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 1986’s The George McKenna Story! It can be viewed on Netflix, under the title Hard Lessons!
George Washington High School is a school that has defeated many well-meaning principals. The hallways are full of drugs and gang members. A good deal of the student body never shows up for class. Fights are frequent. The police are a common sight. The majority of the teachers are men like Ben Proctor (Richard Masur), burned-out and content to hide in the teacher’s lounge.
New Orleans-raised George McKenna (Denzel Washington) is the latest principal and, from the minute that he shows up at the school, he seems a bit more confident than the other principals that the school has had. He barely flinches when a raw egg hits his suit. When he hears a fight occurring, he doesn’t hesitate to head down the hall to investigate. McKenna is determined to make George Washington High into a worthwhile institution and that means inspiring both the students and the teachers.
When it comes to films about dedicated educators trying to reform a troubled school, most films tend to take one of two approaches. One approach, the well-intentioned but not always realistic liberal approach, features the teacher or the principal who demands respect but who also treats the good students and teachers with equal respect and who turns around the school through the power of benevolence. The other approach is the one where the principal or teacher grows frustrated and turns into an armed vigilante who forces the students to shut up and learn. Think of The Principal or The Substitute or Class of 1984. The first approach is the one that most teachers claim that they try to follow but I imagine that, for most of them, there’s an element in wish-fulfillment to be found in watching the second approach. In the real world, of course, neither approach is as automatically successful as it is in the movies.
The George McKenna Story was made for television and it’s based on a true story so, not surprisingly, it follows the first approach. Denzel Washington plays McKenna as someone who could probably handle himself in a fight if he ever got into one but, for the most part, the film portrays McKenna as succeeding by treating his students with more empathy and respect that they’ve gotten from anyone else in their lives. Though cranky old Ben Proctor thinks that McKenna’s methods are foolish and that he’s asking the teachers to do too much, McKenna starts to turn the school around. One student, whose father was threatening to make him drop out, ends up getting nearly straight A’s and reciting Shakespeare. Unfortunately, not everyone can be rescued. One student is arrested for murder and taken away by the cops but McKenna is still willing to be there for that student. McKenna doesn’t give up on his students and, unlike that music teacher in The Class of 1984, he doesn’t allow them to fall through a skylight either.
The George McKenna Story is a predictable film. It’s easy to guess which student will be saved by McKenna’s approach and which student will end up getting stabbed in a gang fight and which student will end up in prison. That said, the film definitely benefits from Denzel Washington in the lead role. Washington exudes confidence from the minute that he appears on screen and you’re left with little doubt that if anyone could reform a school simply through good intentions, it would definitely be Denzel Washington.
To be honest, I watched so little this week that I nearly didn’t even bother with a week in television post. But what I can say? I’m a completist and, even though I spent most of this week focused on getting things ready for our annual October Horrorthon, I did watch a few things and I figured that I might as well share a few thoughts with you all!
I’m looking forward to next week. Both Survivor and Hell’s Kitchen are coming back!
Big Brother (24/7, CBS and Paramount Plus)
I wrote about Big Brother here! I have to admit that I’ve reached the point that I reach every season where I kind of hope this stupid show is canceled and I never have to watch or write about it again. Seriously, this has been a stupid show from the start, each season is worse than the last, and I just want my freedom! However, I do like my fellow Big Brother fans. Interacting with them is the only rewarding thing that I get from this show.
Degrassi: The Next Generation (Tubi)
I watched The Time Stands Still two-parter on Monday afternoon. Drake got shot in the back by Rick Murray and Joey struggled to find someone to buy his house. Joey never should have dumped Syd.
The Hitchhiker (YouTube)
I checked out a few more episodes of this series throughout the week, selecting which ones that I want to highlight in October.
Jennifer Slept Here (YouTube)
On Tuesday night, I watched the pilot of this old 80s sitcom about a family that moves into a house that is already occupied by a ghost. Look for my review in October!
Nightmare Café (YouTube)
On Saturday, I watched the pilot of this 1992 horror anthology series, which ran for 6 episodes. The show was produced by Wes Craven and Robert Englund was the show’s host. As you can probably guess, he was totally charming. I’ll be posting a review of this show in October.
South Central (YouTube)
I wrote about South Central here! Andre got a gun and Nicole decided that she no longer wanted anything to do with him. To be honest, I’m on Nicole’s side.
