EDITOR’S NOTE: Sweet Hostage was on the CBS Late Movie on September 17, 1977 and May 15 and November 17, 1978.
Based on Welcome to Xanadu by Nathaniel Benchley, this was the ABC Friday Night Movie on October 10, 1975 and two years later, it became the CBS Late Movie. It was directed by former actor Lee Phillips and written by Edward Hume.
It’s a tale that’s both simple and controversial. Leonard Hatch (Martin Sheen) kidnaps Doris Withers (Linda Blair) from the farm that she works on for her family. Despite being a mental patient, he treats her better than her family ever did, teaching her and respecting her boundaries. However, this is also a story of a thirty-one-year-old man kidnapping a teenage girl and her developing Stockholm syndrome. It’s a stark reminder that 1975 was a different time. After all, Linda Blair was only 16 when this was made.
It was a big deal in Japan, where it played in theaters, and posters featured Blair in her nightgown. Although she didn’t want Sheen in the role and would have preferred her then-boyfriend Rick Springfield, she ended up “falling madly in love” with the twenty-one-years older Sheen, although they didn’t have a relationship.
As the story unfolds, these two characters find themselves in a surprising situation and fall in love. However, their budding romance is constantly interrupted by Doris’ parents and the police. The story concludes in a manner typical of a 1970s TV movie, leaving the audience with a sense of unexpectedness.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Satan’s School for Girls was on the CBS Late Movie on September 5, 1975 and April 1, 1977.
The early 70s were a time when Satan seemed to reign. I first learned about Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan as a child by reading the TV Guide Book of Lists. They asked him what the most Satanic TV shows were, and he replied with a list that included so many of my favorite shows. It scared me as a twelve-year-old — could I be taken by devil worshippers and be made to celebrate the Black Mass? This cultural phenomenon of the 70s is a nostalgic left-hand trip for many of us.
Made-for-TV movies reflected the Satanic bent of the early 70s. This Aaron Spelling produced, David Lowell Rich (Eye of the Cat,Airport 79 – The Concorde) directed affair brings the devil to the boarding school, along with plenty of attractive girls ready to give their souls to the Son of the Morning Star.
Martha Sayers is running from a mysterious stranger who may or may not be related to Torgo from Manos: The Hands of Fate. She locks herself in her sister Elizabeth’s (Pamela Franklin, Necromancy,The Legend of Hell House, The Food of the Gods) house and hangs herself. Of course, the police just think it’s a suicide. But we know better — The Salem Academy for Women had to have something to do with it. Martha’s roommate warns Elizabeth to stay away, but she is determined to uncover the truth.
She takes the name of Elizabeth Morgan and enrolls at the school where she’s welcomed by Roberta (Kate Jackson!), Jody Keller (Cheryl Ladd!) and Debbie Jones (Jamie Smith-Jackson from Go Ask Alice, who is married to Michael Ontkean, Sheriff Harry S. Truman from Twin Peaks). The fact that Alice and two of Charlie’s Angels (Sabrina Duncan and Kris Munroe, I’ll have you know) playing devils in a movie thrills me to no end. And throw in Alice, and we have a movie!
Debbie keeps having outbursts in class, and another girl commits suicide, prompting Headmistress Williams to start worrying about the influence of the new girl. Then there’s that painting of Martha in a dungeon that Debbie painted but is now terrified of. Just imagine — Elizabeth snoops and finds that room on campus but is chased away by a man with a knife!
Roberta is now on Elizabeth’s side. After all, there are some crazy teachers, like the professor, who make them run a rat through a maze. And when Debbie tries to leave, her body shows up. Finally, Liz can’t take anymore and bursts into Professor Delacroix’s (Lloyd Bochner, who played Walter Thornton in The Lonely Lady) office. He screams that something is stalking him, so he jumps out a window, gun in hand. He runs through a swamp before being beaten to death with sticks by several students. The popular Dr. Joseph Clampett (Roy Thinnes, David Vincent from The Invaders, The Norliss Tapes) is the real killer. The plot takes unexpected turns, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats.
He’s leading a Satanic cult that believes that he’s the devil. Only Elizabeth and the headmistress survive as the rest of the girls sacrifice themselves to the flames. And Clampett? He survives the fire and then promptly walks outside and disappears.
Interesting Wiki story: In the film’s synopsis, whoever wrote it states, “the other girls stay behind to sacrifice themselves to their leader (But are saved by God and Jesus offscreen as they were forced).” How do they know? That certainly didn’t happen in the movie version I saw!
