The time is World War II and, for the British, the American army is “overpaid, oversexed, and over here.” David Halloran (Harrison Ford) is a pilot who has been stationed in England. With no loved ones to worry about, David has no fear of flying over occupied France and dropping bombs on the Nazis below. But then David meets an English nurse, Margaret (Lesley-Anne Down). As David falls in love, he loses his enthusiasm for the war because he now has “a reason to live.” The only problem is that Margaret is already married to Paul (Christopher Plummer), an officer in British Intelligence. When David accepts an assignment to fly a British agent into France, he is shocked when the agent turns out to be Paul. When David’s plane crashes, he and Paul have to work together to complete Paul’s mission and escape back to Britain.
Hanover Street is a very old-fashioned and very slow wartime romance. If not for a love scene between Lesley-Ann Down and Harrison Ford, this movie could probably pass for a 1940s film, just not a good one. The most interesting thing about Hanover Street is how awkward Harrison Ford seems to be. Hanover Street was made shortly after Star Wars made him a sudden star and Ford still doesn’t seem like he’s comfortable with the whole idea of being a movie star. Fortunately, for Ford, he still had Indiana Jones in his future.
Last month, before I saw the latest film version of Stephen King’s It, I watched the 1990 miniseries version.
This was my first time to watch the It miniseries, though I had certainly heard about it. Most of the reviews that I had read seemed to be mixed. Everyone seemed to agree that Tim Curry was the perfect choice for the role of Pennywise the Dancing Clown. However, many other reviewers complained that the program’s television origins kept It from being as effective as it could be. “Not as scary as the book,” everyone seemed to agree. The actors who played the members of the Loser Clubs as children all seemed to receive general acclaim but not everyone seemed to be as enamored with the adult cast. And everyone, even those who liked the miniseries as a whole, complained about the show’s finale, in which Pennywise took the form of a giant spider.
Well, I have to agree about the giant spider. That spider looked painfully fake, even by the standards of 1990s television. Not only does the spider look too fake to truly be scary but, once that spider showed up, that meant that Tim Curry disappeared from the film. Curry deserved every bit of acclaim that he received for playing the role of Pennywise.
All that said, the miniseries was still a lot better than I had been led to believe.
Certainly, it’s not as frightening as the book or the movie. Considering that the It miniseries was produced for network television, that’s not surprising. As opposed to the movie, the miniseries attempts to cover King’s entire novel. That’s a lot of material, even when you have a five hour running time. Obviously, a good deal of the story had to be cut and there are a few scenes in the miniseries that feel a bit rushed. Characters like Audrey Denbrough and Stanley Uris, who were compelling in the novel, are reduced to being mere bystanders. Some of the novel’s most horrific scenes — like Henry Bowers cutting Ben — are either excised or heavily toned down. If the novel was as much about the hypocrisy of the adults of Derry as the paranormal horror of Pennywise, that theme is largely left out of the miniseries.
That said, It still had its share of memorable moments. The image of a clown standing on the side of the road, holding balloons, and waving is going to be creepy, regardless of whether it’s found in a R-rated film or on ABC. The death of little George Denbrough is horrific, regardless of whether you actually the bone sticking out of his wound or not. Even the library scene, in which a grown-up Richie Tozier deals with a balloon filled with blood, was effectively surreal.
As for the actors who played the members of the Losers Club, the results were occasionally uneven. The actors who played them as children were all believable and had a credible group chemistry. You could imagine all of them actually being friends. As for the adults, some of them I liked more than others. Harry Anderson, Dennis Christopher, and Tim Reid gave the best performances out of the group. John Ritter and Annette O’Toole were somewhere in the middle. Richard Thomas was absolutely awful and I found myself snickering whenever he was filmed from behind and I saw his pony tail. Richard Masur, unfortunately, wasn’t around long enough to make much of an impression one way or the other.
Ultimately, though, the miniseries (much like the book) suffers because the adults are never as interesting as Pennywise. Tim Curry dominates the entire movie and, when he’s not onscreen, his absence is definitely felt. Watching the miniseries made me appreciate why the film version kept Pennywise’s screen time to a minimum. Pennywise is such a flamboyant and dominant character that, if not used sparingly, he can throw the entire production out of balance.
