Monthly Archives: August 2016

The Killing of Angel Street (1981)

Posted on August 11, 2016 | 3 comments

killing of angel street

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Their homes get demolished.

Jessica (Elizabeth Alexander) is a quiet woman who suddenly finds herself embroiled in a heated battle between homeowners and developers who want to build beachfront property on their land and tearing down their homes in the process. Jessica’s father (Alexander Archdale) is one of the homeowners whose place will be destroyed if the developers have their way. Since she has no experience in fighting these matters she employs the assistance of local union leader Elliot (John Hargreaves) to help her in her fight and the two quickly start-up a relationship, but just as they feel they are making some headway Jessica begins to get harassed by complete strangers who break into her home and threaten her life unless she agrees to back-off.

This film is based on the same real-life incident that was also the inspiration for Heatwave, which came out a year after this one. What I found so interesting is how both films took the same incident, but managed to veer into two very diametrically opposite directions with it. Heatwave viewed the situation from all different perspectives including that of the antagonist while this one only looks at the viewpoint of the lead character and uses the premise as a catalyst to what surmounts to being a basic thriller.

While I felt Heatwave was the superior film I did feel this movie was better at creating an emotional impact with the viewer. You get to know the residents better here and are more sympathetic to their cause as well as witnessing the human side and its impact. The shots of houses getting torn down is especially strong as well as the shot near the end where you see the crumbling skeletons of the buildings all in a row and looking like remnants of some sort of war zone.

The film suffers from the weak presence of its lead actress whose performance comes off as being much too rehearsed and lacks any type of spontaneity. Hargreaves, who became one of Australia’s best known lead actors, is wasted in a benign supporting role and is not seen very much. Archdale practically steals it in a touching portrait of an old man clinging to the only thing he has left, but the pronounced bags under his eyes almost becomes a distraction.

The film’s final 20 minutes are the best. This is where Jessica finds herself kidnapped and hung upside down over the side of a tall building, which is quite intense, as well as a myriad of almost surreal events where she runs into evil people and ugly situations wherever she turns including that of a humiliating and unnecessary full body search while inside the seemingly safe confines of a police station.

The story though veers way off from what actually happened making this an almost fictional account and barely related to the real Juanita Nielsen whose true-life story inspired this one. The real event had far more interesting twists and I’m not sure why neither film chose to stick to the facts and it almost begs for a talented filmmaker to come in and create a film that examines the events and people as it actually occurred.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: October 1, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 35Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Donald Crombie

Studio: Forest Hill Films

Available: VHS

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Posted in 80's Movies, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies from Australia, Obscure Movies, Thrillers/Suspense

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Fletch Lives (1989)

Posted on August 9, 2016 | Leave a comment

fletch lives

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Reporter inherits a mansion.

Fletch (Chevy Chase) who writes for a Los Angeles newspaper under the byline of Jane Doe, receives to his surprise an inheritance of an old southern mansion. He immediately travels to the place while quitting his job in the process. The building is in bad shape, but he finds that he is receiving a generous offer to sell it, which makes him curious. Instead of taking the offer he does some research and finds that the property is a dumping ground for dangerous chemicals and that people are more than happy to murder him and others in order to keep them quiet about it.

The first film was based on a novel by George Macdonald, but this story was written directly for the big screen and the mystery is uninspired and obvious. Chase’s detached persona and acerbic wit gets put to a real test here. One scene has him discovering that the woman who he has just spent the night with is now dead, but he shows no shocked reaction at all making him seem almost inhuman. He then decides to smart-off to the police when they arrive to investigate even though any sane/half-way intelligent person would realize that would just get them into even more trouble, which it justifiably does here.

The character also has an unrealistically massive-sized ego especially in regards to his job and the arrogant way that he deals with his boss (Richard Libertini) acting almost like he is above the rules and can come and go whenever he pleases without having to answer to anyone. Now this behavior to some extent could be more justified if he was writing under his own name and had a large fan following, but to the readers he is just ‘Jane Doe’ and for all they know he is a woman instead of a man. In either case he could easily be replaced by another reporter writing under the same byline and no one would notice or care, which makes his entitled attitude completely out-of-line and one that should have gotten him fired long ago.

There is also no explanation to what happened to the Gail character, which was played by Dana Wheeler-Nicholson. The first film ended with the two of them supposedly falling-in-love, but in this film she has completely disappeared. Now the first installment came out 4 years earlier and a lot of relationships don’t last that long, so it’s possible that they simply broke-up and moved-on, which is fine. However, in this movie her character gets replaced by one who looks just like her (Julianne Phillips) and she falls-in-love with Fletch in much the same way making the plotline seem highly formulaic and like they are simply replacing one blue-eyed, blonde bimbo with another.

The humor is generic and juvenile although I’m ashamed to say I did find myself chuckling at some of it. The best moment is a take-off on The Song of the South that comes complete with animation and by far the film’s one and only inspired moment.