This week’s episode dealt with Prime Minister Hacker attempting to use one junior member of his cabinet’s radical anti-smoking campaign as a way to trick the Treasury into supporting Hacker’s planned tax cuts. Sir Humphrey, of course, was present to explain that the Treasury doesn’t budget for programs but instead, gets as much money as it can and then comes up with programs to justify the taxation. This episode was not quite as laugh-out-loud funny as the previous two episodes but, as always, I enjoyed the show’s portrayal of the excesses of the bureaucratic state. I’m in favor of any show that makes fun of taxation.
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, Mr. Kotter gets a student teacher!
Episode 2.9 “Hello, Ms. Chips”
(Dir by Bob LaHendro, originally aired on December 2nd, 1976)
Instead of telling a joke about a relative, Gabe starts the show by coming home from shopping with Julie. When Julie says that everyone at the store was crazy, Gabe comments that the women were all pushing and shoving and “bumping into me.”
“I’m going back tomorrow!” Gabe declares while Julie gives him a pity laugh.
At Buchanan High School, Woodman introduces Gabe to his new student teacher, Ms. Wright (Valerie Curtin).
“Ms. Wright,” Gabe says, “My mother always said I’d meet you someday.”
“Keep your sick fantasies out of this, Kotter,” Woodman replies. “Watch her carefully, you remember what happened to the last student teacher …. she still sends me ceramic wallets from the home.”
After Woodman leaves, Gabe gets to know Ms. Wright and discovers that she’s read about the Sweathogs in her textbooks. Gabe acknowledges that the classroom is famous and adds, “Some of our best teachers have passed through the windows.”
The Sweathogs make their arrival. Ms. Wright observes the way that Gabe handles getting them to read their essays on what they would do if they were president and then she steps in and tries to teach while looking through her thick lesson plan. Needless to say, the Sweathogs do not react well to that and Epstein throws a fit when Ms. Wright reads his essay (which is actually a poem) about how he would make the world a better, flower-filled place as President. Ms. Wright runs, sobbing, from the room.
Gabe tracks Ms. Wright down to the front office, where Ms. Wright is asking Mr. Woodman what it was like when he was a teacher. Woodman proceeds to sing Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen.
“Didn’t they have spankings in those days?” Ms. Wright asks.
“Yes,” Woodman replies, “but my students only spanked me once.”
The next day, Ms. Wright tries again. This time, she tires to imitate Gabe’s approach and awkwardly tells Epstein, “In your mouth with a sandwich,” when he tries to apologize her. Ms. Wright tells a series of Kotter-style jokes but her cheery delivery is all wrong. Ms. Wright suddenly announces that Gabe’s technique isn’t right for her and that she’s just going to quit.
“You can’t quit,” Freddie says, “You’re not a lousy teacher, we’re just lousy students!”
Ms. Wright learns a valuable lesson about not teaching from the book and not trying to teach like someone else but just teaching as herself. Ms. Wright says that she wants to tell the class about President Buchanan.
“That name sounds familiar,” Vinnie says.
This was not a bad episode. I appreciated that Ms. Wright had to find her own style as opposed to just blindly following Gabe’s style. Speaking of Gabe’s style, he ends the episode telling Julie about his Uncle Wilford Kotter, who was in love with an elephant.
Episode 2.10 “Horshack vs. Carvelli”
(Dir by Bob LaHendro, originally aired on December 9th, 1976)
At the apartment, Gabe calls his Uncle Herman and tells him that Julie’s going to be home in five minutes and he doesn’t have a joke to tell her. Gabe asks if anything funny has happened in Herman’s life recently. Herman tells Gabe about a guy who crossed an elephant and a beaver. Herman says that he once knew a guy who was so mean that he used to train homing pigeons and then move. Judging from the expression on Gabe’s face, Herman then proceeds to tell him something really wild.
(Julie, by the way, apparently never comes home and, therefore, does not appear in this episode.)
At school, the Silver Gloves Boxing Tournament is approaching and the Sweathogs are debating who will take on New Utrecht High’s most fearsome fighter, Carvelli (Charles Fleischer). Woodman is especially concerned because he says that, in 20 years, Buchanan has never won the tournament. When Gabe says that Bonzo Maretti won one year, Woodman replies, “Eating your opponent doesn’t count!” Woodman wants a Sweathog to bring home a trophy. Unfortunately, it appears that all of Woodman’s hopes rest on Arnold Horshack who is demanding to be the one to fight Carvelli. As Horshack puts it, he’s tired of always being the one who is pushed to the side.
