EDITOR’S NOTE: Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfold was on USA Up All Night on January 12, March 4 and September 8, 1989.

Directed by Charles Kaufman, who wrote it with Straw Weisman, this is a movie that follows a family — led by father Greg Van Waspishes — as they retreat to nature to escape the city. It’s an excuse for a scattershot comedy with tons of cameos, including Willie Mays, Morey Amsterdam, G. Gordon Liddy, Gates McFadden, William Smith, James Eckhouse and professional wrestler Fred Blassie, who goes from lawyer to maniac in no time at all.

I shouldn’t be surprised that I liked this so much. After all, Charles also directed Mother’s Day. So you get trailers for movies like Baby Bullets, Martin Snoreseasy’s Raging Bullshit and Gena’s Story, a stop-motion intermission that turns into a hot dog cocaine orgy, David Strathairn playing a Native American and a marquee that has Deep Throat on it, even if this was shot in 1982, ten years into that movie’s run.

Also: Daughter Bambi (Tina Marie Staino) goes from teddy bear to assaulting a real bear.

This is way better than any of the many Kentucky Fried Movie rip-offs. In fact, I laughed a few times.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Breakfast In Bed was on USA Up All Night on July 8 and December 10, 1994; October 21, 1995; March 29, 1996.

Marilyn Chambers was born into a middle-class family in Rhode Island; she started skipping school at sixteen to move to New York City and try out for movies. That’s how she ended up in The Owl and the Pussycat as Evelyn Lang. She’d later — infamously — be one of the 99 & 44/100% pure Ivory Snow girls before being in Sean S. Cunningham’s Together and starting to be a dancer. She then answered an ad from the Mitchell Brothers and pitched that if everyone was tested and that she got a major payday and 10% of the profits, she’d be in a sex film.

Behind the Green Door is one of the three biggest movies of porno chic, along with The Devil In Ms. Jones and Deep Throat. Despite performing sex on screen — she was the first to do an interracial scene in mainstream pornography — Chambers became known as the wholesome all-American girl next door. At some point, she had a falling out with the brothers and began a relationship with Linda Lovelace’s ex, Chuck Traynor. After a few years, they reunited to make two BDSM films, Beyond de Sade and Never a Tender Moment. 

She struggled to break into the mainstream. Nicholas Rey said that she’d “eventually be able to handle anything that the young Katie Hepburn or Bette Davis could,” but he died before he could film the movie he had in mind with her. Often, she was brought into auditions just so actors could meet the porn star in person. Or when it came to Hardcore, they thought she looked too innocent to be someone who had sex on film.

She had better luck with Rabid and Croenenberg; she also released the disco single “Benihana” and achieved some success in Las Vegas, performing in several plays. She also wrote several books, including My Story, Xaviera Meets Marilyn Chambers, Sensual Secrets, and  The Illustrated Kama Sutra.

But by 1980, she was back in adult, making the huge home video success Insatiable and had her own line of videos, Marilyn Chambers’ Private Fantasies. A fear of AIDS — and an 1985 arrest for trumped up sex worker charges — got her out of adult and back to making the kind of movies — Bedtime Stories, Breakfast In Bed, The Marilyn Diaries, Party Girls, New York Nights — that were perfect for USA Up All Night.

She made yet another porn comeback in the Veronica Hart-directed Still Insatiable, Dark Chambers and Edge Play.  Plus, Chambers ran for vice president on the Personal Choice Party ticket, a libertarian political party, in 2004 and 2008. Sadly, she died before her 57th birthday from a cerebral hemorrhage caused by an aneurysm related to heart disease.

Ernest G. Sauer (also known as Eric Drake) directed this, as he did many of her later softcore films. It was written by Don Shiffrin and Gary P. Conner. It’s a basic softcore story: Chambers is Marilyn Valentine, an actress who suddenly inherits a hotel that she decides to renovate instead of continuing to act. After all, her manager took all her money! Soon, it becomes a house of ill repute, but one perfect for honeymoons.

The same song plays over and over. Chambers is charming, and everyone eventually makes love, as you’d expect from a Cinemax After Dark movie. Or USA Up All Night, edited to remove all nudity. This, without the breasts, is like pizza with no toppings, cheese, or sauce, but you know, not everyone’s parents were wealthy enough to afford pay channels.

You can watch an edited version of this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Doctor Detroit was on USA Up All Night on January 1, 1994; July 8, 1995; August 10, 1996.

I have no idea why my parents let me watch this on HBO, but I thought Doctor Detroit was a pirate. No idea what a pimp was.

Well, a pimp named Smooth Walker (Howard Hesseman) needs to get out of town, as Mom (Kate Murtaugh) has lost her patience with him. He invents a new pimp, Doctor Detroit and convinces Professor Clifford Skridlow (Dan Aykroyd) to take up this character. A night with all of Smooth’s girls — Monica (Donna Dixon), Jasmine (Lydia Lei), Karen (Fran Drescher) and Thelma (Lynn Whitfield) — convinces him to take the role, despite his needing to focus on getting a new endowment from wealthy CEO Harmon Rauseh (Andrew Duggan).

Directed by Michael Pressman (The Great Texas Dynamite Chase, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze) and written by Bruce Jay Friedman (Stir Crazy), Carl Gottlieb (Jaws) and Robert Boris (who directed Steele Justice), this movie is good because of the efforts of Akyroyd, in his first movie — and first solo lead — since the death of John Belushi. There’s also a James Brown cameo and the promise of a sequel that never got made, Doctor Detroit II: The Wrath of Mom.

