Category Archives: 80’s Movies

Bedroom Eyes (1984)

Posted on May 18, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Voyeur witnesses a murder.

Harry Ross (Kenneth Gilman) is a businessman who enjoys taking a late night jog in the Toronto neighborhood in which he lives. One night he steps in dog poo and as he’s trying to scrape it off he notices a light coming from a nearby window. Out of curiosity he peers in and sees a half-naked woman (Jayne Catling) dancing provocatively. It turns him on and he decides to make it a point to peer into the window each night when he goes for a run. He though begins to feel guilty about what he’s doing and thinks he may be a ‘pervert’ and thus schedules an appoint with Alex (Dayle Haddon), who is a psychiatrist, so that they can talk it through. During their sessions he also becomes attracted to her and things slowly work into a relationship. While this is going on he continues to look into the window each night, but eventually witnesses the woman getting murdered and now must go into hiding inside Alex’s apartment as not only the police, who mistakenly think he did it as they get his prints off of the window, are after him, but so is the killer.

This film was directed by William Fruet, a prolific writer/director from Canada, who shot to fame with the excellent Wedding in White and then followed that up with a lot lame thrillers and horror films. While some of those were diverting this one isn’t and the tacky set-up is the biggest problem. The fact that Harry isn’t portrayed as being a life long voyeur, but instead quite literally just ‘stumbles’ upon it is farfetched and the character would’ve had more depth if this had been a constant trait that he had to deal with. Having him ‘panic’ that he was afraid this made him a ‘pervert’ was ridiculous too as I’d think just about any heterosexual guy would get aroused seeing a hot lady cavorting around erotically. The way he peers in, the camera captures it from the inside looking out, is quite obvious as his face is fully light, from the indoor lamps, and thus all the people needed to do was glance up briefly to see him, which I would think would’ve occurred at some point especially since he continues to do it over multiple nights. The fact that they always leave the window shade half open seems like they’re inviting someone to look in though the movie acts like this is unintentional and just a ‘coincidence’. The place is lit in a way that makes it seem like it’s a set for soft core porn flick and the woman behaves like an adult actress, which completely ruins any sliver of plausibility.

Initially I liked seeing Haddon, who was at one time a super model before she got into acting, cast as the therapist as this was traditionally at that time still more of a man’s profession, so she was playing against type, but having Harry immediately asks her out on a date was dumb. Due to this being a professional doctor and patient relationship he should’ve at least waited until after several sessions before he got up the nerve to do it and even then it’s putting her in an unethical spot and he should’ve known that. Fortunately she tells him ‘no’ the first couple of times, which is what she should’ve done, but I knew, going by how stupid this script had already been, that she’d eventually cave and of course she does, which makes the whole premise become even more ludicrous. Having her spot him at a fancy restaurant was too coincidental in such a big city and having his girlfriend perform a sexual act while inside the place with all sorts of people around was over-the-top. If anything Haddon should’ve just been cast as his girlfriend, who just happens to work as therapist, and he could’ve still spoken to her about his voyeurism in private when they were together and this would’ve helped made it more believable.

It does get a bit intriguing for a few minutes when the police begin to close-in on Harry and I enjoyed the inner-rivalry of the police department where the two lead detectives became irritated at how a young ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ kid (Alf Humphreys) was always coming up with new leads and clues before they did, but other than that there’s very little to recommend. The climactic sequence in which the killer ties Harry up while he’s inside Haddon’s apartment, is quite boring and the female actor who plays the culprit shows no panache and thus making her scenes quite dull. In 1989, at the request of no one, this was made into a sequel, but with a completely different writer, director and actors with the only thing connecting the two being the Harry Ross character.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: November 30, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes

Rated R

Director: William Fruet

Studio: Pan-Canadian Film Distributors

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 80's Movies, Erotica, Foreign Films, Movies from Canada, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Obscure Movies, Police Drama, Thrillers/Suspense

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Vice Squad (1982)

Posted on May 16, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Violent pimp kills prostitutes.

Princess (Season Hubley) is a business woman who is having some financial trouble and thus decides to go back to being a prostitute in Hollywood in an effort to support her young daughter. She becomes aware that her friend Ginger (Nina Blackwood), who is also a prostitute, has been killed after getting beaten-up by a violent pimp named Ramrod (Wings Hauser). Tom (Gary Swanson), a police detective, gets her to agree to be wired, so that she can get Ramrod to incriminate himself when she goes back to his place for a rendezvous.  The sting works and Ramrod is arrested and put into police custody, but he’s able to escape and spends the rest of the night chasing after Princess and determined to exact a revenge on her while the cops remain always one-step behind and unable to apprehend him.

This was Gary Sherman’s fourth theatrical feature and third horror one. He had started out with British cult hit Raw Meat in 1972 about a group of underground cannibals living in a London subway tunnel was met with rave reviews and fans, but his subsequent horror foray Dead and Buried and Phobia, which he co-wrote only, didn’t do as well. This one is more of a sleazy thriller meant to ‘inform’ the viewer about the brutalities of street life, but is really just an excuse to be exploitive and get cheap points for nudity and violence with characters that are cliched and situations highly derivative.

