CBS LATE MOVIE: Treasure of the Amazon (1985)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Treasure of the Amazon was on the CBS Late Movie on December 13, 1985, May 13 and July 31, 1986, February 4, 1987 and August 17, 1988. 

In this strange world, the Amazon Rainforest is a place rich with treasure and death. There’s a whole bunch of jewels and Gringo the Damned (Stuart Whitman) and Klaus von Blantz (Donald Pleasence) are after it. Gringo just wants the money. Klaus wants to find the Fourth Reich. If that doesn’t put you on Gringo’s side, how about the first thing we see him do is chop a guy’s finger off and throw him in the river to get shredded by piranha?

Along with his partners Paco (Emilio Fernández) and Zapata (Pedro Armendáriz Jr.), he’s on the hunt for the gold. There’s also a crew of Americans — Barbara (Ann Sidne), Dick (Clark Jarrett) and Clark (Bradford Dillman) — who are nearly killed every few minutes. Also, something for daddy: Klaus’ native wife Morimba (Sonia Infante) refuses to wear clothes.

Is that working for you? What if Hugo Stiglitz showed up as a riverboat captain and John Ireland as a priest? What if we threw in some child headhunters? And hey, seeing as how this is a Mexican film, what if snakes get really killed, someone murders and eats a spider on camera and then someone really decapitates an alligator? The special effects for all the gore pale in comparison to this.

We can blame René Cardona Jr., who also showed real animal destruction in Tintorera (a movie more about two dudes using women as a conduit for their passion than a shark) and Night of 1000 Cats, a film in which real cats are thrown and mistreated. But you know, the guy knows how to make a movie. He really does.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Murder, She Wrote S2 E3: Murder in the Afternoon (1985)

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Jessica’s niece, an actress in a daytime drama, becomes a suspect when the head writer for the show is murdered.

Season 2, Episode 3: Murder In the Afternoon (October 13, 1985)

Tonight on Murder, She Wrote…

Jessica goes to visit her niece, Nita Cochran, an actress in a daytime soap opera. Jessica’s family seems to be the most prone to accidents and tragedy, so it’s no surprise what happens.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury, and were they in any exploitation movies?

Larry Holleran is played by William Atherton, the main bad guy of the 80s. If you needed someone to be a jerk, you called him.

Herbert Upton is played by Paul Burke, who also portrayed Lyon Burke in Valley of the Dolls.

Nicholas Hammond, who plays Todd Worthy, was the first person to play Spider-Man other than Danny Seagren on The Electric Company.

Gordon LaMonica is played by Terry Kiser, who portrayed Bernie in Weekend at Bernie’s. He’s also in Mannequin Two: On the Move and Tammy and the T-Rex.

Nita Cochran is Alice Krige, who you may know as the Borg Queen. She’s also in Sleepwalkers.

Martin Grattop is played by Robert Lipton.

Julian Tenley? That’s Lloyd Nolan from Hannah and Her Sisters.

Bibi Hartman is Tricia O’Neil, who has been in several Star Trek episodes.

Carol Needom? Mackenzie Phillips!

Agnes Cochran is Lurene Tuttle, Buford Pusser’s grandmother, as well as Mrs. Chambers in Psycho. 

The law in this episode is Lt. Antonelli, played by Robert Walden. There’s also Officer Kaplan, played by George Murdock, who played God in Star Trek V.

Have yourself a Star War! That’s Jessica Walter as Joyce Holleran. You probably know her from Arrested Development. Or as Morgan Le Fay in the Dr. Strange TV movie. No, you know her from Arrested Development or Play Misty for Me.

More minor roles include John Miranda as a prop man, Elven Havard as a guard, Dan Cotter as an executive, and Richard Patrick as a film crew member.

What happens?

Jessica uncovers drama on the set of Our Secret Lives as soon as she gets there. Are you surprised? Actors are being fired, and people say things like they wish studio head Joyce Holleran were dead. Well, she is soon shot by The Avenger, the character from the show. Are you also surprised that Jessica’s niece has been accused of this crime? After all, she’s playing The Avenger on the show.

