Tag Archives: Robert Hays

Made-For-TV Horror: The Initiation of Sarah (dir by Robert Day)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, poor Sarah.

Sarah (Kay Lenz) is attending college with her sister, Patty (Morgan Brittany).  Patty is pretty and popular and everyone wants to be her friend.  Sarah is withdrawn and a bit moody and people seem to go out of their way to avoid her.  Sarah, however, has a secret.  She can move and break things with her mind.  When a guy on the beach tries to force himself on Patty, Sarah uses her powers to push him away.  Later, when Sarah’s upset, she stares at a mirror until it cracks.

When Patty and Sarah visit their mother’s old sorority, Patty is a hit but Sarah is less popular.  The bitchy president of the Sorority, Jennifer Lawrence (Morgan Fairchild), is happy to invite Patty to join but she doesn’t want Sarah to be anywhere near her.  Sarah ends up joining the outcast PDE sorority.  Jennifer, however, remains obsessed with humiliating and destroying Sarah.  And Sarah, when she gets angry, has a tendency to cause things to happen….

This film, which aired in 1978, probably sounds like a rip-off of Carrie and, in many ways, it is.  For whatever reason, Sarah’s bullies seem to be obsessed with making her as miserable as possible.  In Carrie, one reason you hated the bullies was because Sissy Spacek gave such a heart-breaking, vulnerable and empathetic performance as Carrie White.  The bullies were terrible to begin with but then to pick on someone as fragile as Carrie?  It sucked William Katt had to die but there’s still a reason why the prom inferno makes as many people applaud as scream.  In The Initiation of Sarah, Kay Lenz is not particularly sympathetic as Sarah.  Even before the bullies start picking on her, Sarah comes across as being angry and bitter about …. well, everything.  Patty goes out of her way to take care of her sister but Sarah never seems to appreciate it.  Bullies still suck, of course.  There’s no excuse for being a bully and Jennifer really does go overboard when it comes to going after Sarah.  But Sarah herself still doesn’t necessarily come across as being someone you would want to join your sorority.

What sets The Initiation of Sarah apart from other Carrie rip-offs is the character of Mrs. Hunter (Shelley Winters).  Mrs. Hunter founded PDE when she was a student and now, as the school’s resident expert on paganism, she’s the housemother of PDE.  As soon as Sarah joins, Mrs. Hunter starts to talk about how Sarah is destined to lead PDE to glory.  When another member of PDE, Mouse (Tisa Farrow), takes a look in Mrs. Hunter’s room, she discovers a Satanic altar that is guarded by a fierce looking dog….

That’s right!  This isn’t just a rip-off of Carrie.  It’s a rip-off of The Omen as well!

Kay Lenz might be a bit on the dull side as Sarah but this film is worth watching for the performance of Morgan Fairchild and, especially, Shelley Winters.  As played by Fairchild, Jennifer is more than just a bitch.  She’s a sociopath with great hair.  Meanwhile, Shelley Winters — especially once the 70s started — was never a particularly low-key or subtle actress.  When you cast her as an overbearing housemother who happens to be the high priestess of a cult, you know that you’re going to get something worth watching.  Winters attacks the role with a ferocity that is occasionally over-the-top and almost funny but always entertaining.

The Initiation of Sarah is an enjoyable made-for-TV movie.  Watch it the next time you’re feeling nostalgic for college life.

Raw Justice (1994, directed by David Prior)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

When his daughter is strangled, New Orleans Mayor David Stiles (Charles Napier) hires ex-cop-turned-bounty-hunter Mace (David Keith) to keep an eye on the main suspect, Mitch McCullum (Robert Hays).  What the mayor doesn’t know is that his daughter’s murder was ordered by Deputy Mayor Jenkins (Stacy Keach) and now, both Mace and Mitch are being stalked by a crooked cop named Atkins (Leo Rossi).  Also getting involved in this mess is a hooker with a heart of gold named Sarah (Pamela Anderson), who is angry because Mace earlier stole his clothes while trying to get the jump on a bail jumper.  Sarah and Mitch soon fall in love.  Mace is good with a gun and Mitch turns out to know karate (because he watched a lot of Bruce Lee movies growing up) but the film’s high point is when one of the bad guys is taken out with a giant novelty dart.