It’s time for a training montage, as Gabe and Woodman teach Horshack how to throw a punch.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t go well as Horshack ends up getting knocked down by Mr. Woodman. “Maybe I should fight Carvelli!” Woodman says.
At the boxing match …. actually, I was expecting this to be one of those episodes where Horshack somehow ended up winning despite the odds but actually, he gets knocked out during the first round. But all the Sweathogs are proud of him for having the guts to enter the ring so it’s a bit of a personal victory for him. Plus, Gabe tells him a joke about his Uncle Maxie Kotter.
Yay! Horshack finally won some self-respect! Horshack was often the most cartoonish thing about this show and it’s rare that there was ever anything subtle about Ron Palillo’s performance but he deserves some credit for his work on this episode. He revealed that, beneath the weird façade, Horshack was just as vulnerable and insecure as all the rest of the Sweathogs. He didn’t win the fight but he won the audience’s heart and good for him!
Today’s blast from the past comes to use from 1982.
In A Very Delicate Matter, teenager Kristin Sorenson (Lori-Nan Engler) spends the summer working at a camp. After her nominal boyfriend, Greg Pscharapolus (Zach Galligan), fails to call her even once, Kirstin ends up dating her superhot co-worker, Larry (future daytime drama star Grant Aleksander, making his television debut). Once summer ends, Kristin returns home where Greg apologizes for not calling her. Kristin takes Greg back and decides not to tell him about Larry. But then Kristin gets a call from Larry. Larry tells her that she might want to go by the free clinic and get some penicillin because Larry’s got gonorrhea and there’s a good chance to Kristin now has it as well. And, since Kristin and Greg previously spent a day making up, Greg might have it too!
The plot description probably makes A Very Delicate Matter sound considerably campier than it is. For the most part, this is a sensitive and nonjudgmental film, one in which no one is portrayed as being a villain. (As one doctor points out, even Larry showed more courage than most by immediately calling Kristin and letting her know what was going on.) While the two leads both give good performances (with Galligan just two years away from starring in Gremlins), the film is stolen by Marta Kober and John Didrichsen, who play the best friends of Kristen and Greg and who have a nice flirtatious chemistry with each other. Just because your friend has a social disease, the film seems to be saying, don’t give up on love. Marta Kober is probably best known for Friday the 13th Part 2, which featured its own warning about having unprotected sex at a summer camp.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!
This week, the adventures of T.S. Turner continue!
Episode 1.13 “Sweet Tooth”
(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on March 28th, 1988)
“In this episode,” Mr. T tells us, “a former con man claims to be starting a new chapter in his life, but I keep hearing the same old story.”
At the Toronto courthouse, T.S. and Amy are approached by a prosecutor named Billings (David Ferry). He’s wearing a plaid suit, which is the show’s way of indicating that he’s not as good an attorney as Amy. Billings says that he needs to discuss a private matter with T.S.
“Maybe he wants fashion tips,” T.S. growls.
Billings explains to T.S. that a man with whom T.S. served time, a conman named Lee Boone, has been released from prison. The police think that Boone is trying to set up a new con in T.S.’s neighborhood but Billings thinks that Boone is trying to go straight. Billings asks T.S. to investigate. He also asks T.S. to keep their arrangement strictly confidential.
“And I’d appreciate it if you changed that jacket,” T.S. replies, “It gives me an earache.”
That said, T.S. agrees to check out Lee Boone, especially after he hears that Boone is the father of a seven year-old son.
Meanwhile, Lee Boone (Anthony Sherwood) is giving a speech in front of an old church. He’s asking for donations to turn the church into a community center. Among those donating money is T.S.’s aunt, Martha (Jackie Richardson). T.S is stunned to discover that Lee is the man who he knew in prison as “Sweet Tooth.” After Boone finishes his speech, T.S. confronts him and accuses him of trying to con people out of their money. Boone argues that he’s changed and he’s just trying to give back to the community. T.S. doesn’t buy it, later telling Billing that he judges a man not by his words but by his eyes and, “I looked in Sweet Tooth’s eyes and nothing had changed.”
On T.S.’s recommendation, Boone is arrested. Guess who is assigned to be Boone’s lawyer? Amy Taler! Now, considering that Amy is partners with someone who would undoubtedly be called as a witness if the case ever went to trial, this seems like a clear conflict of interest but maybe they do things different up in Canada. Amy is not only convinced that Boone is innocent but she’s also angry at T.S. for working with prosecutor’s office.
