famous frontiersman.

This episode worked because it centered not on a guest star or a gimmick but instead on the Sweathogs acting like their usual goofy selves. The second season has, so far, been a bit more uneven than the first but the chemistry between Robert Hegyes, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Ron Pallilo, and John Travolta continues to be, along with John Sylvester White’s delightfully unhinged turn as Woodman, the show’s greatest strength.

Episode 2.12 “Hark, The Sweatking”

(Dir by Bob LaHendro, originally aired on December 23rd, 1976)

Gabe tells Julie about his uncle, who got drunk at the zoo. “They don’t sell liquor at the zoo,” Julie replies.

It’s Christmas in Brooklyn! Horshack is hoping that he’ll finally get a Marie Osmond doll from Santa. The other Sweathogs are more interested in Angie (Michael V. Gazzo, who played Frankie Pentangelli in The Godfather Part II), the homeless man who is hanging out in the school’s courtyard and who claims that he was once a corporate executive. Gabe reveals that Angie has been coming by the school ever since Gabe was a student at Buchanan himself. After Gabe hears the Sweathogs making fun of Angie, he decides to invite Angie to come speak to the class.

“What’s he going to teach us?” Epstein asks, “Advanced vagrancy?”

Before Angie can start his speech, Woodman steps in the room and refers to Angie as being “our Christmas hobo.” Gabe says that Woodman probably goes around from house-to-house on Christmas Eve and tells all the kids that there’s no Santa Claus.

“Someone has to do it,” Woodman says and, as always, John Sylvester White totally nails the line. One of the underrated joys of this show is watching Woodman go progressively more and more insane.

Angie finally tells his story, explaining that he was a butcher with a wife and a family but he gambled away all of his money. One night, coming home broke, Angie discovered that his wife and his kids had left. Wiping away the tears, Angie leaves the classroom.

Feeling guilty, the Sweathogs want to do something for Angie. Freddie suggests putting Angie on their “shop-lifting lists.” Horshack makes a slightly more legal suggestion, saying that they should pool the money that they were going to use to buy each other gifts and instead, do something for Angie.

What do they do for Angie? Barbarino gets him some fresh clothes. Freddie gives him a haircut while Epstein shaves his beard and mustache. And Gabe invites Angie to come to the Christmas party that Julie and he are throwing at the apartment.

The action cuts to the apartment, where Julie is complaining about having to spend Christmas Eve with Gabe’s students. Julie then gives Gabe the Hanukkah bush that she bought for the holidays while Gabe explains that he has nothing for Julie because he spent all of his money on Angie. Epstein, Freddie, Horshack, and Barbarino show up, complaining that they haven’t seen Angie since helping him out. On cue, Angie shows up at the apartment, once again dressed like he was when the Sweathogs first saw him in the courtyard. Angie thanks the Sweathogs for everything but says that, for now, he’s comfortable living on the streets. Angie leaves and the Sweathogs are angry that they spent all of their money on someone who doesn’t appreciate it. Gabe tells them that the important thing is that they tried to help another human being. And then he reveals that he has presents for all of the Sweathogs. Yay! Merry Christmas!

After everyone leaves and Julie has fallen asleep on the couch, Gabe spots Santa Claus sitting in the kitchen and tells him about his cousin Eileen, who was so skinny that she had to wear snow shoes in the shower.

“Ho ho ho!” Santa replies.

This was a sweet episode, featuring good performances from not just the regulars but also from Michael V. Gazzo. Gabe telling a joke to Santa was adorable and the perfect way to end the episode. I love Christmas shows!