This Brian Taggert (Visiting Hours, Poltergeist III and Omen IV: The Awakening) film was originally aired on NBC on February 20, 1977. It was supposedly written before Stephen King’s Carrie. Although it was supposed to be a theatrical film, it was relegated to movie of the week because De Palma’s filmed version got on screen first.
Rita Matchett, a shy, overweight 15-year-old girl, is the central character who, like Carrie, is subjected to bullying. However, her powers manifest much quicker. In a shocking turn of events, as one of the mean girls climbs the rope in gym class, Rita uses her powers to make her fall to her death, setting the stage for a unique and unexpected plot twist.
While Rita comes from a wealthy family, she isn’t close with her sister (Helen Hunt) or her father (James Olson, Father Adamsky from Amityville II: The Possession). Her mother (Lee Grant, who reviewers said deserved better than this movie, but I love this kind of ridiculous TV movie, occult magic, so screw those people) tries to understand her, but once she starts speaking in tongues, all bets are off.
This is the kind of movie where an old woman spontaneously combusts, where the gym teacher (Lelia Goldoni, who, if I was artistic, I’d tell you that she was in Cassavetes’ Shadows, but we all know that she was in the 70’s Invasion of the Body Snatchersand The Unseen) teaches sad teens how to find Satan and the mom ends up having powers too, throwing knives at her daughter in a scene that again has nothing to do with Carrie at all.
Jack Colvin, who plagued David Bruce Banner on the TV version of The IncredibleHulk, and Wright King (Invasion of the Bee Girls) show up. So do some audio cues from the classic Star Trek.
Directed by Lee Phillips, known for his work on The Girl Most Likely to…, this film may be derivative, but it’s a lot of fun.
This is one of the few made-for-TV movies that have come out on DVD. Thank Shout! Factory for that and beg them to release more!
So, did you hear the one about Police Commissioner Stewart “Mac” McMillan, Darth Vader, Mr. Miyagi, and a future Golden Globe winner who probably doesn’t want anyone to know she got her start in the biz with a role in Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, and the ex-husband of Cloris Leachman (Mel Brooke’s Young Frankenstein and High Anxiety) walking into an NBC-TV gin joint?
Could the VHS sleeve be any cheaper?
Yes, today The Vegas Strip War is remembered as Rock Hudson’s last movie: he died less than a year later (remember when Rock went “sci-fi” with Embryo?). Ah, but we, the TV movie lovin’ dorks of B&S About Movies, remember this as the final film directed by Leachman’s ex and Jack Albertson’s nephew (Grandpa Joe in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory), George Englund — who brought us the world’s first “electric western,” the 1971 counterculture classic (read: dud), Zachariah, starring, off all people: Joe Walsh of the Eagles (then with the James Gang), San Francisco hippy-rockers Country Joe and the Fish, and Don Johnson (A Boy and His Dog).
Englund, who was best buds with Marlon Brando, made his directing and producing debut with Brando as his star in the 1963 political adventure, The Ugly American, which he followed up with one of the lesser known, but well-made film noirs, 1965’s Signpost to Murder (written by Sally Benson of Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943) fame). After the critical and financial failure of (the previously linked) Zachariah, Englund’s career cooled, but the 1972 snow-based Italian crime caper, Snow Job, was a pretty darn cool UHF-TV movie favorite of yesteryear (not bad for starring an Italian Olympic skier who couldn’t act). Englund ended his career producing the series Blossom and The Golden Girls for NBC-TV and publishing the 2004 memoir about his friendship with Brandon: Marlon Brando: The Way It’s Never Been Done Before.
Ah, I see what you’re doing, there, Mr. Distributor.
The Vegas Strip War is another one of those films that, even thought it was released on VHS, is hard to find. And it would have been lost forever if not for Martin Scorsese’s back-to-back box-office hits Goodfellas(1990) and Casino(1995). And as you can tell from the original VHS and its DVD reboot, Sharon Stone’s supporting role, which wasn’t even mentioned on the VHS, is front and center on the DVD, which got a title change to tie it to the 1995 Scorsese film.
Rock is Neil Chaine, a character not far removed from Robert DeNiro’s Sam “Ace” Rothstein, who’s fired in a coup d’etat from The Desert Inn, the hotel-casino he operates. In an act of subtle revenge, Chaine purchases a decaying casino next door, The Tropicana, with the goal of crushing his old employer. Helping him along the way are Sarah (Sharon Stone), a casino hostess who uses her “connections” (i.e, she sidelines as a prostitute) to get Chaine a gambling license, and Jack Madrid, a sports promoter (no, that’s not Don King-meta, that’s James Earl Jones in a fright-wig doing Don King!) that’ll set up a prize-winning boxing match at the new hotel.
