Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 3.19 “The Swinger/Terrors of the Mind”

Posted on October 17, 2023 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986. Almost entire show is currently streaming is on Youtube!

This week, Fantasy Island swings!

Episode 3.19 “The Swinger/Terrors of the Mind”

(Dir by Cliff Bole, originally aired on February 9th, 1980)

This week, we have one fun fantasy and one fantasy that’s a bit less interesting.

The less interesting fantasy features Herman Dodge (Howard Morris), a middle-aged man who is upset because he feels that he was too old to take part in the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s. Having just gotten a divorce from Maxine (Anne Francis), Herman comes to the Island with his best friend, Stan (Jack Carter). Herman wants to be a swinger so Mr. Roarke makes him look a few years younger and then he takes him to the “Fantasy Island Mariana, where all the swingers hang out.”

Looks like a happening place!

Herman is soon the most popular guy at the marina and he even has a new girlfriend named Peggy (Judy Landers). Unfortunately, Duke (Lou Richards) and his friend, Hot Dog (Ed Ruffalo), are threatened by Herman’s sudden popularity. Herman is challenged to various “water sports,” (yes, I snickered) and Herman manages to hold his own but he’s not sure if he’ll be able to jump over a speedboat while on skis. Fortunately, Maxine shows up on the Island and Herman realizes that he not only loves her but he also enjoys being a part of the older, more conservative generation.

It’s a typical Fantasy Island fantasy, designed to appeal to the older viewers who weren’t sure what was going on with those wild and crazy kids. It was okay but it wasn’t particularly interesting.

Far more interesting was the other fantasy, in which Sharon Sanders (Lisa Hartman) comes to the Island from a small town and asks to be given the chance to see the future. Mr. Roarke gives her a diamond ring. When she concentrates on the diamond, she gets a vision of the future. Her first vision is of Martin Ward (Frankie Avalon) getting run over by a drunk driver. Sharon saves Martin’s life and the two of them fall in love. The Fantasy Island casino makes one of its rare appearances as Sharon uses the ring to win a lot of money at Roulette. But then Sharon sees a vision of an older man (Stephen McNally) strangling her and the fantasy is no longer fun.

Sharon wants to leave the Island and end her fantasy. Mr. Roarke replies that he cannot cancel a fantasy once it has begun, despite the fact that he’s done or offered to do that many times in the past for other guests. (I sometimes suspect that Mr. Roarke makes things up as he goes along.)

Anyway, the older man turns out to be the owner of the casino. He wants to murder Sharon because he can’t afford to pay her gambling winnings. Fortunately, when he does attack Sharon, Martin pops up out of nowhere and saves her life. Yay!

(So, I guess the casino is going to be closed now? And I thought Mr. Roarke owned the casino. Who knows? The Island is a confusing place.)

Sharon, having learned that the world is a dangerous place, returns to her hometown with Martin. Martin says they’re going to settle down together. Mr. Roarke says that he hopes Sharon has learned a lesson about taking fate into her own hands and not worrying about what the future holds, which doesn’t make much sense considering that Sharon’s future would have included being murdered if she hadn’t worried about it.

Though the fantasy becomes less logical the more I think about it, it was still an enjoyable one. Lisa Hartman and Frankie Avalon had a surprising amount of chemistry and the scene where the killer chased Sharon into a cemetery was well-done. I’m just happy that Martin was there to save Sharon, as opposed to hanging out at the Fantasy Island Marina.

That’s where all the swingers hang out, you know.

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 1.13 “Fool For A Client/Double Your Pleasure”

Posted on December 6, 2022 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week’s episode of Fantasy Island is …. well, let’s just say that not every fantasy can be a winner.

Episode 1.13 “Fool For A Client/Double Your Pleasure”

(Dir by Earl Bellamy, originally aired on May 13th, 1978)

This episode begins with Tattoo suffering from a toothache and Mr. Roarke giving him a hard time about it. Indeed, Mr. Roarke seems to take an almost sadistic delight in telling Tattoo that he shall have to see a dentist. The relationship of Mr. Roarke and Tattoo strikes me as being an odd one. On the one hand, Roarke allows Tattoo to handle the money and Tattoo appears to be the second-in-command. One assumes that, if Mr. Roarke ever went on vacation, Tattoo would be left in charge. At the same time, Mr. Roarke doesn’t seem to particularly like Tattoo and he seems to take a lot of pleasure from the various humiliations that Tattoo suffers on a weekly basis. From what I understand, Ricardo Montalban and Herve Villechaize were not exactly friends offscreen so perhaps, this is just a case of reality bleeding into fiction.