This was remade in 2000, with Kate Jackson playing the school’s dean and Shannen Doherty. That version is unreviewed. Why pick 2000 when you can choose 1973? If only all schools could be as ridiculous as the Salem Academy for Women! If only all rooms had shag carpeting, and there were constant wine mixers and murders and 70s garish fashions! My world is so dull by comparison!
EDITOR’S NOTE: Chamber of Horrors was on the CBS Late Movie on September 11, 1972.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the motion picture you are about to see contains scenes so terrifying the public must be given grave warning. Therefore, the management has instituted visual and audible warnings at the beginning of each of the four supreme Fright Points. The Fear Flasher is the visual warning. The Horror Horn is the audible warning. Turn away when you hear the Fear Flasher! Close your eyes when you hear the Horror Horn!”
Chamber of Horrors was initially intended to be a made-for-TV movie and a pilot for a series known as House of Wax. It was way too intense for that, so it came to theaters. It was pretty short — it’s only 99 minutes with padding — so they added two gimmicks: the Fear Flasher turns the screen red when something scary happens, and the Horror Horn makes plenty of noise when something gory is about to befall a character.
This was directed by Hy Averback, who directed and produced plenty of TV as well as directing the movies Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas and The Story of Life, a 62-minute sex educational film with animation by several former Disney cartoonists. He was also the voice of the loudspeaker on M*A*S*H*. It was written by Stephen Kandel, who, in addition to writing tons of TV scripts, also wrote Winchester 73. Seriously, his TV credits hit every major show of the 70s.
Anthony Draco (Cesare Danova) and Harold Blount (Wilfrid Hyde-White) own a wax museum in Baltimore and have a side hustle as detectives. They join the police — including Wayne Rogers as Sgt. Albertson — in the hunt for Jason Cravette (Patrick O’Neal), a man who kills women and then marries her, which doesn’t seem like the usual way these things go. After being caught and sent via train to prison, he escapes by cutting off his own hand and running off to New Orleans, now with a hook where he once had fingers.
He finds a sex worker named Marie Champlain (Laura Devon) and transforms her into a lady — ironic, as Hyde-White played Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady — and takes her back to Baltimore to seduce and murder the man who convicted him, Judge Walter Randolph (Vinton Hayworth). He chops off the dead man’s hands and head so the police can’t figure out who did the crime. He follows that by killing Dr. Romulus Cobb (Richard O’Brien) and sending that man’s hands to the police to taunt them.
Draco and Blount believe that the mysterious murderer is Cravette and that he’s sending an entire corpse to the police piece-by-piece, with the arms and head still missing. After he kills a police officer for the hands, Draco realizes that the head the killer wants will be his.
There’s a tease for the next episode: a body in the Iron Maiden in the museum turns out to be real. The detectives call the police, and, well, that’s the end of their adventures.
This was supposed to be a House of Wax series, so the sets from the original film are used in this movie. Tony Curtis also appears in a cameo, and William Conrad narrates the story.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker aired on the CBS Late Movie on September 14, 1979; July 3, 1981 and February 5, 1988.
Carl Kolchak starts this episode with these sage words: “The old cliche that politics makes strange bedfellows is only too true. At one time or another, various and sundry politicians have found themselves, when it proved expedient, of course, sharing a blanket with the military, organized crime, disgruntled, gun-toting dairy farmers, the church, famous athletes, the comedians – the list is endless. But there was a senatorial race not so long ago right here in Illinois where the strangest bedfellow of all was found under the sheets. The strangest… and certainly the most terrifying.”
Our intrepid reporter, Kolchak, is on a mission to interview the enigmatic Senatorial candidate, Robert Palmer (Tom Skerritt). Palmer, a man seemingly always a step ahead of his opponents, who mysteriously meet their end, is shrouded in scandal. As Kolchak delves deeper, the suspense thickens, and the truth becomes more elusive.
At every one of these deaths, a large dog has been seen. Well, you don’t have to have the investigative skills of Kolchak to figure out that Palmer has sold his soul to Satan for power on Earth, a contract that his wife Lorraine (Ellen Weston) wants him to escape.
Palmer, in an attempt to divert Kolchak’s attention, offers him a contract. But Kolchak’s motivations are not driven by money or escape. He seeks a larger audience and a semblance of respectability. Yet, he is acutely aware that without his investigative work, these aspirations are meaningless. And now, the looming threat of the large dog adds to his moral dilemma.