My main issue was with the prostitutes themselves for instance Ginger who runs away from Ramrod and hides out in a seedy hotel only to let him into her room the minute he comes knocking at her door. Once inside he immediately kills her while asking ‘I can’t believe you were that stupid’ and I felt like saying the same thing. It’s hard to sympathize with characters when they do incredibly dumb things and the scene would’ve worked better if Ramrod was only able to get in by crashing through the window, or breaking down the door, but having her allow him in shows no common sense especially from someone that is supposedly ‘street smart’.

This then brings up the second problem that I had, which is the fact that these women have absolutely nothing to defend themselves with in case things get ugly. They should all have guns, knives, or the very least some pepper spray especially if they’re supposedly ‘street smart’, but instead if things get bad they’re virtually helpless as is the case of when one of the male customers decides to rob Princess of her money and all she can do is give him some veiled threat that her pimp would come after him, which seemed almost laughable. Another scene has her being attacked by Ramrod where she manages to get her hands on a metal pipe and she uses it to hit him twice with it and then drops it to go hide somewhere, but why not continue to hit him until he’s either dead, or comatose? She hated his guts for killing her friend, so why back-off from giving it to him when she had the chance? At the very least, if she is going to run-off, at least continue to carry pipe, so she could use it for protection when he gets back up.

The motivations of the Princess character made no sense. She’s supposedly this L.A. businesswoman living in a nice suburban house, who’s now in financial trouble for whatever reason, but why turn to prostitution? There seemed to be hundreds of other income avenues she could’ve considered before leaping into streetwalking. If it was a high end escort gig where the male clientele could be filtered and scrutinized so it would not just be any scumbag and the prices would be high enough and in a safe neutral area, so she would just have to service one a night instead of ten, then maybe. However, here she’s forced to do one after another submitting that whatever crazy kink they wanted in whatever scuzzy locale they took her to. If she was on drugs, or teen runaway with no money, it might be a little more understandable, but the film portrays her as being smart and educated and she somehow ‘chooses’ to do this, which for me made her seem completely insane and therefore not any one that I could relate to.

The film does have some great acting by Hauser, who also sings the closing song, and Gary Sherman is good as the detective as he doesn’t have the chiseled features of a Hollywood good guy, but instead is more non-descript like how most policemen look, which I liked. Sunset Boulevard, where most of it was filmed, gets captured in a cool way giving it a surreal presence where all the action takes place exclusively at night and once the sun rises all the dark characters go symbolically back into their caves. There’s even a nifty car chase, but overall it’s flat, and predictable, and only for those who enjoy sleazy B-movies.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: January 22, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Gary Sherman

Studio: AVCO Embassy Pictures

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cult, Exploitation, Movies with Nudity, Thrillers/Suspense

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Nightkill (1980)

Posted on May 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Somebody is listening in.

Kathy (Jaclyn Smith) is married to Wendell (Mike Connors) a wealthy, but unethical businessman living in Arizona. She’s unhappy in the marriage and wants a divorce, but Wendell promises to make things hard for her if she does, so she reluctantly stays in it, but on the side has an affair with Steve (James Franciscus) his close business associate. Steve poisons Wendell and sticks his body inside the freezer of Wendell’s home and then impersonates him on a flight to Washington to make it appear that he’s still alive. Kathy remains at home only to become harassed by a aggressive detective Donner (Robert Mitchum) who’s suspicious that Wendell has become a victim of foul play. Kathy decides she must get rid of the body, but when she opens up the freezer she discovers it’s no longer Wendell’s corpse that’s inside, but instead Steve’s.

Odd thriller that was produced by a German film company, but filmed in the US. The film succeeds with having a distinct score and great location shooting of Arizona in which it’s dry, desolate landscape helps reflect the empty, inner nature of the characters. It was directed by Ted Post, who’s best known for the cult hit The Baby, which is famous for its twist ending, and there’s a lot of story twists here too, but for whatever reason fails to be captivating and this is mostly due to the dull characters.

Kathy was the one that got on my nerves the most. One minute she’s telling him that she can’t stand him and then the next minute she’s upset and sobbing over his unexpected death, so which is it? It seems like she should’ve been elated when he keeled-over and having her played-up as being this innocent is unrealistic. When you spend your life associating with bad people it tends to rub-off and it’s hard to imagine she wouldn’t have been tainted by the corruption of not only her spouse, but lover and Smith’s poor attempt at crying just makes it all the more worse. I rather have openly bad people going after each other and seeing which one is left standing then some idealized angel who’s completely out-of-place in the setting and would have to be extraordinarily naïve not to have caught-on to the shenanigans that were going on long before she does. If anything Sybil Danning, who is seen in a much smaller role, should’ve been given the lead as her conniving, sauciness was exactly what the character needed to have made it interesting.

Franciscus isn’t in it long enough to make much of an impression and Mitchum sleep walks through his part and thus making his onscreen presence quite bland and his big name, star status adds nothing. The only one that is fun is Connors, best known for his starring role in the cop TV-show ‘Mannix’. Here he plays against type by being an obnoxious jerk that delights in upsetting some caged monkeys that they have in his home. The rotten personality of his character is over-the-top enough to be fun and it’s just a shame he had to die-off so quickly.

