Tag Archives: Sam J. Jones

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 2.4 “Quarterbacks Tell No Tales”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night 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 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

This week, a player’s reputation is on the line.  Can he clear his name, even though all the evidence is stacked up against him?

Episode 2.4 “Quarterbacks Tell No Tales”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on September 15th, 1986)

T.D. Parker (played by O.J. Simpson) is pissed off!  The normally affable former player is angry that someone is dealing cocaine to the Bulls.  The press and the commissioner both assume that the dealer is rookie quartebrack Tim Yinessa.  (That guy that Yinessa caught searching his room last week?  He was a reporter.)  T.D. isn’t so sure.  He thinks that start quarterback Johnny Valentine (Sam Jones) is responsible for the team’s cocaine problem.  T.D. eventually confronts Johnny and tells him to stop with the drugs.

“25% of this league retires injured,” Johnny says, “You’re proof of that.”

T.D. gets so angry that he proceeds to stab Johnny to death punch Johnny in the chest.  “Welcome to the 25%,” he says.

No, T.D.  Johnny said “retired” players.  Johnny’s not retiring yet.  Anyway, Johnny was so coked up that he probably didn’t even feel the punch.

As for Yinessa, he nearly gets kicked off the team when the real dealer plants some cocaine in his locker.  Luckily, his roommate — Jamie Waldren (Jeff Kaake) — steps forward and confesses that he was the owner of the cocaine that the reporter found in the room.  Diana orders Jamie to go to rehab.  “Sure, I guess,” Jamie replies.

While that’s going on, Dr. Death and Mad Dog Smears continued to harass the rookies by ordering one of them to fake a suicide attempt as a part of a practical joke.  At the bar where they hang out, they also sang a song against urine testing.  I’m not really sure why anyone would want to hang out at the bar, as it seems like the whole place only exists so that Dr. Death and Mad Dog can put on painfully unfunny stage shows.  Dr. Death and Mad Dog also told Yinessa that they would kill him if he agreed to random urine testing in order to prove his innocence.  Personally, I think Dr. Death and Mad Dog should focus on their jobs.  Maybe if they did a better job protecting the other players, T.D. wouldn’t have had to retire.  I mean, you can tell it’s really cutting T.D. apart that he can’t play anymore.

So, Jamie is off to rehap, Yinessa is still on the team, and T.D. didn’t have to kill anyone.  All in all, it was a productive week.  To be honest, it’s difficult to judge this show based on traditional standards of good and bad.  Technically, every episode is bad.  This week, however, was slightly less bad than usual.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 2.3 “A Second Chance”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night 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 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

Things are getting crazy at training camp!

Episode 2.3 “A Second Chance”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on September 8th, 1986)

This week’s episode featured the unforgettable sight of O.J. Simpson tackling a knife-wielding Don Swayze and saving the life of Delta Burke.

Swayze was playing Clay Daniels, a tight end who was drafted by Coach Denardo, even though he apparently pulled a knife on a professor in college.  After Clay threatened Johnny Valentine after he felt Valentine wasn’t throwing him the ball enough, Denardo explained that he drafted Clay because Clay can play football.  Okay, Ernie, I guess that justifies having a knife-wielding maniac in the locker room….

After Denardo finally cut Clay from the team, Clay showed up at Diana’s house with a knife.  Fortunately, Diana was able to call Denardo and T.D. Parker for help.  Denardo showed up and promised he would give Clay a second chance.  And then T.D. tackled Clay and grabbed that knife like a pro!

Meanwhile, Yinessa returned to training camp but he was not happy that his friend and roommate, wide receiver Jamie Waldren (Jeff Kaake), had a drug problem.  This episode ended with Yinessa getting into a fight with someone who broke into their room in search of Waldren’s cocaine.  An angry Yinessa flushed all of Waldren’s cocaine.  Considering that this episode also featured Diana being named Chairperson of the League’s Anti-Drug Committee, I’m sure this won’t lead to any sort of awkwardness with the team.