The plot is dumb and David Keith comes across as being a discount version of Patrick Swayze but this film does give the always likable Robert Hays a good role and fans of Pamela Anderson (and you know who you are) will definitely appreciate at least two scenes in the movie.  Actually, Pamela Anderson isn’t bad in Raw Justice.  She’s mostly there for her looks but she still has a likable and energetic screen presence.  Otherwise, this is a typical low-rent David Prior production, complete with action scenes featuring guns that never run out of bullets (unless it’s convenient for the plot) and a score that is pretty much the same guitar riff over and over again.  It’s not exactly good but it is entertaining if you’re in the right mood.

This film was also released under the title Good Cop Bad Cop, which doesn’t make much sense because neither Keith nor Hays is playing  a cop.

Airplane II: The Sequel (1982, directed by Ken Finkleman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

It isn’t the past.  It isn’t the present.  It’s the future.

The moon has been colonized and, on Earth, the Mayflower II is preparing for its first international flight.  It will be carrying passengers from Houston to the lunar station.  Test pilot Ted Striker (Robert Hays) claims that the Mayflower II is not ready to make the trip but he’s been in the Ronald Reagan Hospital For The Mentally Ill ever since he had a nervous breakdown after losing his squadron during “the war.”

Aboard the Mayflower II is Ted’s ex-wife, Elaine (Julie Haggerty), and her new boyfriend, Simon (Chad Everett).  Simon says the Mayflower II is in perfect shape but he also turns into jelly whenever things get too rough.  Piloting the Mayflower II is Captain Clarence Oveur (Peter Graves) and waiting on the Moon is Commander Buck Murdock (William Shatner).  The crew of the Mayflower II is going to have a tough flight ahead of them.  Not only is the shipboard computer making plans of its own but one of the passengers (Sonny Bono) has a bomb in his briefcase.  Also, Ted has broken out of the hospital and is on the flight, boring people with his long stories.

Every successful film gets a sequel and when Airplane! was a surprise hit in 1980, it was inevitable that there would be an Airplane II.  Robert Hays, Julie Haggerty, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, and Stephen Stucker all returned.  Unfortunately, Jim Abrahams, the Zucker brothers, Robert Stack, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Leslie Nielsen did not.  (The directors and Nielsen were all working on Police Squad and their absence is strong felt.)  Airplane II recreates many of the same jokes as the first Airplane! but without the first film’s good nature or genuine affection for the disaster genre.  Airplane! was made for the love of comedy.  Airplane II was made for the love of money and, while there are more than a few amusing moments, the difference is obvious and there for all to see.

Not surprisingly, Airplane II is at its funniest whenever William Shatner is on screen.  In the role of Bud Murdock, Shatner pokes fun at his own image and shows himself to be a good sport.  He’s still not as funny as Leslie Nielsen or Robert Stack in the first film but that’s because, unlike Stack and Nielsen in their pre-Airplane! days, there had always been a hint of self-parody to Shatner, even in his most dramatic roles.  If Stack and Nielsen shocked people by showing that they could do deadpan comedy, Shatner’s performance just confirmed what most suspected, that he had always been in on the joke.  Still, he’s the funniest thing in Airplane II and, whenever I rewatch this movie, I am happy he was there.

Airplane II was a box office failure, which is why the world never got an Airplane III.  Fortunately, the world did get Hot Shots and The Naked Gun.

Airplane! (1980, directed by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Airplane!, which may be the funniest movie ever made, has made me laugh every time that I’ve watched it.  And I’ve watched it a lot!

Whenever I’m getting ready to travel for my day job, I watch Airplane!  Whenever I’m going to Baltimore or West Virginia for the holidays, I watch Airplane!  Whenever I’m in a bad mood and I need something lighten me up, I watch Airplane!  Whenever I’m in a good mood and I want to be in an even better mood, I watch Airplane!

I can’t remember how old I was when I first saw Airplane! but I know I wasn’t yet ten.  While a lot of the humor went over my head at that young age, it did not matter because I laughed at all the sight gags, like the heart hopping around on the doctor’s desk and the line of passengers waiting to “calm down” the hysterical woman.  I laughed when Ted Stryker (Robert Hays) and Elaine (Julie Haggerty) got covered in seaweed while making out on the beach.  I laughed at the people dying while listening to Ted’s story, even though I didn’t fully understand that it was because of Ted boring them to death.  I loved it when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar got annoyed with the kid in the cockpit, even though young me really didn’t know who Kareem was other than he was a basketball player.  Otto the autopilot was the coolest character around.  Stephen Stucker’s Johnny made me laugh with his nonstop energy.  “Excuse me, stewardess, I speak Jive.”  “And don’t call me Shirley.”  “It looks like I picked the wrong time to stop sniffing glue.”  Every time I heard them, I laughed at all of those lines.  I didn’t have to understand why Lloyd Bridges was suddenly upside down.  I just knew it was funny.

