EDITOR’S NOTE: American Gigolo was on USA Up All Night on December 27, 1997.

American Gigolo was always fascinating to me as a kid, as my mother wouldn’t let me in the room when it was on. As a result, knowing that it was “dirty” made me want to see it even more.

Directed and written by Paul Schrader, it’s about Julian Kay (Richard Gere), an escort for rich older women. Now, we know this is a fantasy, and I’m sure that affluent elderly ladies like to have a man, but I think we all know that most male escorts are for other men. But let’s get over that and explore the movie.

Along the way, he starts to fall for a senator’s wife, Michelle Stratton (Lauren Hutton), but soon finds himself being hired for a job he never does: BDSM sex with Mr. Rheiman’s (Tom Stewart) wife Judy (Patti Carr) while the old man watches. Julian tells fellow sex worker Leon (Bill Duke) that he never wants another call like that; Leon tells him that when he ages, these affluent old ladies won’t like him any longer.

Meanwhile, as Julian satisfies Lisa Williams (K Callan), Mrs. Rheiman is murdered. Detective Sunday (Héctor Elizondo) believes that Julian did it, but his alibi — sleeping with another man’s wife — puts his sense of morality to the test. He refuses to say where he was, and at each turn, evidence is planted, and he starts to realize that he’s being set up.

I love this quote from Schrader: “The character in Taxi Driver was compulsively nonsexual. The character in American Gigolo is compulsively sexual. He is a man who receives his identity by giving sexual pleasure but has no concept of receiving sexual pleasure.” Indeed, in one sscene-Julian is full frontal nude, a rarity even today, and he goes on about how being able to please women is the one thing that he knows makes him worthwhile. Schrader would revisit the themes of male sex workers in 2007’s The Walker.

The main reason I wanted to see this as a child was the music. Giorgio Moroder and “Call Me” by Blondie? Amazing. This also set the tone for style for the new decade, as Gere’s Giorgio Armani suits and Hutton’s Aldo Ferrante outfits established the look that so many would emulate.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Awakening was on USA Up All Night on June 30, 1990.

Based on Bram Stoker’s The Jewel of Seven Stars — which was also filmed as an episode of Mystery and Imagination as “The Curse of the Mummy,” Hammer’s Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb and the 90s movie Bram Stoker’s The Mummy — this movie places Matthew Corbeck (Charlton Heston), his pregnant wife Anne (Jill Townsend) and his assistant Jane Turner (Susannah York) in Egypt searching for the tomb of Queen Kara. One could argue that the most exploring Matthew is doing is between the thighs of Jane, but there you go.

When you see a sign that says “Do Not Approach the Nameless One Lest Your Soul Be Withered,” you may want to turn back. Nope, Matthew goes in hard — again, much like with his assistant — while his wife goes into labor. She’s dropped off at a hospital so he can get back to digging, and their stillborn child comes back to life once he unearths and opens a sarcophagus.

Eighteen years later and that daughter, Margaret (Stephanie Zimbalist) is looking for her father, who is now married to Jane and still obsessed with the mummy that he found. It’s being destroyed by bacteria, so he gets it sent to England so that he can save it. Of course, the mummy queen wants to be reincarnated inside his daughter, who starts to believe that she really is Queen Kara.

Directed by Mike Newell (who went on to direct Four Weddings and a Funeral and Donnie Brasco) and written by Clive Exton, Chris Bryant and Allan Scott, The Awakening is a big dumb mess. It was recut by Monte Hellman after Newell lost final cut. The best thing I can say is that this was shot in Egypt with actual locations.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Unseen was on USA Up All Night, but I can’t find a date when it aired. Do you know?

Danny Steinmann started his directing career with the adult movie High Rise and worked on the films Savage Streets and Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning along the way. After that film, he was injured in a bicycle accident and was unable to return to directing. He also produced the Gene Roddenberry made-for-TV movie Spectre. Today, though, we’re here to discuss his 1980 effort The Unseen.

Keep in mind — Steinmann had his name removed from the movie as he was upset with the final cut. He’s credited as Peter Foleg.

Jennifer (Barbara Bach Lady Starkey, the wife of Ringo Starr who also was in The Spy Who Loved Me, Black Belly of the Tarantula and Short Night of Glass Dolls) and Karen (Karen Lamm, the wife of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson), along with their friend Vicki, are in Solvag, CA to cover a folk rock show and town festival. A mix-up over their reservations leads the girls to stay with Ernest Keller (Sydney Lassick, Skate Town U.S.A., Lady in White), the owner of a museum.

Jennifer is in town to report on the town’s parade and festival, but has to deal with her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend Tony (Douglas Barr, TV’s The Fall Guy‘s Howie, as well as Deadly Blessing), who wants to talk about their relationship. Ugh.