Much like last week’s episode, this episode was so melodramatic and over-the-top that I couldn’t help but enjoy it.  Drugs, training camp, and knives!  Will the Bulls make it to the Championship Game a second year in a row?  It’s not looking good but, considering that they have O.J. Simpson’s razor-sharp instincts at their disposal, I wouldn’t count them out yet!

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 2.2 “The Veterans”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night 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 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

This week, the Bulls face a dilemma.  What to do with O.J. Simpson?

Episode 2.2 “The Veterans”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on September 1st, 1986)

This week, veteran running back T.D. Parker (O.J. Simpson) shows up for training camp.  All of the players are excited to see him.  At the bar where all of the Bulls hang out, Dr. Death (Donald Gibb) announces that T.D. Parker has had over one hundred injuries over the past twelve years but he’s still the heart and the soul of the Bulls franchise.  He’s the face of the team!  When people think of the Los Angeles Bulls, they think of T.D. Parker slashing through the other team on his way to an acquittal touchdown.

Speaking as a viewer, it seems kind of strange that this is the first that I’m really hearing about the legendary T.D. Parker.  Where was he last season?  The Bulls went all the way to the Championship Game but I never once heard anyone mention T.D. Parker.  I certainly didn’t see him in the locker room.  The Bulls actually had a totally different running back named Carl Witherspoon.  Oddly, Carl seems to have vanished this season….

As for T.D., his injuries are catching up with him.  Denardo and Diana are forced to confront that fact that T.D. can no longer cut it.  Even in practice, he’s spilling a lot of blood on the field.  Denardo cuts T.D. from the team. When T.D. says that football is all that he knows, Denardo announces that T.D. may not be playing but he’ll still be on the field …. AS A COACH!  T.D. looks confused.  He’ll figure it out eventually, I guess.

Meanwhile, Jeff East briefly returns as quarterback Bryce Smith but just long enough to fall out of a window at training camp and bust his knee.  (He was trying to keep the new kicker — a Bosnian played by future voice of the Crypt Keeper John Kassir — from sneaking out to go into town to get drunk.)  Bryce is done for the season.  Veteran quarterback and all-around druggie sleaze Johnny Valentine (Sam J. Jones) becomes the new starter and Tom Yinessa is brought back to be his backup.  That’ll make Yinessa’s roommate (Jeff Kaake) and Yinessa’s potential girlfriend (Katherine Kelly Lang) happy.

Finally, the NFL owners don’t want to give their players a pension or a raise.  They do, however, want to give them mandatory drug tests.  Diana protests but she’s overruled by the other owners, all of whom are male and in their 60s.  There’s a lot of toupees and cigars at the ownership meeting.

This episode was actually kind of entertaining.  That’s doesn’t mean it was good.  1st & Ten isn’t a really a show that’s ever good.  But this episode did feature Sam J. Jones giving a totally over the top performance as creepy quarterback Johnny Valentine.  Speaking of going over the top, the same can be said of Delta Burke’s performance this season.  It would appear that between seasons one and two, Burke realized there was no need to try to be in any way subtle in her line readings.  That was probably the right decision.

Next week …. who knows?  I’m getting a little bored with training camp so hopefully, we’ll move on!

Thunder In Paradise (1993, directed by Douglas Schwartz)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

R.J. “Hurricane” Spencer (Hulk Hogan) is a former Navy SEAL who now lives in Florida and makes his living with his superboat, Thunder.  Spencer’s best friend, Bru (Chris Lemmon), is also his business partner.  There’s nothing that Spencer and Bru can’t do.  This movie starts with Spencer taking the boat down to Cuba so he can rescue the family of a dissident and bring them back to Florida.  It ends with his using his boat to save the lives of his wife (Felicity Waterman) and his stepdaughter (Robin Weisman) from some treasure hunters who have made the mistake of kidnapping them.  Spencer’s marriage is one of convenience.  His wife needed a husband to get her fortune and he needed a rich wife to keep his business going.  His father-in-law (Patrick MacNee) doesn’t trust him but Spencer’s a top-notch American hero.