You know who else is angry with T.S.? Aunt Martha! Aunt Martha brings Boone’s 7 year-old son down to the gym and orders the kid to ask Turner, “Why did you put my Daddy in jail?”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt him, son,” T.S. says, “I was trying to help him.”
Aunt Martha announces that Lee Boone is back on the street and the entire community is rallying around him and donating their money for the community center.
Stunned, T.S. returns to his office and contemplates the mysteries of life. When Amy tells him that she believes that everyone deserves a second chance, T.S. says, “And what if you’re wrong? What if all those people get kicked in the teeth again?”
The next morning, Amy goes down to the church and waits, with Aunt Martha, for Boone to show up and announce his plans for the money that’s he’s raised. However, Boone never shows up because it turns out that T.S. Turner was right and it really was all an elaborate con! Instead, having packed all of his money in suitcase, Boone and his son prepare to leave their apartment building and head to another town.
However, T.S. is waiting for them in the stairwell. When Boone claims that he was just about to head for the church, Turner declares, “With a suitcase full of money? Come on, brother! Give me some rap! Give it up, Sweet Tooth! Your son deserves better! If you want a better life for your kid, you need to go to that church and stand by your word. You just gotta believe your own rap! EVERYONE ELSE DOES!”
At the church, Aunt Martha tries to keep the crowd calm by singing a gospel song. Given how I feel about gospel music, you can imagine how relieved I was when a reformed Sweet Tooth finally showed up at the church and everyone stopped singing. Sweet Tooth goes straight and uses the money to open up the community center. All it took was T.S. Turner showing up at his apartment building!
As I watched this episode, it occurred to me that Mr. T’s main strength as an actor was his innate earnestness. As limited as his range may have been, the viewer never doubted for a minute that he believed everything that he said. This episode worked because it allowed Mr. T. to be himself.
Episode 1.14 “Playing With Fire”
(Dir by Harvey Frost, originally aired on April 11th, 1988)
“In this episode,” Mr. T says, “the heat is on a teenage girl who’s charged with arson.”
Across Canada, someone is setting fires. After teenager Felicity (Susannah Hoffman) is found playing a flute in front of a fire that’s raging in a park, she’s arrested. Because Amy is the only defense attorney in Toronto, she’s assigned to the case. And when Amy is assigned to your case, that means that T.S. Turner is assigned to it as well!
Unfortunately, Felicity isn’t very helpful and gets defensive whenever Amy asks her why she always goes to the park to play her flute, even in the middle of the harsh Canadian winter. Turner goes down to the park to investigate on his own and he meets Kramer (Alan Fawcett), a real estate developer who wants to build a luxury condo in the middle of the park. Since this is T. and T., “luxury condo” is all we need to hear to know that Kramer is a bad guy.
Another building in the park burns down and again, for some reason, Felicity is nearby playing her flute. Felicity is again accused of being the arsonist, which leads to a police interrogation scene where we discover that, as an attorney, Amy’s main legal strategy is to dramatically roll her eyes whenever anyone asks her client a question. Meanwhile, T.S. heads down to the park and discovers that the building was insured for a million Canadian dollars.
“The only way we’re going to avoid paying,” the claims agent explains, “is if that lady lawyer gets that flutist off.”
“Lady lawyer!?” Turner replies, “You mean Ms. Amy Taler!”
“I hope she pleads as good as she looks,” the agent says.
T.S. nods. “I’ll pass it on.”
Felicity is dragged down to a mental hospital, where she is committed for a week-long evaluation. She sits in her room and plays her flute and I have to say that it didn’t take me long to get really sick of Felicity and her stupid flute. Seriously, every time we see her, she’s playing the flute and getting angry about Amy trying to clear her name. What an annoying character!
Anyway, Felicity overhears Turner telling Amy that he thinks that Kramer is behind the arsons so Felicity breaks out of the mental hospital, goes down to one of Kramer’s buildings, and starts playing her flute. When Kramer confronts Felicity, she threatens to burn down the building for real. This leads to Kramer confessing, just in time for Turner to show up and subdue him.
That’s the end of that. Felicity’s name is cleared but Felicity is still such an annoying character that it’s difficult to really care.
Next week: Amy’s frequently frazzled administrative assistant gets an episode of her very own!
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 South Central, which aired, for 10 episodes, on Fox in 1994. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
This week, Andre gets a gun!
Episode 1.7 and 1.8 “Gun”
(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on May 24th, 1994)
I’m not a huge fan of the song Amazing Grace.