Spoiler Alert!

An mentioned there are some nifty twists, but it ultimately adds up to little. The biggest problem is that Mitchum, who’s just as shady as Connors and Franciscus, ends up getting away with it, by stealing the stolen money that Connors has in his airport locker and flying out of the country, which isn’t exactly an audience pleaser. Smith doesn’t completely die either as we see her injured body on the bathroom floor calling the police making it seem that with her information there was still a chance he could get caught and the film should’ve played this out to completion and not left it open to guessing.

Lots of logistical issues too. For instance Mitchum kills Francsicus supposedly at the airport, but for some reason, we never see it but can only presume, drags the dead body back to Smith’s home just so he can put it into the freezer, but why bother? Also, where does he put Connor’s body when he replaces it with Franciscus’? Where does he get the mask of Mike Connors’ face that he uses to disguise himself that he is him? Does he know a manufacturer that makes specially made masks  to resemble someone they know and if so what company is this because I’ve never heard of it? Also, how does he know there’s a cop inside the police department named Donner as he pretends to be this man when he investigates the case even though he’s really a private eye named Rodriguez? These along with several other questions never get answered, which significantly hurts the plausibility.

Original Cinema Quad Poster - Movie Film Posters

Original Cinema Quad Poster – Movie Film Posters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: December 18, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ted Post

Available: DVD-R, Blu-ray

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Too Scared to Scream (1984)

Posted on May 8, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Who’s killing the tenants?

Female tenants living in a New York City high-rise building are turning-up dead in brutal fashion. Lieutenant Alex Dinardo (Mike Connors) and his younger, female partner Kate (Anne Archer) are convinced that the culprit is Vincent (Ian McShane) who works as the overnight watchmen at the apartment building and since all the crimes happen during his shift he quickly becomes suspect number one. Though getting enough evidence in order to arrest him becomes a delicate matter. Alex then decides to asks Kate to move-in to the building as a new tenant and thus keep tabs on what Vincent is doing and hopefully lure him into a situation where he’ll incriminate himself, but Kate soon finds herself in over-her-head as the killer is on-top of what’s going on and he soon bates her into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse where Alex and the other policemen are not able to help her.

The film was an attempt at creating an American version of an Italian giallo complete with gory murders and an intricate mystery where you don’t know who the real killer is until the final twist ending. It’s also the only film to date to be directed by actor Tony Lo Bianco. Severely straddled during production as it was shot in 1982, but due to the production studio that financed the project going bankrupt it was never released until 3 years later where it was given little fanfare and came and went with few people seeing it.

The biggest problem with it is that it plays-up McShane’s role too much. Granted he’s a gifted actor who’s best known today for his work in the TV-series ‘Deadwood’, but by overemphasizing his character it makes it seem right from the start that he’s the culprit and thus making the investigation uninteresting because you feel it’s just a matter of time before he’s found out and thus little mystery, or intrigue. Granted there are a couple of other suspects, but they seem thrown-in simply as red herrings and aren’t seen much. The story would’ve had better tension had the suspects shared equal screen time and a more balance of clues making it seem like any one of them could’ve done it and thus some genuine interest at getting at what the truth is versus having it seem like it’s all spelled-out from the start. If anything Maureen O’Sullivan, who plays McShane’s near comatose mother whom he takes care of, is far more captivating, despite the fact that she doesn’t speak any line of dialogue and trapped in a wheelchair, then anything McShane himself does.

The unusual pairing of a 60-something male cop alongside a female one that appears to be only around 30 should’ve been what the film focused on as I found their contrasting personalities and different ways they approached their police work to be something that could’ve been played-off of more. Unfortunately the film taps into this just slightly and then quickly moves on and thus misses the opportunity for what could’ve lead to captivating confrontations and debates. Connor does seem a bit too old for this kind of thing and seeing him trying to chase down a young athletic man who was only 20 came-off as almost laughable and I was surprised he didn’t just fall over from a heart attack, or exhaustion before he ever managed to get near the guy. Having him lose a fight to the younger guy and have to depend on his partner to bail him out of it was realistic, so it gets props there, but the way he goes about his police work, which includes physically beating-up on suspects, is highly unethical and should’ve gotten him demoted, or fired.

Spoiler Alert!

I had issues with Archer’s character as well. This comes when she agrees to move into the apartment and work undercover, but seems woefully unprepared for it. She manages to carry a gun with her when she goes down to the basement of the building to do laundry, but then when she gets back to her place she does a goofy aerobics workout where she gets caught off-guard, but wouldn’t a seasoned cop know to carry a weapon on her at all times especially when she’s intentionally making herself a target to the killer? Also, what kind of person walks into their apartment and then doesn’t turn around and immediately lock the door once they’re inside? If you want to argue that this was intentional (I don’t think it was) because she wanted to lure the killer inside, so as to apprehend him, then fine, but she should then make damn sure she was a gun in-hand, pointed at him, when he does, which in this case she didn’t.