Of course, Madrid’s got other plans . . . and Chaine’s nefarious short cuts lead him to a stint on Alcatraz — and prison sex with Sharon Stone. Oh, I almost forgot about Pat Morita: He’s the offensively named Yip Tak (hey, it was the ’80s), a high rolling Chinese gambler from the Desert Inn days; he makes a deal with Chaine to bring rich Asian businessman to the Tropicana. Yep, it’s all a double cross as Tak and his friends bankrupt the casino in a gambling scam.
There’s no trailer, but you can watch this clip of the film’s opening credits. And if you like what you see, then you can watch a pretty clean rip of the full movie on You Tube.
Oh, yes! That spinning ITC logo is the same production company behind U.F.O., Space: 1999 and the Kirk Douglas Star Wars dropping, Saturn 3. And if you’ve been, or your parents have been to Vegas (and you saw the pictures), you’ll notice this was all shot on location inside the late-famed The Desert Inn and still standing (but totally revamped) The Tropicana. And after the failure of Saturn 3 and Raise the Titanic, ITC was on verge of bankruptcy and had no choice but to shoot-on-location-on-the-cheap (they went under shortly thereafter). Is this as great as the Scorsese flick? No, but for a TV movie production on a budget, George Englund delivered an entertaining mob flick.
About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Based on pre-feminist science fiction writer Zenna Henderson’s story Pottage, as well as some of her other pieces like Ararat, Gilead and Captivity, this movie stars two of the top stars of made for TV movies: William Shatner (The Horror at 37,000 Feet, Go Ask Alice) and Kim Darby (Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark). This movie also draws on the love Trekkies had for Shatner and Darby together after “Miri,” an episode of the original series.
He’s there to be a doctor and she a teacher for a commune of Amish-like people who — surprise, it’s 1972 and Erich Von Daniken is everywhere — are space aliens whose origins sound suspiciously like Battlestar Galactica years before that became a movie and TV show.
Diane Varsi from Wild In the Streets, Laurie Walters from Warlock Moon and Dan O’Herlihy — Conal Cochran, Andrew Packard, The Old Man and Grig! — are all in this.
This was the directoral debut of John Korty, who also would make Go Ask Alice, and was produced by Francis Ford Coppola.
There’s a rumor that this was a pilot for a series that never got picked up. What’s an even bigger shame is that there’s never been an official release of this film. I sound like a broken record, hoping that old made for TV movies that I only I care about will someday come out on blu ray.
Gus Trikonis — yes, the same man that brought you Nashville Girl, The Evil, Supercock and Take This Job and Shove It — directed this made for TV movie, which originally aired on NBC on December 10, 1979.
Also known as Someone’s Killing the World’s GreatestModels, it’s pretty much a giallo made for late seventies TV audiences.
Jessica Walter — star of this era’s made for TV fare and the future Lucille Bluth — stars along with Joana Cassidy, “Woman of a Thousand Faces” Eleanor Parker, Corinne Calvet (a one-time starlet who was sued by an ex-husband of using voodoo to control him), Ripley’s Believe It or Not! co-host Catherine Shirriff, Barbara Cason (Exorcist II: The Heretic), Clive Revill, Jim McMullan and Connie Sellecca. They’re all trapped at a fashionable party in the mountains as one by one they’re killed with no way to escape.
1979 was a magical year. Drink it in and watch this on YouTube:
Originally airing on October 2, 1971 on ABC, this movie is a hidden pilot for the series The Sixth Sense. The role of Dr. Lucas Darrow would be replaced by the younger, handsomer Gary Collins and then, in syndication, that series would be spliced into Night Gallery, infuriating a young Sam who only wanted to see Rod Serling stories.
Here, Darrow is played by Alex Dreier, who is in The Boston Strangler and was well-known for his voice. He’s backed up by a blind man whose ESP voice connected him to the other world, as he’s left his surgical life behind to investigate the unknown.
Rachel Stanton (Stefanie Powers) comes home just in time to watch her husband crash through a window like Oliver Reed in Burnt Offerings. He soon recieves a phone call that has a woman’s voice that matches the ESP cards on the table in front of him. What an awesome open!