As I got older and rewatched the film, I started to pick up on the humor that earlier went over my head.  I traveled to Turkey when I was twelve and our tour guide spent an hour telling us that Midnight Express was not a fair representation of her country.  After that, I suddenly understood why Captain Oveur (Peter Graves) wanted to know if Joey had ever been to a Turkish prison.  I came to appreciate Julie Hagerty and Lorna Patterson as the two flight attendants.  Airplane! still made me laugh but I came to understand that it was also a love story.  What adolescent boy watching Airplane! didn’t want to be Robert Hays, not only landing the plane but also getting kiss Julie Hagerty at the end of the movie?

And then, as I learned more about the movies, I realized that Airplane! was a pitch perfect parody of the disaster genre and I came to understand the brilliance of casting actors like Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Peter Graves, and especially Leslie Nielsen in this film.  From the first time I saw the movie, Nielsen always made me laugh because he had the best lines and he delivered them with deadpan perfection.  But, as I got older, I came to understand that Nielsen was doing more than just saying funny things.  He was sending up his entire career.  I’m a part of the generation who grew up laughing at Leslie Nielsen the comedy superstar and it’s always strange for me to see him in one of his older, serious roles.  I have Airplane! to thank for that.

There’s so much to say about Airplane!  I could write a thousand words just talking about my favorite jokes and one-liners or how much I enjoyed Stryker’s flashbacks.  It’s my favorite movie and one that still makes me laugh even though I know all of the jokes by heart.  (I’ve always thought Howard Jarvis waiting for Stryker to return to the taxi was one of the best, though underrated, jokes in the movie.)  Airplane! is close to 50 years old and it’s still just as funny today as when I first saw it.

In fact, I think I’ll go watch it right now!

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 1.13 “Too Hot to Handle / Family Reunion / Cinderella Story”

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!

It’s Love!

Episode 1.13 “Too Hot to Handle / Family Reunion / Cinderella Story”

(Dir by James Sheldon and Richard Kinon, originally aired on January 7th, 1978)

It’s time for another cruise with three separate stories!

Newlyweds George (John Rubinstein) and Sally Allison (a youngish Kathy Bates) board the Pacific Princess, hoping to enjoy the ideal honeymoon.  Instead, it turns out to be one disaster after another.  Sally gets sunburned.  George gets poison ivy.  Having gotten off the boat in Mexico, Sally returns to discover a totally different couple staying in what she thinks is her cabin.  Uh-oh.  It turns out that Sally accidentally got on the Sun Princess and the Pacific Princess has already set sail without her!  This was a pretty simple storyline and, if anything, it mostly seemed to exist so that the show’s writers could see how many bad things that they could do to one perfectly innocent couple.  But John Rubinstein and Katy Bates are so likable as George and Sally that the story works.  You can’t help but hope the cruise gets a little better for them.  Kathy Bates was 29 when she appeared on The Love Boat and there’s nothing about her performance that would necessarily make you say, “Hey, that’s a future Oscar winner!”  But still, both she and John Rubinstein do a good job with the material that they’ve been given.

Meanwhile, Tommy (Bob Crane) is a middle-aged man who has been hired to work as a steward on the ship.  Captain Stubing takes an immediate dislike to the irresponsible, womanizing Tommy.  When he discovers that Tommy has been drinking on the job, Stubing comes close to firing him.  However, Tommy confesses that he’s drinking because he’s just discovered that the daughter who he abandoned years ago is on the cruise.  Wendy (Dori Brenner) has always believed that her father died in a shipwreck and she hopes that Stubing might know something about the wreck.  Seeking to help out Tommy, Stubing tells a lot of lies about Wendy’s “deceased” father but Tommy finally breaks down and confesses the truth.  At first, Wendy rejects Tommy but, with the help of her understanding husband (Robert Hays), she eventually forgives her father.

