Eagle Chief Yoh Xi-Hung (Ku Feng) leads Iron Boat Clan, a gang made up of orphans that he has raised to be his personal army — Eagles — of killers. His toughest “son” is Chik Ming-sing (Ti Lung), who loves combat. After being injured by Golden Spear Tao De-biu, he nearly dies and is nursed back to health by the family of lawman Wang An. Now, Chik Ming-sing sees that the life he has known since he was a child is a lie. He deserves love and to have a family.

Of course, the Iron Boat Clan then kills Wang An and Chik Ming-sing is targeted by them. As he wanders, he meets wrist knife fighting master Cheuk Yi-fan (Alexander Fu), who wants to destroy the Iron Boat Clan for killing his wife and children. He suspects Chik Ming-sing, but they make a good team as they both starts to fight back against the gang. Things take a turn when Chik Ming-sing reveals that he killed a man’s wife years ago — guess who? — and wants to be killed by that man to atone for his crime.

Of course our heroes get their revenge, even if Yoh Xi-Hung attempts to turn them against one another. The end, however, is still surprising and poignant, as our heroes are honor bound and have a path that they must follow. The last fight is astounding and both lead characters are so worthy of a movie on their own. Together, this is perfect.

Directed by Chung Sun, this movie knocked me out. Everyone’s weapons, from Yoh Xi-Hung’s claws and Chik Ming-sing’s staff to Cheuk Yi-fan’s wrist blades are so unique to each character and perfectly used. I can’t wait to watch this again.

This was remade in 1993 as The 13 Cold-Blooded Eagles.

EDITOR’S NOTE: High Ballin’ was on the CBS Late Movie on May 15, 1981.

“Iron Duke” Boykin (Jerry Reed) is an independent trucker dealing with “King” Carroll (Chris Wiggins) and his gang, led by Harvey (David Ferry), who are trying to get every big rig driver to be part of his company. He’s joined by Rane (Peter Fonda) and Pickup (Helen Shaver) in an attempt to bring whiskey to a labor camp, thereby making enough money to be free of the monopoly.

But when Boykin is shot and Pickup is captured, Rane has to fight the gang with a posse — this movie is pretty much a Western with trucks instead of horses — and go one-on-one with Harvey.

Set in the U.S. but shot in Toronto, this also was released on video as Death Toll, which is a way more serious title.

Director Peter Carter also made Rituals and The Intruder Within, so he’s good in my eyes. It’s written by Paul F. Edwards, Richard Robinson (Kingdom of the Spiders) and Stephen Schneck (Welcome to Blood City). This has an amazing action scene with Rane launching cars off a truck onto the gang chasing Duke, as well as a tire iron fight outside a truck stop. Best of all, this was called Convoy II in some countries.Plus Clint Howard and Michael Ironside! How can you go wrong with all of these elements, as well as Jerry Reed singing the theme song, the same house at the beginning of Smokey and the Bandit in this opening and the stars of Smokey and Easy Rider teaming up?

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Shadow of Chikara was on the CBS Late Movie on May 25 and August 12, 1983. It played as Wishbone Cutter. 

Earl A. Smith was the writer of The Legend of Boggy Creek and The Town That Dreaded Sundown, but he only directed this one movie.

It’s a Western horror, which is rare, and one that places Confederate soldier Wishbone Cutter (Joe Don Baker, who yes, was a 70s lead and near sex symbol) into a treasure hunt after he learns of a cave filled with diamonds from dying soldier Virgil Caine (Slim Pickens).

Wishbone assembles a team that includes Amos Richmond geologist (Ted Neeley, once Jesus Christ), Native American Half Moon O’Brian (John N. Houck Jr.) and eventually Drusilla Wilcox (Sondra Locke), a woman they find after a massacre. The Arkansas mountain is guarded by a demon bird, so of course everything gets strange by the time they get there. Wishbone is already haunted as his wife Rosalie (Linda Dano, who was on more than 1,300 episodes of Another World) has left him for a Yankee soldier.