Anyway, Tattoo’s toothache is perhaps the most interesting thing about this episode. Both of the fantasies are kind of lame.

In the first fantasy, Ken Berry plays Larry, a blue collar guy who has spent 12 years working on the Alaskan pipeline. His fantasy is to spend the weekend with two beautiful women. No sooner has Larry arrived on Fantasy Island, then he meets Nina (Caren Kaye). She’s beautiful and Larry’s happy. Then he meets Dina, who is Nina’s twin sister and, because of the whole twin thing, she’s beautiful and Larry is happy. EXCEPT …. it turns out that there’s only one woman and her fantasy was to pretend to be a twin for the weekend. Wait …. what? I mean, it works out. Dina and Larry fall in love and they leave together but it seems like Larry didn’t really get his fantasy and, at the very least, he deserves a partial refund.

In the second fantasy, comedian Rich Little plays Herb Costigan, a paralegal who wants to be the world’s greatest lawyer. Mr. Roarke sets him up with a house on the “other side of the island,” which Roarke explains is populated by rich people who apparently have vacation homes on Fantasy Island. Roarke has told everyone that Costigan is a world-famous attorney. However, when a murder occurs, Costigan is framed for the crime and soon, he’s defending himself in court! Eventually, it turns out that there was no murder and the supposed victim just faked his death and is now wandering around the Island with a fake beard glued to his face. It really doesn’t make any sense but this fantasy does establish that the island is, at the very least, a territory of the United States as there’s a big American flag in the courtroom.

Neither one of these stories really worked for me, largely because neither Ken Berry nor Rich Little seemed to be particularly invested in their characters. It also doesn’t help that Berry and Little shared a superficial physical resemblance, to the extent that it was often a struggle to keep straight who was having which fantasy.

In the end, Tattoo’ toothache was the highlight of this show. Fortunately, it just turned out to be his wisdom teeth coming in. Take that, Mr. Roarke!

The Man From Bitter Ridge (1955, directed by Jack Arnold)

Posted on November 5, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

When Jeff Carr (Lex Barker) comes riding into the town of Tomahawk, he’s nearly lynched by the townspeople, who are convinced that Carr must be responsible for a series of recent stagecoach robberies. Luckily, before they can finish the deed, they discover that Carr has actually been sent by the government to investigate the very same robberies!

Once the townspeople realize that Carr isn’t responsible, they go back to blaming the the local sheepherders. When Carr investigates the number one suspect, Alec Black (Stephen McNally), he quickly realizes that Ale is not the guilty party. Carr and Alec team up to solve the crime but complicating their efforts is the fact that Carr has fallen in love with Alec’s girl, Holly (the beautiful Mara Corday).

The Man From Bitter Ridge is mostly a generic Western but the plot does have one interesting wrinkle. The man who is actually behind the stagecoach robberies is planning on using the stolen loot to fund his political career! This is actually historically accurate, as many outlaws in the post-Civl War west attempted to either redeem or protect themselves by seeking political office and many of those efforts were funded by money that had been stolen from the very people who were now expected to vote for them. Several of the outlaws were actually successful in their efforts, proving that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Otherwise, The Man From Bitter Ridge is a typical B-western with Mara Corday’s lovely screen presence providing occasional relief from the bland performances of Barker and McNally. The movie does wrap up with an exciting gun battle in the town square but. overall, The Man From Bitter Ridge is most just for for B-western completists and fans of Mara Corday.

Dark Western Sky: James Stewart in WINCHESTER ’73 (Universal-International 1950)

Posted on April 8, 2017 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

James Stewart and Anthony Mann made the first of their eight collaborations together with the Western WINCHESTER ’73, a film that helped change both their careers. Nice guy Stewart, Hollywood’s Everyman in Frank Capra movies like MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, took on a more mature, harder-edged persona as Lin McAdam, hunting down the man who killed his father, Dutch Henry Brown (Stephen McNally ). As for Mann, after years of grinding out B-movie noir masterpieces (T-MEN, RAW DEAL ), WINCHESTER ’73 put him on the map as one of the 1950’s top-drawer directors.

