Tag Archives: Review

S*P*Y*S (1974)

Posted on December 18, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Targeted to be killed.

Bruland (Donald Sutherland) and Griff (Elliot Gould) are two CIA agents stationed in France who prove to be inept at every turn. When they accidentally kill a Russian gymnast defector (Michael Petrovitch) the head of the CIA Paris unit, Martinson (Joss Ackland), makes a deal with the soviets to have the two killed. This would then avoid a dangerous retaliation that could lead to a nuclear war. However, neither Bruland or Griff are made aware of this until they start getting attacked by people from all ends including the KGB, the CIA, the Chinese communists, and even a French terrorist group. In their pursuit to survive the two, who initially disliked the other, form an uneasy alliance.

The film’s original title was ‘Wet Stuff’, but the producers wanted a tie-in with M*A*S*H that had been hugely successful and also starred Gould and Sutherland, so they changed it to make it seem similar to that one, but the attempt failed and the movie became a huge bomb with the both audiences and critics alike. Viewers came in expecting the same irreverent humor, which this doesn’t have, so audiences left disappointed and the word of mouth quickly spread causing it to play in the theaters for only a short while. The irony though is that in countries that hadn’t seen M*A*S*H, like the Netherlands and Germany, it fared better because the expectations going in weren’t as high.

On a comic level it’s not bad and even has its share of amusing bits. The way the defector gets killed, shot by a gun disguised as a camera, was clever and there’s also a unique car chase in which Gould takes over the steering wheel from the backseat while someone else puts their foot to the pedal. The initial rendezvous between Sutherland and his on-and-off girlfriend (Zouzou) has its moments too as he finds her in bed with another guy while a second one is in the bathroom forcing him to have to pee in the kitchen sink. Gould then, who thought she was ‘raping him with her eyes’ when they first met, takes over and gets into a threesome while the dejected Sutherland has to sleep on the couch.

On the negative end the characterizations are poor to the point of being nonexistent. Initially it comes-off like Gould and Sutherland are rivals, which could’ve been an interesting dynamic, but this gets smoothed over too quickly. Having the two bicker and compete would’ve been far more fun. There’s also no sense of urgency. While Sutherland does lose his spy job and forced to pretend to feign illness to get out of paying a restaurant bill it’s then later revealed that he did have the money, but this then ruins any possible tension. Had they been in a true desperate situation the viewer might’ve gotten more caught up in their dilemma, but as it is it’s just too playful. The villains are equally clownish and in fact become the center of the comedy by the final act, which takes place at a wedding, while the two leads sit back and watch making them benign observers in their own vehicle.

The film needed somebody that was normal and the viewer could identify with. Buffoons can be entertaining, but ultimately someone needs to anchor it and this movie has no one. I thought for a while that Zouzou would be that person, and she could’ve been good, but she and her terrorist pals end up trying to assassinate the two like everybody else, which adds too much to the already cluttered chaos. The satire also needed to be centered on something. For instance, with Airplane the humor was structured around famous disaster flicks from the 70’s and all the jokes had a knowing tie-in. Here though it’s all over the place. Yes, it pokes fun of spies, but that’s too easy, and having it connected to let’s say James Bond movies would’ve given it a clearer angle and slicker storyline.

Since it did have a modicum of success in certain countries it convinced screenwriter Malcolm Marmorstein to continue to pursue the formula as he was sure it was simply the botched marketing that had ruined this one, so he wrote another parody script, this time poking fun at the army, just a year later, which also starred Gould, and was called Whiffs, which will be reviewed next.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: June 28, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Irvin Kershner

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 70's Movies, Buddy Movies, Obscure Movies, Parody, Spy/Espionage

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The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)

Posted on December 13, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Zucker brother’s first movie.