You must likely won’t be able to guess who the true killer is, but it’s not worth sitting through. The script doesn’t offer any clues, or hints either, so even an alert viewer won’t figure it out, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good mystery because it really isn’t. The story is sloppily put together without much imagination, or character development. Unlike a true giallo the murders are quick and without much blood, so if you’re a gorehound this thing won’t suffice. The concept had potential, but the execution is half-hearted.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: September 28, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Tony Lo Bianco

Studio: International Film Marketing

Available: Blu-ray (Import), DVD-R

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Posted in 80's Movies, Gay/Lesbian, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Obscure Movies, Police Drama, Thrillers/Suspense

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Reuben, Reuben (1983)

Posted on April 15, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Housewives lust for poet.

Gowan (Tom Conti) is a middle-aged poet going through writer’s block who hasn’t written anything in 5 years and manages to remain solvent by touring around a college town and reciting his older writings to women’s clubs. The stress though of not being able to produce anything new causes him to turn to alcohol and further rescinds his writing ability. Geneva (Kelly McGillis) is a college student several years his junior who spots him on a train one day and agrees to pay his fare when he’s found not to have any money. This generosity manages to have a profound affect on him and he makes a commitment to mend his ways while also going out with Geneva on casual dates. The awkward love affair doesn’t go far as Gowan continues to drink and embarrass her every time they go out. When Geneva finds out she’s pregnant the two then must decide how they will proceed.

Unusual romantic flick that has all the ingredients of failing, but manages somehow to have a certain light appeal. Much of this is thanks to McGillis, who in her film debut really shines and while this film is not one of her better known ones I still consider it her best work. Normally film’s dealing with May-December romances don’t work because the younger partner is always portrayed as being wide-eyed and naïve, but here it’s Geneva that’s the sensible one who calls all the shots and remains in control. This change of pace gives the old theme a refreshing new spin and made it palatable enough to hold my interest and in certain moments even becomes touching.

Conti gives a good performance, but he seems more like a caricature. He wears the same dowdy outfit all the way through making me wonder if that was the only suit he owned and if so whether he reeked of odor. I found it hard to believe that this guy, who looks like he was living on the streets, would attract all these frustrated housewives who’d be rushing to go to bed with him. With all the alcohol he consumed I’d have serious questions whether he’d be able to perform, or how sex with him could possibly be much better than with their husbands as I would think it might actually be worse.

Supposedly this was all meant as ‘satire’ and based loosely on the life of Dylan Thomas. Possibly in book form, as this was based on the novel of the same name by Peter De Vries and then later turned into a stage play, it might’ve worked, but as a film set in the modern day it’s confounding. Thomas hit his fame in the 30’s and 40’s when movies and television where just getting started and therefore writers held more clout, but by the 80’s there were so many other types of celebrities that some frumpy looking drunk guy who used big words to create long poems wouldn’t be someone a suburban housewife would get all that excited over. The opening sequence shows the reactions on their faces as they listen to him recite some of his writings and while one of them has a confused look on her face I felt they all should’ve and for my money that would’ve been really funny.

Spoiler Alert!

The finale, which Leonard Maltin in his review calls ‘curious’, but I’d describe more as ill-advised is the one thing that really hurts it. I’m not sure what the thinking was other than Dylan Thomas died young so possibly they felt Gowan needed to die too, but it was the wrong decision. Normally I get annoyed with movies that tack-on a happy ending and have everything work-out even when it’s not earned, but this film works in reverse by throwing in a very sad one that comes out of nowhere and doesn’t fit the tone of the rest of the movie, which for the most part had been quite whimsical.

The way it gets done is pretty dumb too as he elects to hang himself inside his apartment after he finds out all of his top teeth, many of which have been rotting for years due to neglect, would have to be removed. While losing teeth is no one’s idea of fun it does happen to a lot of folks of all ages and dentures (this was made before the advent of implants) if fitted properly aren’t always that noticeable, so to kill yourself over something like that seemed awfully rash.

Just as he’s about to hang himself he gets inspired again to write and even excited about finding new women to sleep with, but then a lovable sheep dog named Reuben runs into the room (you’d think someone planning to kill himself would have the sense to shut his door and lock it) and being overly affectionate jumps-up and knocks down the chair that he’s standing on, which comes-off as being more farcical than anything. I was fully expecting the wooden beam that the rope was tied around to break from the stress of all the weight, which in reality I think it would, but instead it doesn’t and he’s left hanging leaving me genuinely baffled. For such an otherwise light and quirky movie to end this way was very jarring.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: December 19, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 41 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert Ellis Miller

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies with Nudity, Romance

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Seems Like Old Times (1980)

Posted on April 11, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Ex on-the-run.

Nick (Chevy Chase) is a lonely writer working on his novel at a remote seaside cabin, which he hopes will give him the isolation that he needs to allow his creative juices to flow. Unfortunately for him two bank robbers (Judd Omen, Marc Alaimo) stake-out the place and kidnap him and then force him at gunpoint to rob a nearby bank. Nick gets seen on the security camera and a warrant for his arrest is issued. He seeks help from his ex-wife Glenda (Goldie Hawn) a public defender who has remarried to Ira (Charles Grodin) who’s running for attorney general and fears that the notoriety of having his wife’s ex-husband on-the-run from the law could hurt his chances of getting elected. Glenda decides to help Nick by letting him stay in an unused bedroom above their garage while trying to keep him hidden, so Ira won’t find out. This scheme leads to many close calls and misunderstandings while also reigniting Glenda’s feelings for Nick, which she thought she had gotten over a long time ago.

