Tag Archives: Robert Trebor

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 1.7 “The Cretin of the Shallows”

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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch, which ran on NBC and then in syndication from 1989 to 2001.  The entire show can be viewed on Tubi.

This week, there’s a lot happening on the beach!

Baywatch 1.7 “The Cretin of the Shallows”

(Dir by Vern Gillum, originally aired on December 1st, 1989)

Eddie gets his wisdom teeth taken out.  Feverish and on pain-killers, he has a hallucination in which Gina Pomeroy (Holly Gagnier) kisses him.  Eddie spends the entire episode nervous that Craig is going to discover that he’s having an affair with his wife but actually, Eddie isn’t having an affair.  It’s not until the end of the episode that Gina tells Eddie that they never kissed and Eddie finally starts to relax.  Gina promises not to tell Craig because “I think it’s sweet.”  Myself, I’m just curious as to how stupid Eddie actually is.

Shauni and Jill deal with a teenage boy who has made a bet with his friends that he’ll be able to get a kiss from both of them.

And a horrifying serial killer (Robert Trebor) is stalking the night, brutally murdering people on the beach.

One of these storylines is not like the other!

The first season of Baywatch was seriously weird.  Light-hearted lifeguard hi-jinx would be mixed in with scenes of people being murdered.  Mitch and Craig weren’t just lifeguards.  They were also cops who solved mysteries (Kind of like Baywatch Nights!) and they put their lives at risk to do so.  Remember how I mentioned that Gina told Eddie that they never kissed?  She told him that after she had been rescued from the serial killer.  Gina nearly died!  Neither Gina nor Craig seemed to be too upset about that, though.  I would be a little bit traumatized but that’s just me.

This episode really didn’t work for me.  Personally, I like the light-hearted stuff.  It’s dumb but, at heart, Baywatch’s appeal is that it’s a dumb show with nice scenery.  Tossing a serial killer into the mix just made things unpleasant.  It didn’t feel like it belonged on a show about people running on the beach in red bathing suits.

This is my last Baywatch review of 2025.  Retro Television Reviews will be taking a break for the holidays so that I can focus on Awards Season and Christmas movies!  Baywatch will return on January 10, 2026.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 2.3 “Whatever Works”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, we learn how Sonny affords all of those wonderful toys.

Episode 2.3 “Whatever Works”

(Dir by John Nicolella, originally aired on October 4th, 1985)

Have you ever wondered how Sonny Crockett afford that nice Ferrari on just a cop’s salary?  To be honest, it hadn’t really occurred to me.  I just assumed that everyone in the 80s owned a Ferrari.  I’ve been more concerned with how Sonny manages to maintain his undercover identity despite the fact that he spends almost all of his time hanging out with his fellow cops.  I mean, surely, someone in the Miami underworld has noticed that “Sonny Burnett” sure does seem to have a lot of friends who worked Vice.

Regardless, in this episode, we learn that Sonny doesn’t actually own the Ferrari.  Instead, it’s a vehicle that the department loans to Sonny so that he can maintain his cover.  Apparently, the Ferrari once belonged to an actual drug dealer.  Unfortunately, the Miami Police Department desperately needs to make some money at their next police auction so Maxwell Dierks (Robert Trebor), a weaselly bureaucrat, decides to repossess Sonny’s Ferrari and auction it off.

Sonny spends most of this episode obsessing on his car.  While the rest of the Vice Squad laughs at Sonny’s misfortune, local informant Izzy Moreno tries to trick Dierks into giving him the car so that he can return it to Sonny.  I hope Sonny appreciates who his true friends are.  Anyway, Castillo eventually pulls some strings to save Sonny’s car.  Maybe Sonny should have gone to him in the first place but, then again, Castillo is kind of intimidating.  He literally never smiles.

While Sonny is obsessing on his car, someone is killing cops and leaving behind Santeria charms.  Despite having grown up in Florida and being a veteran vice detective, it appears that Sonny has never before heard of Santeria.  However, Castillo and Tubbs know all about it.  Castillo is even friends with a Santeria priestess (Eartha Kitt) who explains that the killers did not view the cops as being policemen but instead as being fellow criminals.

It turns out that there’s a group of cops who have been shaking down drug dealers and now, they’re being killed one-by-one.  For all the talk of Santeria, the solution to the problem is actually pretty straight forward.  The Vice squad tracks down the people doing the killing and, after a shoot-out, the bad guys surrender.  And that’s the end of that.

Oh, this episode.  It had potential but it just fell flat.  The Santeria stuff felt tacked on and it was pretty obvious that the episode’s writers were more interested in Sonny trying to get his car back than in the episode’s main storyline.  Even the Eartha Kitt cameo felt a bit perfunctory.