Though it was initially released direct-to-video, Thunder in Paradise was actually a pilot for a syndicated television show that started a few months later.  Both the film and the show were from the producers of Baywatch and it shows with the emphasis on the beach, the bikinis, the corny humor, and the cartoonish villains (led, in this case, by Flash Gordon himself, Sam Jones).  Of course, it’s a Hulk Hogan movie so none of that is really a negative.  Hogan might be playing Hurricane Spencer but he’s really playing himself and there’s enough self-aware humor to make Thunder In Paradise entertaining in a way that No Holds Barred definitely was not.  (I liked that, during a fight on another boat, there just happened to be a wooden chair sitting on the deck that Hogan could break across his opponent’s back.)  Chris Lemmon and Hulk Hogan are a surprisingly good team (Lemmon’s brain provide a needed  contrast to Hogan’s bawn) and Carol Alt is on-hand as the owner of a beach bar.  Naturally, a handful of Hogan’s fellow wrestlers shows up as well, Brutus Beefcake, Jim “The Anvil” Neidhardt, Giant Gonzalez, Jimmy Hart, and others.  As a fan of The Avengers, I was happy to see Patrick MacNee, even if his character was just a typical distrustful father-in-law.

Corny, silly, dumb, and more fun than it probably should be, Thunder In Paradise is an entertaining product of its time.

Evasive Action (1998, directed by Jerry P. Jacobs)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Some of the toughest criminals in America are being transported, via train, to a high security prison.  For some reason, instead of using an entire train to transport the prisoners and guards, it’s decided to just put the criminals in one car attached to a normal passenger train.  Did the passengers in the other cars get a warning that would be traveling with a bunch of desperate criminals?  Did they at least get a discount on their tickets?  Of course, Mafia kingpin Enzo Martini (Roy Scheider, slumming) engineers a takeover with the rest of the prisoners.  It’s up to Sheriff Wes Blaidek (Ray Wise) and bartender Zoe Clark (Delane Matthews) to stop the prisoners.

This is a fast-moving, dumb-as-Hell action movie that’s memorable mostly for having a cast that was very much overqualified for the film.  Keith Coogan, Dorian Harewood, Don Swayze, Ed O’Ross, and Sam J. Jones are all in this thing.  Clint Howard plays the homicidal serial killer who lets a child live because the kid has seen Taxi Driver.  Dick Van Patten plays the head of the parole board.  I can understand why Roy Scheider might be selected to play a mob boss and how Clint Howard and Don Swazye ended up playing killers.  But how do you look at this film’s story and think, “This need Dick Van Patten?”  It’s Die Hard on a train but without the wit or the budget.  The movie moves quickly, there’s plenty of train and helicopter action and it’s still good to see so many familiar and eccentric talents gathered together to bring too life one very stupid movie.  It’s too bad they couldn’t find room for Joey Travolta or Joe Estevez but I guess you can’t have everything.

Silent Assassins (1988, directed by Lee Doo-yong and Scott Thomas)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Elite cop Sam Kettle (Sam J. Jones) just wants to get out of Los Angeles and live a peaceful life with his girlfriend, Sara (Linda Blair), but the streets have other plans.  The evil Kendrick (Gustav Vintas) has kidnapped Dr. London (Bill Erwin) and is determined to get the code for a deadly bioweapon.  For reasons that are never made clear, Kendrick has also kidnapped young Joanna (Joanna Chong).  Backing Kendrick up is the evil Miss Amy (Rebecca Ferrati).  Backing up Kettle is Joanna’s uncle, Jun Kim (Jun Chong) and Bernard (Phillip Rhee), the son of Oyama (Mako), the owner of the local dojo.  Can Sam save the world, saved the doctor and the girl, and also save his relationship with Sara?