On a slight TV budget and with the morals of the time, this is as close as a made for TV movie is going to feel to a giallo. That’s a good thing. This has so many red herrings and people who could have killed Stanton’s husband. It could be Rachel. It could be cousin Nora (Brenda Scott, Simon King of the Witches), who claims that he loved her and wanted out of the marriage. Is it psychic Aunt Lillian (Louise Latham, Marnie). Or is it Uncle Arthur (Pay Hingle, who would one day be Commissioner Gordon)?
71 minutes worth of seventies occult psychobabble. You should be so lucky to watch this. Actually, you can do that on YouTube:
Here’s how you can tell there’s a big age difference between my wife and me. I know Patrick Duffy as the Man from Atlantis and Bobby Ewing. She knows him as the dad from Step by Step.
Here. he plays John Dillman, the real-life investigator who continually pursued a doctor (Michael O’Keefe) and a minister (Charles Durning, great in this) who have been killing massage girls.
Lisa Blount from Prince of Darkness is in this, as is Jacqueline Brooks (The Good Son), actor/politician Fred Dalton Thompson, Michael C. Gwynne (who played the Duke of Rock in Private Parts) and Richard Cox (Cruising).
This is directed by Jerrold Freedman. who made the Bronson film Borderline and Kansas City Bomber with Racquel Welch. That’s what we in the busines refer to as quality.
You can watch this early true crime entry on YouTube:
Sam and I got to talking about the web traffic at B&S About Movies and we’re astounded by the hits—over 6,300—and not a day passes without at least one hit—for J. David Miles’s disturbing, 2013 true crime documentary Goodnight, Sugar Babe: The Killing of Vera Joe Reigle (Caveat: It’s Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses . . . in real life.)
Now we tell you this, not to brag, but to bring attention to J. David Miles’s feature film debut as a screenwriter: Dead Silence. No, not the 1997 made-for-HBO thriller starring James Garner (TV’s The Rockford Files) and Marlee Matlin. No, not the 2007 James Wan’s supernatural puppet romp, either. The Dead Silence we’re reviewing comes from the days of the Estevez-Sheen acting dynasty, when not only Emilo and Charlie perpetually appeared on our TV and theatre screens, but their sister, Renée, got the big push to stardom (she’s since retired from the business after a seven-year run on NBC-TV’s The West Wing).
It was that acting-dynasty connection that quickly moved Renée through the ranks from her supporting roles on TV’s Growing Pains (1987), Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers, Heathers, and Moon 44 (she’s one of the mining executives alongside Roscoe Lee Brown; you’ll notice her) to booking her first leading-lady role as “Zanna Young” in Dead Silence.
In a plot that recalls 1997’s later-more popular I Know What You Did Last Summer (itself derived from the superior 1965 William Castle chiller I Saw What You Did), Zanna, Joan, and Sunnie (Renée Estevez, Lisanne Falk, Carrie Mitchum) are college seniors on the cusp of graduation. And their holiday turns to horror when they hit-and-run a lonely hitchhiker in the desert during a spring break vaycay in Palm Springs—and they decide to keep the accident a secret.
The three little hotties went to the desert. Renee Estevez, Lisanne Falk, and Carrie Mitchum; courtesy of Historical Images.com.
Miles’s script has a nice meta-noir prologue and epilog touch (before meta-film became cinema-vogue; see our reviews for Greenlight and For Jennifer) with Sunnie as a broadcasting major who’s scored a Palm Springs TV newscaster gig* and is finishing her thesis project: a documentary about the trio’s friendship-college years in their rental home dubbed “The Pink House.”
The ubiquitous night of drinking at their hotel leads to a cute guy inviting them to a desert party—and they accept, as all devil-may-care, bad boy-seeking rich college girls do. As Sunnie loses sight of the cute boy’s car and they’re lost on a desert road, she strikes a roadside hitchhiker.
Initially, they move the “homeless man” to the roadside and agree they’ll call the police. But as Zanna points out: Sunnie already has one DUI on her license and, with alcohol on her breath, she’ll be charged with murder—and goodbye newscaster job. Zanna, the law school-bound ringleader of the deception, starts her career off right: she runs their crime through a car wash. Then, when Zanna and Joan take the car to have the windshield replaced, Zanna cleverly pays cash—then five-fingers the garage’s paperwork. Oh, and Joan’s credit card is missing: she returns to the scene of the crime to find it—and a deputy-on-patrol shows up. Later, the deputy finds the card in the desert sands, while a further investigation uncovers a university logo water bottle.
