Tag Archives: Tyne Daly

Retro Television Reviews: In Search of America (by Paul Bogart)

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 In Search of America!  It  can be viewed on YouTube!

College student Mike Olson (young Jeff Bridges) returns home and informs his mother (Vera Miles) and his father (Carl Betz) and his annoyingly quirky grandmother (Ruth McDevitt) that he’s dropped out of college.  He apologizes for wasting all the money that they spent on tuition but hey, maybe he can make it up to them by taking them on a journey as he drives across America in an old bus.

Uhmmm….

Now, let me just repeat this so that there is no confusion.  This absolutely schmuck took his parents’ money, wasted it, dropped out of college, and now he expects everyone to travel with him across America because he’s decided that he’s a part of the counterculture.

And, instead of telling him to go to Hell and get a job, his family agrees.

Oh sure, Mom is a little bit hesitant about Mike’s idea.  But Dad is really enthusiastic.  He understands the kids and he wants a chance to relive his own youth, before he got tied down with things like paying bills and being a responsible human being.  And, of course, if the Hippies were famous for anything, it was their love of upper class, middle-aged people.  Just ask the LaBiancas.

And, of course, grandma is totally excited about it because she’s an old person in a made-for-TV movie.

So, they all board the bus and Mike takes them to a music festival so that they can meet some of his friends.  For instance, there’s Nick (Sal Mineo), a drop-out who says that he’s more burned out than turned on.  There’s Annie (Tyne Daly), who is going to need someone to help deliver her baby.  There’s Bodhi (Glynn Turman), who is some sort of doctor.  He and grandma bond of their shared quirkiness.  And then there’s Kathy (Renne Jarrett), who is at the music festival despite the fact that she’s really sick and on the verge of dying. When Kathy’s parents (Howard Duff and Kim Hunter) show up looking for her, Mike has to decide whether to save her life or respect her wish to do her own thing.

This was obviously meant to be a pilot for a show where the family would travel around the country and I guess get involved in different adventures each week.  The main problem is that, while Jeff Bridges seems to be a bit of a hippie in real life, he’s not particularly convincing in this film.  He’s way too clean-cut and his family’s decision to follow him across the country never makes the least bit of sense.  As for the hippies themselves, they come across as being so shallow that I found myself wanting to donate money to the Nixon campaign.

Horror on TV: Circle of Fear 1.16 “Earth, Air, Fire, and Wind” (dir by Alex Singer)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of the show that was once Ghost Story, six artists rent out a space to create and show their art.  Unfortunately, they also find a trunk, one that contains six ancient glass containers.  Everyone’s work starts to take a dark turn as the artists become more and more obsessed with the containers.

That plot description might not sound like much but this is a pretty good episode, one that’s full of atmosphere and sly humor.  The script was by Harlan Ellison and D.C. Fontana.  Anyone who has ever spent any time in a commune will be able to relate!

This episode aired on January 19th, 1973.

Speedtrap (1977, directed by Earl Bellamy)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In a southwestern metropolis, a mysterious criminal is stealing cars and outrunning the police.  When the insurance company realizes that the cops are never going to be able to do their job, they decide to bring in an outside hire to solve the crimes.  They turn to a paisley-shirt wearing private investigator named Pete Novick (played by Joe Don Baker).  Novick’s a hard-drinking, hard-living P.I. who is going to solve the case no matter what.  Authority figures like police Captain Hogan (Morgan Woodward) hate him.  Women like cop Niffty Nolan (Tyne Daly) and psychic New Blossom (Lana Wood) want to have him.  Men like mechanic Billy (Richard Jaeckel) want to hang out with him.  You get the idea.  It’s a Joe Don Baker movie.