We get to meet Jessica’s sister, Agnes, in this. I wonder how many people die around her?

Also: How many soap operas have a Giallo killer?

Everyone, as usual on Murder, She Wrote, wants to kill the victim. But this one has a straightforward solution.

Who did it?

Seeing as how Larry Holleran, the sleep-around husband of the murder victim, is played by William Atherton, well, there’s your answer.

Who made it?

It’s directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman and written by Paul Savage and Paul W. Cooper.

Does Jessica get some?

She needs to rest up after all the action last week.

Does Jessica dress up and act stupid?

No. Trust me. It will happen. It will happen so much that you may almost hate the show you love.

Was it any good?

A basic mystery. Not all that bad.

Any trivia?

Lloyd Nolan died two weeks after this aired.

Give me a reasonable quote:

Jessica Fletcher: …if I were you, I’d get him to confess as loudly and as quickly as possible.

What’s next?

A mother and daughter become involved in a murder and only Jessica can figure it out.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Spiker (1986)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Spiker was on the CBS Late Movie on October 13, 1988 and January 4, 1989.

Coach Doames (Michael Parks) is assembling the Olympic volleyball team, and I wonder, with the world burning around me, why I’m watching a movie about volleyball from the 80s? For you, dear reader. That’s how I will remain sane.

Catch (Patrick Houser), Suonny (Stephen W. Burns) and Newt (Christopher Allport) all have their issues and we’ll live through their drama in the pursuit of glory. Can Catch and Pam (Kristi Ferrell) have a relationship when all he does is spike the ball all day? Will Newt ever grow up? How about Newt? Will he stop sleeping around with the many volleyball groupies and get back with his wife, Marcia (Jo McDonnell), who complains that she’s 31 and feels old? 31? What is wrong with you? Also, did the filmmakers see McDonnell in Island Claws and say, “That’s our angry wife?”

Directed by Roger Tilton, who wrote it with Marlene Matthews — who developed the Emily of New Moon TV series — this movie is… something. It also has Parks as a man who cares more about volleyball than anyone ever has before, since or will in the future.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025: The World’s Oldest Living Bridesmaid (1990)

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July 14-20  Vanity Project Week: “…it might be said that the specific remedy for vanity is laughter, and that the one failing that is essentially laughter is vanity.” Are these products of passionate and industrious independent filmmakers OR outrageous glimpses into the inner workings of self-obsessed maniacs??

Directed by TV vet Joseph L. Scanlan and written by Janet Kovalcik, this was produced by its star, Donna Mills. She stars as rich and powerful lawyer Brenda Morgan, who falls for her much younger assistant, Alex (Brian Wimmer). And is that Art Hindle? Yes.

She’s sick of all of her assistants getting married and quitting after a year. She’s a career woman and marriage was never in the offering for her — dudes, it’s Donna Mills, I like how this film plays like “Oh, she has glasses, how gross” — so she can’t get anyone who would do such a thing.

This was released on VHS by Action International! That blows my mind. The same company that released Elves, The Devil’s Honey, They Call Me Macho Woman! and Homeboyz II: Crack City.

It’s one of five films produced by Donna Mills Productions. The others? Intimate Encounters, in which “A bored suburban housewife embarks upon a series of affairs seemingly triggered by escapism and fantasy.” Alcoholic drama My Name Is Kate. An Element of Truth, in which Donna is a thief. Finally, The Eyes Have It. “Donna Mills is one of the few actresses in Hollywood who actually applies her own makeup on the set and off. Now, you too can share in all of her beauty secrets in this easy-to-follow visual learning method.”

You can watch this on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Snowballing (1985)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Snowballing was on the CBS Late Movie on April 11 and July 21, 1988.