While it may seem hard to believe now screenwriter Neil Simon was at the time, having just come-off his success with the hit The Goodbye Girl , considered chic with young adults particularly on the romance end and this film was the peak of that period as after this his material became increasingly more nostalgic. This works mostly because it remains focused on Simon’s patented one-liners and funny conversational quality, which is quite amusing though it would’ve been nice had it attempted to branch out into other forms of comedy like when Chase and Grodin have a physical fight that is never shown and instead we just hear the noise of it from inside the kitchen while the camera stays stationary in the other room. The visual gags and pratfalls from a funny fight could’ve helped add another dimension to the humor and thus I found this moment to be a missed opportunity.

The acting is uniformly wonderful particularly Chase in a role that takes full advantage of his glib, sardonic delivery probably better than any other film role he’s been in and this most likely was a result of Simon doing a 2-week rehearsal period where he observed the stars interacting with each other and made changes to the script based on the personalities of the performers. It’s good to see Hawn in a more mature role. Before this she played spacey-blondes who were young and on the fringe of society, but here she falls comfortably into a middle-aged setting of a career woman maintaining both a job, home, and marriage and showing the juggling act that this type of lifestyle requires. She’s also not the sole source of humor, but instead reacts to the zaniness around her with funny facial reactions. The supporting cast such as Yvonne Wilder as the heavy-accented Latina maid and T.K. Carter as the wise-cracking chauffeur who hasn’t fully gotten rid of his old ex-con ways are quite amusing too as are the pack of dogs that Hawn owns and proceed to run all over the house at all times.

Grodin was the only character that doesn’t really fit. I found it strange why someone who doesn’t like dogs and can’t stand the way they sleep on the bed that he shares with Hawn would want to marry a woman who was so into them. Outside of the fact that they were both lawyers I didn’t see what else connected them and it seemed like a mismatched marriage. On the other-hand I found it interesting he wasn’t portrayed as a jerk. In most romances were the old partner comes back into the picture the new guy is played-up in a way that makes the viewer dislike them and where you want to see the woman going back to her old flame instead of staying with the cad, but here that’s not the case, which works to some degree, but also hurts it.

Spoiler Alert!

The issue with the second husband really comes into play at the very end when it becomes painfully obvious that Simon couldn’t think up a way to resolve the dilemma and comes-up with one of the dumbest finales imaginable where Hawn and Grodin go driving into the wilderness during a rain storm, have a car accident in which Grodin gets injured and she treks off into the woods only to find an isolated cabin with Chase inside. The movie stops with a freeze-frame of Hawn’s face revealing a broad smile once she sees Chase opening the door making it seem like the two spent a cozy, romantic night in the cabin while Grodin remained suffering inside his stranded car, which wasn’t exactly humane.

Personally if I had written the script I would’ve done it differently, which I realize might’ve been considered ‘too edgy’ for 1980. However, since Chase’s character had been in a Mexican prison for awhile I would’ve had the experience bring out the dormant gay side of him. This could’ve helped explained why the two criminals came to his place to force him into a bank robbery was because they were guys he knew, or former lovers, from jail and they figured out where he lived and hence tracked him down to be a part of their scheme. This would help explain the opening as having them stake out such an extremely isolated place, which didn’t seem to even have any roads leading into it, just to find a willing victim never really made much sense otherwise. The Grodin character could also have some dormant gay desires, which would explain why his sex life with Hawn wasn’t so great. Chase could then take-up permanent residence in the room above the garage where he could, at different times, ‘service’ both Hawn and Grodin and the three could share a happy alternative lifestyle, which being that the story takes place in coastal California wouldn’t have been all that outrageous or unusual.

Another possibility would be to have Grodin played-up as being more into his political career than his marriage and thus pushing Hawn away, or he could just become sick and tired of all the dogs in the bed at night and decide to leave her, which would be understandable as I wouldn’t like sleeping with dogs either. In either case Hawn would be free to run back to Chase and the audience wouldn’t have had any problem with it.

The worse scenario though is how it ends here with Hawn selfishly getting it on with Chase, or at least implying this, while the man she’s married to remains stuck in pain inside a cold, damp car for who knows how long. At some point she’s going to have to decide which guy she wants more, or if she’ll just remain hopping between the two, but some finality needed to be given instead what amounts to a pathetic cop-out by a writer who clearly didn’t want the challenge of having to figure it out.

If anything I would’ve had her with a different facial expression. During the movie she was constantly hyperventilating with this shocked look every time she’d see Chase drop-in and that’s what we should’ve seen as the film’s final image.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: December 19, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Jay Sandrich

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy, Romance

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That’s Life! (1986)

Posted on March 25, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Wife frets over biopsy.