The rifle of the title is the movie’s McGuffin, a tool to hold the story together. When McAdam and his friend High Spade (the always welcome character actor Millard Mitchell) track Dutch Henry to Dodge City, the two mortal enemies engage in a shooting contest judged by none other than Wyatt Earp (Will Geer)…

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A Bout De Souffle: Robert Siodmak’s CRISS CROSS (Universal-International 1949)

Posted on January 28, 2017 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

CRISS CROSS hits you like a sucker punch to the gut, delivered hard and swift, followed by a non-stop pummeling that doesn’t let up until the final, fatal shot. Things kick right in as we find clandestine lovers Steve Thompson and Anna Dundee going at it hot’n’heavy in a nightclub parking lot. They go inside, and Steve gets into it with Anna’s husband, the gangster Slim Dundee, who pulls a knife, but the fight’s interrupted by Lt. Pete Rameriz, Steve’s boyhood pal. What Pete doesn’t know is the fight was staged for his benefit: Steve is the inside man on a planned armored car heist Dundee’s gang is pulling off.

Flashbacks tell us how Steve got here: he was once married to Anna, and after the volatile couple divorced left L.A., drifting across country picking up odd jobs along the way. Returning to the City of Angels, he finds himself…

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Cleaning Out The DVR #16: Johnny Belinda (dir by Jean Negulesco)

Posted on March 13, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Continuing my effort to watch 38 films in 10 days (and, as of today, I only have 6 days left!), I spent part of last night watching the 1948 film Johnny Belinda.

Johnny Belinda takes place in Canada, on Cape Breton Island. The residents of the island are a hearty, no-nonsense group of people. They work hard, they don’t play hard because they never play, they farm, and they don’t have much use for outsiders. When a new doctor, Robert Richardson (Lew Ayres), arrives on the island, he has to work hard to earn their trust.

Dr. Richardson is fascinated by Belinda McDonald (Jane Wyman), a young woman who is deaf and mute. Belinda lives on a farm with her father (Charles Bickford) and her aunt (Agnes Moorehead). Everyone in the community assumes that Belinda is a simple-minded and, because her mother died giving birth to her, she is resented by her father. Only Dr. Richardson believes that Belinda is in any way intelligent and, over her father’s objections, he teaches Belinda sign language.

Dr. Richardson’s secretary, Stella (Jan Sterling), falls in love with him and grows angry when it becomes apparent that he’s more interested in taking care of Belinda than pursuing an adulterous romance with Stella. Meanwhile, Stella’s husband, a viscous alcoholic named Locky (Stephen McNally), gets drunk and rapes Belinda. 9 months later, when Belinda gives birth to a boy that she names Johnny, everyone assumes that Dr. Richardson is the father. Soon, both Richardson and the McDonald family are being shunned by the judgmental community.

Locky, meanwhile, is determined to keep anyone from finding out about his crime, to the extent that he’s willing to commit murder. Both Locky and Stella are determined to take Johnny away from Belinda and it all eventually leads to further tragedy and, somewhat inevitably, a dramatic murder trial.

Much like Random Harvest, Johnny Belinda is another film that I could imagine being remade for Lifetime. It’s a well-made melodrama that appeals to all of the emotions and features a cast of talented actors doing good work playing characters that are probably just a bit too familiar. In fact, there’s really not a single moment of Johnny Belinda that will take you by surprise but, despite that, the film still works. Jane Wyman does such a good job playing the silent Belinda that it makes the entire movie worth watching. (It’s interesting to contrast Wyman’s innocent, vulnerable, and sympathetic performance here with her far more severe work in The Yearling.) Reportedly, Wyman devoted so much time and effort to her performance that it was cited as a reason for her divorce from future President Ronald Reagan. For Johnny Belinda, Wyman lost the chance to be first lady but she did win an Oscar.

(And, for the record, Wyman voted for Reagan in 1980 and 1984, saying that it wasn’t often that you got to vote for your ex-husband.)

Johnny Belinda was nominated for best picture of the year and, with 10 nominations, it was the most nominated film of 1947. Though it won an Osar for Wyman, it lost best picture to Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet.