Tag Archives: Richard Roundtree

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 3.18 and 3.19 “Kinfolk/Sis & the Slicker/Moonlight & Moonshine/Too Close for Comfort/The Affair: Part 2”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986!  The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

This week, it’s a family affair on The Love Boat!

Episodes 3.18 & 3.19 “Kinfolk/Sis & the Slicker/Moonlight & Moonshine/Too Close for Comfort/The Affair: Part 2”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on January 19th, 1980)

Well, heck, it’s another double-sized, two-hour episode of The Love Boat.

This is actually the third two-hour episode of the third season, following the season premiere and the episode with the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.  I have to admit that I don’t really look forward to these two hour episodes because they’re usually a bit uneven.  The Love Boat was the perfect hour show, one that featured stories that were specifically designed to be neatly wrapped up in 40 minutes.  The two-hour episodes always seem to lose their narrative momentum after that first hour and that’s certainly the case here.

At the center of the episode is Danny Fields (Donny Osmond), a singer who has been booked to perform on the cruise.  Julie is convinced that Danny is going to be a big star and she’s even convinced a talent scout named Steve Sorrell (Rich Little) to board the ship so that he can see Danny perform.  However, Steve is more interested in Kitty Scofield (Loni Anderson), an innocent West Virginia girl who is eager to see the rest of the world but who is also engaged to marry the unambitious Elmer Fargas (Randall Carver).  Kitty is also Danny’s sister and, in fact, Danny’s entire family (played by Richard Paul, Marion Ross, and Slim Pickens) are on the cruise.  Danny is worried that his hillbilly family will stand in the way of his rock ‘n’ roll career and he goes out of his way to avoid them.  While the rest of the Scofields are willing to accept that Danny doesn’t want to associate with them, Grandpa Luke Scofield (Slim Pickens) lets Danny know that he’s not to happy with Danny and his rock ‘n’ roll ways.  Of course, Luke himself is being courted by Brenda Watts (Eve Arden), a writer who wants to write about the Scofield family and who gets close to them by pretending to be from West Virginia herself.

Fortunately, Danny comes to realize the error of his ways, especially after he sees how Steve has been manipulating his sister.  At his next performance, Danny introduces his family and sings Country Roads especially for them.  Meanwhile, Kitty realizes that she needs to be independent for a while so she dumps both Steve and Elmer, though it’s suggested that she’ll eventually give Elmer a second chance.  Brenda comes clean to Luke about not being a hillbilly and Luke eventually forgives her because he’s in love with her and Brenda’s in love with him.  Even old Steve turns out to be not such a bad guy, though he does tell Danny that his record label just isn’t looking for any new country acts.  Hmmm …. maybe Danny should have stuck with the rock ‘n’ roll.  Oh well!

Got all that?  I hope so because I’m not typing all that out again.

Meanwhile, Frank (Robert Guillaume) and Maura Bellocque (Denise Nicholas) are taking the cruise with their best friends, Dave (Richard Roundtree) and Cynthia Wilbur (Pam Grier).  Frank and Cynthia are having an affair and they aren’t particularly discreet about it.  I was expecting Maura to decide that maybe she and Dave should have an affair of their own but instead, she just spent the entire cruise glaring at Frank.  This was actually a surprisingly dramatic story, one that did not end with the expected positive outcome.  (Is this the first cruise of the Love Boat to end in divorce?)  This is a story that demands at least one big, explosive moment but instead, it was all surprisingly low-key.

Finally, the sprinkler system malfunctioned while the boat was in dock and the cabins of Doc, Gopher, and Isaac were flooded.  So, they move in with the Captain!  The Captain is not amused by Doc’s snoring, Gopher’s New Age chanting, or Isaac’s disco dancing.  And when Doc, Gopher, and Isaac all try to bring different women back to the cabin with them, no one is amused by that.  I’m not really sure I understand why they all had move in together.  Why couldn’t Doc just sleep in his doctor’s office and maybe Isaac and Gopher could have shared an empty passenger’s cabin during the cruise?  (Julie did mention that there were some “small” cabins available.)  Anyway, the important thing is that they all manage to survive the cruise without killing each other.