Gillian (Julie Andrews) is a singer who detects a lesion in her throat and goes to the doctors to have a biopsy done to see if it’s cancerous. The results of it won’t be ready until Monday forcing her to have to worry about it over the weekend. In an effort not to ruin things for the rest of her family she doesn’t tell them about it and puts on a facade like everything is fine. Meanwhile the other family members have their own problems. Harvey (Jack Lemmon), her husband, is depressed about turning 60, and not excited about the impending birthday celebration, or even being reminded of it. Her oldest daughter Megan (Jennifer Edwards) is going through the stresses of being pregnant while her younger daughter Kate (Emma Walton) fears that her boyfriend is cheating on her.

This was writer/director Blake Edwards first attempt at drama since the Days of Wine and Roses, which had also starred Lemmon. It was independently produced and thus requiring both the cast and crew to agree to work below scale, which caused controversy with the cinematographer’s union and created picketing at theaters in Hollywood when the movie was first released. The story was inspired by real-life events and problems that Edwards and his wife Julie were going through at the time as well as things that were happening with their grown children and the whole thing was shot on-location at the family home in Malibu.

Lemmon, the movie’s promotional poster is a play-on the one for Save the Tiger, the movie he won the Oscar for as Best Actor, is the only fun thing about it. His constant bitching about everything is amusing without being forced and his presence helps give it some needed energy and it’s great seeing him do a few scenes with his real-life son Chris Lemmon, this was the only project they did together unless you count Airport ’77 though they never shared any scenes in that one, who also plays his actor son here. The only drawback is that he completely overshadows Andrews to the point that you start to forget about her even though technically she’s the protagonist that we’re supposed to be the most concerned about.

While the movie is meant to analyze the day-to-day realities of the human condition it does throw in some ‘comical’ side-stories that are really lame and end up dragging the whole film down. The first is Harvey’s relationship with Janice (Cynthia Sikes) a woman who has hired Harvey, who works as an architect, to design her dream house though her demands are constantly changing and many times unrealistic. Had this segment stopped there then it would’ve been insightful and humorous as many clients can make unreasonable requests, but since it’s ‘their money’ the person working for them feels the need not to speak up and go along with the crazy demands for fear they’ll lose out on the deal, which happens more than you think. However, the scene also has her coming on to him sexually, which made no sense. Harvey was significantly older than her, looking more like he was 70, with no guarantee that he could perform, which he ultimately can’t, so unless she had some sort of grandpa complex why would this highly attractive young woman, who could easily find a good-looking guy her age, even think about getting it on with this old duffer that virtually any other woman her age would consider ‘gross’?

The second ‘comical’ scenario is equally stupid as it features Lemmon’s actual wife Felicia Farr playing a psychic who has a sexual encounter with him at her place of business all for the measly price of $20 for a ‘reading’, but how often does this type of thing occur. I mean I’ve gone to a psychic a few times in my life, but it never turned hot-n-heavy; am I just missing out? She later has sex with one of Harvey’s friends making it seem like sex was all that she was into, but how long could she realistically retain the psychic facade before it all came crashing down and she was known simply as being the cheap neighborhood hooker? Why does she even bother with the phony psychic act at all? Why not just become a high-paid escort where she could be making a hell of a lot more money.

The third side-story deals with Harvey finding that the priest, played by Robert Loggia, whom he is confessing his infidelities to is actually his former college roommate that he hasn’t seen in decades, which again is pushing long odds not very likely to happen. The old friend angle doesn’t add much and actually would’ve been funnier had the priest remained someone he didn’t know and Harvey could feel that his confessions were completely confidential only to then get called up to the pulpit during a church service, like he does here, to read a Bible passage about infidelity, and thus getting the shock of his life that this supposedly benign man of the cloth may be on to him and his divulged sins not so safely protected.

Spoiler Alert!

The film’s wrap-up has all the problems getting neatly resolved, which gives it a sitcom quality. I was okay with Andrews learning that the lesion was not cancerous, but some of the other dramatic tangents that the family members went through should’ve not all worked out so nicely, because in real-life, which this film is attempting to be, things don’t always have happy endings. In fact this is what works against it as it’s too sterile for its own good. Nothing stands out making it a shallow, flat drama without much depth. Much like Gillian’s lesion it ultimately becomes benign.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: October 10, 1986

Runtime: 1 Hour 42 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Blake Edwards

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD-R, VHS

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Obscure Movies

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September (1987)

Posted on March 21, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Drama at summer home.

Layne (Mia Farrow) has decided to spend the summer at the country home of her mother’s (Elaine Stritch) in order to recuperate after a suicide attempt. With her during her stay is her best friend Stephanie (Dianne Wiest). Layne is also madly in-love with her neighbor Peter (Sam Waterston) who is a struggling author who wants to write a book about Layne’s mother’s life, who was at one time a well-known actress, but who also shot her late husband in self-defense though it was reportedly Layne who pulled the trigger. Howard (Denholm Elliott) is Layne’s other neighbor who is smitten with her though she has no feelings for him as all of her emotions are tucked away towards Peter, who is more into Stephanie, a married woman with children. During the course of one night while an electrical storm occurs and the power goes out everyone makes their true feelings for the other known, but not everyone responds to the revelations the way they’d like.