“The Devil’s Platform,” one of four episodes directed by Allen Baron, is a testament to the mature storytelling of the series. Penned by TV-writing veterans Donn Mullally and Tim Maschler, this episode elevates the narrative to a level where even the Watergate scandal pales in comparison to the entry of Lucifer into the world of politics.
There’s an IMDB fact that Devil Dog: Hound of Hell was originally a sequel to this. That sounds like the kind of BS that lives in the IMDB trivia pages, but it would be nice if it were true.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Fiend That Walked the West was on the CBS Late Movie on July 18, 1973 and January 22 and July 30, 1974.
The inspiration for this movie is a fascinating blend of genres, directly drawn from the film noir Kiss of Death, which was also written by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer. The director of that movie was Henry Hathaway, but this was made by Gordon Douglas, who started his career as an extra in the Our Gang movies. He also directed Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, Viva Knievel! and In Like Flint.
Do you know who else was listed as a writer for this? Phillip Yordan. Yes, the same man who perhaps didn’t write most of the films on his resume, as he was a front for blacklisted writers, but definitely put together Night Train to Terror.
While Fox recycled the script* — and the Bernard Hermann score from The Day the Earth Stood Still — they did shoot this in CinemaScope, and it had a decent budget, but it was saddled with a title and campaign that made it look like a horror movie for kids — with an adults-only certification — and the alternate titles that were tried like The Hell-Bent Kid, Rope Law, Enough Rope, Quick Draw, Quick Draw at Red Rock and The Hell-Bent Kid II are all rather dull by comparison.
They should have used the intriguing French title Le Sueur au visage d’ange (The Killer with the Face of an Angel).
Daniel Slade Hardy (Hugh O’Brien) is a gunslinging criminal busted for a bank robbery and sent to prison for a decade. A decade before, he’ll see the baby his pregnant wife Ellen (Linda Cristel) will have. And a decade living with the psychotic Felix Griffin (Robert Evans), a man so deranged that he kills another prisoner by force-feeding his ground glass.
Yes, that Robert Evans.
The Kid Stays In the Picture Robert Evans.
The Chinatown, people getting killed to make The Cotton Club, Ali McGraw marrying Robert Evans.
The Robert Evans that turned a cocaine bust into community service by producing an anti-drug TV special, Get High On Yourself.
In his book, The Kid Stays In the Picture, Evans always talks down on his acting ability.
Is he any good in this? He’s not just good, he’s a revelation.
Also, 90% of my writing style comes from Robert Evans.
Griffin gets out early and makes his way to Hardy’s hometown, the place his cellmate always talked so lovingly about, and sets about killing everyone there, like shooting an old lady — who has the money from the botched bank robbery — with a bow and arrow before shotgunning another of the gang in the back. Then, as if getting the money isn’t good enough, he visits Hardy’s wife and frightens her so severely that she loses her baby.
Evans imbues his character with such menace, even taking on a woman of his own, May (Dolores Michaels). He declares that he’s so inside her head that he knows when she’s going to do something to hurt herself, then beats her unmercifully. Luckily, Hardy is released from jail as part of a secret plan to deal with Griffin.
Speaking of remakes, this movie was made a third time as Kiss of Death, with David Caruso as the hero and Nicholas Cage as the villain.
Look for future Tarzan Ron Ely as a deputy, Stephen McNally as the deputy and Edward Andrews as the judge. He was a noted character actor who often played authority figures, but most today would know him as one of Molly Ringwald’s grandfathers in Sixteen Candles or Mr. Gorben in Gremlins.
I had no expectations of this movie, and I loved every minute of it.
*A tip of the cowboy hat to Jeff Arnold’s West, which taught me that there was a trend of turning film noir into more box office-friendly Westerns, including High Sierra remade as Colorado Territory, House of Strangers becoming Broken Lance and The Asphalt Jungle putting on some spurs and being remade as The Badlanders.
Michael Dupret directed and wrote the 2019 short #No_Filter, in which a girl named Anna tries new Instagram filters that bring the supernatural into her life*.
Now, he’s made this full-length movie. It’s from Belgium, but it’s in English and it won’t make you think it’s a foreign film.
