We live in a world where David DeCoteau made a Christmas movie with Tara Reid. She plays Alison, who dated King Charles (Ingo Rademacher) in college without ever knowing he was royalty. One night, the king’s assistant Rosa (Mira Furlan) forced her to break up with him and he never knew that they had a daughter, Lily (Haley Pullos), together. He had an arranged marriage and is now a widower.
Seventeen years later. Charles is in the U.S. on business and wants to see Allison, even meeting her former roommate Sam (Mykel Shannon Jenkins) for help.
Except…this isn’t a Christmas movie. It doesn’t have a big dance. It’s just…kind of like a fairy tale movie. But at least the twist wasn’t as unforeseeable as Bigfoot vs. D.B. Cooper, which surprised me with a scene where a sasquatch watches a guy take a one-handed shower. Ah, you know, if that’s what you like, it’s what you like. I’ve found myself watching so many DeCoteau Christmas movies, much less DeCoteau movies and I recommend Santa’s Summer House.
Directed by David Burton Morris, who wrote the story with Steven Dodd and Kim Steven Ketelsen, “Three’s a Crowd” is based on the story of the same title from Shock SuspenStories #11, which was written by William Gaines and Al Feldstein and drawn by Jack Kamen.
“Hello, party animals. Are you ready to bop till you drop? Dead, that is. Tonight, I’ve chosen a fiendish little tale from my hold of moldy oldies. We’ve been invited to an anniversary celebration of holy deadlock. You know, to love and to perish; for richer, for horror; in sickness and in stealth; till death do us part. This is one anniversary the husband will never forget.”
Richard (Gavan O’Herlihy, Death Wish 3) and Della (Ruth de Sosa) get invited to a cabin — the same one from The Great Outdoors — owned by their best man (Paul Lieber), but he’s sure that his wife is having an affair. They’re keeping a big secret from him. Want to know what it is? It’s his birthday. She also has another thing she’s not telling her husband. She’s pregnant with his baby.
Too bad he killed both of them.
Sometimes, this show can get pretty dark. At least the Crypt Keeper gets to wear a party hat.
“Ah! Welcome to my cozy crypt. Have I got a story for you! A tacky, tropical tale of love and lust, greed and ghouls, and my personal favorite – death! But I’m warning you, it’s not a pretty picture. So, pack up your passport and prepare for this torrid tale of putrification in paradise. I’m sure you’ll find it appealing.”
If you’re going to get a love potion to win over someone that doesn’t love you, don’t ask your ex-girlfriend voodoo queen to do it.
Logan Andrews (D.W. Moffett) once was with Psyche (Janet Hubert), the voodoo woman whose family’s land he stole. Now he’s in love with Margaret Richardson (Pamela Gien) but she’s not interested. That’s why he needs some help. Psyche says, “One drop and she will be your wife but two drops and she will be yours for life.”
Logan treats this magic like I do edibles and when it doesn’t seem to take right away, he gives her more. That’s how you end up screaming into a TV set, sure that you’re going to die. At least from drugs. Here, Margaret croaks — well, Psyche does have a doll of her — and professes her undying love before she, you know, died.
Happily, she comes back from the dead but she’s starting to rot. Not even killing himself will get Logan away from her, as Psyche has cursed him to be chased by a skeleton that wants to have sex with him for the rest of his life. Or forever. Probably forever, right?
Directed by Chris Walas (the director of The Fly II and The Vagrant, as well as a special effects expert) and written by Jeri Barchilon and Steven Dodd, this is a quick and grisly outing.
It’s based on the story “Till Death” from The Vault of Horror #28, which was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Johnny Craig.
“Cutting Cards!” is from Tales From the Crypt #32 and was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Fred Peters.
Directed by Walter Hill, this episode is exactly the episode I love from this show.
Reno (Lance Henriksen) and Sam (Kevin Tighe) are a pair of hardcore gamblers who don’t play for fun. They literally put their bodies on the line to try and destroy each other at a variety of games, ending up in a hospital barely alive and still trying to win.
