Robert Gribben | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!

This week, St. Eligius loses a resident.

Episode 2.21 “Rough Cut”

(Dir by Eric Laneuville, originally aired on May 9th, 1984)

Bobby Caldwell and Joan Halloran decide to stop being Boston’s most boring couple by taking an impromptu trip to Paris. But then Bobby catches himself in his zipper while trying to put on his pants sans underwear and the trip is cancelled. Bobby spends the rest of the episode walking very carefully.

Fiscus agrees to pose for a story on eligible Boston bachelors and soon finds himself being photographed wearing only a bow-tie and a pair of black briefs. That’s more of Howie Mandel than I’ve ever wanted to see. Potential suitors start to call the hospital. Fiscus is excited until his discovers that they’re all men.

Dr. Wendy Armstrong commits suicide.

St. Elsewhere was a show that frequently mixed comedy and drama but it was still undeniably jarring how this episode went from Howie Mandel getting half-naked and Mark Harmon stiffly moving down a hospital corridor to Dr. Armstrong downing a bunch of pills and dying in the OR. Wendy killed herself after she was told that she would be invited back to do the second year of her residency. (The first two seasons of St. Elsewhere represented a year in the life of its characters.) Bulimic, feeling guilty about a patient who miscarried, and traumatized by her assault at the hands of Peter White, Wendy ended things.

Before Wendy’s suicide, Westphall, Auschlander, and Craig had decided to cut Morrison from the program. While Craig and Auschlander respected Morrison as a person, they felt that he was still struggling as a doctor. Seriously, Dr. Craig? You took his dead wife’s heart but you won’t find him a place at the hospital? However, with Wendy dead, Morrison is invited to take her spot. Morrison accepts. So, I guess that worked out for him.

To the surprise of no one, Dr. White is also cut from the program. He loudly announces that he’s going to sue for his right to continue as a resident. “I’ll be back,” he shouts, sounding like Warren Stacy at the end of 10 To Midnight. Remember how that turned out?

10 To Midnight (1983, dir by J. Lee Thompson, DP: Adam Greenberg)

This was a good episode. Even though I never really cared much for Wendy’s character, her death was still handled well and it was emotionally effecting. Next week, the second season of St. Elsewhere comes to a close.

(MINOR SPOILERS)

First released in 1975 and subsequently included in a few hundred DVD box sets, Trip With The Teacher is yet another strange film from Crown International Pictures.

The film opens with a school bus driving through the California desert. On board the bus is Miss Tenny (Brenda Fogarty) and four teenage girls. One thing that I immediately noticed is that director Earl Barton — perhaps realizing that none of the girls had really been given any sort of individual personality — took the time to make sure each of the girls was color-coded so that the audience could keep them straight. One is dressed in all blue, another in all green, and then another is wearing an unfortunate canary yellow. Meanwhile, Julie (Cathy Worthington) is obviously meant to be the main girl because she’s allowed to wear not one but two colors — yellow and white. When we first meet this group, we’re told that they’re on a field trip to see some Navajo ruins but, later on in the film, Julie says that they’re on a camping trip that has nothing to do with school beyond the presence of their teacher. But the important thing is that they’re on a bus in the middle of the desert. (The bus, by the way, is being driven by Marvin, who is played by an actor named Jack Driscoll and who might as well have “doomed” tattooed on his forehead.)

Also in the desert are two motorcycle-riding brothers — goofy Pete (Robert Porter), who has a big mustache and seems like a nice guy up until he starts trying to kill people, and Al (Zalman King), who is surly, wears weird sunglasses, and suffers from narcolepsy. When Pete gets a flat tire out in the middle of the desert, he’s helped out by a passing motorcyclist named Jay (Robert Gribbin). (Al sleeps through the entire encounter.) Jay, who is oddly friendly and talkative, decides that he’ll ride along with these two strangers.

I’ve seen Trip With The Teacher a few times and I have to say that I have never really been able to figure out what’s supposed to be going on with Jay. He’s the film’s nominal hero but Robert Gribbin plays him as being such a talkative and outwardly friendly character that my natural impulse is to distrust him. Maybe I’ve seen too many films where the good Samaritan always turns out to be a psycho but Jay is simply too good to be true.

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The Way Too Friendly Jay

Briefly, this suspicion seems to be confirmed when Jay, Pete, and Al come riding up on the school bus and Jay sees Julie through a window. Julie smiles and waves at Jay and I don’t blame her because I probably would have done the same thing, because Jay is cute, motorcycles are sexy, and you have to do something to pass the time while you’re being driven through the desert. But then 30-something Jay smiles and starts to wave back at 16 year-old Julie and mouths something like, “Come over here!” before flashing a huge grin and the scene gets undeniably creepy.

(The creep factor is not lessened by Jay later telling Pete, “Gee, that Julie is a really cute girl.”)

Anyway, when the school bus eventually breaks down, the three motorcyclists stop to “help.” In this case, helps means that Pete and Al use their motorcycles to tow the bus to a remote desert cabin. After a fight that leaves Marvin dead, Pete and Al decide to take the teacher, the girls, and Jay hostage until they can figure out what to do….

Now, I said earlier that Trip With The Teacher is weird and, believe it or not, it’s not just because of Jay. In the role of Al, future director Zalman King gives one of the oddest cinematic performances that I have ever seen. King alternates between underplaying and overacting, randomly going from mumbling to such an extent that you can barely understand him to literally yelling out every single line. It’s a performance that is so strange that it transcends such mundane concepts as good or bad. Single-handedly, Zalman King creates a reason for people to actually sit through Trip With The Teacher.

Zalman King in Trip With The Teacher

The other odd thing about Trip With The Teacher is that, despite all of the bad things that happen on screen, the film features some oddly cheerful music. The film’s theme song is played over the end credits, which juxtaposes the music with scenes from the movie. It’s an odd experience, watching all of these tense scenes play out while listening to that cheerful music.

And you can watch those end credits below! (This, needless to say, is where the spoiler warning comes into effect.) In order to get the full effect, be sure to stick with the credits all the way until the music stops playing.

(A quick warning: Though Trip With The Teacher is actually pretty mild as far as 70s grindhouse and drive-in films are concerned, the end credits still feature a few images that some may find disturbing — especially if you haven’t actually seen the film. Once you’ve actually sat through the film and can put everything in context, it’s pretty much impossible to take any of it seriously.)