Guilty Pleasure No. 93: Porky’s (dir. by Bob Clark)

Posted on December 13, 2025 by Arleigh

Porky’s is one of those movies that plays very differently depending on when you first see it. On the surface, it is a loud, lewd early‑’80s teen sex comedy about a bunch of high‑school boys in 1950s Florida trying to get laid and get even, but underneath the pranks and bare flesh there are streaks of surprisingly serious material about prejudice, masculinity, and power. That mix of dopey laughs and darker undercurrents is exactly what makes the film interesting to talk about, and also what makes it so divisive today.

Set in the 1950s and released in 1981, Porky’s follows a tight‑knit group of teenage boys whose main goals in life are sex, sports, and practical jokes. Their adventures eventually take them to Porky’s, a sleazy backwater strip club run by the hulking, corrupt Porky, who humiliates them and sets up the revenge plot that drives the back half of the film. Around that spine, the story wanders through locker‑room banter, elaborate pranks, and various attempts to sneak into the girls’ showers or otherwise spy on naked bodies. It is very much a “horny boys on the prowl” narrative, and the film never pretends to be anything else.

What keeps it from being just another disposable sex comedy is the way some of those side stories hit harder than expected. One of the kids is brutally abused by his father, and the film doesn’t treat it like a throwaway detail; those scenes have a rawness and anger that clash with the goofy tone elsewhere. There is also a thread about anti‑Semitism and racism in their community, with one character confronting his own bigoted upbringing as he befriends a Jewish classmate and pushes back against the prejudice around him. That material is handled in a pretty straightforward, earnest way, which is jarring given how crude the surrounding humor can be, but it does show that writer‑director Bob Clark had more on his mind than dirty jokes.

The humor, for better or worse, is what most people remember. Porky’s leans heavily on slapstick and sex‑obsessed gag setups: peeping through holes in shower walls, mistaken identities during sex, ridiculous anatomical bragging, prank phone calls, and elaborate schemes that escalate into full‑on chaos. Some of the set pieces are staged with real comic timing, and if you’re on its wavelength, these sequences can still land as big, cathartic laughs. Others feel juvenile in the worst way, stretching one joke way past its breaking point, or punching down at easy targets rather than punching up at the hypocritical adults the boys are constantly butting up against.

Viewed from today’s lens, a big chunk of that humor is undeniably uncomfortable. The movie is saturated with sexist, homophobic, and racist language, and a few of the “pranks” involving the girls are essentially sexual harassment played for laughs. At the time, it was sold as a gleefully politically incorrect romp; now, those same scenes read as mean‑spirited or creepy in a way that undercuts the supposed lighthearted tone. The film occasionally tries to complicate this by giving some of the female characters sharper edges or letting them turn the tables, but it never fully escapes the fact that the camera is mostly aligned with the boys and their fantasies.

That said, Porky’s is not entirely dismissive of its women. There are moments where adult women, in particular, are allowed to call out the boys’ behavior or assert their own sexuality in ways that undercut the usual “conquest” narrative. The movie also makes a point of ridiculing hypocritical authority figures—teachers, coaches, cops, and parents—whose prudish public morals don’t match their private behavior. When Porky’s is skewering bigotry, religious hypocrisy, and small‑town moral panics, it feels sharper and more progressive than its reputation as a dumb “tits‑and‑ass” comedy suggests. Those flashes of insight are part of why some viewers argue that, beneath the sleaze, the film is quietly critical of the very attitudes it seems to indulge.

Performance‑wise, the cast is made up largely of unknowns who sell the illusion that this is a real, scrappy group of friends rather than polished Hollywood teens. The camaraderie feels genuine; their constant ribbing, in‑jokes, and shifting alliances are believable enough that you can see why the movie became a touchstone for a certain generation of viewers. Bob Clark’s direction is surprisingly controlled for such an anarchic script. He keeps the story moving, balances multiple subplots, and stages the bigger comic payoffs in a way that feels almost like a live‑action cartoon. The downside is that this slickness can make the nastier gags pop more, for better and worse.