This was an uneven episode.  The Captain annoyed with everyone as funny because Gavin MacLeod was always amusing whenever he acted annoyed.  The storyline with the cheating couple was well-acted, if dramatically a bit unsatisfying.  But then you get to all the stuff about Danny and his country family.  I know that The Love Boat is not meant to be a realistic or particularly nuanced show but still, Danny’s family was portrayed as being such a bunch of hicks that I was half-expecting them to ask the Captain whether he ever worried about the boat sailing over the edge of the world.  Loni Anderson and Slim Pickens gave likable performances but Donny Osmond was incredibly bland as Danny and the scenes where he “performed” featured some truly abysmal lip-synching.  It was also a bit difficult to buy Rich Little as a swinger.  He came across like he just couldn’t wait to get back home and hang out at the Elks Lodge.

This episode probably would have been fun if it had played out over a compact 60 minutes but, at two hours, things were just stretched a bit too thin.

Maniac Cop (1988, directed by William Lustig)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In New York City, murders are being committed by a hulking man dressed in a policeman’s uniform.  The NYPD brass (led by William Smith and Richard Roundtree) want to cover up the fact that the murders are being committed by an apparent maniac cop but Lt. Frank McRae (Tom Atkins) leaks the news to the press.  With the citizens taking up arms against cops, the brass is eager to frame adulterous cop Jack Forrest (Bruce Campbell) for not only murdering his wife but also committing all of the murders.  Lt. McRae believes that Jack is innocent.

Why is the brass so eager to frame Jack?  Maybe it’s because they know that the Maniac Cop is actually Matt Cordell (Robert Z’Dar), a formerly good cop who was sent to Sing Sing on  trumped up brutality charges.  Cordell was killed in prison but he has now come back to life and is seeking revenge on the police force that he feels betrayed him.

Written by Larry Cohen and directed by William Lustig, Maniac Cop is the first of three Maniac Cop films.  While the other two Maniac Cop movies largely work and hold up well, the first Maniac Cop is undoubtedly the worst of the trilogy, with most of the kills occurring offscreen and the action moving very slowly.  The film is full of genre vets and Tom Atkins gives another one of this good tough guy performances.  Bruce Campbell disappointingly plays his role straight and Robert Z’Dar, as intimidating as he is, is actually underused in this film.

As with most films written by Cohen, Maniac Cop has an interesting political subtext.  It focuses on cop brutality and corruption with Cordell becoming a symbol of most people’s mixed feelings about the police.  But the Maniac Cop trilogy wouldn’t really come to life until the second film.  The first spends a lot of time setting Cordell up as a relentless avenger but there’s not much of pay-off.

Scenes I Love: The Opening of Shaft

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today is the birthday of Richard Roundtree so, of course, today’s scene that I love could only be the classic opening of 1971’s Shaft.

By doing something as simple as walking down a street in New York, Roundtree shows us exactly who Shaft is and why Shaft does what he does.  This is one of those scenes that’s been parodied so many times that it’s actually surprising to rewatch and see how just defiant and sexy Richard Roundtree’s confident strut actually was.

On another note, I enjoy seeing all of the names of the movies that were playing on 42nd Street when this scene was filmed.

6 Classic Trailers For Loyalty & Law Day!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Since today is both Loyalty and Law Day here in the United States, it’s time for a special edition of Lisa Marie’s Grindhouse Trailers!

  1. The Super Cops (1974)

So, you think you can just ignore the law, huh?  Well, the Super Cops have got something to say about that!  This film was based on the “true” adventures of two widely decorated NYPD cops.  The cops were so good at their job that they were even nicknamed Batman and Robin.  Of course, long after this movie came out, it was discovered that they were both corrupt and were suspected of having committed more crimes than they stopped.  Amazingly, this film was directed by the same man who did Shaft.  The Super Cops are kind of annoying, to be honest.