Meanwhile, Vicki just wants to get naked while creepy old men stare at her through vents. Sadly for her, The Unseen pulls her through one of those vents and slams it down on her neck, killing her. Soon after, Karen is also killed. Their bodies are discovered by Ernest’s wife, Virginia (Lelia Goldoni, who was in Cassavetes’ Shadows and the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers).

That’s when we learn the secret: Virginia and Ernest are husband and wife, as well as brother and sister. He killed their father two decades ago, and they’ve lived here ever since, along with Junior (Stephen Furst, the guy from Animal House in the role one wonders if he was born to play), their inbred son. Ernest is keeping up the cycle of abuse that his father started, beating his son and keeping his wife/sister in submission. Now, Jennifer must die to keep the secret.

Ernest lures her into the basement, where she finds her friends’ bodies. She panics and runs into Junior, who she discovers probably didn’t mean to kill anyone. Ernest tries to kill her, but Virginia tries to save her. This leads to a family fight, and Ernest kills his son with a board with a nail through it.

Just as Ernest is ready to off Jennifer with a hatchet, her stupid ex saves her. Well, he tries to, but an old leg injury flares up. Oh, you inept moron! It’s up to Virginia to save the day by shooting her husband/brother and going back into the house to hold her dead son.

The Unseen was initially written by Kim Henkel and Michael Viner. While Henkel is best known for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Viner was a producer and audiobook pioneer who also assembled the Incredible Bongo Band, whose song “Apache” is one of the most sampled songs ever. Their screenplay was adapted into the book Deadly Encounter by Richard Woodley.

Bluntly put, this movie is all over the place. The reveal of The Unseen stays on the monster so long that you wonder why this movie is called The Unseen. It starts with so much promise, but by the end, you may find yourself staring at the time left, hoping that it ends quickly.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Caddyshack was on USA Up All Night on November 16 and 17, 1990 and October 12, 1991.

I ask you this: why did they keep making movies after Caddyshack? This is as perfect as film gets, quite literally a movie that you can drop into and out of at any time without damaging the timing or spirit of the film. It has never failed to lift my mood or improve my outlook on life. It is all that movies should endeavor to be.

It’s based on the memories of writer and co-star Brian Doyle-Murray, as he worked as a caddy at the Indian Hill Club in Winnetka, Illinois, alongside his brothers Bill and John. Director Harold Ramis had also worked as a caddy and even been hit in the genitals with a golf ball once, just like the film. Even better — that Baby Ruth candy bar in the pool came directly from Murray’s high school.

Is there a plot? Sure, Danny Noonan is supposedly the hero, and it’s all about how he wants to escape his huge family and attend college. But really, it’s the personalities that this movie is all about, like Ty Webb (Chevy Chase), the son of one of the club’s founders who has turned slack into zen. Then there’s, Judge Elihu Smails (Ted Knight), who is perhaps the best bad guy ever in a comedy. Or newly rich construction boss Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield) who is a buffoonish man out to annoy every , wealthy person in the club. And of course, there’s Carl Spackler, the groundskeeper who is at war with a gopher.

It’s also the only movie where Chase and Murray appear in a scene together. Famously brawling on the set of Saturday Night Live once, where Murray referred to Chase as “medium talent” before punching him — the best insult ever — they got along here and wrote a quick moment where Ty’s golf ball ends up in Spackler’s ramshackle hovel.

Murray’s dialogue in the film is completely unscripted, including his Cinderella scene. There, he was told only to act as if he were a child announcing his own imaginary golf moment. He was only on set for six days.

The constant improv really bothered Knight, an actor who prided himself on knowing his lines. Dangerfield never did the same take twice, so their continuous battling has its roots in reality. In fact, Rodney would never begin doing anything when Ramis yelled “Action!” Instead, he had to be told, “Rodney, do your bit.”

The original cut of this film was approximately 4.5 hours long, with Bill Murray’s Cinderella speech lasting around half an hour. No one was happy with the second cut, so the gopher was added at the last minute to give the movie some structure. It was shot on a soundstage, which is why the film stock in these scenes appears completely different.

Caddyshack was a commercial failure upon release and was widely disliked by critics. It’s gone on to show them all the error of their ways.

Sadly, writer Doug Kenney would never see this movie be embraced. At the press conference for this film, he drunkenly yelled at reporters, convinced it would be the end of his Hollywood career. A trip soon after to Hawaii with Chase lifted his spirits, but only for a brief time. He either slipped on a rock or jumped while there and was dead at 33, leaving behind work with the National Lampoon and the film Animal House, along with this one. You can learn more about Kenney in the movie A Futile and Stupid Gesture.

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.