On a technical level, Porky’s is very much a product of its time, but not a cheap one. The period detail—cars, music, clothing, diners, and dingy roadside bars—helps sell the 1950s setting, giving the film a nostalgic sheen that softens some of its rougher edges. The soundtrack leans on era‑appropriate rock and roll, which adds energy to the locker‑room and party scenes. The film also doesn’t shy away from male nudity, which was less common in comedies of the time and adds to its reputation as equal‑opportunity when it comes to what it exposes, even if the gaze is still clearly tilted toward ogling women.

Where Porky’s can stumble is in tone. The shifts between broad farce and serious drama can be abrupt. One minute you are watching a drawn‑out gag about a teacher trying to identify a student by his anatomy; the next, you are plunged into a grim confrontation with an abusive parent. That whiplash can pull you out of the movie, because the emotional weight of the dramatic scenes doesn’t always get enough breathing room before the script lurches back to naughty antics. As a result, some viewers feel the darker elements trivialize real issues, while others think those same scenes give the film more substance than its imitators.

Even if someone has never seen Porky’s, they have probably felt its influence. The film was a massive box‑office hit relative to its budget and paved the way for a wave of raunchy teen comedies through the ’80s and ’90s, eventually echoing into movies like American Pie and beyond. Its success made it clear that there was a huge audience for R‑rated, adolescent sex comedies that mixed crude jokes with a veneer of coming‑of‑age sentiment. You can see its blueprint in later films: packs of horny friends, elaborate revenge schemes, school authority figures as comic foils, and a big, raucous set piece as the payoff.

Whether Porky’s “holds up” is going to depend a lot on your tolerance for outdated attitudes and offensive language. If you go in expecting a cozy nostalgia trip, you may be surprised by how sour some jokes taste now, and how casually the film treats behavior that would be framed very differently in a modern story. If you approach it as both a time capsule and the prototype of a genre, it becomes easier to see its strengths—the lively ensemble, the willingness to poke at racism and hypocrisy, the low‑budget ingenuity in its set pieces—alongside its very real flaws.

Porky’s is neither the hidden gem some defenders make it out to be nor the irredeemable trash its harshest critics describe. It is a messy, uneven, often funny, often cringeworthy movie that captures a particular moment in pop culture, both in what it laughs at and what it takes for granted. If you are curious about the roots of modern raunchy teen comedies and prepared for the rough, politically incorrect ride, it is still worth a look as a piece of film history and as an example of how comedy ages—for better and for worse.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970, directed by Joseph Sargent)

Posted on July 22, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Deep in a complex that is hidden away in the Rocky Mountains, Dr. Charles Forbin (Eric Braeden) has put together and programmed a computer called Colossus. A super computer, Colossus has been designed to control the nuclear arsenal of the United States and its allies. Colossus will not only keep America safe but it was also remove the chance of human error or human hesitation. No longer will two men sitting in a silo with a key have to make the decision whether to obey the orders coming from the commander in chief. No longer will people have to make the split-second decision that could plunge the world into war.

To Forbin’s surprise, the Soviet Union has developed their own super computer, called Guardian. Colossus asks to be “linked” to Guardian and the Russians agree to allow it as a gesture of good will. What no one realizes is that both computer systems have become sentient and that they soon decide that humans cannot be trusted to not destroy themselves and the planet. To Forbin’s horror, Colossus starts to take over the world.

Based on a novel by Dennis Feltham Jones, Colossus was originally filmed in 1968 but it wasn’t released until 1970. The film looks dated with its gigantic computer but it feels prophetic with its storyline about an AI taking over the world and deciding that it knows better than its makers. Director Joseph Sargent adroitly mixes science fiction with Bond-style intrigue as Charles Forbin tries to reason with his creation and both the CIA and the KGB try to take down the computers. The film even tosses a bit of 70s-style paranoia, with both the American and the Soviet governments trying to keep the public from discovering that the supercomputers are trying to take over the world.

Colossus: The Forbin Project is an intelligently written and thought-provoking science fiction film. Eric Braeden does a great job as Charles Forbin, the engineer who goes from being arrogant and cocky to desperate to finally defiant as his creation slips out of his control. William Schallert, so often cast as a nice father figure, turns in a good performance as the head of the CIA as does Susan Clark, cast as a colleague who has to pretend to be Forbin’s mistress just so she and Forbin can talk and plot without being monitored by Colossus.

Colossus is a smart sci-fi film that is more relevant than ever.