Wilcox claims that the men that killed her people were silver naked beings and O’Brian claims that they’re being attacked by demons. The movie never gives in and reveals to you what it’s really all about and for that, I like it even more. It’s also got the same crew that Charles B. Pierce used, so it gets the authentic Arkansas rough feel down right. Even the ending makes little to no sense, but hey, I kind of adore that.

The only downer I’ll reveal is that there’s a lot of real animal abuse in this, as several horses plunge off a cliff and I have no idea if any survived. Just know that going in.

On the positive side, somehow, the filmmakers got The Band to let them use “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”

Also known as The Ballad of Virgil Cane, Thunder Mountain, Wishbone Cutter, The Curse of Demon Mountain, Demon Mountain and Shadow Mountain, this is a movie that combines the end of the Western 70s darkness with occult themes and a relentless downer edge. I’d never seen it before and it’s definitely a film I plan on exploring again.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Fury was on the CBS Late Movie on September 6, 1985.

Roger Ebert said of this movie, “I’m not quite sure it makes a lot of sense, but that’s the sort of criticism you only make after it’s over. During the movie, too much else is happening.”

Ex-CIA agent Peter Sandza (Kirk Douglas) and his psychic son Robin (Andrew Stevens) meet up with Ben Childress (John Cassavetes), one of Peter’s old spy friends. Peter is leaving the life behind, but Ben is prepared. He stages a terrorist attack that nearly kills his supposed friend and takes his son away.

Across the world, student Gillian Bellaver (Amy Irving) learns that she has powers of her own. She can barely control them, so she goes to the Paragon Institute, a front for the same organization that Childress is running, one that kills parents and takes their psychic teens away to make them into weapons for the U.S. government. Thanks to having a girlfriend (Carrie Snodgress) on the inside, Peter starts to track down his son.

Gillian grows in power and soon meets Robin psychically. Childress determines that she knows too much, so he plans to eliminate her, while Peter plans on following her to find his son. Working with Dr. Susan Charles (Fiona Lewis, between this and Strange Behavior not someone I would trust with my teenage child), they have successfully transformed Robin into a killing machine. That said, he can’t be controlled and his abilities have already caused one mass homicide at a theme park.

As Peter and Gillian break into Childress’ mansion, Robin goes full-on mental and thinks that PSU wants to replace him with Gillian. He kills his handlers and even tries to murder his father, who tries to keep him from falling. When he responds by scratching Peter’s face and causing his own death. Seeing his son dead, the old agent decides life isn’t worth living and he kills himself.

As he lies dying, he gives Gillian all of his power, power she soon uses to cause Childress to bleed from the eyes and then to literally blow up. It’s one of the wildest stunts ever and one that took two tries. De Palma told The Talks, “I had 8 or 9 high-speed cameras and he explodes. He explodes. And the first time we did it, it didn’t work. The body parts didn’t go towards the right cameras and this whole set was covered with blood. And it took us almost a week to get back to do take two.”

How was this achieved? In the same interview, the director said, “Nobody had ever done this before. I had these incredible high-speed cameras that the astronauts use and about three of them jammed because they were going so fast. They were all shooting super, super slow-motion – this is in the ’70s – and then it’s all over and you look around and the set is completely in shambles.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Betsy was on the CBS Late Movie on September 15, 1982.

Based on the Harold Robbins book, directed by Daniel Petrie (Bronco and Billie, Six Pack, Fort Apache the Bronx) and written by William Bast and Walter Bernstein, this is the story of Loren Hardeman Sr. (Laurence Olivier) and the car that will bring his company back to glory, named for his great-granddaughter (Kathleen Beller). This goes against what his grandson (Robert Duvall) thinks the company’s future is. It’s also about the loves of race driver Angelo Perino (Tommy Lee Jones) and a special fuel that will power The Betsy.