Snowballing may seem like a teen sex comedy — a Lemon Popsicle, if you will — but instead of being like Hot Dog…The Movie or Ski School, this feels closer to an American-International beach comedy than a sex hijinks movie.

It was directed by Charles E. Sellier Jr., the same man who made Silent Night, Deadly Night. More importantly, he was best known for creating the American book and television series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams and founding Sunn Classic with Rayland Jensen and Patrick Frawley. You might expect that this would mean that this movie would have more ribald elements. Nope.

Filmed in Park City, Utah, this sat on the shelf for four years before the VHS boom demanded a supply to meet the demand for video rentals. This also had a variety of titles, including Smooth Moves, Snow Job and, perhaps most generically, Winter Vacation.

The owner of the ski resort, Tolson (Bob Hastings, the animated voice of Commissioner Gordon), and Sheriff Gilliam (Bill Zuckert) have been scamming young skiers for years, overcharging them for their rooms for the big downhill race.

Andy (P. R. Paul,  Neon Maniacs), Dan (Michael Sharrett, Deadly Friend) and Al (Steven Tash, the guy who can’t get the ESP quiz right from Bill Murray in Ghostbusters) are three of those young athletes, trying to pick up the ladies like Karen (Mary Beth McDonough, Mortuary), Cheryl (Jill Carroll, Psycho II), Bonnie (Bonnie Hellman, a hitchhiker in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter) and Cheryl (Tara Buckman, the main reason I watched this). Trying to keep them out of trouble is their teacher, Roy Balaban, played by Alan Sues, who you may remember from Laugh-In. He plays a mincing character, but at least there’s one funny part where he puts on an Indiana Jones hat and is chased by a giant snowball.

This had three writers — David O’Malley and Thomas C. Chapman, who also worked on the Sunn-adjacent Hangar 18 and The Boogens, and Norman Hudis, who may have written plenty of cartoons and TV shows, but had the experience of writing Hot Resort, which probably helped here. He also wrote several of the Carry On movies, in case you wonder about the sense of humor in this film.

It was shot by Henning Schellerup, the steady cameraman for the Sunn Classic company, who also directed their Bible TV shows, Beyond Death’s Door and In Search of Historic Jesus, as well as films like Night Pleasures and Three Shades of Flesh. He was also the DP on Curse of the Headless Horseman and Sasqua, as well as shooting Suburban Commando, Rocktober Blood, Halloween 4, Maniac Cop, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Death Race 2000 and many more.

I bet CBS didn’t have to take a thing out of this when it aired on the CBS Late Movie.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025: Reckless Kelly (1993)

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July 14-20  Vanity Project Week: “…it might be said that the specific remedy for vanity is laughter, and that the one failing that is essentially laughter is vanity.” Are these products of passionate and industrious independent filmmakers OR outrageous glimpses into the inner workings of self-obsessed maniacs??

I wrote about the story of Yahoo Serious when I mentioned Mr. Accident. I enjoyed that movie so much that I’m here again, watching another Yahoo movie.

Directed, written and produced by its star — Serious — this takes the Australian language of Ned Kelly, who may have died in 1880 when he was lynched, and moves it to today. Or some strange world that only exists in the films of Yahoo Serious.

Bank CEO Sir John (Hugo Weaving) is sick of the Kelly family, so he forecloses on their house. This sends Ned to Hollywood to try and make money in a more honest way, as he can’t rob banks when the money can benefit himself.

Our bulletproof hero with homemade armor ends up getting a part in the movie The Christian Cowboy, which gives him a motorcycle with a neon crucifix on it.

Variety said, “Comic’s second outing, produced on a far larger budget and with the backing of Warners, is full of ideas and nonsense but short on genuine laughs and zest.”

I disagree, but I can admit that Yahoo’s movies exist in a world that none of us live in. And Alexei Sayle and John Pinette are in it? Man, this is a lot of fun despite being one of the goofier and dumber films I’ve watched lately. Like Jerry Lewis, it feels like Serious wants to throw everything he has at you to keep you laughing.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Soggy Bottom, U.S.A. (1981)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Soggy Bottom, U.S.A. was on the CBS Late Movie on May 7 and October 14, 1987 and September 15, 1988.