Okay, allow me to clarify. I know that it’s an important song. I know that it’s a song that was at least partially written as a protest against the Atlantic slave trade. I know that it’s a song that means a lot to many people. But I have to admit that I cringe whenever someone starts singing it in a movie or on a TV show because it’s always sung in such an overwrought manner and it usually indicates that the program is about to take an extremely heavy-handed term.
I point this out because the first 30 minutes of Gun features Tasha singing Amazing Grace several times around the house, once while a police helicopter hovers over her house. My first instinct was to cringe but actually, upon watching a second time , I realized that the scene with the helicopter is a powerful moment. Tasha sings not only in defiance of the police but the helicopter’s spotlight briefly turns her front porch into a stage. After six episodes of Tasha continually being told to sacrifice, it was nice to see a rare episode in which Tasha actually got a moment of triumph.
The majority of this two-part episode centers on Andre. Just as Tasha has spent six episodes being expected to constantly sacrifice for the family, Andre has spent six episodes trying to come to terms with the death of his brother Marcus while living up to his mother’s expectations and also trying to pursue a relationship with Nicole. In order to see Nicole, Andre has been riding the bus and, as we’ve seen, he’s gotten mugged, beaten up, and continually harassed for his troubles. This episode, Andre takes two things with him on his latest trip to Nicole’s. One is a pack of condoms, which leads to Nicole telling him that she doesn’t want to see him again unless he can figure out how to articulate how he really feels about her. The other is his mother’s gun, which he tucks in the waistband of his pants and which he flashes when a guy starts to give him and Rashad trouble. Rashad is excited about the gun, announcing that he and Andre now have “juice” and treating it almost like a toy. Andre, who has actually lost a family member to gun violence, is more serious about it, telling Rashad that he would like to use it on the people who killed his brother. (Of course, while Andre and Rashad stand in the house and handle the gun, Deion stands silently in the background, taking it all in.)
One interesting thing about this episode is that Andre’s mentor, Ray, is nowhere to be seen nor is he mentioned, even when Joan grounds Andre for forgetting to pick up Deion. Given the fact that Ray was last seen realizing that Joan will probably never love him the way the he loves her, it makes sense that Ray might need a break from the Mosely family but it also means that there’s no one, outside of his family, for Andre to talk to, with the exception of Rashad. At the Ujamaa Co-op, Bobby attempts to reach out to Andre and Rashad, telling him that he heard they had trouble on the bus and warning them about young men carrying guns. As well-intentioned as Bobby is, both Andre and Rashad are too young and immature to really understand his message of building up the community as opposed to destroying it. As opposed to Ray, who sometimes seemed too distant from the realities of life in Andre’s neighborhood, Bobby understands what is happening in the community but his insistence on trying to view everything in idealistic terms makes him ineffectual as an authority figure.
(If anything, Earl Billings’s perpetually annoyed Mayo Bonner, who trusts no one, seems like he might be the wisest of the older men on the show but his bad-tempered comments are mostly just played for laughs.)
Days later, Joan agrees to allow Andre to go to the High Life Party being held at the Co-op. Andre knows that Nicole will also be at the party and he wants to give her a letter that he’s spent the last few days writing and re-writing. While Joan and her next-door neighbor Sweets go through Andre’s bedroom and discover not only his condoms but also a first draft of the letter that he wrote for Nicole, Andre meets up with Nicole at the Co-op and ruins everything by once again flashing his gun at a guy who rudely steps in front of Nicole. Nicole leaves, even though her best friend Candi, who has taken a sudden interest in Rashad, refuses to leave with her. Andre chases after her and, on the bus, he tells her that only carries the gun for protection. Nicole says that her parents were right about Andre and refuses to talk to him for the rest of the ride. After Nicole gets off the bus, Andre tears up the love letter that he was going to give her and realizes that he will probably never see her again.
Yep, just another not-so happy ending on South Central! That said, it was also a realistic ending and the show deserves a lot of credit for having Nicole react realistically to Andre’s aggressive behavior. She freaks out when she sees that he has the gun and all of his excuses (and they are just excuses) cannot fix the damage of that one moment. And Nicole is totally in the right. What if the guy at the party had a gun? What if someone on the bus had a gun? Carrying a gun for protection is one thing and certainly, Andre has had enough bad things happen to him on this show that one can understand why he would feel like he needs some sort of protection. But, at the Co-op, there was no threat. Andre showed off the gun just to intimidate someone else. I would have dumped Andre too.