Silent Assassins is a terrifically fun martial arts movie.  The action is well-choreographed.  The film’s plot doesn’t make a bit of sense.  The movie is full of weird throw-away dialogue, like an offended Ms. Amy announcing that she’s “a biochemist too.”  Chong shows off his moves, Rhee plays his character as a playboy having the time of life, and Jones glowers at the camera as only Sam J. Jones can.  There’s an army of loud ninjas (so much for the silent part) and Vintas is so villainous that he even carries around a red rose as some sort of strange trademark.  The movie is full of weird details and no one seems to be taking any of it too seriously.  Movies like this are why people like me always went straight for the direct-to-video releases when we went to Blockbuster back in the day.

Linda Blair is second-billed.  When Lisa and I watched this movie, she kept track of Linda’s screentime.  Linda’s onscreen for a total of ten minutes and she spends most of that time doing the worried girlfriend thing.  It’s a sad waste of Linda Blair, the one misstep of an otherwise great experience.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 1.8 “Burnout”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network!  It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

Oh no!  It’s the cops!

Episode 1.8 “Burnout”

(Dir by Lyndon Chubbuck, originally aired on April 20th, 1996)

This episode of Pacific Blue opens with a hilarious scene of Victor and Cory sneaking up on some drug dealers that they’ve spotted making a sale.  What makes it hilarious is that Victor and Cory somehow manage to do this while 1) wearing their blindingly white t-shirts and 2) riding their bikes.  There’s not much good to say about this show but there’s an undeniable amusement factor in the show’s insistence that bicycle cops don’t look massively dumb creeping up on people while on their bikes.

It turns out that the dealers aren’t selling the usual “smack,” as Cory puts it.  Instead, they’re selling steroids!  Sheila (Shannon Tweed) is upset that one of her waitresses had gotten hooked on steroids and…. wait, who?  Sheila briefly appeared in the pilot episode but she hasn’t been mentioned since and this is certainly the first time that we learn that Lt. Palermo’s girlfriend owns a restaurant.  This episode acts as if Sheila is a regular character that we all know and love.

I get the feeling this episode was meant to air earlier in the season.  Not only does Sheila return but Chris is back to being her arrogant, bitter self.  Chris was a fighter pilot until her eyesight failed, a story we hear again and again in this episode.  (She no longer has 20/20 eyesight but whenever she talks about it, she makes it sound as if she literally went blind.)  Another pilot, Greg (Peter Barton), comes to visit her and makes a few jokes about how riding a bicycle is lame.  This gives Chris a chance to defend her job and to also call out Greg for being a sexist who just wants to get laid before returning to the skies.  Chris may be right about Greg but he’s played by the totally adorable Peter Barton so really, why not?

Meanwhile, on the beach, a schizophrenic man annoys the owner of a bodega by playing his saxophone.  Fights break out,  Cory tells the saxophone man to play his instrument under the pier.  Presumably, it will be easier for him to get mugged or murdered under there.  I like that the solution when it came to the crazy homeless man was just to find somewhere else for him to be crazy and homeless.  Don’t take him to a shelter or a hook him up with mental health professionals or anything silly like that.

This show …. ugh.  I’m really hoping the first season is an outlier and the subsequent seasons will be an improvement.  The only thing worse than bicyclists are people who are cocky about being bicyclists.  For 8 episodes now, it’s been one person after another expressing shock at the whole bicycle thing.  We get it.  We understand.  The cops look stupid on their Schwinns.  But, that’s the show.  If Pacific Blue is still trying to justify its existence after eight episodes, that’s not a great sign.

Cinemax Friday: Maximum Force (1992, directed by Joseph Mehri)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Max Tanabe (Richard Lynch) is Los Angeles’s biggest crime lord, involved in everything from prostitution to illegal fight clubs.  But, because he’s rich, no one can touch him.  He plays golf with the mayor.  He’s paid off the police commissioner (Mickey Rooney).  The police commissioner spends the entire movie riding around in a limo.  How do you think he was able to afford that?

