Tag Archives: Tim O’Connor

The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell Fear (1991, directed by David Zucker)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Frank Drebin is back!

Now separated from Jane (Priscilla Presley) and working in Washington D.C., Frank (Leslie Nielsen) finds himself investigating a bombing at the offices of Dr. Albert S. Meinheimer (Richard Griffiths), an advocate of renewable energy who has just been put in charge of America’s energy policies by President George H.W. Bush (John Roarke, who was better-known for playing Ronald Reagan on Friday’s).  With the help of Captain Ed Hocken (George Kennedy) and Officer Nordberg (O.J. Simpson), Drebin’s investigation leads him to Quentin Haspburg (Robert Goulet), an oilman who is plotting on replacing Dr. Meinheimer with a double.  It also leads him back to Jane, who is now working as an assistant to Meinheimer and being wooed by Hapsburg.

The Naked Gun 2 1/2 is a worthy sequel to the first Naked Gun.  It’s more plot-heavy than the first film and some of the jokes feel a little bit too familiar but it’s still a very funny film.  That’s largely due to Neilsen, Kennedy, and Presley, all of whom really commit to playing their absurd characters.  (Robert Goulet gives a game performance but he really can’t match Ricardo Montalban’s villainous turn in the first movie.)  Nielsen was probably the only actor alive who could keep a straight face even while hitting Barbara Bush in the face while opening a door and then struggling to eat lobster at a state dinner.  As was often the case with the ZAZ films (even though Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker didn’t have anything to do with the screenplay of the sequel), the funniest moments are also the most random and the stupidest.  I laughed a lot harder than I should have at Leslie Neilsen struggling with a very small towel that had been thrown against his face.  And don’t worry, O.J. Simpson fans.  Nordberg gets injured in this movie too.

Leslie Nielsen was one of those actors who could make anything funny.  Whether he was delivering his hard-boiled dialogue or doing absurd physical comedy with an absolutely straight face, it was impossible not to laugh when Leslie Nielsen was onscreen.  He was a true cinematic treasure.

 

Retro Television Reviews: The Failing of Raymond (dir by Boris Sagal)

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 Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1971’s The Failing of Raymond!  It  can be viewed on YouTube!

Poor Raymond!

Played by a young Dean Stockwell, Raymond is patient at a mental hospital who blames everything that has gone wrong on his life on one failed test.  During his senior year of high school, he got a 61 on an English test and, as a result, he not only only failed the class but he also wasn’t allowed to graduate.  The test was administered by a substitute teacher named Mary Bloomquist (Jane Wyman), one who did not know that Raymond had a reputation for being a bit eccentric.  When Raymond tried to ask her whether or not the final two questions were for extra credit, Mary refused to call on him because she was more preoccupied with her failed affair with another teacher (Dana Andrews).  Raymond didn’t answer the final two questions, even though he believed that he had the correct answers.  Now, locked away in a hospital, Raymond comes across an article announcing that beloved teacher Mary Bloomquist will soon be retiring and moving to England.

Seeking revenge, Raymond escapes from the hospital.  While police Sgt. Manzek (Murray Hamilton) search for Raymond, Raymond returns to his old school.  When he finds Mary in her classroom, Mary mistakes Raymond for a mover responding to a classified ad asking for help in getting all of her things packed up.  Raymond may be a homicidal but he also craves direction and praise so he helps Mary with her packing.  As he packs, Mary talks about her decision to retire and it turns out that she’s not quite the monster that Raymond imagined her to be.  Mary is retiring because she feels that she has never made a difference as a teacher.

That said, Raymond is still determined to get his revenge.  He wants Mary to give him the test a second time and to give him a passing grade.  And if she doesn’t, he’s prepared to kill her.  Unfortunately, despite claiming to have spent years studying the material, Raymond still thinks that Robert Browning wrote the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.…

As the old saying goes, you never know how much your actions might effect someone else’s life.  Mary is a dedicated and well-meaning teacher who cares about her students but her decision to fail Raymond, made on a day when she was distracted by her own personal problems, is something that Raymond has never forgotten or forgiven.  Mary can barely remember it happening but Raymond has based his entire life around that moment and, as the film progresses, it becomes clear that he’s incapable of understanding that the entire world doesn’t revolve around what happened to him during his senior year.  On the one hand, Mary definitely should have answered Raymond’s question about whether or not the final two questions were multiple choice.  On the other hand, Raymond has clearly been using the incident as an excuse to justify every mistake that he’s made sense.  Ironically, Raymond’s quest for revenge gives Mary the chance to finally be the teacher that she truly wants to be.