This storyline hinges on a huge coincidence.  What are the chances that Tommy and Wendy would just happen to end up on the same cruise together and that Tommy would be assigned to serve as Wendy’s steward?  On top of that, what are the chances that Wendy would just happen to have a picture of her mother sitting out where Tommy could see it?  It’s all fairly predictable but, if you’ve seen Auto Focus, it’s interesting to watch Crane’s performance here.  This episode aired just a few months before Crane was murdered in Arizona and it’s easy to see the charismatic but irresponsible and self-destructive Tommy as being a reflection of who Bob Crane himself had reportedly become at the time of his death.  Tommy is a character who lives with a lot of emotional pain and regret and Crane is so surprisingly effective in the role that it’s hard not to wonder if perhaps, on some level, he related to Tommy.

Finally, in the show’s final storyline, Bill Edwards (Bruce Solomon) is a supermarket manager who has booked a cruise with his wife, Doreen (Judy Luciano).  When a wealthy advertising exec cancels his trip, Julie and Gopher decide to let Bill and Doreen stay in the man’s luxury cabin.  This, of course, leads to Stubing mistaking Bill for the ad exec!  Suddenly, Bill and Doreen are sitting at the captain’s table and competing for an advertising contract!  Eventually, the truth comes out but business tycoon Greg Beatty (David White) is so impressed with Bill’s ideas that he arranges for Bill to get a job with an actual advertising company.  Mad Men it’s not!  However, it’s still a charming little story, largely due to the performances of Bruce Solomon and Judy Luciano.

If last week’s episode was a “lesser Love Boat,” this week’s episode show just how much fun The Love Boat could be.  Yes, all of the stories are fairly predictable but the guest stars all perform their roles with a lot of energy.  Bob Crane brings a poignant sense of regret to his performance as Tommy while Bruce Solomon and Judy Luciano are exactly the type of attrative couple that you would want to meet on a cruise.  And, as I said already, it’s impossible not to like John Rubinstein and Kathy Bates as the newlyweds who just can’t catch a break.  The regular cast is used sparingly but effectively in this episode.  Fred Grandy gets a nice scene where he has to explain to John Rubinstein that Kathy Bates got on the wrong boat.  Bernie Kopell plays Doc Bricker as being an agent of chaos.  It’s a fun episode and what more can you ask for?

A Movie A Day #259: Take This Job And Shove It (1981, directed by Gus Trikonis)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Originally from a small town in Iowa, Frank Macklin (Robert Hays) is a hotshot young executive with The Ellison Group.  When Frank is assigned to manage and revitalize a failing brewery in his hometown, it is a chance for Frank to rediscover his roots.  His childhood friends (played by actors like David Keith, Tim Thomerson, and Art Carney) may no longer trust him now that Frank wears a tie but it only takes a few monster truck rallies and a football game in a bar for Frank to show that he is still one of them.  However, Frank discovers that the only reason that he was sent to make the brewery profitable was so that his bosses could sell it to a buffoonish millionaire who doesn’t know the first thing about how to run a business.  Will Frank stand by while his bosses screw over the hardworking men and women of the heartland?  Or will he say, “You can take this job and shove it?”

Named after a country music song and taking place almost entirely in places stocked with beer, Take This Job And Shove It is a celebration of all things redneck.  This movie is so redneck in nature that a major subplot involves monster trucks.  Bigfoot, one of the first monster trucks, gets plenty of screen time and, in some advertisements, was given higher billing than Art Carney.

A mix of low comedy and sentimental drama, Take This Job And Shove It is better than it sounds.  In some ways, it is a prescient movie: the working class frustrations and the anger at being forgotten in a “booming economy” is the same anger that, 35 years later, would be on display during the election of 2016.  Take This Job And Shove It also has an interesting and talented cast, most of whom rise above the thinly written dialogue.  Along with Hays, Keith, Thomerson, Bigfoot, and Carney, keep an eye out for: Eddie Albert, Royal Dano, James Karen, Penelope Milford, Virgil Frye, George “Goober” Lindsey, and Barbara Hershey (who, as usual, is a hundred times better than the material she has to work with).

One final note: Martin Mull plays Hays’s corporate rival.  His character is named Dick Ebersol.  Was that meant to be an inside joke at the expense of the real Dick Ebersol, who has the executive producer of Saturday Night Live when Take This Job and Shove It was filmed and who later became the president of NBC Sports?