You know this movie is such a surprise and delight. I loved every minute of it because I was so sure it was going to be a streaming J-horror rip-off. Instead, it is totally a movie that you would have rented at the store in the 1990s, which is a high compliment.
Anna in Bali (screen name @anna_withaA) is our heroine, played by Hannah Mciver. She’s on vacation with her family in Bali, where she catches up with her favorite influencer, Scary Scott (screen name @scare_scott), played by Samuel Van der Zwalmen.
He has a challenge where she has to make his friends happy — his scallowers — in one minute while trying to frighten him. Anna is really good at putting on a mask and sneaking up on him. He tells her it reminds him of Samara from The Ring, but she has no idea who that is. He’s nonplussed — even influencers are having younger people let them down with their lack of pop culture education these days — but impressed with her.
Here’s the only issue I have with the film. It makes an awkward cut here to Scott editing his videos and getting stalked, getting messages where he’s stabbing himself in the neck. That video comes true, and we cut to the opening credits.
It’d be nice to know how quickly things got spooky, but the film fixes this later, so stay tuned.
Cut to Anna’s bedroom and a pop punk song, where we learn she’s become popular in school thanks to her video of Scary Scott’s Scary Pic Challenge. A quick conversation shows how quickly today’s teens have moved past Mary Black-style urban legends, saying that even if you only scare yourself or your friends, it doesn’t matter unless it’s online. “If you can’t share it, it doesn’t exist,” Anna tells them.
She’s pretty philosophical, even telling her teacher Miss Potts (Dianne Weller), “Cicero said that if the face is the mirror of the mind, the eyes are its interpreters,” as she’s confronted about the honesty of social media.
Anna feels compelled to keep up her scare videos on social media, putting on face paint to scare her best friend Lauren (screen name @lau_reignn), played by Jasmine Daoud. Together, they work to make filters that distort photos and make them so frightening that they make people physically sick.
But things have to get dark at some point, right?
Jason (Kassim Meesters) is another streamer who is stalking Anna. They both record live videos simultaneously. Are all of these kids streaming content? Who is watching it?
Last year, Jason got kicked out of school because he kept sending dick pics to every girl and went after Lauren, who broke his nose. He’s trying to frighten Lauren by blasting loud music in her driveway. She comes outside only to find he’s dead in the trunk and has no eyes. Yet when she shares the footage with Lauren, all her friend sees is her trying to seduce Jason. This is where the film starts to deal with Anna becoming an unreliable narrator, as she has no idea if things happening to her are real or not, such as when she tries to confide in Lauren and learns that her best friend is hanging out with Mina(Priya Blackburn), the girl who bullied her, which sends her off the deep end. All she has left are her fans online, and many refuse to support her, saying she brought this on herself.
Within the phone, there’s now a Dark Anna, complete with black eyes, who does things like smash her fingers and stab them to frighten our heroine. She also shares photos of Lauren dead in the gym, which causes a further rift between the two friends.
That’s when Lauren invites over Tyler (Reiky de Valk), a guy she has a crush on, who oddly asks to take a shower at her place before she comes on way too strong. She breaks the tension between them by smashing a beer bottle in her hand. He leaves but then starts texting her photos in the bathtub, telling her to come upstairs. As she walks up the steps, Anna looks at herself on the phone, and there’s a fantastic camera effect as the black bars on each side of the phone slide out, and the image of Anna is replaced by her darker self, which goes upstairs and decimates Tyler.
Anna tries to escape from her demonic self. As she watches a streamer named silent_jill, she discovers that a surf influencer in Bali killed all of his friends and had the same black eyes. The supernatural influencer explains that in Bali, demons believe in a balance of light and darkness. The only way to stop the demon is purification by fire, a phrase which she shouts and stares directly at Anna through the screen.
That’s when we see a video of Scott and Anna looking at a piece of mirrored glass in a Bali temple, which is how she got possessed. This is broken by her parents calling in a panic as they make their way to the hospital, Lauren calling with the news that Scott’s body has been found, Mina dying on Facetime and Anna screaming that everyone has to delete all of their social media and burn their phones, never logging on to their accounts ever again, which is a form of death for influencers.
As her mother attempts to come back and settle her, Anna loses her mind completely — there’s another great shot in here where the Dark Anna remains in the middle of a large mirror while four small mirrors show Anna running in four different directors — and stabs her mother through the chest. She then knocks herself out by repeatedly slamming a door into her face.