The action sequences are flat. In the first film there was an exciting car chase, which was passable, but here we get treated to a motorcycle chase that goes completely off the believability meter by having Fletch do stunts that no one with limited driving experience would try nor survive.

The supporting cast is wasted especially Hal Holbrook in a part that is completely beneath his talents. However, I did get a kick out of R. Lee Ermey. He gained a major cult following from his performance as a tough sergeant in Full Metal Jacket and gets cast here as a TV-evangelist, which I found interesting.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: March 17, 1989

Runtime: 1Hour 35Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Michael Ritchie

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Animation, Comedy, Movies that take place in the South, Mystery, Sequels

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Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976)

Posted on August 6, 2016 | Leave a comment

bobbi jo and the outlaw

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Looking for some kicks.

Lyle (Marjoe Gortner) is a quick draw with a gun and uses his ability to win many a contest, but when his car breaks down and he has no money to pay for the repair he decides to steal another and uses the vehicle’s souped-up engine to outrun any cop who’s after him. While stopping to eat at a drive-thru he spots attractive carhop Bobbi (Lynda Carter) who’s bored with her life and willing to take on a new adventure with a complete stranger if only to escape the clutches of her alcoholic mother (Peggy Stewart). They travel throughout New Mexico robbing banks while avoiding the relentless pursuit of Sheriff Hicks (Gene Drew) who pledges to bring them to justice dead or alive.

I was expecting something a little bit better than what I got here as it’s directed by the normally reliable Mark L. Lester with a script by Vernon Zimmerman who has helmed a few cult films of his own. Unfortunately it’s just a boring and uninspired rip-off of Bonnie and Clyde and Badlands filled with hooky dialogue and cardboard caricatures. If it weren’t for the action sequences this thing would’ve been a complete dud and comes close to being one anyways.

One of the biggest issues is the really dumb way the Bobbi Jo character decides to get with Lyle who has been stalking her for a while and parks his car outside of her home. She has no idea who he is or his name, but decides one day to hop into his car by calling him ‘loverboy’ and telling him to ‘take her away’ and all simply because she is bored. Now there are many ways to relieve boredom, but hopping into a strange man’s car isn’t one of them. Had she been strung-out on drugs, homeless, a prostitute, or suffering from some mental illness then it might have made more sense, but as it is it comes off as a really stupid way to set-up the plot and off-putting enough that it didn’t allow me to get into the rest of it.

Carter wasn’t a good choice for the part anyways as she does not come off as someone who is reckless or free-spirited. I remember watching her on the ‘Wonder Woman’ series during the late ‘70s and stories swirled that she was a real bitch/prima donna on the set who would slap actors if they messed up on their lines and would routinely make major demands. Her acting always seems rather restrained, formal, and proper like someone who was a privileged beauty queen-type growing up and who looked down on hippies as being ‘freaks’.

Belinda Balaski, who plays her friend Essie and tags along with the two on their crime spree, is far more effective and would’ve been a more believable Bobbi Jo. She also looks just as good as Carter both with her shirt on and off.

Merrie Lynn Ross who plays Bobbi Jo’s sister Pearl was another bad casting choice as she looks nothing like Carter as Ross is a brown-eyed blonde while Carter is blue-eyed and raven-haired. Gortner is expectedly terrible in the lead and much of the reason for this is because he was already in his 30’s at the time and too old for this type of part. Carter was too old as well and the whole thing would’ve worked better and been more believable had the parts been played by actual teens.

The film, which was shot on-location throughout the state of New Mexico, has a few good moments.   The best one comes when they crash their pick-up through a bank’s window and then hook a chain from their truck to the bank’s safe and drag the safe down the street, which is cool to an extent, but weakened by the fact that we are never shown how far the safe gets dragged nor what they use to finally get it open. A gun duel at a lonely, isolated gas station is another highlight as are the car chases particularly the one at the beginning. There is even an amusing take-off to the famous ‘squeal-like-a-pig’ scene in Deliverance, but other than that it’s vapid, pointless and cheesy.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: March 1, 1976

Runtime: 1Hour 28Minutes

Rated R

Director: Mark L. Lester

Studio: American International Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cult, Drive-In/T & A, Dry Humor, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies with Nudity, Road Movies, Robbing Banks, Romance

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The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)

Posted on August 4, 2016 | Leave a comment

life of judge 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: He rules the town.

Roy Bean (Paul Newman) rides into a lonely western town that is being ruled by a group of violent vagrants that attack and rob him as he enters their saloon and then they tie him to an end of a wagon and drag his body through the dusty desert landscape. Fortunately for him he manages to survive the ordeal and gets his revenge by returning to the saloon and killing off the others. After which he appoints himself as the judge who oversees all issues of law and order in the vicinity, which quietly begins to prosper under his leadership.