This was a powerful episode. In the end, Andre swears that he’s never going to carry another gun and watching it, the viewer hopes that he’s telling the truth but also knows that life is never as simple as one might hope.
First released in 1985, Prizzi’s Honor tells the story of Charley Partanna (Jack Nicholson), a blue collar guy who lives in Brooklyn and who is a hard-working hit man for the Prizzi crime family. Charley is the son of Angelo (John Randolph), who is the right-hand man to the family’s elderly but still ruthless Don (William Hickey). In the past, Charley came close to marrying the Don’s daughter, Maerose Prizzi (Anjelica Huston), and he is almost as much a member of the family as the Don’s two sons, Eduardo (Robert Loggia) and Dominic (Lee Richardson).
While attending a family wedding, Charley meets and is immediately infatuated with a woman named Irene Walker (Kathleen Turner). Later, when Charley is sent to California to kill a man who robbed one of the family’s Vegas casinos, he is shocked to discover that the man is Irene’s husband. Irene swears that she didn’t have anything to do with the casino theft and, after a whirlwind courtship, Charley and Irene get married in Mexico. What Charley doesn’t know (but eventually discovers) is that Irene is herself a professional killer. While Charley and Irene try to balance work and love, Maerose conspires to turn the family against Irene and win Charley back.
Directed by the legendary John Huston, Prizzi’s Honor is pitch black comedy about two hard-working people who kill for a living. (The film’s big set piece is an extended sequence in which Charley and Irene’s attempt to pull a job together goes wrong in every way and they end up arguing about their relationship while dragging dead bodies from one room to another.) Though Prizzi’s Honor was released long before the series premiered on HBO, the film feels almost like a companion piece to The Sopranos, full of mobsters who are not as clever as they think they are and who struggle to uphold the old ways in an increasingly complicated world. Particularly when compared to the gangster who populate a film like TheGodfather, the Prizzis are defined by their pettiness. If Don Corleone epitomized wisdom and honor, Don Prizzi epitomizes someone who holds onto power solely for power’s sake.
Prizzi’s Honor is one of those films that probably seemed a bit more revolutionary when it was first released than it does today. At this point, we’ve seen so many films about hired killers who have quirky conversations while carrying out their work that the mix of violence and dark humor can feel almost like a cliché. As well, there are certain parts of the film, like the opening wedding sequence, that feel as if they go on for just a few minutes too long, as if John Huston himself was not always comfortable with the balance between the dark drama and the comedy of mob manners. That said, Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner (who gives a performance worthy of the great femme fatales of film noir), Anjelica Huston, John Randolph, and especially William Hickey all give strong enough performances to hold the audience’s attention and the film’s finale cuts to the point in such a way that it leaves you reconsidering everything that you’ve previously seen. Prizzi’s Honor has its flaws but Nicholson and Turner have such chemistry that the film’s ending sticks with you.
Prizzi’s Honor was nominated for 8 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor for William Hickey. (Oddly, Kathleen Turner was not nominated for playing Irene.) In the end, it only won one Oscar that year, for supporting actress Anjelica Huston. The Oscars that year were dominated by a far more convention love story, Out of Africa.
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 is all about mistaken identity!
Episode 3.7 “The Reunion/Haven’t I Seen You?/Crew Confessions”
(Dir by George Tyne, originally aired on October 20th, 1979)
After discovering that a guy that he went to high school with in Oakland is now a published author, Isaac decides that maybe he should spend the cruise writing a novel of his own. The other members of the crew encourage him to try his hand at being a literary genius because, seriously, how hard can it be? (Gopher suggests that anyone can be a writer! Okay, Gopher….) Isaac attempts to write a western, just to discover that he can’t get past the first two sentences. He then tries to write a romance and can’t get past the first two sentences. Finally, he attempts to do a science fiction novel and can’t get past …. well, you get the idea.
Finally, Isaac realizes that his mistake is that he’s not writing about what he knows. Instead, he starts writing a book about life on a cruise ship! (There’s a bit of an inside joke here as The Love Boat itself was inspired by a “non-fiction” book written by a former cruise director.) Unfortunately, the rest of the crew soon recognizes themselves in Isaac’s writing. Doc is offended at being portrayed as a sex-crazed womanizer who rarely practices medicine. Gopher is upset to discover that the fiction ship’s purser is a klutz named Muskrat. Julie is upset at the character of the “perky” cruise director. Only Captain Stubing seems to be truly supportive of Isaac. Upset that his friends are upset, Isaac rips his book in half. Guilt-stricken, the rest of the crew decides to support Isaac and they start giving him ideas for his novel. For instance, Doc Bricker tells Isaac that he served in the U.S Navy after medical school, adding yet another piece of the puzzle to the enigma of Adam Bricker.
