Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 2.3 “Bless The Boys In Blue”

Posted on March 28, 2024 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

This week, Jonathan and Mark become cops!

Episode 2.3 “Bless The Boys In Blue”

(Dir by Victor French, originally aired on October 2nd, 1985)

Well, here’s an episode that would never be made today.

While driving through Los Angeles, Mark talks about a story that has been in the news. A police sergeant shot a young black teenager outside of a crack house. The teenager was holding a gun but it was subsequently discovered that the gun was unloaded. The policeman has been suspended from the force. Mark, a former cop, is on the sergeant’s side. Jonathan argues that the sergeant could have tried to talk to the teenager instead of shooting him. Mark claims that Jonathan has no idea what it’s like to be a cop because he’s an angel. Mark makes the mistake of saying that he wishes Jonathan could experience what it’s actually like to be a cop.

God — or “The Boss” as the show calls him — hears Mark’s wish and makes it come true. Mark and Jonathan’s assignment is to become cops and, just to make things interesting, God takes away Jonathan’s special powers. Jonathan becomes human, once again. If Jonathan gets shot, he’ll actually get wounded. One gets the feeling that Jonathan is being punished for his pride, though the show never comes out and says it.

On the first day on the job, Jonathan tries to talk a burglar into putting down his gun and it doesn’t go well. If not for Mark surprising the burglar, Jonathan probably would have gotten shot. Having learned his lesson, Jonathan is given back his powers so that he can convince the dead teenager’s father to forgive the cop who shot him….

If any show aired an episode like this today, it would be greeted with howls of protest and those howls wouldn’t necessarily be unjustified. The episode is unabashedly pro-cop, to the extent that it doesn’t even seem to consider the countless number of police shootings that have been ruled unjustified over the years. As well, asking the teenager’s father to forgive the man who shot his son so that the man himself can work through his guilt feels incredibly selfish on the part of Jonathan.

Then again, the police that we see in this 1985 show have little in common with the police we see in 2024. For the most part, the cops in this episode walk a beat or drive around in their squad cars. They’re normal, blue collar folks who are doing their job and who do their best to be polite to everyone. There’s no body armor. No one looks like they’ve spent weeks in the gym. There’s no shaved heads or terse military-style lingo. There’s no dismissive talk of “bad guys” and “good guys.” There are no tanks rolling down the city streets. In many way, this episode feels like it’s taking place in a different reality and, to an extent, I guess it is. This episode is 39 years old but it feels like a work of ancient lore.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Lord Shango (dir by Ray Marsh)

Posted on October 21, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1975 film, Lord Shango, takes place in a small, rural town in the Deep South, where the population appears to be firmly divided between those who worship at an evangelical Christian church and those who follow the Yoruba religion.

(To answer the obvious question, I have no idea how faithful this film is to the realities of the Yoruba religion.)

Jenny (Marlene Clark), who is a waitress at a local restaurant, is a member of the evangelical church, largely because her boyfriend is a member and he thinks that her attending the church will help her to get pregnant. Her daughter, Billie (Avis McCarther), is in love with Femi (Bill Overton), who is a follower of the Yoruba religion. One Sunday morning, while all the church people sings hymns, a series of baptisms are held in a nearby river. When it is time for Billie to baptized, Femi rushes into the water and objects. After he shoves her out of the river, the men of the church grab Femi and announce that the evil must be taken out of him through what appears to be a forced baptism. They force him under the water but, with Femi struggling, the end up holding him down for too long and Femi drowns.

Traumatized, Billie sinks into depression and Jenny grows disillusioned with the church, especially when the men who held Femi down refuse to take any responsibility for their actions. She also learns that her boyfriend, Memphis (Wally Taylor), had sex with Billie after Billie mistook him for being the spirit of Femi. When she finds Memphis praying in the church, she proceeds to yell and curse at him while he pathetically apologizes.

