EDITOR’S NOTE: Moon Zero Two was on the CBS Late Movie on January 26, 1973 and June 7, 1974.

Hammer does science fiction! Directed by Roy Ward Baker and written by Michael Carreras, this promised that there would be moon colonies by 2021. Millionaire J.J. Hubbard (Warren Mitchel) wants space explorer Bill Kemp (James Olson) to capture an asteroid in low orbit that can be transformed into better rocket fuel, allowing people like Kemp to not just colonize or be a tourist to the moon but to go to other worlds. After all, kemp was the first man on Mars.

Kemp lucks out by offering to help Clementine Taplin (Catherine Schell), whose brother owned a nickel mine — and was killed by Hubbard — putting her in the position of being rich once the asteroid lands there.

One of the film’s other writers, Gavin Lyall, wanted this to be much tougher than as glossy as it got. His wife, Katharine Whitehorn, said, “It was about — or supposed to be about — space travel when it had got to the beat-up-old-Dakota stage of grubby reality. The people who made it were dazzled by Kubrick’s 2001 and couldn’t resist trying to make it glossy and improbably perfect, the exact opposite of what the authors intended: all the gritty realism was gone.”

It came out three months after man went to the moon — maybe — which caused Ward to say, “Moon Zero Two was a bad picture. It was hopeless, and never got off the ground. We didn’t have enough money to do it properly. It was crazy – a complete muddle. And, it was undercut by the fact that you could turn on the television and see Neil Armstrong jumping about on the real Moon.”

Maybe he wasn’t totally right, as the sets were so realistic they were reused for years on TV shows like Space:1999, Moonbase 3 and UFO, as well as the movies Superman II, Superman IV and 2009’s Moon.

In the U.S., this was sold as the first space western. It played double features with When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Idolmaker was on the CBS Late Movie on January 31, 1986.

Based on the life of rock promoter/producer Bob Marcucci, whose discoveries included Frankie Avalon and Fabian and who served as a technical advisor for the production, this is the story of Vincent “Vinnie” Vacarri (Ray Sharkey), Gino “G.G.” Pilato (Joe Panoliano) and Tomaso “Tommy Dee” DeLorusso (Paul Land) as they navigate the world of music.

Vinnie ends up being the boss, running a record label through the times of payola and teen magazines, getting involved with an editor named Brenda (Tovah Feldshuh). As Tommy gets too big and starts ignoring his advice, he grooms Guido Bevaloqua (Peter Gallagher), a busboy at his family’s restaurant, into becoming Caesare, the kind of singer whose audiences run onstage and tear his clothes off. He begins dating a reporter, Ellen Fields (Maureen McCormick), but soon everyone abandons Vinnie, and he has to return to the pasta restaurant, singing at night in small clubs while the acts he helped make become stars.

Fabian Forte filed a lawsuit against the film, alleging defamation and invasion of privacy. He had been managed by Marcucci and could be seen as the character of Caesare. Fabian said that the film made him look like “a totally manufactured singer, a mere pretty face without any singing ability or acting talent.” This was settled out of court, with Fabian, his wife, and family receiving public apologies in The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, as well as the full ownership of the film being transferred to Marcucci. If you watched it on the CBS Late Movie, you were giving Fabian money.

So if you didn’t get it:
Vincent ‘Vinnie’ Vacarri is Marcucci.

Tommy Dee is Frankie Avalon.

Guido Bevaloqua is based on Fabian.

Brenda Roberts is based on Marcucci’s real-life assistant, Rona Barrett.

Director — and co-writer with Edward Di Lorenzo — Taylor Hackford also directed The Devil’s Advocate, Dolores Claiborne, An Officer and a Gentleman, Against All Odds, and the video for Lionel Richie’s “Say You, Say Me.”

You can watch this on YouTube.

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.

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.

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.