It’s simple but sometimes simple is what you want.
Roy Brocksmith, who was also in the last episode, plays a bartender. He was in three episodes of the show.
Seriously, this episode is so good that when another is bad, it actually upsets me. This is the promise that this show had. Two actors going all out, just like their characters, trying to kill it no matter what it takes.
I have a big weakness for made for TV biopics, often because they’re rarely good and yet that keeps me coming back to them. The blame lies at the feet of the multiple tabloids my grandmother subscribed to as I learned about Liz’s sad last days, Liberace and Rock Hudson’s watermelon diet and who was beating who, who was doing drugs and who was getting surgery.
Based on Joe Hyams’ 1966 novel, Bogie: The Biography of Humphrey Bogart, this stars Kevin O’Connor as Humphrey Bogart, who was my father’s favorite actor. O’Connor has an interesting list of credits, like playing Irijah in The Passover Plot and Woody in Let’s Scare Jessica to Death.
In the roles of the two loves of his life are Ann Wedgeworth (Aunt Fern from Steel Magnolias) as Mayo Methot and Kathryn Harrold (Raw Deal) as Lauren Bacall.
Director Vincent Sherman made The Return of Dr. X, All Through the Night, Crime School, Across the Pacific and King of the Underworldwith Bogie and writer Daniel Taradash wrote Knock on Any Door, so they knew that man. It’s hard to say if this was right, because it seems like it tries to get in so much in such a short time. The transitions where it shows Bogart in his many roles seem like something out of pictures you would get in a Wild West saloon at a theme park. Nothing feels authentic. Much of the film is O’Connor mugging for the camera and trying to get his face to look like the star.
You can spot a young Drew Barrymore as Bogie’s daughter Leslie.
When asked about the movie, his widow Lauren Bacall said, It’s a bunch of crap, and there’s no way to stop it. It’s a crock, unadulterated garbage, and it’s untrue. They’re just going to use him. Jesus, there’s no creativity left in the world. People will do anything for money. Anything.”
Oddly enough, both Bogart and O’Connor died from cancer.
Terrorists blow up a school bus in the Middle East, killing everyone on board except Lt. Liora (Karin Dor) who identifies Palestinian Major Malouf (David Semadar) as the person behind is all this and man, this movie is almost fifty years old and we’re still dealing with this, huh? She has to go back along with a commando named Ben-David (Christopher Stone) and kill Malouf and his men.
U.S. Air Force Colonel Tony Stevens (David Jannsen) is sent to the area to disarm a nuclear bomb that has, you know, just happened to fall out of one of our planes. Malouf now has that bomb and Stevens eventually meets Liora and discovers that the human race is pretty good before everyone dies except him, which is possibly not the kind of lesson that you want to learn.
The only movie directed by John O’Connor, this was written by Buddy Ruskin, the creator of The Mod Squad, joined by Patrick Foulk and Donovan Karnes. Art Metrano shows up, as he does in seemingly every 70s movie I watch, as a soldier.
Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on YouTube.
Blue (Bill Cosby) works as a skycap for an airport and also scrounges for junk he can sell. His wife Serena (Gloria Foster) is a maid and going to school to be a nurse. They’re both working so they can leave the projects and have a better life for their son Vandy (Dennis Hines), who resents the fact that he can’t have fun like his other friends and spend money. Well, when he gets sickle cell anemia, everyone realizes that time may mean as much as dollars.
Directed by Gilbert Cates — the producer of the Academy Awards fourteen times between 1990 and 2008 and was credited with recruiting Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, David Letterman, Steve Martin, Chris Rock and Jon Stewart to serve as hosts — this was written by Cosby and Allan Sloane.
Cosby and Foster would reunite years later for Leonard Part 6. But that’s another story.
Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on YouTube.
Based on characters created by Erle Stanley Gardner, this was directed by Walter Grauman and written by Sam Roffe, who created Have Gun, Will Travel. The producers — Paisano Productions — had tried to launch a Doug Selby series for six years, while its series Perry Mason was popular. This is the only effort that came of all that hard work.