Donna Dixon and Akyroyd married soon after making this.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Back to the Future Part II was on USA Up All Night on January 16, 1998.

According to Wikipedia: “Director Robert Zemeckis said that initially, a sequel was not planned for the first film, but its huge box office success led to the conception of a second installment. He later agreed to do a sequel, but only if Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd returned as well.”

That’s BS. The sequel was set up at the end of the first movie!

Most of the original cast agreed to return, but a major stumbling block arose when negotiating Crispin Glover’s fee to come back as George McFly. When it became clear that he would not return, the role was rewritten so that George is dead in 1985, and reused footage and an actor in make-up would fill in. We’ll get back to that.

It took two years to build the set, and this film and the third movie were shot at the same time (or at least worked on simultaneously).

Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) comes back to get Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and his girlfriend Jennifer (Elisabeth Shue) in an attempt to fix the future. If Marty Jr. (also Fox) is allowed to be part of a crime with Griff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson), things will go wrong for the entire family. The problem is that as they fix this, Bigg (also Wilson) steals a sports almanac and becomes Donald Trump, taking over the world, killing Marty’s father, George, and marrying his mom, Lorraine (Lea Thimpson).

This gets dark. Super dark. But just when it seems like everything has worked out back in 1955 — everything is repeated — the DeLorean disappears. It looks like all is lost when, in one of my favorite scenes, Joe Flaherty appears as a Western Union man, having had a telegram for decades to give to Marty at this exact moment. Marty goes back to see Doc Brown, having just left, all to set up the last movie.

Back to Glover.

According to an interview with Howard Stern, the highest offer he got was for $125,000, less than half of what the other returning cast members were paid. The actor felt that the movie’s message was incorrect. The characters were successful at the end of the film because of money, not love.

Zemeckis went beyond using old scenes to shoot new footage of actor Jeffrey Weissman, who wore prosthetics including a false chin, nose, and cheekbones. Weissman would tell Glover that the molds that were created from his face to make the aging prosthetics in the first film were reused to make the prosthetics for Weissman. Glover filed a lawsuit against the producers as they neither owned his likeness nor had permission to use it. Today, thanks to Glover, Screen Actors Guild collective bargaining agreements stipulate that producers and actors are prohibited from using such methods to reproduce the likeness of other actors. The precedent he set is being upheld in the digital aagee as well

Glover wasn’t the only actor not to return. Claudia Wells, who played Marty’s girlfriend Jennifer, was dealing with her mother’s cancer. She was replaced by Elisabeth Shue and even erased from past footage shown in the film.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Army of Darkness was on USA Up All Night on October 24, 1997.

Army of Darkness was probably the last movie that I couldn’t wait to see. It felt like it was delayed forever as Universal wanted a PG-13 and got an NC-17; they finally got an R. That’s after they demanded a new ending where Ash ended up in a better place — Raimi said, “Actually, I kind of like the fact that there are two endings, that in one alternate universe Bruce is screwed, and in another universe he’s some cheesy hero.” — and the director needed $3 million to finish the movie. Universal was not willing to give him the money and delayed its release due to a dispute with producer Dino De Laurentiis over the rights to Hannibal Lecter. This moved the release from summer to near Valentine’s Day. As you might imagine, this did better on cable and video than in theaters, even though I found the one place showing it in Butler, PA.

At the end of Evil Dead II, Ash went back in time. And that’s where he starts, captured by Lord Arthur’s (Marcus Gilbert) soldiers and due to be sacrificed in a pit of Deadites. After surviving, he frees Duke Henry the Red (Richard Grove), meets the Wise Man (Ian Abercrombie), falls for Sheila (Embeth Davidtz), and retrieves his shotgun and chainsaw. All he has to do is find the Necronomicon and say, “Klaatu barada nikto.”

However, as always, Ash is a moron.

He screws up and unleashes the Army of Darkness, led by Bill Moseley and an evil version of Ash, which he must battle with his limited understanding of warfare.

After winning the battle, Ash is to read a passage from the Necronomicon and swallow six drops of potion so that he can sleep and wake up in his own time. He drinks seven and wakes up at the end of the world. Or he would have, if Universal didn’t make the new ending where Ash protects S-Mart — Ted Raimi works there — from a Deadite, saying “Hail to the king, baby” before kissing a co-worker (Angela Featherstone).

Between the miniature Ash, the look of the Deadites and the stop-motion, this had taken Evil Dead from its horrific origins into mainstream comedy, even if no one wanted to see it in theaters.

This has some great alternate titles. In Argentina, it was Noche alucinante 2: el ejército de las tinieblas (Amazing Night 2: Army of Darkness). Brazil? Crazy Night 3. In Mexico, it was The Devil’s Awakening 3 and Shadow Warrior. Best of all of these is Kyaputen sûpâmâketto, the Japanese name, which translates as Captain Supermarket.

According to Sam Raimi in The Evil Dead Companion by Bill Warren, Charles Napier was initially slated to play Ash’s boss in S-Mart, but his role was ultimately cut. Likewise, Bridget Fonda was scheduled to have more screen time, as her scenes were added in the reshoots.

Also: Genius always steals. Bruno Mattei’s The Tomb outright lifted scenes of skeletons rising from their graves from this movie, as well as footage from the first two Indiana Jones movies and the 1999 edition of The Mummy.