Directed by Theodore J. Flicker (the creator of Barney Miller; he also wrote and directed Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang) and written by Eric Edson, Stephen C. Burnham, Joy N. Houck Jr. (director of Creature from Black Lake and Night of Bloody Horror), Hal Harrison and Patrick Pittelli, this is about Jacon (Don Johnson) trying to build a hoverboat to impress Charlene (P.J. Soles).

Jack Elam, Brion James and Anthony James play the bad guys,. Ben Johnson, Dub Taylor, Anthony Zerbe, Lane Smith, Severn Darden and Lois Nettlejohn are the friendly citizens of this small town. There’s also a farting dog.

Otherwise, this is basic hicksploitation, but in a few years, Don Johnson would be a much bigger star.

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025: Reflections of Evil (2002)

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July 14-20  Vanity Project Week: “…it might be said that the specific remedy for vanity is laughter, and that the one failing that is essentially laughter is vanity.” Are these products of passionate and industrious independent filmmakers OR outrageous glimpses into the inner workings of self-obsessed maniacs??

Born in Akron, Ohio, Damon Packard is the grandson of Sam Pollock, who organized the Amalgamated Meat Cutters of Akron, working to limit the workweek, establish employer-paid wellness funds, implement a prepaid direct-service medical care program, raise wages, and more. At the time of his death, he owned one of the largest and most respected private collections of union-related publications in the United States, with most books signed by their authors.

He started making films in college, including the Miles O’Keefe-starring Dawn of an Evil Millennium, as well as Apple, an elf fantasy film made while he lived in a tent for two years in Hawaii. After receiving an inheritance, he made this film, which he directed, wrote, and starred in, as well as handling most of the other aspects. He created 23,000 DVDs and gave them for free, as well as sending the movie to celebrities.

It starts with an introduction by Tony Curtis, stolen from another film. It features numerous snippets of movies that aired on the CBS Late Movie, giving the impression that you’re sitting in front of a thousand TVs all changing channels at once. It’s also about Steven Spielberg making Something Evil, as well as Julie, a teen who died from an overdose in a supernatural drug cult in the early 70s just like an afterschool special, now a specter searching from beyond the grave for her brother Bob (Packard), an overweight homeless man who wears several unworking headphones, all the clothes that he wears on his back and seems to lose his mind every few minutes.

With a drug freakout inside Universal Studios on E.T. Adventure, a bloody axe fight that Bob recovers from immediately, strange audio blasts followed by Carpenters songs, appearances by Lana Turner, George Hamilton and Joey Heatherton, an extended vomit sequence, 137 minutes of Los Angeles being Hell, even the guardians of the city losing their minds, anger and rage at all times. Shot on 16mm, Super 8 and Digital 8, formats don’t matter when so much has to be related to you, as if you’re either watching one of those tapes you’re forced to endure when you get a minimum wage job or you’re being Stockholmed into a death cult. Maybe both.

I’m struggling to explain what I’ve seen. It ruined me for a few days, rendering me unable to watch any other films and I consider that the highest compliment I can give a movie.

DVDR Party has the Something Evil remix for sale, as well as all of Packard’s films. I feel like I’m going to blow my next pay on his movies. Maybe it’ll be enough for him to make something new.

You can watch this on Tubi.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Fast-Walking (1982)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Fast-Walking was on the CBS Late Movie on June 19 and November 16, 1987.

Frank “Fast-Walking” Miniver (James Woods) is a prison guard making money on the side selling drugs and engaging in the transport of sex workers. His cousin, Wasco (Tom McIntire), is in the same jail and gets an entire business turned over to him by Frank after he intimidates Bullet (Timothy Carey).