In the small town of Madison City, Doug Shelby (Jim Hutton) and Sheriff Brandon (Robert J. Wilke) have recently won the election pledging to keep the filth of neighboring Los Angeles out of their city. There’s also Chief Larkin (Ed Asner), who loves L.A. and a murder. That’s right — a body has been found in the pool at Jane Antrim’s (Jessica Walter) home. She that place with her disabled father-in-law Frank (Leslie Neilsen), a man who was put in a wheelchair by an accident. that also killed Jane’s husband Brian, who was also Frank’s son. For some reason, the insurance won’t pay up. And now that body isn’t drowned but has been shot twice, with two different bullets, in one entrance wound.
This is very Perry Mason, which makes sense, as Erle Stanley Gardner also created that character. Where his TV show was memorable, this movie, unfortunately, isn’t.
Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on YouTube.
Based on Geoffrey Household’s 1939 novel Rogue Male, this BBC TV movie was directed by Clive Donner, adapted by Frederic Raphael and in addition to Peter O’Toole, it also stars Alastair Sim in his last film role.
In early 1939, before the start of World War II, Sir Robert Hunter (O’Toole) takes aim at Adolf Hitler with a hunting rifle. He hesitates to shoot, which ends with him being attacked by an SS guard. He’s tortured and claims that this was just an intellectual exercise to see if he could kill the leader. He’s a well-known British citizen, so to cover up the torture, they throw him off a cliff.
He survives and escapes to England, where a Nazi sympathizer named Major Quive-Smith (John Standing) recaptures him and demands that he writes a false confession that the British government demanded that he was given orders to kill the German leader. But he’s not giving up without a fight.
In 2007, Peter O’Toole named the film as his favorite among those that he had made. One of the reasons he was in it was because his wife Sian Phillips loved the novel.
Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on YouTube.
Also known as The Letter of the Law and Big Stick, this is a movie about Buford Pusser, except instead of Joe Don Baker, Bo Sevenson, The Rock or Kevin Sorbo, it has Brian Dennehy in the lead. Keep in mind this came out five years after the first movie and a year after Walking Tall: Final Chapter.
Buford Hayse Pusser was the sheriff of McNairy County, Tennessee, from 1964 to 1970, and constable of Adamsville from 1970 to 1972. During his time on the force, he survived seven stabbings and eight shootings as the result of his war on moonshining, prostitution and gambling on the Mississippi and Tennessee state line.
Already a local hero, Pusser’s war on the State Line Mob went national when his wife Pauline was killed on August 12, 1967. There was an ambush intended for him, brought on by common-law husband of a woman who tried to kill Pusser and who he shot and killed in self defense,
Pusser died on August 21, 1974, of injuries sustained in a one-car automobile accident four miles west of Adamsville on the same day that he met with Bing Crosby Productions in Memphis to talk about playing himself in the sequel to Walking Tall. It was claimed he was drunk driving but no autopsy was ever conducted.
As his legend grew — even when he was alive — singer Eddie Bond wrote and recorded several songs honoring Pusser, beginning with “Buford Pusser” in 1968 and then released Eddie Bond Sings The Legend Of Buford Pusser five years later. Pusser even recorded on Stax subsidiary Respect and even today, bands like The Mountain Goats and The Drive-By Truckers sing about him. And in 1973, when the first movie was made, he became a hero to many.
There’s a good cast here, with Forrest Tucker as Carl Pusser (he also played the same role in Final Chapter: Walking Tall), Brian Kerwin as Til Johnson, Ken Howard as Danny Boy Mitchell and Sheree North as Carrie Todd. It was directed by Lou Antonio and written by Samuel A. Peeples. If you don’t know the story from the other movies, here it is again. I like Dennehy, but I’m partial to Joe Don Baker. Then again, this led to the seven episode TV series. I can remember seeing all the commercials for these movies and I thought it was kind of sad that people kept glorifying someone who was dead, but I was a kid and what did I know.
Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on Tubi.
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