Despite its flaws, I liked the miniseries. Yes, it’s uneven. Yes, it’s toned down. Yes, it works better in pieces than as a whole. But, taken on its own terms, It was effective. Director Tommy Lee Wallace creates a suitably ominous atmosphere and the child actors are all properly compelling. And, finally, that damn clown is always going to freak me out.
Just for fun, here’s a trailer for It, recut as a family film:
There are several lessons that can be learned from watching horror films. One that is often overlooked is the importance of staying out of trailer parks. Seriously, I have lost track of how many horror films have taken place within the confines of a trailer park. Once you see someone surrounded by RVs and mobile homes, you know that they’re probably doomed.
Take 1989’s Far From Home, for instance.
Far From Home is set in perhaps the sleaziest trailer park in America. This place sits in the middle of the Nevada desert and is run by chain-smoking Agnes Reed (Susan Tyrrell), who has a voice like a bullfrog, a daughter (Stephanie Walski) who is obsessed with watching TV and eating fishsticks, and a delinquent teenage son named Jimmy (Andras Jones).
The only law is provided by Sheriff Bill Childers (Dick Miller), who has a squad car but apparently no deputies. Childers is gruff but not that bad of a guy once you get to know him. However, he’s also played by Dick Miller and we all know better than to depend on Dick Miller to maintain the peace.
There’s a gas station nearby. A mellow Vietnam vet named Duckett (Richard Masur) owns it. Duckett is always willing to be helpful but he rarely has any gas. This is one of those small towns where the gas truck apparently only rolls in every two months or so. Still, Duckett’s a nice guy and he’s full of stories about how the government used to do atomic bomb tests in the surrounding desert.
(The scenes where Duckett drives around the desert feel somewhat out of place but they’re still enjoyable, due to Masur’s eccentric performance.)
Living in the trailer park, there’s a lot of odd people. Some of them are permanent residents while some of them are just temporarily stranded. 14 year-old Pinky (Anthony Rapp, who would go on to appear in Dazed and Confused and Rent) lives with his mother and is a permanent resident. His mother is rarely seen, though occasionally she can be glimpsed through a window, propped up in front of the TV. Pinky says that, when he was a kid, he and Jimmy were best friends. But now, Jimmy and Pinky are enemies.
And then there’s Amy (Jennifer Tilly) and Louise (Karen Austin), who are just waiting for enough gas to come in to be able to get Amy’s car to start running again. Louise is intelligent and responsible. Amy is flighty and undependable. As soon as one of them accidentally pulls the handle off the driver’s side door, you just know one of them is going to end up getting trapped in that car at a bad moment.
When Far From Home opens, two newcomers have moved into the trailer park. Writer, divorced father, and self-described “former angry young man” Charlie Cox (Matt Frewer) has just spent a month with his 13 year-old daughter, Joleen (Drew Barrymore, who was 14 when she made Far From Home). It hasn’t exactly been a great vacation and it doesn’t get any better when Charlie’s car runs out of gas. Joleen is about to turn fourteen and she doesn’t want to spend her birthday in a crummy trailer park with her incredibly dorky dad.
However, both Jimmy and Pinky are happy that Joleen will be spending at least a day or two at the trailer park. At first, Joleen crushes on Jimmy and then, after Jimmy reveals himself to be aggressive and unstable, she crushes on Pinky, who protects her from Jimmy. One of the two boys is so obsessed with Joleen that he is willing to commit murder to keep her from leaving the trailer park. But which one?
(It’s actually pretty obvious but you probably already guessed that.)
Far From Home is a film about which I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, the movie’s totally predictable. Characters do dumb things for no real reason beyond needing to move the plot forward. Charlie’s parenting abilities change drastically from scene to scene. A traumatized character goes from catatonic to recovered to catatonic again with no real explanation.
One of my main issues with the film is that there’s no real surprise about who the killer turns out to be. Even worse, once the killer’s identity is revealed, the killer suddenly turns into one of those psychos who can come up with a dozen one-liners while trying to kill someone. I mean, seriously, who does that? Are movie psychos required to take a year’s worth of improv clubs and do an apprenticeship with the Upright Citizens Brigade before they’re allowed to pick up a knife? If I was the type to commit murder (and I’m not but let’s just say that I was), I would be too busy trying to make sure everyone was dead to be witty. I’d save the jokes until I was safely on a beach somewhere, drinking pink lemonade and keeping an eye out for Ben Gardner’s boat. That’s just me, I guess.