Speedtrap is basically one car chase after another, the majority of which are excitingly filmed and continue until almost every car involved has been destroyed.  Though the movie was directed by Earl Bellamy, it has the feel of a Hal Needham film as it keeps the characterization to a minimum and instead focuses on vehicular mayhem.  Speaking of Hal Needham, it’s also easy to imagine Burt Reynolds, in his B-movie days, playing the role of Pete Novick but not even he would have been as perfect for the role or the movie as Joe Don Baker.  Baker shambles through the movie, all the while keeping the same passive-aggressive grin on his face.  There’s nothing smooth about Joe Don Baker, which is why he was fun to watch in a movie like this.  Whether he’s having a one-night stand with a psychic (only in order to help for “totally relax” so that she can have her visions) or going out of his way to annoy almost every single person that he meets, he’s undeniably Joe Don Baker.  During one chase scene, an annoyed Novick snaps, “Beep beep my ass!”  Only Joe Don Baker could have pulled that off.

Eventually, the thief steals the wrong car.  This one has a suitcase in back that’s full of the mob’s money.  This gives Robert Loggia a chance to ham it up as a mafia don who wants Novick to capture the thief and then turn him over to the syndicate.  Novick, however, has even less respect for the mob than he does for the police.  The mafia subplot is a distraction but Timothy Carey plays Loggia’s main henchman and brings with him a few moments of genuine menace to the film.

Speedtrap has never gotten a DVD or Blu-ray release but it’s an entertaining B-movie and it deserves one.  How about it, Shout Factory?  A million Joe Don Baker fans are looking to you.

A Movie A Day #175: Telefon (1977, directed by Don Siegel)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Across America, strange things are happening.  Seemingly ordinary, middle-aged citizens are, without explanation, attacking formerly top secret government facilities.  The attackers are from all different walks of life.  One was an auto mechanic.  Another was a priest.  There was even a housewife who, after blowing up a power station, committed suicide with a poison pill that the KGB stopped issuing a decade ago.  Before launching their attacks, each one of them received a phone call in which a Russian man recited a poem by Robert Frost.

The Americans may not understand what is happening but the Soviets do.  Immediately after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the KGB planted sleeper agents across the United States.  They hypnotized and brainwashed the agents so thoroughly that they no longer remember that they are agents.  The Frost poem was the trigger designed to activate the agents, all of whom were meant to attack what were then valuable parts of America’s infrastructure.  With the arrival of détente, the program was abandoned and the sleeper agents were simply left behind in the United States.  But now, a former hardliner (Donald Pleasence), is activating the agents one by one.  Because he has a photographic memory, KGB colonel Charles Bronson is sent to the United States to track down and kill Pleasence before the United States discovers the truth about what is happening.  Lee Remick, as an American KGB agent, is assigned to work with him but is also ordered to kill him once the assignment has been completed.

That Telfon is one of Charles Bronson’s better post-Death Wish films is largely due to the presence of Don Siegel in the director’s chair.  As a director who specialized in intelligent genre films and who helped to make Clint Eastwood one of the world’s biggest stars with Dirty Harry, Coogan’s Bluff, The Beguiled, and Escape from Alcatraz, Don Siegel was the ideal director to bring out the best in Bronson.  Like St. Ives, Telefon features Bronson in an uncharacteristically cerebral role.  For once, he spends more time analyzing clues than he does shooting people and Bronson is surprisingly credible as a man with a photographic memory.

As directed by Siegel, Telefon is almost a satire of the type of violent action films that Bronson usually made for directors like Michael Winner. In Telefon, both the bad guys and the good guys are equally clueless.  All of the KGB sleeper agents are dumpy and middle-aged and the film continually emphasizes that they’ve all been brainwashed to attack targets that are no longer strategically important.    Donald Pleasence, playing one of his raving villains, wears a blonde, Beatles-style wig for much of the film.

Though the ending is a let down, Telefon is still one of the best of Bronson’s late 70s films.

Spider-Man: Homecoming Slings In With Two Official Trailers

Posted on by Arleigh

spider-man-homecoming

It’s been rumored that the Spider-Man: Homecoming trailer will appear in front of Rogue One: Star Wars Story. It’s logical considering Sony has let Spider-Man to play in the Marvel Cinematic Universe sandbox which also happens to share spot in the Walt Disney Empire with Lucasfilm. Yet, we don’t have to wait for next week’s Rogue One to see this trailer. Like all superhero blockbuster films the trailers themselves get their premiere on-line (after a live premiere on Jimmy Kimmel Live) and this is no different with the first official trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming.