2. Super Fuzz (1980)

Far more likable than The Super Cops was Super Fuzz.  Terence Hill plays a Florida cop who gets super powers!  Ernest Borgnine is his hapless partner.  The film was directed by Sergio Corbucci, of Django fame.

3. Miami Supercops (1985)

In 1985, Terence Hill returned as a Florida cop in Miami Supercops.  This time, his old partner Bud Spencer accompanied him.

4. Miami Cops (1989)

Apparently, Miami needed a lot of cops because Richard Roundtree decided to join the force in 1989.  Unfortunately, I could only find a copy of this trailer in German but I think you’ll still get the idea.

5. The Soldier (1982)

In order to celebrate loyalty, here’s the trailer for 1982’s The Soldier!  They’re our government’s most guarded secret …. or, at least, they were.  Then someone made a movie about them.

And finally, what better way to celebrate both Loyalty and Law Day than with a film that pays tribute to the Molokai Cops?  From Andy Sidaris, it’s….

6. Hard Ticket To Hawaii (1987)

Happy May Day!

Monday Live Tweet Alert: Join Us For Flight 93 and Seven!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be 2006’s Flight 93!  Selected and hosted by @Titus88Titus, Flight 93 is a docudrama about one of the planes that was hijacked on September 11th, 2001 and the heroic passengers who bravely fought back.  The movie starts at 8 pm et and it is available on YouTube.

Following #MondayActionMovie, Brad and Sierra will be hosting the #MondayMuggers live tweet.  We will be watching 1995’s Seven, the trend-setting and still disturbing horror film that established David Fincher as a director and which starred Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Richard Roundtree.  (Yes, Shaft is in the movie.)  The film is available on Netflix.  It starts at 10 pm et.

It should make for a night of intense viewing and I invite all of you to join in.  If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto twitter, start Flight 93 at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag!  Then, at 10 pm et, start Seven and use the #MondayMuggers hashtag!  The live tweet community is a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.  And reviews of these films will probably end up on this site at some point over the next few weeks. 

Lisa Marie’s Grindhouse Trailers: 6 Trailers For The Second Thursday In October

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

We are rapidly reaching the halfway mark of our October horrorthon here at the Shattered Lens. By the time we reach the end of the first half at midnight on Saturday, we will have published over 200 posts. During the second half, we’ll publish …. well, let’s not speculate. You never know. The world could end tomorrow and, as a result, we might never post again. What’s important is that I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished so far and I look forward to seeing what we accomplish during the rest of the month!

(That said, I’m hoping for another 250 to 300 or so posts. 500 FOR OCTOBER! It seems like a reasonable go. We’ll see!)

Anyway, today seems like a good time for another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse Trailers! And, since today is Jack Arnold’s birthday, it only seems appropriate that today’s edition deals with giant creature features!

  1. Q: The Winged Serpent (1982)

From director Larry Cohen, it’s Q The Winged Serpent! I’ve seen this movie and it’s undeniably entertaining. On the one hand, you’ve got the serpent flying around and looking all dangerous. Then you’ve got David Carradine and Richard Roundtree kind of sleepwalking through their roles. And then, suddenly, Michael Moriarty shows up and gives this brilliant, method-influenced performance. It’s an odd film but it’s hard not to like that Claymation flying serpent.

2. The Giant Spider Invasion (1975)

From Wisconsin’s own Bill Rebane, here’s the trailer for The Giant Spider Invasion! This is probably Rebane’s best film. If you’re trying to frighten your audience, you can’t go wrong with a giant spider.

3. Empire of the Ants (1977)

What’s the only thing scarier than a giant spider? A giant ant, of course! This film is from Bert I. Gordon, a director so obsessed with films about giant monsters that he was actually nicknamed Mr. BIG. (Of course, it also helped that those were his initials.)