Captain Fuller (John Saxon) needs some new jack cops to take down a new jack gangster so he goes out and recruits three.  Cody Randal (Sherries Ross) works vice.  Rick Carver (Jason Lively) is a “tech expert” who rigs toy cars with explosives.  Mike Crews (Sam J. Jones) is looking to avenge the death of his partner.  Fuller brings them together and put them through an extensive training course.  At the end of it, he tests their skills and their teamwork by bringing in a secret team of ninjas to attack them.

Which begs the question: If you already have a secret team of ninjas, why do you have to recruit and train three detectives to take down Tanabe?  Why not just have the ninjas do it?

So, logic is not exactly Maximum Force‘s strong point but it still has some good points.  For instance, you have to respect any movie that can bring together Richard Lynch and John Saxon, not to mention Mickey Rooney!  Of course, there’s not really much of a reason for Mickey Rooney to be there.  All of his scenes feature him in the limo and they are edited together so awkwardly that it seems probable the he never actually acted opposite any of his co-stars.  But it doesn’t matter because he’s Hollywood legend Mickey Rooney, picking up a paycheck in his twilight years.  As for Saxon and Lynch, they do what they do best and bring gravitas to their otherwise stock roles.

As for the three heroes, they’re adequate even if none of them really shine.  I liked the tech expert the best but that was just because he rigged all of those remote control cars to explode.  Sam J. Jones and Sherrie Ross are both better at throwing punches than showing emotion but that’s what a film like this demands.  Some of the fight scenes are exciting.  There’s a helicopter attack early in the film.  Towards the end of the film, when Mike decides that the team needs some extra help, he calls in an amateur wrestler named Bear who just randomly shows up during the final battle.  Maximum Force knows what its audience wants and that’s the important thing.

Cinemax Friday: Hard Vice (1994, directed by Joey Travolta)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Who doesn’t love some Hard Vice?

Someone’s killing businessman in Las Vegas and it’s up to the vice squad to figure out who.  Captain Bronski (James Gammon) knows that his cops are going to need some help so he brings in a detective named Joe (Sam J. Jones).  Joe is a tough-talking, hard-drinking modern day cowboy who even owns a hat.  He doesn’t think that women should be investigating major crimes and that brings him into conflict with his new partners, especially Andrea (Shannon Tweed).

Despite not being happy about having to work together, Joe and Andrea put aside their differences long enough to investigate the murders and fall in love.  They discover that all of the men used the same escort service.  Could the murderer be a pimp named Tony (Branscombe Richmond, who played Bobby Sixkiller on Renegade) or could it be a renegade prostitute (played by Rebecca FerattI) who is called Christy in the movie but who is listed as being named Allison in the end credits?  Or could it be someone closer to the vice squad?

Hard Vice is a typical late night Cinemax crime movie, heavy on the neon and the synthesized music but light on unexpected plot twists.  There are still a few things about the movie that set it apart from other movies of the era.  First off, this movie features a man armed only with a handgun managing to blow up a helicopter.  Secondly, even though the film is set in the 90s, the vice squad is stuck using bulky computers from the 80s and the scene where they use the computer to look up information on the victims has to be seen to be believed.  Finally, any movie that brings Shannon Tweed and Rebecca Feratti together is worthy of a little appreciation.  Toss in Sam J. Jones and James Gammon sounding like he’s been smoking six packs of cigarettes a day and you’ve got a film that’s almost worth watching.

Hard Vice was directed by Joey Travolta, who is best known for being John’s younger brother.  This was the first film he ever directed and, checking with the imdb, I was surprised to discover that he’s directed a lot more since.  Joey’s direction in Hard Vice isn’t that bad, though Las Vegas is one of those cities where it’s probably impossible not to come up with an interesting shot or two if you’re filming there.  Travolta tosses in a few flash forwards to make sure that we know we’re watching a real film and not just your run-of-the-mill neo-noir.  They don’t add much to the plot but when you’re trying to establish your auteur credentials, I guess you do what you have to do.