So, without further ado, here’s not one, but two trailers for Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Domestic: this one definitely focuses more on the high school aspect of Spider-Man’s life.

International: this one a bit more action-packed with a focus on Spider-Man’s heroics and more time showcasing the villains.

Film Review: The Enforcer (dir. by James Fargo)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, we continue our look at the Dirty Harry film series by reviewing the third film in the series, 1976’s The Enforcer.

There’s a moment, towards the end of this film, where Harry (played as always by Clint Eastwood) is preparing to blow away one of the bad guys.  Before firing, Harry mutters something under his breath.  The first time I watched the film, I couldn’t make out what Harry was saying so I turned on the captioning and watched the scene again to discover just what exactly Harry had said before dispensing justice.

The line: “You fucking fruit.”

Yes, The Enforcer finds Harry at his most reactionary and it’s a good thing too.  Whereas Magnum Force found Harry fighting his fellow cops, The Enforcer could have just as easily been called Harry Vs. Occupy San Francisco.  This time around, the bad guys are members of something called The People’s Revolutionary Strike Force.  They’re led by a psychotic ex-pimp named Bobby Maxwell (played by an actor with the wonderful name of Deveren Bookwalter) and they’re fond of saying things like, “For the people!” before striking.  To be honest, The Enforcer’s villains are some of the most forgettable in the history of the franchise but that’s appropriate.  As opposed to the original Dirty Harry and Magnum Force, The Enforcer is less concerned with being a struggle between equals and more about Harry killing people.

The Enforcer opens with Harry preventing yet another armed robbery.  This time, he manages to destroy the entire store while doing so and ends up costing the city of San Francisco several million dollars.  Harry’s new superior, Capt. McKay (played by Bradford Dillman) isn’t amused and, as a punishment, temporarily transfers Harry over to the Personnel Department.  I have to say that McKay is a very brave man since Harry blew up the last superior who attempted to reprimand him.

Working Personnel, Harry has to sit in on interviews for promotions.  While doing so, he is informed that the Mayor has ordered them to find three women to promote to inspector.  “Women!?” Harry growls in shocked response.

While Harry is busy attempting to impede the march of progress, his old partner DiGiorgio (John Mitchum) stumbles upon Bobby and the revolutionaries stealing weapons.  As often happens with Harry’s partners, DiGiorgio is killed by the bad guys and Harry is transferred back to Homicide so he can investigate the death.  Helping Harry out is his new partner — Kate Moore (Tyne Daly), one of the three women who have recently been promoted to inspector.

While Harry and his new partner are busy tracking down Bobby, Capt. McKay tries to pin the crime on yet another revolutionary force, a group of black militants led by Big Ed Mustapha.

Big Ed is played by Albert Poppwell, who previously appeared in Dirty Harry as the “I’s got to know” robber.  When Harry first meets him, Harry says, “Haven’t I met you before?”  Though the film never explicitly says so, I like to think that the two characters are one in the same.

As for Bobby and the People’s Revolutionary Strike Force, they’re busy kidnapping the mayor and demanding $5,000,000 for his release.  Of course, it’s up to Harry and Moore to rescue the mayor and put all the “fucking fruits” back in their place….

Looking over other reviews of the Dirty Harry franchise, The Enforcer often seems to be dismissed as almost an afterthought.  Daly’s performance is usually praised (and quite rightfully so because she does give the film’s best performance) but the rest of the film is usually dismissed.  To a certain extent, that’s understandable.  As I mentioned before, Bobby Maxwell is not that interesting of a villain and Harry is at his most one dimensional here.

That said, I think The Enforcer is actually underrated.  There might not be much nuance to Eastwood’s performance here but he gets by on charisma alone and he has a likable chemistry with Daly.  As opposed to what we’ve been conditioned to expect from most other films, Harry and Moore’s relationship never turns romantic.  Instead, by the end of the film, they truly are equals.

The Enforcer was followed, nearly a decade later, by Sudden Impact.  We’ll take a look at that film tomorrow.