I review COOGAN’S BLUFF (1968) – starring Clint Eastwood!

Posted on May 24, 2025 by Bradley Crain

Here at The Shattered Lens, we’re looking forward to celebrating the birthday of Clint Eastwood on May 31st. In anticipation, I decided to revisit COOGAN’S BLUFF (1968).

Clint Eastwood is Coogan, a tough as nails deputy sheriff from Arizona, who’s ordered by his boss, Sheriff McCrea (Tom Tully) to go to New York City and bring back the escaped killer James Ringerman (Don Stroud). When he gets to New York, he’s informed by Lieutenant McElroy (Lee J. Cobb) that Ringerman has overdosed on LSD while in the state’s custody, he’s now in the Bellevue Hospital, and he will not be released to Coogan until the state Supreme Court says so. Stuck in the Big Apple with nothing to do but flirt with probation officer Julie Roth (Susan Clark), Coogan decides to take matters into his own hands and get Ringerman out of the hospital early. He bluffs the attendants at the hospital into turning Ringerman over to him so he can catch the first plane back to Arizona. It seems like a good plan until he’s ambushed by Ringerman’s girlfriend Linny (Tisha Sterling) and his friend Pushie (David Doyle), he gets conked on the head, and he loses both his gun and his prisoner. Now, in trouble with Lieutenant McElroy and Sheriff McCrea, Coogan is ordered back home to Arizona. Determined to get Ringerman at any cost, Coogan stays in the city and leaves a trail of broken hearts and bruised bodies on his way to capturing his man!

Made in 1968 after Eastwood’s string of excellent spaghetti westerns with Sergio Leone, COOGAN’S BLUFF may be set in contemporary times, but Coogan still seems to be a product of the old west. A big part of the fun is watching him interact with the people of New York City, where everyone is trying to take advantage of him, whether it be the cab driver, the hotel clerk, or the hooker down the hall. When he finally gets to the police station, he sees a building that’s completely overrun with criminals and crazies. He soon finds that Lieutenant McElroy follows the law down to the letter, while he treats the law as more of a set of suggestions on his way to getting the bad guys. This leads to endless frustration and almost gets Coogan arrested multiple times throughout the film as he doesn’t want to deal with all the red tape. One thing that doesn’t change whether Coogan is in Arizona or New York is his success with the ladies. They all swoon and he more than willingly obliges. The only problem for his prospect of true love is the fact that getting his guy always comes first, and he’ll use that sex appeal to get whatever information he needs. One of the main action scenes in this film, the bar fight, is set up ironically when the woman he’s “using” turns the tables and instead sets him up to be pummeled.

COOGAN’S BLUFF is Eastwood’s first film with director Don Siegel, with whom he’d make DIRTY HARRY a few years later. You can definitely see the genesis of Harry Callahan in Walt Coogan, a man who does whatever it takes to stop criminals, is quick with a whip, and usually pisses off his superiors along the way. In some ways, you could say that Walt Coogan set the mold for the hero of cop films for the next couple of decades! It also has that sense of humor that would be a mark of Eastwood’s cop films. This one includes a funny thread that runs throughout where every person he meets assumes he’s from Texas because he wears a cowboy hat, and he always corrects them that he’s from Arizona. I get this as I always make sure people know that I’m from Arkansas!

Overall, I really enjoy COOGAN’S BLUFF due mainly to Clint Eastwood’s excellent performance in the lead role. It was a great start to his “post Leone” career and would influence action movie heroes from that point forward.

Retro Television Review: The Astronaut (dir by Robert Michael Lewis)

Posted on September 10, 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 Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1972’s The Astronaut! It can be viewed on YouTube!

NASA has successfully landed a man on Mars! The entire world watches as Col. Brice Randolph (Monte Markham) makes his way across the Martian surface. However, suddenly, the signal goes out. Viewers are assured that this is the sort of thing that happens all the time with interstellar travel. What they don’t know is that the signal went down because Brice suddenly died. While the surviving members of the mission return to Earth, NASA tries to figure out how to keep anyone from finding out what happened to Brice. NASA director Kurt Anderson (Jackie Cooper) knows that the President wants to cut the budget and the death of an astronaut would probably provide the perfect excuse for taking money away from NASA and canceling the Mars program.