And yet, there’s a part of me that really likes this stupid, stupid movie. It’s a surprisingly well-directed film, full of artfully composed shots. The trailer park really does take on a life of its own and the film also makes good use of a nearby abandoned apartment building. It’s a great location and, occasionally, it lends the film a dash of surrealism. (Of course, I guess you could legitimately ask who would build an apartment complex in the middle of the desert, especially one that’s still humming with radiation from the Atomic bomb tests, but let’s not.) Richard Masur, Dick Miller, and Susan Tyrrell all give good performances. For that matter, the same is true of Anthony Rapp and Andras Jones. Neither Rapp nor Jones are to blame for the fact that they were let down by a weak script.
Though I doubt either one of them would describe Far From Home as being their proudest cinematic achievement, Matt Frewer and Drew Barrymore are totally believable as father and daughter. In the end, that’s why I like this movie. Whenever I’ve watched Far From Home, I’ve always been able to relate to Joleen. When I was thirteen, I basically was Joleen.
Fortunately, though, I was never found myself stranded in a trailer park full of homicidal maniacs.
When game designer Milton Parker (Vincent Price) dies, all of his greedy relatives and his servants gather for the reading of his will. Parker’s lawyer, Benstein (Robert Morley), explains that Parker is leaving behind a $200 million dollar estate to whoever can win an elaborate scavenger hunt. Dividing into five teams, the beneficiaries head out to track down as many items as they can by five o’clock that evening. Among the items that they have to find: a toilet, a cash register, an ostrich, a microscope, and an obese person. Hardy har har.
The five teams are made up of a who’s who of sitcom and television actors who had time to kill in 1979. The Odd Couple‘s Tony Randall is Henry Motely, who is Parker’s son-in-law and who works with his four children. Soap‘s Richard Mulligan plays a blue-collar taxi driver named Marvin Dummitz (because funny names are funny) who teams up with his friend, Merle (Stephen Furst). The Mary Tyler Moore Show‘s Cloris Leachman (an Oscar winner, no less) gets stuck with the role of Milton’s greedy sister, Mildred. She works with her conniving lawyer (Richard Benjamin) and her stupid son (Richard Masur). Maureen Teefy plays Milton’s niece while his nephews are played by Willie Aames and Dirk Benedict. Cleavon Little, James Coco, Roddy McDowall, and Stephanie Faracy play the servants.
It doesn’t stop there, though. Avery Schreiber plays a zookeeper. Meat Loaf plays a biker who beats up Richard Benjamin. Ruth Gordon, Stuart Pankin, Pat McCormick, and Scatman Crothers all have cameos. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger makes an appearance as a gym instructor who knocks Tony Randall out of a second story window.
There are a lot of famous people in Scavenger Hunt. It’s just too bad that the movie itself is barely watchable and not at all funny. It tries to go for the zaniness of It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World but, unless watching Willie Aames steal a clown head from Jack in the Box is your idea of hilarity, the film never comes close to succeeding. Michael Schultz directed some classic films (like Car Wash) during the 1970s but, unfortunately, he also directed Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and this.
Scavenger Hunt used to show up on a late night television, where it was always advertised as starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. (He barely has five minutes of screentime.) It was released on DVD/Blu-ray earlier this year but watching for the cameos is the only reason to take part in this Scavenger Hunt.
“It was great the way her mind worked. No guilt, no doubts, no fear. None of my specialities. Just the shameless pursuit of immediate gratification. What a capitalist.” — Joel Goodson (Tom Cruise) in Risky Business (1983)
So, this is the film where Tom Cruise — playing a high school senior named Joel, who has been left at home on his own while his wealthy parents go on vacation — ends up dancing around his living room in his underwear. It’s a scene that has shown up in countless awards show montages and which has been parodied, imitated, and recreated to such an extent that even people who have never seen the movie know the scene.