It’s an intriguing premise.  Unfortunately, like so many made-for-TV movies from the early 70s, The Failing of Raymond is occasionally a bit too stagey for its own good.  Despite only being 73 minutes long, it never really develops any sort of narrative momentum.  That said, Dean Stockwell gives a performance that makes clear why Alfred Hitchcock was planning on casting him as Norman Bates if Anthony Perkins somehow fell through.  As played by Stockwell, Raymond is unfailingly polite and so obviously wounded that it’s impossible not to feel sympathy for him, even when he’s threatening to kill his former teacher.  Jane Wyman, as well, gives a sympathetic performance as Mary, who, despite that one bad day with Raymond, really is the type of teacher we all wish we could have had.

This film was directed by Boris Sagal, who did several made-for-TV movies and also directed Charlton Heston in The Omega Man.  His daughter, Katey Sagal, makes her film debut in a small role as one of Raymond’s fellow patients.

Horror on the Lens: The Failing of Raymond (dir by Boris Sagal)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Raymond (Dean Stockwell) has just escaped from a mental hospital and he has only one thing on his mind.  Raymond wants revenge.  Having looked over the past events of his life, Raymond has figured out that things started to go downhill for him when he failed a test in high school.  He blames his failure on his old teacher, Mary Bloomquist (Jane Wyman).

At the same time that Raymond is escaping, Mary is planning her retirement.  She’s decided that she no longer wants to teach.  The job just doesn’t seem worth it anymore.  But Raymond has other ideas.  Raymond wants her to give him the same test that he failed ten years before.  And this time, Raymond wants her to pass him or else.

The Failing of Raymond is a made-for-TV movie from 1971 and it features a good performance from Jane Wyman and a great one from Dean Stockwell.  The film ultimately hinges on one question.  Did Raymond really fail that test or did Mary fail Raymond?

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egFBvsOaLnY

Griffith Gets Serious: Winter Kill (1974, directed by Jud Taylor)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Eagle Lake, a mountain resort town in California, has a problem.  It’s almost tourist season and there is a sniper stalking through the night, using his rifle to pick off citizens and painting messages like “The First” and “The Second” in the snow.  It’s up to police chief Sam McNeill (Andy Griffith) to figure out the killer’s motives and capture him before the vacation season begins!  To catch the killer, McNeill is going to have to investigate his friends and neighbors, all of whom have secrets that they don’t want to have revealed.

1974 was a busy year for Andy Griffith.  Best-known for playing the folksy and reassuring Sheriff Taylor for over ten years on The Andy Griffith Show, Griffith tried to change his image by appearing in three unexpectedly dark made-to-TV movies.  In Pray For The Wildcats and Savages, Griffith played the villain.  In Winter Kill, he’s back in a more familiar role.  He is once again playing a lawman, though this one carries a gun and doesn’t have time to sit on his porch and play the guitar while Aunt Bea makes dinner.  Instead, he’s getting pressure from all sides to capture a psycho sniper who, at the start of the movie, shoots an old woman after throwing pebbles at her bedroom window.  Eventually, the sniper even ends up kidnapping Chief McNeill’s girlfriend!  This never happened in Mayberry!

Winter Kill is a pretty good mystery.  It’s not strictly a horror film but the sight of the masked sniper, making his way through the night and coldy gunning down unsuspecting victims is scary enough that it might as well be.  Andy Griffith was surprisingly tough and gritty as Chief McNeill.  He might be a good guy in this movie but you still know better than to mess with him.  The rest of the cast is made up of television regulars but keep an eye out for a youngish Nick Notle playing a cocky ski instructor.

Winter Kill was actually meant to be a backdoor pilot for a show where Chief McNeill would battle crime on a weekly basis.  Though that didn’t happen, the concept was later retooled and became a short-lived series called Adams of Eagle Lake.