10 Reasons Why Sharknado 2 Was Sharktastic!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

sharknado-2-poster

Unless you’ve been living in total and complete isolation, you know that Sharknado 2 premiered on SyFy last night.  And of course, I watched and live tweeted it.  Now, when it comes Sharknado 2, it seems like everyone has one question: Was it better than Sharknado?

The answer?

Yes.  Yes, it was.

Here are 10 reasons why Sharknado 2 was sharktastic!

1) Action!  Action!  Action!

Sharknado 2 didn’t waste any time getting to the point.  From the minute the film started with Ian Ziering and Tara Reid sitting in an airplane that’s hit some sharknado-related turbulence, Sharknado 2 was all about sharks falling from the sky.  The film didn’t waste any time revisiting the events of the previous film or trying to explain, for a second time, how a bunch of sharks ended up in a tornado.  And you know what?  If you were worry about the logic of the situation then you really weren’t the right audience for this film.  Sharknado 2 was a movie for those of us seeking nonstop shark mayhem and it delivered!

2) Plenty of New York Attitude

When the first sharknado hit Los Angeles, we were presented with a portrait of a town that deserved to be destroyed.  I mean — really, Los Angeles?  A little bad weather and a few sharks and your entire population is screaming and fleeing?  New York, however, knows how to handle a sharknado.  It didn’t matter how many sharks fell from the sky — the citizens of New York refused to allow it to stop them from enjoying baseball games, visiting the Statue of Liberty, and seeking out a good slice of pizza.  New York, you’re the tops!

3) Tara Reid Showed Us How To Handle Losing A Hand

I don’t know about you but if a shark fell out of the sky and bit off my hand, I would probably freak out.  Having watched Sharknado 2, I can say that I am definitely not as strong as Tara Reid.  Though she may have lost her hand early on in this movie, she never let it slow her down.  Not only did she defiantly walk out of the hospital but she also managed to drive a fire truck with only one hand!  I’ve got two hands and I don’t think I could do that.  Finally, as a perfect example of how to make lemonade out of lemons, she even replaced her missing hand with a radial saw that, as it turns out, was perfect for fighting sharks.  You go, girl!

4) Ian Ziering Gave It All He Could

In the first Sharknado, Ian seemed almost annoyed to be there.  You got the feeling that he felt that somehow, by appearing in a movie about flying sharks, he was somehow damaging his career.  In Sharknado 2, however, Ian brought a lot of conviction to his role.  Though it may be hard to understand if you haven’t seen the actual film, I’ll just say that you looked at and listened to Ian and you believed that this man had indeed been inside of a shark.

IZ in Sharknado 2

 

5) The Statue Of Liberty Lost Her Head

And you better believe that head went rolling down the streets of New York.  I am a little bit disappointed that Ian never found a moment to stare up at headless Lady Liberty and shout, “You blew it up!  Damn you to Hell!” but oh well.

6) Cameos Galore!

Seeing as how the first Sharknado became a bit of a pop cultural phenomena, we should probably not be surprised that a lot of celebrities agreed to do cameos in the sequel.  What should surprise, however, is just how well the cameos were integrated into the film.  Whether it was Kelly Osbourne getting eaten by a shark or Matt Lauer and Al Roker arguing over the proper name for the storm (eventually, Matt did call it a sharknado and you can see just how happy Al was; it was a touching moment), all of the cameos worked brilliantly and, even more importantly, they didn’t distract from all of the shark mayhem.

7) The Live Tweeters Were On Fire Last Night!

Especially me!  Seriously, Sharknado 2 brought out the best in me.

8) Ian Wasn’t The Only Actor Giving It His All

To be honest, the entire cast brought their A game to Sharknado 2.  Everyone from Vivica A. Fox to Mark McGrath to Kari Wuhrer to Tara Reid to Judd Hirsch to well, everyone seemed to understand that for this material to work, they had to be willing to say some of the most ludicrous lines imaginable with a straight face.  If a single member of the cast had tried to wink at the audience or play up the film’s inherent campiness, the entire film would have fallen apart.  Instead, everyone brought a lot of conviction to their roles.  Instead of mocking the film and their dialogue, you could tell that they were instead having fun with it and, as a result, the audience had a lot of fun as well.

9) Kelly Ripa Stamped On The Head Of A Hammerhead Shark

Proof positive that high heels can be a girl’s best friend.

10) Everyone Watched it!

And you know what that means:  SHARKNADO 3!

Sharknado 2