4. Food of the Gods (1976)

Speaking of Bert I. Gordon, he was also responsible for this film, Food of the Gods. Like Empire of the Ants, it was based (however loosely) on a novel by H.G. Wells. Two old farmers feed the food of the Gods to the local animals and things do not go well. For some reason, a football player played by Marjoe Gortner decides to investigate. Shouldn’t he be practicing for the big game? Gordon missed an opportunity here by not having a giant-sized Marjoe Gortner.

5. Night of the Lepus (1972)

As frightening as those previous trailers were, can anything prepare you for the terror of killer rabbits!? This movie is proof positive that rabbits look cute no matter who they’re killing.

6. Village of the Giants (1965)

In the end, though, the greatest monster will always be man. By the way, this is another Bert I. Gordon film. Beau Bridges turns into a giant and plots to conquer the world. Only a young Ron Howard can stop him.

I hope you’re having a wonderful October! Never stop watching the shadows!

A Time To Die (1991, directed by Charles T. Kanganis)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Jackie (Traci Lords) is a single mom and a photographer who loses custody of her son when she’s framed for cocaine possession by a corrupt cop named Eddie Martin (Robert Miano).  Jackie is released from jail early, on the condition that she do 400 hours of community service.  Specifically, she is ordered to take pictures of the LAPD doing a good job and not killing people.  Captain Ralph Phibbs (Richard Roundtree) makes it very clear that she is to take only positive pictures of the LAPD or she could go back to jail and end up never seeing her son again.

However, even while doing community service, Jackie’s a rebel.  She decides to follow around Eddie and get pictures of him engaged in the same type of corruption that got her sent to prison.  Jackie manages to get Eddie on film murdering a pimp but, instead of going to the authorities, she wants to use the picture to blackmail Eddie into clearing her name.  Eddie, who has a cocaine problem, doesn’t respond well to being blackmailed and he decides to get the negatives and kill Jackie, not necessarily in that order.

While Eddie’s trying to kill Jackie, Frank (Jeff Conaway), another cop, is trying to maneuver his way into Jackie’s bed.  At first, Jackie doesn’t trust Frank because he’s a cop but then Frank takes her on a date to a domestic disturbance call and soon, she’s falling for him.  Frank, though, might not be as trustworthy as he seems.

This is one of the many direct-to-video thrillers in which Traci Lords appeared in the years immediately following her forced retirement from the adult film industry.  As was often the case with her 90s films, Lords is the best thing about A Time To Die.  In this film, Traci Lords again shows that she was a good actress.  Unfortunately, because of her past, she never got the type of roles that she really deserved.  In A Time To Die, she is believably tough and she makes the clunkiest dialogue credible.  Unfortunately, the other members of the cast don’t try anywhere near as hard as Lords does to bring some sort of reality to their stereotypical roles.  Conaway and Miano both sleepwalk through their roles while Richard Roundtree is reduced to getting mad and doing a lot of shouting.  Though the plot is sometimes predictable and it doesn’t take a psychic to know that Eddie is eventually going to go after Jackie’s son, the story is still interesting enough to hold your attention while your watching the movie.

A Time To Die is an occasionally interesting B-thriller that is elevated by the efforts of Traci Lords.

The Baron and the Kid (1984, directed by Gary Nelson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Ever wonder what The Color of Money would have been like if it starred Johnny Cash and featured less Eric Clapton but more country and western on the soundtrack?  The Baron and the Kid is here to satisfy your curiosity.

Johnny Cash is Will Addington, better known as The Baron.  Back in the day, The Baron was the meanest and the most ruthless pool hustler around.  He’d cheat people out of their money without even giving it a second thought.  He drank.  He doped.  He womanized.  He abused his wife, Dee Dee (June Carter Cash).  After the Baron became the 9-ball world champion, Dee Dee left him and the Baron changed his ways.  Now, years later, he only plays exhibition games for charity and the strongest thing that he drinks is grapefruit juice.