Although based on an actual historical figure the script by John Milius goes wildly off-the-mark that has no bearing to anything that actually occurred and ends up becoming highly fanciful in the process. There are certainly some amusing bits here and there, but the tone is too whimsical and loses any semblance of grittiness until it doesn’t seem like a western at all. The story also lacks a plot and the overall theme that is way too similar to The Ballad of Cable Hogue, which was directed by Sam Peckinpah and came out just two years before this one.

During my trip this summer I traveled to Langtry, Texas where the real Judge Roy Bean lived and where most of this movie was filmed.  I was surprised to find how interesting the true events of his life were and how the movie would’ve been much more fascinating had it just stuck to what really happened instead of making it all up. In real-life Bean entered the town in the spring of 1882 where he opened up a saloon and soon was appointed the Justice of the Peace by the state since the next nearest court was 200 miles away. The jurors for the cases that he heard were made up of his own bar patrons who were required to buy drinks in between court hearings. No one was sent to jail since he did not own a cell and all those accused were simply fined in the amount of cash that they had on them at the time.

I also found it was amusing at how different the performers looked in comparison to their real-life counterparts. Newman shows some resemblance to the actual man, but Victoria Principal, who plays Bean’s Mexican bride Maria Elena, clearly looks far sexier than the real one did.

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judge 5

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Overall, the film is passable for those wanting nothing more than an evening of light entertainment. The scene where Bean travels to San Antonio so as to meet Lily Langtry (Ava Gardner) a stage actress who he adores his quite good as it takes the character, who had by then achieved almost a mythical quality, and turned him back into being quite mortal when he fights through the city crowds and becomes nothing more than just another-face-in-the-crowd to the people there.

I also enjoyed seeing the town grow into a big oil boom city although in reality this never happened and the place as of today only has a population of 18 people. Stacy Keach’s cameo where he wears heavy make-up to resemble an albino renegade who rides into town and challenges Bean to a gunfight is quite amusing, but it’s probably Principal’s performance in her film debut that ends up becoming the film’s most enduring quality.

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(The actual saloon where Judge Bean tried heard his cases, which still stands today.)

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released:  December 18, 1972

Runtime: 2Hours 2Minutes

Rated PG

Director: John Huston

Studio: National General Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Dry Humor, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies that take place in Texas, Quirky, Revisionist Western, Romance

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Fletch (1985)

Posted on August 2, 2016 | Leave a comment

fletch 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Reporter has many disguises.

Irwin ‘Fletch’ Fletcher (Chevy Chase) works as a newspaper reporter writing articles under the byline of Jane Doe. While working on a story involving drug dealing at a nearby California beach he gets approached by Alan Stanwyck (Tim Matheson) who offers him a large sum of money to kill him. It seems that Mr. Stanwyck has been diagnosed with cancer and has only a short time to live. He wants Fletch to ‘put him out of his misery’ by entering his home at a certain day and time and offing him while making it look like it was just a random robbery gone bad. Initially Fletch agrees to do it, but then begins to do some research on Mr. Stanwyck and finds things just don’t add up.

Out of all the characters that Chase has played this one best suits his talents and personality. His deadpan delivery has always been his major selling point and this part takes full advantage of it while accentuating his smart-ass persona and minimizes the silly pratfalls, which were never funny anyways. The first half clicks nicely and it’s great to have a main character whose personal life is a realistic struggle as he lives alone in a depleted looking apartment complex and bitterly avoiding a divorce lawyer (George Wyner) representing his wife who cheated on him.

The plot is genuinely intriguing and had me hooked. Unfortunately the story takes on too much as it also continues to incorporate elements of the drug dealing at the beach story, which makes things too convoluted especially since the murder-for-hire scheme gets complex enough. The overblown idea to somehow tie both story threads together at the end is a misfire and an overreach. The ultimate explanation for why Stanwyck wanted Fletch to kill him is really lame and a big letdown.

The film is also too long and the humor loses its edge as it progresses. The idea that this reporter would so cleverly be able to infiltrate hospitals and businesses in order to get the information that he wanted is hard to believe and it would have come off better had his profession been a private investigator instead. Chases’s insubordinate behavior towards his boss (Richard Libertini) including at one point even giving him the one-finger-salute is pretty outrageous and would most assuredly get anyone else in the same circumstance fired and deservedly so. I was also unhappy with the portrayal of the cops as they are all shown to be corrupt, abusive and vulgar. Yes I realize there are bad cops out there, but there are also a lot of good ones too and this film makes no attempt to balance that.

Chase gets featured in every scene, so if you are not exactly a fan of his your tolerance will certainly be tested. The film does feature a plethora of familiar faces in minor roles many of whom are wasted although I did enjoy Geena Davis as Fletch’s faithful assistant.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: May 31, 1985

Runtime: 1Hour 38Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Michael Ritchie

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Dry Humor, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies Based on Novels, Mystery

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