This movie is unusual, or at least the behind-the-scenes production, in that two to three versions of every scene was shot and then writer/director Woody Allen took all the footage and edited it together only to be dissatisfied with the final result and decided to shoot it again, but with different actors. In the original production Charles Durning played Layne’s stepfather, but in the second version he is replaced by Jack Warden, and Maureen O’Sullivan played Layne’s mother. Since Maureen was Mia’s real-life mother it’s ashame she wasn’t kept on for the second version. Granted Elaine is excellent, but seeing a mother and daughter acting together would’ve given an interested added nuance that unfortunately gets lost with the redo.

The scenario has its share of intriguing elements, but Allen’s concept of trying to create a filmed stageplay was a mistake as the whole thing has a very static feel right from the start. The internal conflicts are not apparent right away and the first act comes-off like nothing more than lingering conversations with no idea what connects them until the second act kicks, but by that time some viewers may have already gotten bored with it. In Interiors, which was Allen’s first drama, the story clicked quickly because there was a main nemesis, which helped create the tension that’s lacking here. Having a few more characters including a couple that was invited over, but calls-in when their house gets flooded, could’ve helped enliven things.

The acting is uniformly excellent especially Farrow, who’s always had a gift for playing vulnerable characters though with this one she’s more assertive. Wiest is fabulous too though with her super short brunette haircut she looks too similar to Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby and for that reason she should’ve been given a different hairstyle. The short cut also makes Wiest’s squinty look where she constantly appears like someone who’s just walked into bright sunlight, more apparent. The male cast is overall wasted. Warden gets one poignant moment where he describes the cold, lonely universe, but otherwise doesn’t have much else to say, or do and overall gets dominated and upstaged by the caustic and brassy Stritch as his wife. Elliot has one good line early on, but then disappears for a good chunk of it only to get a walk-on towards the end, but by that point I had quite literally forgotten all about him.

The film would’ve worked better had it had stronger character arcs, but overall not much really happens. There’s brief moments of confrontations, particularly Layne’s arguments with her mother, where things appear to be getting juicy only to have them pull back and become civil again. Same thing happens when Layne catches Stephanie with Peter, a slight blow-up and then back to mundane. The characters don’t really grow, or change and everything gets treated like a minor, little tiff that quickly blows-over making the viewer feel at the end that there wasn’t much point in watching it.

On a side note I was also disappointed to learn that the whole thing was shot on an indoor sound stage. With the title of September and the location being Vermont I was fully expecting sights of beautiful fall foliage as the northeast can be one of the best areas for that during the autumn. Since Allen’s dramas can get quite talky I thought the scenic locale could help at least visually fill-in the slow spots, but we ultimately get none of that. The intention was to shoot it at Farrow’s Connecticut country house, the house had inspired Allen to write the screenplay in the first place, but by the time he was finished with the script it was already winter and thus the autumn look and feel would’ve been lost. Credit though should go to the lighting and set design as you still get a feel of Vermont during the night time scenes where you hear realistic sounds of crickets and night bugs outside. The light coming through the windows certainly looks like actual sunlight, but why would people keep their blinds closed when most anyone would have them open to take in the majestic countryside. Why bother even having a home in the country if the idea is to close the windows off from it? It’s also not logical for the sunlight to be shining through all the windows from any direction in the house as the sun can only be in one place in the sky, so some of the windows should not have had sunlight coming through though here all of them do.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: December 18, 1987

Runtime: 1 Hour 22 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Woody Allen

Studio: Orion Pictures

Available: DVD-R, Blu-ray (Region B/2), Tubi, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Movies with a rural setting

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Certain Fury (1985)

Posted on March 5, 2023 | Leave a comment

certain

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Two gals flee police.

Scarlett (Tatum O’Neal) is a teen prostitute brought to court to face charges of killing a prospective customer. Tracy (Irene Cara) the daughter of a doctor (Moses Gunn) is also attending the courtroom that day. She’s there on charges of drug possession and resisting arrest. Before they can be brought before the judge a shootout occurs inside the packed room in which several deputies are shot and killed. During the ensuing melee Scarlett and Tracy and able to escape and get onto the streets. Neither one knows the other and have many differences in their personalities and temperaments, but find they need to depend on each other in order to survive.

In 1983 Tatum traveled down to New Zealand to star in a movie called Prisoners where she played the daughter of a prison warden who begins a relationship with one of the prisoners who is under her father’s watch. The film though was apparently so bad, or at least so disliked by her father Ryan O’Neal, that after viewing it as part of a preview audience he decided to buy the rights to it in order to keep it from being distributed and to this day very few people have seen it. This film, which was shot in June of 1984, was supposed to get her career ‘back on track’, by casting her as a streetwise 80’s punk, which was considered ‘trendy’ at the time, but was really just as much of a career killer as the other one and Ryan should’ve had the negatives of this one locked-up too.

That’s not to say it’s all bad. The action moments are genuinely impressive. The shoot-out is realistically handled with the gunshots that wound the police appearing authentic. The chase sequence goes on for quite awhile and includes the two going down into an underground sewer where there’s exciting underwater footage as well as a dramatic gas explosion. I even enjoyed the scenes inside a drug den in what seems like hundreds of people all lying around and shooting-up.