Anderson’s solution is to recruit a substitute. Eddie Reese (Monte Markham) has a slight resemblance to Brice, one that can be perfected through plastic surgery. While the mission returns from Mars, Eddie goes through a crash course to teach him how to talk, walk, and think like Col. Brice Randolph. Eddie is told that he’ll have to be Brice until the NASA scientists can figure out what led to Brice’s death. Once they do know what went wrong with the mission, Eddie will have to go into NASA’s version of the witness protection.

Eddie proves to be a quick learner and it helps that he, like so many others, looked up to Brice. However, while Eddie can fool almost everyone else, he cannot fool Brice’s wife, Gail (Susan Clark). When Eddie actually treats Gail with kindness and shows sympathy for her nervous condition, she realizes that there’s no way that Eddie is actually her husband. Apparently, Brice was not quite the saintly figure that the public believed him to be. Eddie and Gail soon fall in love for real but when NASA finally discovers what led to Brice’s death, it looks like their new life together might be over as abruptly as it begun.

The Astronaut is a low-key conspiracy …. well, I hesitate to call it a thriller. There’s little of the things that one typically associated with a conspiracy thriller. There’s no black helicopters. There’s no shadowy assassins. There’s no army of men walking around in black suits. Instead, there’s just a bunch of nervous bureaucrats who are desperate to keep the rest of the world from discovering just how much they screwed up. As played by Jackie Cooper, the head of NASA isn’t so much evil as he’s just way too devoted-to-his-job for his own good. In many ways, this is probably one of the most realistic conspiracies ever portrayed on film.

In the end, The Astronaut is a portrait of two lonely people who find love in the strangest of circumstances. Susan Clark and Monte Markham make for a likable couple and the viewer really does hope that things will work out for them. What this film lack in conspiracy thrills, it makes up for in human drama. It appealed to both my romantic and my rabid anti-government sides. What more could one ask?

Porky’s (1981, directed by Bob Clark)

Posted on November 3, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Porky’s.

On the one hand, it’s a crude, juvenile, and raunchy sex comedy where a bunch of teenagers in 1960s Florida think that it’s a hoot and not at all problematic to spy on the girls shower and to hire a black man to scare all of their (white) friends.

On the other hand, it’s a heartfelt plea for tolerance where Tim (Cyril O’Reilly) finally stands up to his abusive father (Wayne Maunder) and makes friends with Brian Schwartz (Scott Colomby), who is apparently the only Jewish person living in Angel Beach, Florida.

What’s strange about Porky’s is that everyone knows it for being the template for almost every bad high school film that followed, with tons of nudity, jokes about sex, and characters with names like Pee Wee, Miss Honeywell, Cherry Forever, and Porky. But, when you sit down and watch the movie, you discover that, for all the raunchiness, it actually devotes even more time to Brian Schwartz dealing with the local bigots than it does to any of the things that it’s known for. Everyone remembers the shower scene but it’s obvious the film’s heart is with Brian and his attempts to make the world a better place. Porky’s is a sex comedy with a conscience.

Porky’s is an episodic film about a group of teenage boys trying to get laid and also trying to get revenge on the owner of the local brothel. There’s a lot of characters but I’d dare anyone to tell me the difference between Billy, Tommy, and Mickey. I went through the entire movie thinking that Billy was Mickey until I turned on the subtitles and discovered who was who. Porky’s has a reputation for being a terrible movie but it’s actually a pretty accurate depiction of the way that most men like to imagine how their high school years went. It captures the atmosphere of good-spirited teenage hijinks if not the reality.

One of the interesting things about Porky’s is that Bob Clark went from directing this to directing A Christmas Story. The innocence of A Christmas Story might seem like it has nothing in common with raunchiness of Porky’s but, actually, they’re both nostalgic films that are set in an idealized past. (If you still think A Christmas Story has nothing in common with Porky’s, just remember that Ralphie didn’t actually say “fudge.”) Of course, A Christmas Story struggled at the box office and only became a hit when it was released on video while Porky’s is still the most successful Canadian film to ever be released in the U.S. Sex sells. As cool as it was to see Brian Schwartz stand up for himself, I doubt the people who made Porky’s a monster hit were buying their tickets because they had heard the film struck a blow against anti-Semitism. They were going because they knew there was a shower scene.