When Lauren comes to save her, she can’t find her friend. Instead, she sees a camera set up in the bedroom. Looking at the videos, she can see Dark Anna, who grabs her by the hand and brings her into the makeup tutorial. There, she slices her throat and combines it with egg whites, honey and avocado. She smears her face with the mixture and then starts to eat it.
Lauren starts to close down all her accounts as she reflects on social media, saying there are two people in every selfie: One you look like and the other you really are. In response, the demonic form of her starts to headbutt from inside the monitor and threatens to break out. Anna burns all of her tech in a barrel, but at the last moment, shepauses to look at her face on the screen and admire herself.
Over the credits, other influencers begin to have black eyes.
No Filter is so much better than it has any right to be. In a year of influencer horror that barely makes the mark, it has something to say, says it well and delivers actual horror — and gore, too! — in a tense final act. It’s probably the best movie I’ve seen as a Tubi original.
*It’s similar to another short, Nakia Secrest’s Party Make Up by Nikki.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Bat People was on the CBS Late Movie on February 7, 1975.
The Bat People, also known as It Lives By Night and It’s Alive, is a unique blend of horror and romance. Directed by Jerry Jameson (Starflight One, Terror on the 40th Floor) and written by Lou Shaw, this film has been described as having a leisurely pace. Some say it has a leisurely pace. Others say nothing ever seems to happen. Your enjoyment of this movie will depend on how much you enjoy a movie that likes to chill and let things roll.
Dr. John Beck (Stewart Moss, Doctor Death: Seeker of Souls) takes his new bride Cathy (Marianne McAndrew, Hello, Dolly!) deep into the Carlsbad Caverns. Ironically, Dr. Beck is a bat expert — a bat person, if you will — and gets bit by a fruit bat that turns him into a vampire. And just like me trying to fix something wrong in my house, everything he does worsens things instead of just calling in an expert. The plot takes a surprising turn that will keep you engaged and curious.
Dr. Kipling (Paul Kerr) thinks it might be all in his mind while Sgt. Ward (Michael Pataki) is probably going to kill him. He decides to become a bat and live in the caves forever, but true love wins out because his wife makes sweet love to him and becomes a bat person herself. Ah man, it brings a tear to the eye.
Actually, it really is love, because Miss and McAndrew were married in real life.
Sure, it made plod a bit, but where else can you see Stan Winston’s first work and a moment where Pataki’s car gets swarmed by bats?
Here’s a drink to go with this.
It Drinks By Night
1.5 oz. rum
1 oz. Kaluha
1 oz. milk
3 oz. cola
Add all ingredients to a glass filled with ice, andcola last.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker didn’t air on the CBS Late Movie. It wasn’t offered to CBS as ABC made a TV movie from this episode, “The Energy Eater,” and titled it Crackle of Death. As I’m a completist, I’m covering the episode this week.
A doppelgänger, a spirit with a sinister agenda, is at the heart of this episode. It’s targeting musical conductor Ryder Bond (Fred Beir), who has been spotted at crime scenes where victims died from spontaneous combustion. These victims, all colleagues and friends of Bond, draw Carl Kolchak into the mystery.
Carl, after getting to know Bond, decides to assist him. However, he’s in grave danger. If Bond falls asleep, his doppelgänger could emerge and kill, with Carl potentially being the next victim. Carl uncovers that an organized crime figure named Markoff, who dreams of being a conductor, is the malevolent force behind this. Markoff’s restless spirit is now targeting Bond to take over his life.
Carl must team up with fortune teller Marie (Madlyn Rhue) to combat this evil. Together, they devise a plan to stop the malevolent ghost. This involves a daring act of grave-robbing, using footage recycled from the “The Zombie” episode, and a fiery showdown at the arcade where Markoff died. It’s a risky plan, but their determination is unwavering.
This is one of four series episodes that Don Weis would direct. It was written by Bill S. Ballinger, who also wrote “The Ghost of Potter’s Field” episode of Circle of Fear and the movie The Strangler.
It ends with Carl finally being able to sleep, except it’s in the back of a police car, and he’s hauled off to jail. He closes the story by saying, “Well, I won’t have to worry about the doppelganger any longer. He’s back in his own body and will probably be cremated, which is rather sweet poetic justice for Frankie Markoff. My only worry now is to find Tony Vincenzo to try to raise bail. They’ve got me hooked on some stupid arson charge. But it’s Tony’s night to play cards, and I don’t know where he is. So I think I’ll spend a nice good night’s sleep in the slammer.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Norliss Tapes was on the CBS Late Movie on January 23 and May 26, 1975.