Risky Business is about a lot of different things. It’s a coming-of-age film. It’s both a celebration and a satire of material excess and greed. It’s a time capsule of the 80s. It’s a comedy. It’s a drama. It’s a somewhat twisted romance. It features good performances, clever dialogue, and an excellent soundtrack. It’s a film that does for “Sometimes you just go to say, ‘What the fuck?'” what Dead Poets Society did for “Carpe Diem.”
But ultimately, for a lot of people, Risky Business is always just going to be about Tom Cruise dancing in his underwear.
And why not? It’s a great scene, one that deserves its fame. I’m not just saying that just because I happen to love dance scenes in general. When Joel celebrates having the house to himself by dancing, he’s also celebrating his independence. He’s celebrating the fact that he can do whatever he wants. He’s celebrating freedom. It’s true that sometime you just got to say, “What the fuck?” But some other times, you just have to dance.
And you can’t deny that Tom Cruise is at his most appealing and spontaneous in this scene. Actually, he’s at his most appealing and spontaneous throughout the entire film. Up until I watched Risky Business, my main impression of Tom Cruise was that he was the creepy guy who forced Katie Holmes to abandon Catholicism for Scientology and chop off her hair. I knew he was an okay actor but his greater appeal was lost on me. I think that if I had gotten to know the Tom Cruise in Risky Business before I got to know the Tom Cruise who jumped up and down on that couch and who is rumored to be the secret leader of Scientology, I might have a different opinion of him as an actor.
Anyway, with all that said, here’s that famous scene:
As I said, as famous as that scene may be, there’s actually a lot more to Risky Business than just Tom Cruise dancing in his underwear. In fact, you could remove that entire scene and Risky Business would remain one of the defining films of the 80s. It tells the story of Joel Goodson who lives up to his name in almost every way. He’s a very good son. He gets good grades in high school. He’s a member of the Future Enterprisers of America. His father has decided that Joel is going to go to Princeton and Joel isn’t one to argue. When his parents leave him alone at the house, they also leave him with a long list of rules and they have every reason to believe that Joel will follow every one of them.
But then Joel meets a prostitute named Lana (Rebecca De Mornay) and he makes an enemy out of Guido the Killer Pimp (Joe Pantoliano) and then his father’s car ends up rolling into a river and, next thing you know, Joel is partnering up with Lana to turn his house into a brothel and they’re making $8,000 in one night.
And really, as good as Tom Cruise is, Rebecca De Mornay is even better because she has a tougher role to play. As written, Lana is essentially a male fantasy figure. (And there’s still a part of me that suspect the entire film was meant to be Joel’s daydream.) But, as played by De Mornay, Lana actually becomes a real human being and someone who definitely has something important to say. If Cruise gives the film its energy and its heart, De Mornay gives the film a brain. It’s no coincidence that Joel is the one who dances in the living room while Lana is the one who sets up business deals. With her no-nonsense approach to life and her love of money, she comes to symbolize the film’s own conflicted views of wealth and success. It’s not by chance that the American flag appears on TV while Joel and Lana are fucking in the living room. Together, Joel and Lana are the perfect American success story.
The time is World War II and, for the British, the American army is “overpaid, oversexed, and over here.” David Halloran (Harrison Ford) is a pilot who has been stationed in England. With no loved ones to worry about, David has no fear of flying over occupied France and dropping bombs on the Nazis below. But then David meets an English nurse, Margaret (Lesley-Anne Down). As David falls in love, he loses his enthusiasm for the war because he now has “a reason to live.” The only problem is that Margaret is already married to Paul (Christopher Plummer), an officer in British Intelligence. When David accepts an assignment to fly a British agent into France, he is shocked when the agent turns out to be Paul. When David’s plane crashes, he and Paul have to work together to complete Paul’s mission and escape back to Britain.
When game designer Milton Parker (Vincent Price) dies, all of his greedy relatives and his servants gather for the reading of his will. Parker’s lawyer, Benstein (Robert Morley), explains that Parker is leaving behind a $200 million dollar estate to whoever can win an elaborate scavenger hunt. Dividing into five teams, the beneficiaries head out to track down as many items as they can by five o’clock that evening. Among the items that they have to find: a toilet, a cash register, an ostrich, a microscope, and an obese person. Hardy har har.
Through the Shattered Lens 