Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 2.12 “The Good Doctor”

Posted on June 27, 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!

It’s time to get back on that highway!

Episode 2.12 “The Good Doctor”

(Dir by William Claxton, originally aired on December 18th, 1985)

This week, Mark is super-excited about Jonathan’s new assignment. They’re going to be working, as equipment managers, for a pro football team! Mark’s excited because he loves football and he can’t wait to meet his favorite player of all time, a banged-up, aging guy named Alex Carpenter (Ray Young).

Jonathan, however, is concerned that everyone is on drugs. Alex is in almost constant agony from his injuries and he’s gotten hooked on the pain pills that are provided to him by the team doctor, Dr. Dan Hickey (Michael Constantine). Dan is hooked on pills himself, along with being an alcoholic. Dan is such an addict that he doesn’t even realize that his son, medical student Neal (William Kirby Cullen), is now abusing drugs himself. Everyone’s an addict and everyone’s in denial.

When Alex gets cut from the team, he is also cut off from his main supplier and soon, he’s tearing up his house while searching for any leftover pills. (Jonathan appears and loudly encourages him to destroy his entire office while searching, presumably so Alex can see how out-of-control his addiction is.) When Neal takes too many pills before his next exam, he ends up in the hospital. And Dan is finally forced to admit that he hasn’t been a good doctor.

Does this episode end at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, attended by all three of the addicts? You better believe it!

This was pretty much a typical Highway to Heaven episode. This message was earnest and heartfelt but the direction and the script totally embraced the episode’s already heightened melodrama. It wasn’t enough for Alex to get upset over not being able to find his pills. Instead, he had to furiously toss everything around his office (and even break a window) while Jonathan shouted, “WHERE ARE THE PILLS, ALEX!? WHERE ARE THEY!?” It wasn’t enough for Dan to overprescribe pills. He also had to be so drunk that he didn’t even notice when Jonathan materialized in his office. And, of course, Neal had to OD because there was no way we were going to end this episode without someone being rushed to the hospital. It was all a bit predictable but the show wasn’t incorrect when it came to discussing the dangers of abusing even prescription medication. If the show aired today, the enemy would be fentanyl. Since it was made in 1985, the enemy is instead just generic pain pills.

As often was the case with this series, the acting was a mixed bag but Michael Constantine was certainly effective as the “good doctor,” wandering through his day in a haze of pills and alcohol. And Michael Landon delivered his denunciation of drugs with a quiet fury that let you know that he meant every word of it.

Next week, Jonathan and Mark help a young man who is living alone.

30 Days of Noir #2: Whispering Footsteps (dir by Howard Bretherton)

Posted on November 2, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1943 film Whispering Footsteps opens with Mark Borne (John Hubbard) getting ready for his day. In his bedroom, at the boarding house where he lives, Mark turns on his radio and hears a news report of a double murder in a nearby town. Two girls have been strangled.

As the news report says that the killer has brown hair, Mark brushes his brown hair.

As the news report says that the killer has brown eyes, Mark looks at his brown eyes in the mirror.

As the news report says that the killer has a “lean, intelligent” face, the camera focuses on Mark’s lean, intelligent face.

Finally, as the news report says that the killer was wearing a gray, double-breasted suit, Mark puts on gray, double-breasted suit.

Yes, Mark looks just like the murderer and that quickly becomes a problem for him as he attempts to go about his day. When he walks to his job at the local bank, he notices that he’s being followed by a detective (Cy Kendall). When Mark later tries to take his lunch break, he again finds himself being followed. Desperate to escape from the detective, Mark steps into a bookstore and buys a random book. It’s only once he steps outside that Mark discovers that the title of the book is Psychology of the Homicidal.

Mark is a respectable member of the community but, because he looks like a serial killer, everyone in town soon starts to gossip about him. Why does he go for so many walks? Why does he sometimes seem to be in a bad mood? Could he be a murderer? Even the other residents of the boarding house start to view him with suspicion. Every time that she sees him, Rose Murphy (Juanita Quigley) screams.

Of course, Rose screams whenever anything happens. For instance, when she is shown a newspaper story about a local murder, Rose screams. Whenever anyone walks up behind her, Rose screams. Whenever anyone says hi to her, Rose screams. When a woman is found strangled in the basement, Rose screams again. Admittedly, it’s easy to get annoyed with Rose’s constant screaming but, in that last case, she’s probably justified.