In The Golden Turkey Awards, Harry and Michael Medved said of this movie: “Another Harold Robbins book bites the dust as a wretched, melodramatic film. Lord Laurence Olivier’s attempt at a Texas twang is a hilarious flop, as is his incestuous relationship with his daughter-in-law, Katharine Ross.”

Jokes on you, Medveds, that’s just cucking your son, not incest. It’s also a scene where the homosexual son of the elder Loren shoots himself in the head while the young version of the grandson Loren watches, then goes upstairs to tell his mom, who has grandpa between her thighs.

That’s Harold Robbins, right?

Well, in the world of this movie, it’s an actual choice between Kathleen Beller and Lesley-Anne Down. Come on, Tommy Lee Jones!

• EDITOR’S NOTE: Patrick was on the CBS Late Movie on August 26, 1983 and March 2 and August 9, 1984.

Directed by Richard Franklin (Psycho II, Road Games) and written by Everett De Roche (Race for the Yankee Zephyr, Harlequin), Patrick opened the world to the genre of Ozploitation. While the Australian score was by Brian May, the Italian cut was scored by Goblin. In fact, it did better internationally than in Australia, even if the U.S. version dubbed over all of the accents.

Patrick (Robert Thompson) hasn’t left his hospital bed or closed his eyes in three years. After killing his parents, he’s been in a coma in a private hospital, never keeping the same nurse for long. Now, Kathy Jacquard (Susan Penhaligon) has taken the job, hoping that it will help her finally divorce her husband Ed (Rod Mullinar).

According to Dr. Roget (Robert Helpmann), Patrick is being kept in his care to explore life and death. Never mind that other patients have seen him fly out of his window. He can also kill people from afar, like when he tries to drown Dr. Brian Wright (Bruce Barry) when he tires to pick up Kathy, who he has been communicating with via spitting and spirit typewriting. Strangely, her only ally end up being Matron Cassidy (Julia Blake), the same woman who was tough on her at the beginning of the movie.

Yes, Quentin Tarantino admits that he took the paralyzed in bed spitting scene in Kill Bill Vol. 1 from this movie. He has also said that “Hitchcock was overrated but you know who was better? Richard Franklin.” and stated that Road Games is his favorite Australian movie.

Soon, Patrick is showing her that he can still feel — his erection is how he does it — and that the hospital is trying to kill him with electroshock therapy. By the end of the movie, he’s making her choose between her ex-husband or him as she injects him with potassium chloride and is linked to his mind as he passes on.

Maybe not. After all, he leaps from the bed while dead — a scene that the filmmakers started with and worked backward from, unlike the modern horror movie creators who have no idea how to close their stories — and his eyes reopen after his death.

Two years after this, the Italians made Patrick Still Lives, a truly baffling sequel that took the basic ideas of this movie — the same story, I can admit it — and infused it with near pornographic levels of sex and violence. It’s just as incredible as that sentence makes it sound. There was a remake in 2013 that I need to see but what I wish was filmed was Franklin and De Rouche’s sequel idea, Patrick II: The Man Who Wasn’t There. A religious cult would dig up Patrick and he would be in a coma, at which point he’d start being obsessed about another young lady.

The poster has a great tagline: ”I saw a man upon the stair, I looked again, he wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today, I wish that man would go away.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Wiz was on the CBS Late Movie on October 5, 1984.

As discussed in the article on this site about Return of Oz, nearly every Oz movie has been a failure until Disney’s Oz the Great and Powerful. While we traditionally believe that the 1939 version was a success, it wasn’t a financial success until it was re-released in 1949 and then became beloved when it was on TV.

The Wiz lost $10 million nearly forty years after.

The Wiz: The Super Soul Musical “Wonderful Wizard of Oz” premiered in Baltimore in 1974 and won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Ted Ross and Mabel King would reprise their roles as The Lion and Evillene, but when Motown made this movie, Stephanie Mills was out as Dorothy and Diana Ross was in. First, she was turned down by Barry Gordy and then she got Rob Cohen of Universal Pictures to finance The Wiz if she were to play the lead role. Other roles would include Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow, Nipsey Russell as the Tin Man, Lena Horne as Glinda, Thelma Carpenter as Miss One (instead of Addapearle as in the stage play, but writer Joel Schumacher didn’t use any of the original book by William F. Brown) and Richard Pryor as the Wizard.