The Savior of the Universe: Flash Gordon (1980, directed by Mike Hodges)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Flash GordonLife on the planet Mongo is not easy.  Aided by Darth Vader wannabe Klytus (Peter Wyngarde) and the sadistic General Kala (Mariangela Melato), the evil Emperor Ming (Max Von Sydow) rules with an iron fist.  All of the citizens are heavily taxed and kept in a state of perpetual war in order to keep them from joining together and rebelling.  Those who attempt to defy Ming are executed.

There are many different races living on both Mongo and its moons. The Arborians, also known as the tree people, live in a jungle and are ruled by Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton).  Until Ming overthrew his father, Barin was the rightful heir to the throne of Mongo.  Barin is also one of the many lovers of Aura (Ornella Muti), Ming’s rebellious daughter.

Barin distrusts the Hawkmen, a group of winged barbarians.  Led by the boisterous Prince Vultan (the one and only Brian Blessed), the Hawkmen live in a palace that floats above Mongo.  Both Vultan and Barin share a desire to overthrow Ming but neither one of them can set aside their own dislike and distrust of each other.

Ming grows bored easily but Klytus has found him a new play thing, an obscure planet in the S-K system.  “The inhabitants,” Klytus says, “refer to it as the planet Earth.”

It all leads to this:

You may have been too busy listening to Queen’s theme song to notice (and I don’t blame you if you were) but I have always found it strange that, even though Ming had never heard of Earth before Klytus brought it to his attention, he still had a button labeled “Earthquake.”  Whenever I watch Flash Gordon, I wonder if I am the only one who has noticed this.

With Ming plaguing Earth with tornadoes, hurriances, and “hot hail,” it is up to three Earthlings to travel to Mongo  and defeat him.  Dr. Zarkov (Topol) is an eccentric scientist who was forced out of NASA because of his belief in Mongo.  Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) is a reporter.  And, finally, Flash Gordon (Sam J. Jones) is a professional athlete.  Because this movie is a fantasy, Flash Gordon is a superstar quarterback for the New York Jets.

The character of Flash Gordon was first introduced in a 1934 comic strip and was played by Buster Crabbe in several classic serials.  Among Flash’s many young fans was a future filmmaker named George Lucas, who would later cite Flash’s adventures as being a major inspiration for the Star Wars saga.  After the unprecedented success of Star Wars: A New Hope, it only made sense that someone would try to make a Flash Gordon film.

That someone was producer Dino De Laurentiis.  (Before writing the script for Star Wars, Lucas attempted to buy the rights for Flash Gordon from De Laurentiis.)  To write the script that would bring Flash into the 80s, De Laurentiis hired Lorenzo Semple, Jr.  Semple was best known for helping to create the 1960s version of Batman and he brought a similarly campy perspective to the character and story of Flash Gordon.  As a result, the film ended up with scenes like this one, where Flash interrupts one of Ming’s ceremonies with an impromptu football scrimmage:

It also led to Brian Blessed’s entire performance as Prince Vultan, which is especially famous for the way that Blessed delivered one line:

(That also makes for a great ringtone.)

Sam J. Jones and Melody Anderson often seem to be stranded by Semple’s script but Max Von Sydow, Topol, Brian Blessed, Peter Wyngarde, and Ornella Muti all get into the swing of things.  Seen today, Flash Gordon is entertaining but too intentionally campy for its own good.  On the positive side, the images still pop off the screen and the soundtrack sounds as great as ever.  When you listen to Queen’s theme song, you have no doubt that “he’ll save every one of us.”

As Flash Gordon himself put it after he saved the universe: “YEAAAAH!”

Yeah