The next morning, Jenny wakes up to discover that Billie has run away, leaving behind a note that simply reads, “I can no longer live in your house.” When the men of the church again prove to be insensitive and ineffectual when it comes to finding out where Billie has gone (and instead are more concerned about why Jenny and Memphis has not been coming to the prayer meetings), Jenny turns to Femi’s friend, Jabo (Lawrence Cook). Under Jabo’s guidance, Jenny offers up a series of sacrifices to the local Yoruba priest (Maurice Woods) and asks for her daughter to return home.

The sacrifices appear to work. Billie returns home and reveals that she’s pregnant with a baby that she believes to be Femi’s and which Jenny believes to be Memphis’s. Jenny, now firmly under the control of Jabo, continues to make sacrifices and bad things continue to befall the men that she holds responsible for Femi’s death….

A frequently surreal film, Lord Shango is an interesting, if not always easy-to-decipher, portrayal of the battle of two different belief systems. While the evangelical Christianity that Jenny first followed could only promise an eventual reward, Jabo’s tribal religion offers her immediate reward and revenge. (Significantly, even though Billie was in love with Femi and wants to have his child, she has no interest in following his religion.) The film is often edited to provide a direct contrast between the staged cermonies of evangelical Christianity and the sensuality of the Yoruba religion. The film is full of Southern gothic atmosphere and is well-acted, particularly by Lawrence Cook and Marlene Clark. That said, the film is also frequently very difficult to follow. At times, one gets the feeling that the film is being surreal simply to be surreal and it’s hard to find a coherent message in the film’s collection of odd scenes and strange dialogue.

Lord Shango is a frequently intriguing film, as long as you’re willing to accept a little incoherence.

The Gumball Rally (1976, directed by Chuck Bail)

Posted on June 24, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

When he gets bored in a business meeting, Michael Bannon (Michael Sarrazin) calls his old friend, Prof. Samuel Graves (Nicholas Pryor) and says only one word: “Gumball.” Inspired by that one word, dozens of racers assemble in New York, all planning on taking part in the Gumball Rally.

What is the Gumball Rally? It’s a highly illegal race in which teams of two compete to see which team can drive from New York to the other side of the country in the least amount of time. Bannon and Graves currently hold the record for completing the Gumball Rally in the quickest amount of time and all of the racers are determined to try to claim that record for their own. Meanwhile, one cop named Roscoe (Norman Burton) is determined to break this race up. Has there ever been a good cop named Roscoe? Rosco P. Coltrane probably had more of a chance of stopping them Duke Boys than Roscoe does stopping the Gumball Rally.

If The Gumball Rally sounds familiar, it’s because it’s basically a less star-filled version of The Cannonball Run. Instead of Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise, The Gumball Rally has Michael Sarrazin, Nicholas Pryor, Tim McIntire, and Norman Burton. Instead of Jackie Chan making his American debut, The Gumball Rally has early performances from Raul Julia and Gary Busey. Instead of Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr., The Gumball Rally has Steven Keats and Wally Taylor. You get the idea. However, the lack of big stars in the cast works to The Gumball Rally‘s advantage. Whereas you watch The Cannonball Run with the knowledge that there’s no way Burt Reynolds isn’t going to at least come in second, it seems like anyone of the eccentric teams in The Gumball Rally could win the race.

Make no mistake about it, The Gumball Rally is a car chase film, one that was released at the height of that underrated genre’s popularity. The actors are all likable and almost all of the characters get at least one funny, personality-defining moment but the real stars of The Gumball Rally are the cars and the stunts. That’s not surprising as this film was directed by legendary stuntman Chuck Bail. This film is full of spectacular crashes and near misses. (The race’s lone motorcyclist is especially accident-prone.) Again, the lack of stars in the cast (and the fact that the cast reportedly did most of their own driving) bring an added element of suspense to the stunts. You watch The Cannonball Run and Smoky and the Bandit secure in the knowledge that Burt Reynolds is never going to crash his vehicle because he’s Burt Ryenolds. You don’t have that same automatic security when the car is being driven by Michael Sarrazine or Tim McIntire.

It may not be as well known as some of the films that it inspired but, if you like a good car chase (or a good car crash) film, The Gumball Rally is for you.