And who’s sent to cover a breaking news story about the body of a man found in the desert: the-first-day-on-her-job Sunnie. Then Joan cracks under pressure and drowns herself in the hotel’s pool. And the ever cold-and-calculating Zanna decides that’s the “out” for her and Sunnie. Ah, but in the finest film-noir fashion: Zanna, whose nefarious legalese created this mess in the first place, makes a deal in exchange for immunity—and hangs Sunnie out-to-dry in the arid desert sands.
While we’re on the subject of acting-dynasties: Renée’s co-star, Carrie Mitchum, is the granddaughter of Robert Mitchum (Night of the Hunter, Thunder Road) and, oh, and she was married to the ever-reliable direct-to-video star Casper Van Dien (she’s since retired from the industry after a fourteen year run on daytime TV’s The Bold and the Beautiful). Uncle James starred in The Dukes of Hazzard precursor Moonrunners, while her dad, Chris, starred in Aftershock, The Serpent Warriors, and SFX Retaliator.
Ah, you got bamboozled, too: I also assumed that fellow leading lady Lisanne Falk would be related to Peter “Columbo” Falk: nope. But for you classic rock dogs: she was the girl on the cover of Foreigner’s 1979 album Head Games** erasing her phone number from the bathroom wall. And for you movie hounds: she was in Heathers, Less Than Zero, and Night on Earth. (Yep: like Estevez and Mitchum, Falk retired from the business, in the late ‘90s).
And since we’re rattling off actors names in the “Everyone Has to Start Somewhere Department”: Bryan Cranston appears as Professor Harris and Beau Starr as Detective Barron. Do we have to mention Breaking Bad and Halloween 4 and 5 and Goodfellas? Well, we’ll mention that another of Beau’s early roles was the TV-cable radio-noir Dead Air, since that’s an obscurity. (And, since we’re talking about films with the same title: not the 2009 Dead Air, but the 1994 Dead Air.) Oh, and for the Trekkies: Tim “Lt. Tuvok” Russ from Star Trek: Voyager is the deputy on the case.
Directing J. David Miles’s smart writing debut is writer/director/show runner Peter O’Fallon—making his feature film directing debut. Known for his extensive network and cable TV resume, O’Fallon followed the direct-to-video/cable-released Dead Silence with the theatrically released—then de rigueur mafia flick—Suicide Kings (1997) starring Christopher Walken and Dennis Leary (back when the SNL’er made his “feature film” move). Ironically, O’Fallon also worked with a post-Goodfellas Ray Liotta in the drama A Rumor of Angels (2000).
Dead Silence is one of those oldies that hasn’t run on TV in ages, the VHS tapes have expired to the blue screen of death, and it’s never been released on DVD—and never will be. So our only choice to watch are these two pretty clean VHS rips from its Lifetime Movie Network run on You Tube HERE and HERE. This lone feature film effort from J. David Miles is an under-the-radar TV movie gem where a great script, directing, and acting hum along in perfect harmony. It’s a highly recommended watch in these now silent, viral lockdown days.
About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.
* If the lead character had been a radio broadcaster instead of a TV newscaster, we would have included Dead Silence in last month’s “Radio Week” of reviews. You can catch up on those reviews with our “Exploring: Radio Stations on Film” featurette.
Arthur Allan Seidelman made his directing debut creating the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Hercules in New York. Somehow, they allowed him to keep making movies, including this TV movie all about a family dealing with schizophrenia.
Nancy McKeon is Nicole, a college student who suddenly goes off the rails due to the disease. Her family — Valerie Harper, Stephen Macht and Tricia Leigh Fisher — don’t understand.
Marta Kristen — June Robinson! — and Millie Perkins, who was in The Diary of Anne Frank, are also on hand.
If you ever wanted to see Jo from Faces of Life yell things like, “I am turning to stone. Every time I start to feel something, you give me another pill and I turn into stone!” then I advise you watch this.
If you’re looking for someone to direct a made for TV movie, always go with John Llewellyn Moxey. He was behind great films like Where Have All the People Gone, Home for the Holidays, The Night Stalker and A Taste of Evil amongst others.
Here, he’s making a Mary Higgins Clark film all about attorney Kathy DeMaio (Lauren Hutton, Once Bitten), a widow who keeps passing out at the worst moments. As a child, she watched her father die in a hospital and now she’s phobic about even being there. It gets worse when she has to stay in a hospital, has a nightmare and wakes to spy a doctor (James Farentino, Dead and Buried) stuffing a body into the trunk of his car.
Look for a young William H. Macy — billed as WH Macy.
The weirdest thing is that Ben Murphy, who plays Hutton’s love interest, did a three-episode cameo on the soap opera Guiding Light — thanks Made for TV Mayhem — and characters from that show crossed over into this TV movie!