Porky’s deserves its reputation for being a not-so great movie but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t laugh more than once while watching it. (Of course, I still didn’t laugh as much as the characters in the films laughed. I’ve never seen a cast that was as apparently amused with themselves as the cast of Porky’s.) There’s a lot of bad moments but it’s hard not to crack a smile when Miss Honeywell demonstrates why she’s known as Lassie or when one of the coaches suggests that wanted posters can be hung around the school to help catch the shower voyeur. Plus, everyone learns an important lesson about tolerance and how to destroy a brothel. As bad as it is, it’s hard to really dislike Porky’s.

Valdez is Coming (1971, directed by Edwin Sherin)

Posted on September 28, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Based on a western short story from the great Elmore Leonard, Valdez is Coming takes place in a small town on the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Wealthy Frank Tanner (Jon Cypher, who later played Chief Fletcher Daniels on Hill Street Blues) claims that he’s spotted the man who murdered a friend of his. Tanner and his gunmen have the man and his wife pinned down in a cabin. The man is African-American while his wife is Native American and Tanner’s use of racial slurs quickly confirms that there’s more to his animosity towards the couple than just a desire to see justice done for his dead friend.

Because the sheriff is out of town, Mexican constable Bob Valdez (Burt Lancaster) is summoned to the scene of the stand-off. Saying that he needs to see proof that the man is who Tanner claims he is, Valdez goes down to the cabin and manages to calm the man and his wife down. However, one of Tanner’s gunmen, R.L. Davis (Richard Jordan), opens fire on the cabin while Valdez is talking. Thinking that he’s been betrayed, the man opens fire on Valdez and Valdez is forced to kill the man in self-defense.

Feeling guilty about the man’s death (and also suspecting that the man was innocent of the crimes for which Tanner accused him), Valdez starts a collection for the dead man’s widow. When he asks Tanner to donate $100, Tanner responds by having Valdez tied to a wooden cross (symbolism alert!) and sent into the desert. Valdez nearly dies before he’s set free by a conscience-stricken Davis.

Still determined to get justice for the man that he killed, Valdez sets out after Tanner and his men. Valdez kidnaps Tanner’s young bride, Gay Erin (Susan Clark), and lets Tanner know that he can either pay the $100 or he can die like a coward.

An American attempt to capture the feel of a Spaghetti western, Valdez is Coming has an interesting plot. I liked the fact that, even after nearly being crucified, Valdez was still more concerned with making Tanner pay his fair share and getting justice for the people Tanner had hurt than with getting any sort of personal revenge. The supporting characters also have more depth than is typical for a film like this. Gay Erin is not as innocent as she first appears to be and R.L. Davis may work for Tanner but he’s still has enough personal integrity not to leave Valdez to die in the desert.

Unfortunately, the movie itself is slow and ponderous. A big problem is that Burt Lancaster is miscast as Bob Valdez. Valdez is a Mexican constable who has served in the U.S. Calvary. Because he’s Mexican, the man in the shed is willing to briefly trust him. Tanner continually underestimates and refuses to negotiate with Valdez because Valdez is a quiet and reserved Mexican. Almost everything that happens in the film is in some way connected to Tanner’s refusal to negotiate with Valdez because Vadez is a Mexican. Burt Lancaster is in absolutely no way Mexican and the unfortunate decision to have him wear brownface makeup only serves as a reminder of how miscast he is in the lead role. The movie also concludes with the type of ambiguous ending that was very popular in the 70s but which is frustrating to watch today. After 90 minutes of Valdez demanding that Tanner either die like a coward or pay $100, it’s frustrating that the film leaves it as an open question as to what eventually happened.

Valdez is Coming had the potential to be a western classic but it was done in by miscasting and questionable directing. It’ll best be appreciated by western completists.

Trapped (1973, directed by Frank De Felitta)

Posted on August 23, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Chuck Brenner (James Brolin) is out shopping when he’s mugged and left unconscious in a men’s room stall. By the time Chuck wakes up, the store is closed for the weekend and the place is deserted except for him and six doberman guard dogs. The dogs are trained to hunt down and attack anyone who shouldn’t be in the store and, as far as they’re concerned, that includes Chuck. Chuck now has to survive the night and try to figure out a way to get out of the store. Not helping is that Chuck still hasn’t recovered from taking a blow to the head and he’s been bitten by one of the dogs, leaving a blood trail for them to follow.