The novel-writing storyline, I liked. I could relate to it because I’ve noticed that people are always willing to support your literary ambitions until they realize that you’re writing about them. I kind of hope that Isaac will keep writing. Knowing The Love Boat, though, I know this is probably one of those things that will be forgotten by the next episode.
As for the other storylines this week, they were okay if slight. Don Knotts plays a shoe salesman named Herb Groebeck who looks just like a television start named Devon King. At first, Herb keeps correcting everyone about his identity but, when he’s approached by Marla (Julie Newmar), he decides to pretend to be Devon for a while. Marla reveals that she has a baby and she says that Devon is the father, the result of a one-night stand in Las Vegas. Herb, having fallen in love with Marla, asks her to marry him. Marla suddenly reveals that she’s never actually met Devon and that she was lying about him being the father because she wanted a husband who could take care of her baby. Herb says that’s okay because he’s not even Devon King. Marla and Herb share a good laugh and leave the cruise as an engaged couple which …. I mean, is this really a relationship that’s really going to last? It’s pretty much built on lies.
Speaking of lies, Laurette Ferot (Jane Wyatt) has boarded the boat so she can be reunited with her long-missing husband, Gilbert (Jean-Pierre Aumont). Laurette and Gilbert were married in 1939 but the Nazi invasion of France tore them apart. Laurette was taken off to Denmark. Gilbert vanished and was presumed dead. Laurette has spent the last 40 years looking for Gilbert. Unfortunately, the man who shows up on the cruise is not her Gilbert. Instead, he’s a former member of the French Resistance who befriended the real Gilbert in a concentration camp and who fell in love with Laurette as a result of listening to the real Gilbert talk about her. When the real Gilbert died in the camp, the fake Gilbert assumed his identity. Having survived the war, the fake Gilbert came to America and made millions as a lock manufacturer while also looking for Laurette. Laurette is surprisingly forgiving of Fake Gilbert and even goes through with the ceremony to “renew” their vows on the ship. Laurette marries Fake Gilbert and they leave the ship together. Jane Wyatt and Jean-Pierre Aumont both gave heartfelt performances but this storyline, involving concentration camps and Nazi cruelty, felt a bit out-of-place when partnered up with stories about Isaac writing a salacious book and Don Knotts pretending to be an action star. It was a bit too serious for The Love Boat format.
Overall, this episode was uneven but genuinely well-acted. Just as last week’s episode gave Fred Grandy a chance to show off the fact that he actually could act, this episode gives the spotlight to Ted Lange and Lange, again, proves himself to be capable of more than just making drinks and pointing. I hope his book was best seller.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986. Almost entire show is currently streaming is on Youtube!
This week, David Cassidy gets married and Tina Louise meets the Blood Countess!
Episode 3.15 “Unholy Wedlock/Elizabeth”
(Dir by Rod Holcomb, originally aired on January 12th, 1980)
Danny Collier (David Cassidy) has come to the Island with his best friend, Ken Jason (Eddie Mekka). Danny’s fantasy is to finally marry his fiancée over the weekend. As he explains to Tattoo and Mr. Roarke, he’s tried to get married several times in the past and, every time, something happened that kept him from getting to the ceremony. This weekend, though, he’s going to get married on the island and Tattoo is going to throw him a wonderful bachelor party! When Mr. Roarke questions whether Danny really loves his wife-to-be, Danny explains that his fiancée is rich!
The main problem with this fantasy is that, from the start, Danny comes across as being a total jerk. David Cassidy plays the entire role with this bizarre intensity that makes him come across as being an entitled frat boy. I didn’t care about Danny and his wedding and, as a result, I really didn’t care when Danny woke up to discover that he had married Christie (Misty Rowe), the dancer from his bachelor party. Danny was desperate to get the marriage annulled, even though it had already been consummated. Unfortunately, Tattoo was of little help. When Christie suddenly disappeared, Danny was arrested for her murder!
Wow, that took a turn.
Not to worry, though. Danny escapes from jail, goes to a Fantasy Island dive bar, and discovers that Christie faked her own death so Danny could marry the woman that he has been pretending to love. But then Danny realizes that Christie is who he loves so he stays married to her. I felt bad for Christie since Danny came across as if he was destined to be bitter and washed-up by the time he hit 30.
You may have noticed that I said Tattoo was the one who explained to Danny that his marriage could not be annulled. That’s because Mr. Roarke had a mission of his own to deal with in this episode. When Lisa Corday (Tina Louise) came to the Island, her fantasy was one that caused Mr. Roarke much concern. Haunted by nightmares, Lisa wanted to visit the castle that she frequently saw in her dreams. Roarke immediately knew that the castle was the home of the infamous Elizabeth Bathory, the Hungarian noblewoman who was convicted of and executed for bathing in the blood of virgins. Apparently, Mr. Roarke played a role in trapping Elizabeth Bathory’s evil spirit inside of her castle and Elizabeth was using Lisa to get revenge on Roarke! (It should not be overlooked that, as a name, Lisa started out as a shortened version of Elizabeth. Then, everyone realized how pretty the name was on its own that Lisa soon became more popular than Elizabeth.) Roarke accompanied Lisa to the castle and, when Elizabeth’s spirit possessed Lisa, Roarke was there to battle Elizabeth, rescue Lisa, and banish Elizabeth back to Hell.
Wow, that’s pretty intense for Fantasy Island!
The Elizabeth Bathory storyline was so well-done and energetically acted by both Tina Louise and Ricardo Montalban that it more than made up for all the nonsense with David Cassidy. The castle was wonderfully creepy and Tina Louise portrayed demonic possession with the best of them. The whole storyline was wonderfully melodramatic and over the top. It also took advantage of the fact that, after three seasons, we’re still not quite sure who Mr. Roarke is. This episode suggests that Roarke has been around for a very long time and that he’s even more powerful than previously hinted.
Thanks to the evil efforts of Elizabeth Bathory, this was one of better episodes of Fantasy Island’s third season. Not even David Cassidy could bring it down.
First released in 1977, Double Nickels tells the story of two California highway patrolman. Smokey (Jack Vacek) and Ed (Ed Abrams) have been tasked with enforcing the speed limit but they’re usually too busy chasing each other up and down the highway to worry about doing their job and, in fact, they even have a friendly relationship with the local street racers.
Now, you may think Smokey and Ed are just wasting the tax payer’s money by taking such a casual attitude towards their work and technically, you’re right. But let’s be honest. Nobody likes the speed limit. There’s a reason why it’s usually the rural speed limit signs that end up getting used for target practice. Smokey and Ed are a part of the system for the paycheck but, deep down, they hate the system just as much as the rest of us do. They’re fighting the Man by taking his money and refusing to enforce his rules.
Anyway, one day, Smokey and Ed pull over George (George Cole). George explains that he’s got a pretty good thing going as a repo man. He and his associates drive up and down the California highways, repossessing cars for non-payment. George says that he could always use some help and Smokey and Ed decided to take him up on the offer. The only problem is that, as employees of the Highway Patrol, they’re not allowed to moonlight. So, when they repossess a car, they have to do it without getting caught by either the local police or the car’s former owners.
Double Nickels establishes its pattern early on. Smokey and Ed stake out a house and see the car that they’re repossessing. They repossess the car. They end up getting chased around by either the cops or the car’s owner or both. Smokey and Ed trade a few lame quips and then flirt with their waitress girlfriends. Eventually, George realizes that the people who have hired him are actually car thieves and Smokey and Ed have to break up the car theft ring but, regardless of any individual complications, the pattern pretty much remains the same throughout the film, with mild comedic moments followed by an elaborate car chase.
As long as the film focuses on the cars, it’s fine. The cars are the true star of the film. Jack Vacek and several other members of the cast and crew were previously involved with the production of the original Gone In 60 Seconds. Double Nickels never comes anywhere close to being as entertaining as Gone In 60Seconds but the car chases are still exciting enough to hold the viewer’s attention. Where Double Nickels struggles is whenever the focus shifts to the guys driving the car, as neither Jack Vacek nor Ed Arbams were particularly charismatic actors and neither really had the comedic timing necessary to pull off the film’s humor.
Despite its flaws, Double Nickels does have something of a following. Its popularity actually makes sense. Because the film’s plot is so simple, you can literally start watching the film at any point and automatically know exactly what’s going on. The makers of Double Nickels understood that, above all else, audiences love to watch fast cars do their thing.
Through the Shattered Lens