When a young hustler who calls himself the Cajun Kid (Greg Webb) challenges the Baron to a game, the Baron wins easily but he still recognizes that the Kid has a natural talent.  When the Cajun Kid attempts to put up his mother’s wedding ring as stakes for another game, the Baron recognizes the ring as the one that Dee Dee used to wear on her finger.  After talking to Dee Dee, the Baron discovers that the Kid is actually his son.

The Baron takes the Kid under his wing, hoping to train him to become a champion while, at the same time, getting to know his son.  The Kid proves to be a difficult student.  He’s cocky and, like the Baron did in his youth, he has a temper.  He also has a manager, a good-for-nothing con artist named Jack Steamer (Darren McGavin).  Steamer doesn’t want to lose the money that the Kid brings in and he plots to to keep him away from his father.  The Baron, though, is determined to prevent the Kid from making the same mistakes that he made.  However, when the Baron and the Kid both find themselves competing in the same championship, the Baron finds himself being tempted by his old demons.

The Baron and the Kid is okay for a made-for-tv movie.  It’s predictable but Johnny Cash has such a formidable screen presence that it doesn’t matter that he was sometimes a stiff actor.  The Baron’s past of booze and drugs mirrors Cash’s own past and when Cash, as the Baron, talks about how he’s trying to keep the Kid from making the sames mistakes, there’s little doubt that he knows what he’s talking about.  Some of the pool sequences are creatively shot and Richard Roundtree has a great cameo as a cocaine dealer named Frosty.  There’s nothing surprising about The Baron and the Kid but fans of Cash and the game of pool should enjoy it.

Original Gangstas (1996, directed by Larry Cohen)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Original Gangstas opens with shots of the deserted streets and burned-out store fronts of Gary, Indiana and narration telling us how a once great American city came to be in such disrepair.  The steel plant closed and put much of the city out of work.  While the politicians and the police looked the other way, violent street gangs rose up and took over entire neighborhoods.  Now, Gary is a shell of its former self.  Even the local movie theater has closed down.  The narrators tells us that the last movie to play at the theater was Star Wars.

Led by Spyro (Christoper B. Duncan) and Damien (Eddie Bo Smith, Jr.), the Rebels are the most feared and powerful gang in Gary.  They rule through violence and intimidation.  Talk to the police and your business is liable to get torched and you’re likely to get shot.  However, Spyro and Damien have finally gone too far and now, two men who previously escaped from Gary are returning to town to dish out some justice.

John Bookman (Fred Williamson) is a former football player who wants to avenge the shooting of his father.  Jake Trevor (Jim Brown) is a boxer who once killed a man in the ring and who wants revenge for the death of his son.  When they were young men, John and Jake were the original Rebels and now they’re getting the old gang back together again.  With the help of Laurie (Pam Grier), Rev. Dorsey (Paul Winfield), Bubba (Ron O’Neal), and Slick (Richard Roundtree), the original gangstas are going to take back the streets of Gary.

Original Gangstas was released at a time when, largely thanks to the influence of Quentin Tarantino, people were just starting to feel nostalgic for the old blaxploitation movies.  The main appeal of the film, not surprisingly, is that it brings together so many of the great blaxploitation stars and sets them loose in what was then the modern era.  (Jim Kelly is missed.)  When John and Jake talk about how they’re responsible for the Rebels, they could just as easily be talking about how they’re responsible for both all of the independent crime films that came out in the wake of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

Original Gangstas is a tribute to both the Blaxploitation genre and the oversized personalities that made that era so memorable.  Neither Fred Williamson, Jim Brown, nor Richard Roundtree were particularly good actors but they all had so much screen presence and such an innate sense of cool that it didn’t matter whether they could convincingly show emotion or not.  (Original Gangstas gives all of the big dramatic scenes to Pam Grier, who was not only naturally cool but a damn good actress to boot.)  The minute Fred Williamson lights his cigar, he control the entire movie.  He and Jim Brown make a good team and Original Gangstas is an entertaining and violent trip down memory lane.