In return, Wasco has his girl Moke (Kay Lenz) seduce his cousin. But things won’t be perfect forever, as when Frank develops feelings, Wasco becomes enraged. They also come to a head about the murder of Galliot (Robert Hooks), a political prisoner. Galliot pays Frank $50,000 to get him out alive. He didn’t count on how good a shot Moke is.

Director, writer and producer James B. Harris read Ernest Brawley’s The Rap and was inspired to make it into a movie. Shot in the Montana State Prison building in Deer Lodge, Montana, it feels real.

I can’t imagine how much was cut for the CBS Late Movie, as Lenz is volcanic in her nude and love scenes, while this also has M. Emmett Walsh full frontal. Plus, Susan Tyrrell is in it? Wow.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Arthur the King (1985)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Arthur the King was on the CBS Late Movie on August 13, 1987.

If you were British and didn’t get a role in Excalibur in 1981*, a year later, you could have been in Arthur the King, also known as Merlin and the Sword. It was directed by Clive Donner, the man who brought us The Nude Bomb, Charlie Chan and the Dragon Queen, Old Dracula, Spectre, Luv and What’s New, Pussycat? It was written by David Wyles, who also wrote Treasure: In Search of the Gold Horse.

Katharine (Dyan Cannon) is exploring the caves around Stonehenge — Where a man’s a man and the children dance to the Pipes of Pan — and ends up falling and waking up stuck in the cave where Merlin (Edward Woodward, The Equalizer, which had to be mentioned in the CBS ads) and Niniane (Lucy Gutteridge, Top Secret!) have slept and argued for a thousand years. Oh, what a cast — King Arthur (Malcolm McDowell) is a jerk, so you can figure that Guinevere (Rosalyn Landor) ran away more than that she was kidnapped by MorganLe Fay (Candice Bergen, yes, really). She’s rescued by Lancelot (Rupert Everett) and, as you know from the legend of Arthur, they fall in love.

Filmed in Yugoslavia and sitting on the bench for three years before CBS decided to air it as a three-hour TV movie, this is the kind of movie that if you love the legends, you’ll hate, because it feels like, well, a TV movie shot in Yugoslavia. But if you don’t, you’ll wonder why it’s more about Gawain (Patrick Ryecart) and Ragnell (Ann Thornton) than Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

In this, Morgan is the aunt of Mordred (Joseph Blatchley), Arthur’s evil bastard son, instead of Arthur’s half-sister, which makes the story even darker. But you know, incest and 1980s TV maybe didn’t mix. This also rewrites the ending with Merlin astral projecting himself back in time, possessing Excalibur and stabbing the life out of Mordred.

Spoilers, sorry.

Teri Tordia from Julia shows up, as does Mary Stavin from Top Line and Strike Commando 2. Yes, I realize she was in A View to a Kill and Octopussy, as well as the videos for “Strip” and “Ant Rap” by Adam Ant, but I know her from what I know her from. Carole Ashby was also in both of those movies and this, too, so maybe they found something to talk about. Perhaps they made fun of Alison Worth because she wasn’t going to get to be in A View to a Kill. I offer this conjecture knowing Octopussy was made a year later and A View to a Kill three years after. More Bond girls? Maryam d’Abo was in this, too! Yes, she’s in The Living Daylights, but don’t we all know her from Xtro?

Michael Gough, the butler for Batman, is also on hand; yes, he was also the villain of  Horrors of the Black Museum.

Lancelot is the real hero of this story, defeating an entire army of bad guys all by himself and a dragon before exiting as a hero. That dragon, well, look, we don’t need to talk about the effects, do we? I’m trying to be nice.

Malcolm McDowell is the kind of actor who can play King Arthur and Merlin. I am referring to Kids of the Round Table. He’s also very Eric Roberts in that if you say his name out loud three times, he shows up in a $2 million budget straight-to-Walmart movie.

I have never seen Candice Bergen throw a fireball, and now I have.

*Unless you’re Liam Neeson. He was Grak in this and Gawain in that.

You can watch this on YouTube.