Occult investigator Norliss has disappeared, but his legacy lives on in a series of tapes that unfold the gripping narratives of his many escapades, such as his encounter with a widow and her undead artist husband. Originally developed as a series pilot by NBC, it was eventually broadcast as a TV movie on February 21, 1973.
Sanford Evans, our guide into the mysterious world of David Norliss (Roy Thinnes, Airport 1975, TV’s The Invaders), listens to the tapes that explain Norliss’s sudden disappearance.
A recent case concerned Ellen Cort (Angie Dickinson of TV’s Police Woman), whose husband has come back from the dead. It turns out that before his death from a mysterious disease, he had become involved with Mademoiselle Jeckiel (Vonetta McGee, Blacula), who gave him a scarab that he was buried with. Sheriff Tom Hartley (Claude Atkins!) doesn’t believe any of this, even when James keeps draining the blood of young women and a gallery owner who tries to break into his coffin and take his ring.
Bullets won’t stop the undead man, who’s also created a sculpture made of human blood that will bring the Egyptian deity Sargoth into our world. Our hero, Norliss, is kind of ineffectual, as the undead artist kills Jeckiel, killing Ellen’s sister and raising the demon. He finally stops the monster by setting the studio on fire with everyone inside, the dictionary definition of a pyrrhic victory.
That’s when Evans finishes the tape and wonders if this is Norliss’ last adventure. Nope. There’s another tape, even if the series never happened. That didn’t stop this TV movie from being aired in syndication and on the CBS Late Movie.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Glass Bottom Boat was one of the first movies on the CBS Late Movie, airing on February 17, 1972. It also aired on July 31, 1972; February 19 and November 5, 1973 and March 12, 1976.
Also known as The Spy in Lace Panties, a title change that was likely made to emphasize the spy plot, this movie teams up animator-turned-director Frank Tashlin (who made one of my favorite movies of all time, The Girl Can’t Help It) and star Doris Day, who gets to sing, of course, but also gets pulled into a spy plot. It was written by Everett Freeman, the writer of The Maltese Bippy.
Day plays Jennifer Nelson, a widow helping her father (Arthur Godfrey) in his tourism business by dressing as a mermaid and swimming under his glass bottom boats. One day, she’s accidentally caught by Bruce Templeton (Rod Taylor) while he’s fishing; the embarrassment of her being nearly nude in front of him is compounded when she realizes that he works at her new position of employment, an aerospace research company.
Bruce’s new project is GISMO, a gravity system, and he hires Jennifer to write his biography. But really, in truth, he just wants to get with her. Jennifer also meets Julius Pritter (Dom DeLuise), a spy struggling to install a stereo in Bruce’s futuristic apartment while gathering information on him, and Edgar Hill (Eric Fleming), a CIA agent protecting Bruce and GISMO.
Love blooms, as it does in romantic comedies, but the issue is that Hill, security guard Homer Cripps (Paul Lynde!) and PR executive Zack Molloy (Dick Martin!) believe that Jennifer is a spy. Why would she call the same phone number multiple times a day and simply hang up after saying, “That’s enough, Vlamdir?”
As it turns out, ‘Vlamdir’ is not a Russian boss, but Jennifer’s dog. The poor pup’s only exercise during her work hours is running around the apartment, irritated by the ringing phone. In a classic rom-com twist, Bruce makes a blunder by underestimating Jennifer’s intelligence. She decides to play along and pretends to be a spy. This leads to a series of light-hearted hijinks at a party, but all’s well that ends well.
For TV aficionados, Norman and Mabel Fenimore (George Tobias and Alice Pearce) are the same characters Tobias and Pearce played on Bewitched. The film also features a memorable cameo by Robert Vaughn, and the theme from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is heard on the soundtrack. Speaking of the show, Templeton’s ultra-technological apartment was repurposed as the evil spy base on a two-part episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., titled ‘The Concrete Overcoat Affair.‘
After this, Day only made four more movies — including the pure spy movie Caprice with Tashlin before starting what many would know her best for: The Doris Day Show. In that show, she sang the theme song, “Que Sera Sera,” which became synonymous with Day’s career and was also featured in her earlier films, like The Man Who Knew Too Much and Please Don’t Eat the Daisies.
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