This made-for-TV movie is a simple but effective thriller about an ordinary man trapped in an extremely dangerous situation. Frank De Felitta (who would later direct one of my favorite made-for-tv horror film, The Dark Night of the Scarecrow) does a good job of creating suspense as Chuck tries to make it from one area of the department store to the next without getting attacked. (One of the best scenes involves Chuck, dizzy because he has a concussion, jumping from one cabinet to another while the dogs wait below him.) Even dog lovers will become nervous as the dobermans prowl the aisles, looking for their prey. James Brolin gives a good everyman performance and he’s ably supported by Susan Clark as his ex-wife and Earl Holliman as Clark’s new husband. The film is so well-executed that it was only after it ended that I started to wonder why any store would leave six dog unsupervised in their store overnight. Just the effort that would have to be made to clean up after them would cancel out whatever money was being saved by not using a human security guard.

Trapped has been released under several titles, the best known of which is The Dobermn Patrol. My personal favorite, though, is Danger Doberman!

Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969, directed by Abraham Polonsky)

Posted on February 18, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

In 1908, a Paiute Indian named Willie (Robert Blake) has fallen in love with a white woman named Lola (Katharine Ross). After Lola’s father discovers Willie and Lola together, Willie shoots him. Willie claims that the shooting was in self-defense while the white citizens of California insist that it was cold-blooded murder, motivated by a tribal custom that would allow Willie to claim Lola as his wife upon the death of her father. Willie and Lola go on the run, trying to escape through the Morongo Valley.

Because President Taft is scheduled to make a trip to the area, the locals are eager for Willie Boy to either be captured or killed. Several posses form, all intent on tracking Willie down. A humane deputy sheriff named Cooper (Robert Redford) reluctantly leads the search for Willie. Cooper’s occasional lover is a school teacher named Elizabeth (Susan Clark) who insists that Cooper rescue Lola from Willie. The only problem is that Lola doesn’t want to be rescued and Willie would rather die than surrender to the white men.

Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here is one of those revisionist westerns that were all the rage in the late 60s and the early 70s. (The same year that he led a posse in Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, Robert Redford also tried to outrun a posse in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.) Willie Boy gets off to a good start, showing how Willie has to spend almost every hour of the day dealing with prejudice and racism. The film does a good job of showing that even “liberal” whites, like Elizabeth, are capable of being prejudiced. There are hints that Cooper and Willie share a mutual respect and both Blake and Redford do a good job portraying the weary respect that the lawman and the outlaw have for each other.

Things start to fall apart when Willie shoots Lola’s father. The scene is shot so confusingly that it’s hard to know what exactly happened and it feels like a cop out. Rather than definitely saying whether Willie had no choice but to shoot Lola’s father or that Willie intentionally committed murder, the scene tries to have it both ways and it doesn’t work. Once the chase begins, the movie is equally split between Cooper and the posse and Willie and Lola and the end result is that the two main characters end up getting short changed.

Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here was directed by Abraham Polonsky, a screenwriter who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. While this is definitely a film made from a left-wing perspective, its actual message still feels muddled. Willie is the driving force behind the plot but the film seems to be more interested in the less intriguing Cooper. The film ends on a note of ambiguity, which perhaps felt daring in 1969 but today, just feels like another cop out. Despite a great performance from Blake and a better-than-usual one from Redford, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here is an unfortunate misfire.

City on Fire (1979, directed by Alvin Rakoff)

Posted on February 13, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

In an unnamed city somewhere in the midwest, Herman Stover (Jonathan Welsh) is fired from his job at an oil refinery. Herman does what any disgruntled former employee would do. He runs around the refinery and opens up all the valves and soon, the entire location is covered in a combustible mix of oil and chemicals. One spark is all it takes for the refinery to explode and the entire city to turn into a raging inferno.