Anyway, Mark only has one person on his side and that’s Brook (Rita Quigley), the daughter of his boss. And yet, at one point, Brook finds herself being chased through the night by a man in a double-breasted suit. Is Mark guilty or does he just have the worst luck in the world?

If nothing else, Whispering Footsteps will keep you guessing. Up until the last minute of the film, you’re never sure whether Mark is innocent or guilty. Who is the monster, the film asks. Is it Mark or is it the gossips who have decided to judge him? As convincingly played by John Hubbard, Mark starts out as upbeat and just a little bit shallow but, by the end of the movie, he’s become a haunted and paranoid man, embittered by the town’s refusal to believe in him. Charles Halton, as Mark’s self-righteous boss, and Rita Quigley provide good support. Less successful are some awkward attempts at humor. It won’t take you long to get tired of Rose screaming.

Clocking in at 52 minutes, Whispering Footsteps was obviously meant to be the second part of a double feature. It’s a well-done examination of guilt, innocence, and gossip. See it on a double bill with In A Lonely Place.

Lisa Reviews an Oscar Winner: The Sting (dir by George Roy Hill)

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier tonight, as a part of their 31 Days of Oscar, TCM aired The Sting, the film that the Academy selected as being the best of 1973. I just finished watching it and what can I say? Based on what I’ve seen of the competition (and there were a lot of great films released in 1973), I would not necessarily have picked The Sting for best picture. However, the movie is still fantastic fun.

The Sting reunited the director (George Roy Hill) and the stars (Robert Redford and Paul Newman) of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and told yet another story of likable criminals living in the past. However, whereas Butch Cassidy largely satirized the conventions of the traditional Hollywood western, The Sting is feels like a loving homage to the films of 1930s, a combination of a gritty, low-budget gangster film and a big budget musical extravaganza. The musical comparison may sound strange at first, especially considering that nobody in The Sting randomly breaks out into song. However, the musical score (which is famously dominated by Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer) is ultimately as much of a character as the roles played by Redford, Newman, and Robert Shaw. And, for that matter, the film’s “let-pull-off-a-con” plot feels like an illegal version of “let’s-put-on-a-show.”

The film takes place in the 1936 of the cultural imagination, a world dominated by flashy criminals and snappy dialogue. When con artists Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) and Luther Coleman (Robert Earl Jones) inadvertently steal money from a gangster named Lonnegan (Robert Shaw), Lonnegan has Luther murdered. Fleeing for his life, Hooker goes to Chicago where he teams up with Luther’s former partner, veteran con man Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman). Gondorff used to be one of the great con artists but he is now living in self-imposed obscurity, spending most of his time drinking and trying to avoid the FBI. Hooker wants to get revenge on Lonnegan by pulling an elaborate con on him. When Gondorff asks Hooker why, Hooker explains that he can either con Lonnegan or he can kill him and he doesn’t know enough about killing.

The rest of the film deals with Hooker and Gondorff’s plan to con Lonnegan out of a half million dollars. It’s all very elaborate and complicated and a bit confusing if you don’t pay close enough attention and if you’re ADHD like me. But it’s also a lot of fun and terrifically entertaining and that’s the important thing. The Sting is one of those films that shows just how much you can accomplish through the smart use of movie star charisma. Redford and Newman have such great chemistry and are so much fun to watch that it really doesn’t matter whether or not you always understand what they’re actually doing.

It also helps that, in the great 70s tradition, they’re taking down stuffy establishment types. Lonnegan may be a gangster but he’s also a highly respected and very wealthy gangster. When Newman interrupts a poker game, Lonnegan glares at him and tells him that he’ll have to put on a tie before he’s allowed to play. Lonnegan may operate outside the law but, in many ways, he is the establishment and who doesn’t enjoy seeing the establishment taken down a notch?

As entertaining as The Sting may be and as influential as it undoubtedly is (Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean films may be a lot more pretentious — which makes sense considering that Soderbergh is one of the most pretentious directors in film history — but they all owe a clear debt to The Sting), it still feels like an unlikely best picture winner. Consider, for instance, that The Sting not only defeated American Graffiti and The Exorcist but Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers as well. On top of that, when you consider some of the films that were released in 1973 and not nominated — Mean Streets, Badlands, The Candy Snatchers, Day of the Jackal, Don’t Look Now, Jesus Christ Superstar, and The Long Goodbye — it’s debatable whether The Sting should have been nominated at all. That’s not a criticism of The Sting as much as it’s an acknowledgement that 1973 was a very good year in film.