This was remade in 2004 with Angie Everhart in the lead role.
Thunder in Paradise is a direct to video release from 1993 that also served as a jumping off point for a television series of the same name that starred Hulk Hogan as its protagonist, RJ “Hurricane Spencer”. Throughout its short-lived run it also featured other wrestlers, such as Giant Gonzales, Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake, Stin, Terry Taylor (Red Rooster) and even manager Jimmy “The Mouth of the South” Hart.
This series and I have an odd history, officially only this movie and 2 other two-part episodes that were made into films have been released in the United States on DVD. The DVD collection was put out by Lionsgate. I did happen to find a complete series release from Carol Media that I bought from Germany but when it arrived I was disheartened to find out that it did not retain its English audio at all, instead the entire series is dubbed into German. I was happy at least to have all the episodes even if they were in German. I have since found an unofficial set that has all the episodes and have been working my way through it.
The film is about RJ Spencer, a former Navy Seal, who along with his partner Brubaker (Chris Lemmon) own a high tech speed boat called Thunder. We’re keyed into Spencer’s military prowess by the movie opening with him and Brubaker invading Cuba to save a defector’s wife and son. RJ frequents Paradise Beach Resort which is owned by Megan Whitaker. Only Megan may not be the owner for long as she must marry within 72 hours or she will lose the entire resort. Fortunately for her RJ is hard up and is facing losing Thunder so she asks him to marry her and she’ll pay off Thunder. The marriage should be believable enough to fool her asshole uncle Edward played her by Patrick Macnee who was John Steed in The Avenger, because her daughter loves Spencer, but Edward is hellbent on ousting the whole thing as fraud. That’s the short of it at least.
There is also a strange brass necklace that RJ found in a shark’s belly that he gifts to Megan’s daughter Jessica, here played by Robin Weisman who doesn’t return for the series itself, that the evil Kilmer (Sam Jones of Flash Gordon) is after. He attempts to steal it from Jessica after RJ and Megan’s wedding by having his beau lure Jessica away from the wedding. The necklace breaks into a bajillion pieces and Sam runs like a bitch and sends in his heavy, played by Giant Gonzales, to manhandle RJ who ran after them when he heard Jessica’s cries.
The necklace it turns out is a treasure map, RJ and Brubaker go after the treasure but Megan insists on tagging along. Kilmer kidnaps Jessica and Kelly LaRew, Megan’s bridesmaid, and makes them draw a map of the islands that the treasure is on. Kilmer catches up to the crew and forces them to hand over the treasure and leave them to die in the cave the treasure was found in. It’s up to RJ who is apparently half whale to find a way out of the cave through an underwater passage that leads to the ocean so he, Megan, and Brubaker can escape and save Jessica and Kelly.
The film and series were both produced by the co-creator of Baywatch as well as Hulk Hogan himself. It’s a cheesy film that serves as a great intro to the series itself. Hell, it was later edited into the first two episodes of the series with a few cuts. Hulk Hogan is featured most prominently in the film, here appearing with an eye patch due to a real-life ski-doo accident, this is explained away in the film as being an injury dealt to him by Kowalski, played by the late Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart. They even have a small scuffle during an arm wrestling match in the film. Brutus and Jimmy Hart are also in the film and series. It often feels there isn’t a film that Hulk was in that Brutus wasn’t part of.
Hogan here is it at one of the heights of his career, he had already done Rocky III, No Holds Barred, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Suburban Commando, and Mr. Nanny so he was no stranger to film or acting by this point. I really do feel that Hulk is one of the most important wrestlers turned thespians, his acting (some would say overacting) paved the way for many more wrestlers. I really enjoy his acting, it’s larger than life much like himself. He may be playing to the rafters but it is still a wonder to witness. His turn as RJ Spencer isn’t the most exciting or funny role he has had in his career but no one else could bring what he brings to the character. His interactions with Jessica are sweet and shows he really cares about her even if her mom Megan isn’t too impressed with him. Hogan gets to do some action here as well and I love when he gets to do that. Seeing Hogan shoot out of the hull of a boat on a ski-doo is what film is made for in my opinion.
I have no nostalgia connected to this film so I’m coming at it purely from a guy who loves wrestlers who act stand point but it is one you should seek out if you like Hulk Hogan or Baywatch. You can get it on the Thunder in Paradise collection DVD put out by Lionsgate which is pretty affordable on Amazon. I really do hope that one day we get the series this film spawned on a proper home media release.
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