Saturday Night Fever director John Badham was to direct, but he couldn’t see Ross as Dorothy, so he left and Sidney Lumet (known for movies like Dog Day Afternoon and Network) was hired. He’d never made a musical and little if any comedy.

Back to that script. Schumacher was influenced super into Werner Erhard and the Erhard Seminars Training movement, as was Diana Ross. While some say that EST is used to “transform one’s ability to experience living so that the situations one had been trying to change or had been putting up with clear up just in the process of life itself,” others charge that it was mind control or an attempt at creating a “totalitarian army.”

Cohen said, “Before I knew it, the movie was becoming an est-ian fable full of est buzzwords about knowing who you are and sharing and all that. I hated the script a lot. But it was hard to argue with Ross because she was recognizing in this script all of this stuff that she had worked out in est seminars.” A lot of what Glinda says at the end of the movie is L. Frank Baum filtered through EST — “Home is a place we all must find, child. It’s not just a place where you eat or sleep. Home is knowing. Knowing your mind, knowing your heart, knowing your courage. If we know ourselves, we’re always home, anywhere.” — as is the song “Believe In Yourself” — “If you believe / Within your heart, you’ll know / That no one can change / The path that you must go. Believe what you feel / And know you’re right, because / The time will come around / When you’ll say it’s yours.”

If there’s anything positive from this film, it’s the fact that both Michael and LaToya Jackson were able to move into a Manhattan apartment, all on their own for the first time in their life. Michael got to go to Studio 54; he impressed Quincy Jones with his work ethic so much that Jones agreed to produce Off the Wall. He would also produced Thriller and Bad. Jones compared Jackson to Sammy Davis Jr.

However, the film was a commercial failure and may have even hurt all black films for some years to come, as Hollywood kept pointing to how this movie bombed. It cost $24 million, made $13.6 in theaters and CBS paid $10 million to air it, but it still was seen as a loss. Michael came out as a star, but this was the end of Diana Ross as a movie star.

I’ll never understand why Dorothy was 24 years old in this instead of a child, but that’s what Ross wanted and that’s what she got. Yet there are things that really work in this for me, like the urban scapes that make up Oz — critics hated that and well, they were wrong — and the four crows are fun villains.

The CBS version cuts a lot of footage so that it fit into a three hour running time. I can’t even imagine how long the commercials were for this when it was on the CBS Late Movie.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Avalanche was on the CBS Late Movie on June 28 and September 4, 1985.

Corey Alan directed a ton of TV, 1971’s The Erotic Adventures of Pinocchio and this Rock Hudson-starring disasterpiece in which the much beloved actor plays ski resort owner David Shelby, a man who owns a ski lodge so we can all totoally identify with him. He also invites his ex-wife Caroline Brace (Mia Farrow!) to visit in the hopes that he can convince her that he’s a changed man.

His opposite is Nick Thorne (Robert Forster), an environmental photographer who knows that that David has built his resort where he shouldn’t. One look at the title of the movie should tell you what’s coming next. When Caroline battles Nick over being a control obsessed freak all over again, well, she ends up in Nick’s arms just in time for David’s business partner’s plane to crash into the mountain and send the snow into everyone’s lives.

The end of this movie — after so much destruction and loss of life — is really all about Mia Farrow choosing between Rock Hudson and Robert Forster. I mean, what else should this be about?

Originally budgeted at $6.5 million, producer Roger Corman cut that amount –will the shocks ever end? —  before shooting began in Colorado. There’s plenty of styrofoam for snow, which is kind of obvious. It was still the most expensive movie that New World ever made.

You can watch this on Tubi.