On the plus side, this episode did feature a band singing Bang A Gong in the middle of a bar fight.  That was pretty cool.  The band was called Power Station and apparently, it was an off-shoot of Duran Duran.  What’s interesting is that the members of the band are portrayed as being old friends of Sonny, to the extent that they applaud him as he beats up a bad cop.  It brings a real “The name is Dalton” energy to the scene.

This week’s episode was a bit disappointing but next week’s episode is apparently a classic.  I look forward to watching and reviewing Out Where The Buses Don’t Run.

October True Crime: Out of the Darkness (dir by Jud Taylor)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1985 film, Out of the Darkness, takes place in New York City.

It begins in 1977 and it ends in 1978.  As the opening title card informs us, it’s a film about a city that was living in fear of the gunman known as the Son of Sam.  One of the first images that we see is an a handgun being fired at two people who are making out inside of a car.  We then cut to a police station where a homicide detective (played by Sam McMurray) reads aloud the letter that the Son of Sam sent to Jimmy Breslin.

That said, David Berkowitz, the killer who claimed that he was told to murder by a dog before later changing his story and claiming that he was a part of a Satanic conspiracy, spends most of the film in the shadows.  His name isn’t even mentioned until the film’s final third.  Instead, the majority of the film focuses on Ed Zigo (Martin Sheen), a New York City detective who tries to balance his desire to catch the Son of Sam with taking care of his wife (Jennifer Salt), who is due to have surgery for her heart condition.  Ed Zigo is dedicated and intelligent New York cop, the type who has no problem walking into a Mafia-controlled bar and asking the owner if his son has any connections to the family business.  He’s also a dedicated family man who freaks out when his daughter goes out on a date.  When his wife dies after surgery, Ed Zigo deals with his grief by throwing himself into his work but, as he tells his priest (Hector Elizondo), he no longer has his old confidence.  He fears that he’s going to make a mistake that’s either going to put his partner (Matt Clark) in harm’s way or allow the Son of Sam to continue to killing.

And really, it’s not a problem that the film focuses less on the killer and more on the people trying to track him down.  Martin Sheen gives a strong and sincere performance as the dedicated Ed Zigo, perfectly capturing not only his dedication but also his fear and his weariness.  (In many ways, his performance here feels like a forerunner to his performance in The Departed.)  The film captures the feel of living in a city where no one trusts anyone and it is also a good example of a “New Yorkers will be rude to anyone” film.  Even with a killer running around, no one wants to listen to a word the police have to say.  When David Berkowitz does show up, he’s played by an actor named Robert Trebor who gives an appropriately creepy performance.

Interestingly enough, Joe Spinell also appears in Out of the Darkness, playing the small but important role of an early Son of Sam suspect.  Though he only appears in two scenes, Spinell makes a memorably seedy impression.  Of course, today, Spinell is remembered for playing a character based on the Son of Sam in the infamous 1980 grindhouse shocker, Maniac.

(Trivia fans will also want to note that Charlie Sheen has a wordless cameo as a man who shuts his apartment door in the face of Martin Sheen and Matt Clark when they attempt to ask him if he witnessed the latest murder.  “Nice guy,” Martin says, in response.)

If you’re looking for a film in which Berkowitz is cursed out by a dog, Summer of Sam is probably the one to go for.  However, if you’re looking for a more low-key but realistic portrayal of Berkowitz’s reign of terror, Out of the Darkness is a good one to go with.

A Movie A Day #316: 52 Pick-Up (1986, directed by John Frankenheimer)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Harry Mitchell (Roy Scheider) is a businessman who has money, a beautiful wife named Barbara (Ann-Margaret), a sexy mistress named Cini (Kelly Preston), and a shitload of trouble.  He is approached by Alan Raimey (John Glover) and informed that there is a sex tape of him and his mistress.  Alan demands $105,000 to destroy the tape.  When Harry refuses to pay, Alan and his partners (Clarence Williams III and Robert Trebor) show up with a new tape, this one framing Harry for the murder of Cini.  They also make a new demand: $105,000 a year or else they will release the tape.  Can Harry beat Alan at his own game without harming his wife’s political ambitions?

Based on a novel by the great Elmore Leonard and directed by John Frankenheimer, 52 Pick-Up is one of the best films to ever come out of the Cannon Film Group.  Though it may not be as well-known as some of his other films (like The Manchurian Candidate, Seconds, Black Sunday, and Ronin), 52 Pick-Up shows why Frankenheimer was considered to be one of the masters of the thriller genre.  52 Pick-Up is a stylish, fast-paced, and violent thriller.  John Glover is memorably sleazy as the repellent Alan and the often underrated Roy Scheider does an excellent job of portraying Harry as a man who starts out smugly complacent and then becomes increasingly desperate as the story play out.

One final note: This movie was actually Cannon’s second attempt to turn Elmore Leonard’s novel to the big screen.  The first attempt was The Ambassador, which ultimately had little to do with Leonard’s original story.  Avoid The Ambassador but see 52 Pick-Up.