The film falters with the characters who aren’t fleshed-out enough to be interesting.  Cara is quite beautiful and looks great nude during a segment where she is attacked by Scarlett’s boyfriend (Nicholas Campbell), but she’s a bit too goody-goody. I would’ve liked more confrontation between the two and Cara being to be just as bitchy as O’Neal. As for Tatum she’s a caricature who lacks any type of depth to be believable. The only thing remotely unique about her is that she can’t read, but with no explanation as to why; is she dyslexic? She’s also snarly the whole time and thus making the two coming together and forming a friendship seem quite forced and mechanical as no one would want to be friends with her especially after she calls Cara the N-word several times to her face.

IMDb, on it’s storyline section for this film, incorrectly states that it takes place in New York, where most anyone would think a plot like this one would happen, but it was actually filmed in Vancouver. You become blatantly aware of this at the end when the camera pan’s the cities’ anemic skyline (it has since improved). I’m sure for tax reasons it was much cheaper to shoot it there, so that’s why the location was chosen, but for authenticity it’s not particularly believable as having such a vibrant underground punk scene like here it would’ve had to be in a giant metropolis instead of a mini-city. In either case this movie is a great example of how if you don’t have well defined characters it will flop no matter how good the action may be.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: March 1, 1985

Runtime: 1 Hour 27 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Stephen Gyllenhaal

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Tubi

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Buddy Movies, Movies with Nudity

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The Naked Face (1984)

Posted on February 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Is psychoanalyst being targeted?

Judd Stevens (Roger Moore) is a psychoanalyst residing in Chicago who suddenly finds that people he knows are turning up dead. First it was one of his patients, whom he let borrow his raincoat. Then it’s his secretary and soon the police are suspecting him of the killings. Lieutenant McGreavy (Rod Steiger) doesn’t like Judd as it was Judd’s expert testimony that got a cop killer sent to an institution versus a jail cell where McGreavy felt he belonged. In order to get the cops off his back and find the real killer Judd  hires Morgens (Art Carney), private investigator, who seems to get a lead when he calls Judd and tells him that a ‘Don Vinton’ is behind it, but then Morgens ends up dead too, so Judd puts his trust in another police detective named Angeli (Elliot Gould) only to learn that he has ulterior motives.

The story is based on the Sidney Sheldon novel of the same name that was written in 1970 and besides this one has been remade two other times: in 1992 in Ukraine as Sheriff’s Star and then again in 2007 in India as Kshana Kshana. This version was produced by the notorious Cannon Group, which always makes me hold my breath in apprehension every time I see their logo come up before the movie begins as I’m never sure if this is going to be one of their cheaper productions, or one that was given a decent budget. While Leonard Maltin, in his review, describes it as ‘low budget’ I’d say this was one of their passable efforts as the production standards aren’t compromised in any way and if anything is rather slick. The on-location shooting done in Chicago, this was changed from the novel where the setting was Manhattan, is excellent and the plot is well paced with incremental twists to keep it flowing.

The film’s main selling point is seeing Moore playing against type as he was known as an action star, but here plays an intellectual. For the most part he does quite well and even able to hold his own when sharing a scene with Steiger, who otherwise likes to chew up the scenery and everyone else in it, but I didn’t like the big Harry Caray-type glasses that he wears. I guess this was done to make him look ‘smart’, but it wasn’t needed. The best part is seeing him get beat-up by the bad guys. When Moore was playing Bond it always seemed a bit absurd that this aging 50-something would be able to take-on virtually any villain, no matter the size, and come-out on top every time. Here he gets flattened with one punch and it’s kind of funny.

Steiger, with  his intense delivery, dominates. He’s given a lot of screen time during the first half almost making him seem like he’s the star and his stewing anger lends adequate tension, but his good-cop/bad-cop routine doesn’t work because he’s the type of character who’s impossible to like, so he needed to stay bad all the way. I also couldn’t stand the wig. He supposed to be an ugly, unlikable guy, so might as well have him naturally bald, as the rug gives him a campy look.

Gould is the outlier. He was during the 70’s a major headlining star, so seeing him pushed to the background where Steiger takes center stage is almost shocking. I remember him saying once in an interview that he didn’t like the pressure of being a leading man, so maybe this supporting bit was right for him. His character does become more prominent towards the end, but for the most part he comes-off like a faceless walk-on  and a sign of a career decline.

Spoiler Alert!

The twist ending in which it’s found that the crime syndicate was behind the killings due to the wife (Anne Archer) of the crime boss seeing Judd and fearing she may be giving him secret information during their sessions was not particularly original. It also opened up some loopholes. For instance Judd’s patient at the beginning is stabbed on the streets because he was mistaken for being Judd, but later when Judd is kidnapped and in the crime boss’ presence he isn’t immediately killed as they first want him to divulge what his wife told him, but if the idea was to extract information then why was the patient offed right away instead of taken somewhere for interrogation?

At the very end Moore is walking with Archer outside and suddenly she gets hit with a bullet, but not Moore. If she was shot by a hit man for giving out secret info then Moore should’ve received a bullet as well because it was he that she had confided in, or at least that was what they had presumed.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: June 6, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 45 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Bryan Forbes

Studio: Cannon Film Distributors

Available: DVD, Tubi

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Posted in 80's Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in Chicago, Mystery, Thrillers/Suspense

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