While Fire Chief Risley (Henry Fonda, getting a special “And starring” credit for doing what probably amounted to a few hours of work) sits in his office and gives orders to his subordinates, Dr. Frank Whitman (Barry Newman) cares for the injured at the city’s new hospital. Also at the hospital is Mayor William Dudley (Leslie Nielsen) and local celebrity Diana Brockhurst-Lautrec (Susan Clark), who is having an affair with the mayor. Diana also went to high school with Herman and he still has a crush on her. When he shows up at the hospital to try to hit on her, he’s roped into working as a paramedic. Also helping out at the hospital is Nurse Shelley Winters. (The character may be named Andrea Harper but she’s played by Shelley Winters and therefore, she is Shelley Winters.) At the local television station, news producer Jimbo (James Franciscus) tries to keep his anchorwoman, Maggie Grayson (Ava Gardner), sober enough to keep everyone up to date on how much longer the city is going to be on fire.

Mostly because it was featured on an early pre-Comedy Central episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, City on Fire has a reputation for being a terrible movie but, as far as 70s disaster films are concerned, it’s not that bad. The special effects are actually pretty impressive, especially during the first half of the film and there’s really not a weak link to be found in the cast. It’s always strange to see Leslie Nielsen playing a serious role but, before Airplane! gave him a chance to display his skill for deadpan comedy, he specialized in playing stuffy and boring authority figures. He actually does a good job as Mayor Dudley and it’s not the film’s fault that, for modern audiences, it’s impossible to look at Leslie Nielsen without instinctively laughing. Of course, there is a scene towards the end where Leslie Nielsen picks up a fire hose and starts spraying people as they come out of the hospital and it was hard not to laugh at that because it felt like a scene straight from The Naked Gun.

What the film does suffer from is an overabundance of cliches and bad dialogue. From the minute the movie starts, you know who is going to live and who isn’t and sometimes, City on Fire tries too hard to give everyone a connection. It’s believable that Herman would be stupid enough to start a fire because we all know that happens in the real world. What’s less believable is that, having started the fire, Herman would then go to the hospital and keep asking Diana if she remembers him from high school. It’s not asking too much to believe that Diana, as wealthy local celebrity, would be invited to the opening of a new hospital. It’s stretching things, though, to then have her deliver a baby while the hospital is in flames around her.

Coming out at the tail end of the disaster boom, City on Fire didn’t do much at the box office and would probably be forgotten if not for the MST 3K connection. A year after City on Fire was released, Airplane! came out and, through the power of ridicule, put a temporary end to the entire disaster genre.

Monster Chiller Horror Theatre: Deadly Companion (1980, directed by George Bloomfield)

Posted on October 11, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

Deadly Companion starts with John Candy sitting in a mental institution and snorting cocaine while happily talking to his roommate, Michael Taylor (Michael Sarrazin). Michael has been in the institution ever since the night that he walked in on his estranged wife being murdered. Because of the shock, he can’t remember anything that he saw that night. When his girlfriend Paula (Susan Clark) comes to pick Michael up, Michael leaves the institution determined to get to the truth about his wife’s murder. Once Michael leaves, John Candy disappears from the movie.

Michael suspects that his wife was killed by her lover, Lawrence Miles (Anthony Perkins) but there is more to that night than Michael is remembering. Deadly Companion is a typical low-budget shot-in-Toronto thriller from the early 80s, with familiar Canadian character actors like Michael Ironside, Al Waxman, Kenneth Welsh, and Maury Chaykin all playing small roles. Michael Sarrazin is a dull lead but Anthony Perkins gets to do what he did best at the end of his career and plays a thoroughly sarcastic bastard who gets the only good lines in the film.

What’s interesting about Deadly Companion isn’t the predictable plot and it’s certainly not Michael Sarrazin. Instead, what’s strange is that several cast members of SCTV show up in tiny supporting roles, though none of them get as much of a chance to make as big an impression as John Candy. Deadly Companion is a serious thriller that just happens to feature Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, and Dave Thomas. It’s strange to see Michael Sarrazin trying to figure out who killed his wife while Eugene Levy loiters in the background. It leaves you waiting for a punchline that never comes.

The SCTV people are in the film because it was directed by George Bloomfield, who also directed several episodes of SCTV. Since this film was made before SCTV really broke into the American marketplace, it was probably assumed that no one outside of Canada would ever find the presence of John Candy in a dramatic murder mystery distracting. Of course, when Deadly Companion was later released on VHS in the late 80s, Candy and the SCTV crew were all given top billing.