In 1974 there was the release of The Groove Tube which had a format of comical skits, much like a variety show, that managed to be a big hit and thus ushered in several imitators causing a whole new genre to surface. Unfortunately, those copycats didn’t fare as well and many of them were downright lame. By 1977 the trend had died off and yet brothers David and Jerry Zucker along with their friend Jim Abrahams were motivated to make another one revolving around funny sketches that had gotten a good response from audiences during their improvisational shows done on stage. The studios though weren’t impressed citing the decline in box office receipts towards sketch movies and thus refused their request for financing. They were then able to get a verbal deal from a wealthy real estate developer who agreed to fund the project as long as they made a 10-minute short that he could use to shop around to attract other investors, but when he found out how much it would cost just to produce the short he pulled out forcing the Zuckers to put up their own money, which amounted to $35,000, to get the short made.

This though proved to be beneficial as it attracted the attention of a young up-and-coming filmmaker John Landis, who had just gotten done directing Schlock on a minuscule budget and felt he could do the same here. It also got shown to Kim Jorgenson a theater owner who found it so funny he got other owners to play it before the main feature, and this was enough to get them to pool their money into a $650,000 budget that when completed made a whopping $7.1 million at the box office. This then directly lead to them getting studio backing for their most well-known hit Airplane which was a script that they had written before doing this one but had been previously unable to get any backing for.

Like with most films made during the brief period when this genre was ‘hot’ the jokes and skits are hit-or-miss. The opening sequences dealing with a TV news show are the weakest. Watching a reporter pick his nose because he doesn’t realize that he’s on the air isn’t really all that outrageous when today YouTube has actual news bloopers showing essentially the same thing. Having an ape go berserk in the studio during a live broadcast was too obvious and telegraphs the punchline to the viewer right from the beginning and thus making the outcome quite predictable.

The parody of Bruce Lee movies entitled ‘A Fistful of Yen’ definitely has its share of amusing moments though it goes on a bit too long and the special effects look cheap. My favorite segments came after this one and take up most of the final 20-minutes. These include Hare Krishna monks going to the bar after a ‘hard day of work’ harassing people on the street. There’s also ‘The Courtroom’ skit that’s a parody of Perry Mason-style TV-shows from the 50’s. The Zinc Oxide bit involving a housewife, played by Nancy Steen, who’s forced to face the reality of what life would be like if all the items in her house that was made from Zinc Oxide suddenly disappeared.

The film also features well-known actors who volunteered their time with little pay and appear in brief cameos. These include Bill Bixby as a spokesperson for a send-up of aspirin commercials. There’s also Donald Sutherland who plays a klutzy waiter during a parody of disaster flicks, Tony Dow playing his most famous role of Wally from ‘Leave it to Beaver’ as a jury in the Courtroom and Henry Gibson, in what I found to be both the funniest and darkest skit, where he essentially plays himself in a mock add showing how parents (Reberta Kent, Christopher Hanks) can still keep their deceased son as a ‘a part of their family’ by bringing along his increasingly decomposed corpse with them wherever they go.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: August 10, 1977

Runtime: 1 Hour 23 Minutes

Rated R

Director: John Landis

Studio: United Film Distribution Company

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, Plex, Pluto TV, Roku, Tubi, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Crude Comedy, Low Budget, Martial Arts, Movies with Nudity, Parody

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Porky’s Revenge (1985)

Posted on December 10, 2025 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Rescue from shotgun wedding.

Porky (Chuck Mitchell) has rebuilt his casino that was destroyed by the teens in the first film by turning it into a riverboat. To help pay for this he extorts Coach Goodenough (Bill Hindman) for money and other such favors since he owes him on a gambling debt. Pee Wee (Dan Monahan) and his friends try to come to their coach’s rescue by sneaking onto the boat and taking pictures of the illegal gambling activity, which they hope to show to the district attorney. Porky though catches them in the act and threatens revenge, so to get out of their jam they agree to throw their next basketball game, so that Porky can bet against them and win a lot of money. Meanwhile Meat (Tony Ganios) is having problems of his own when he gets ‘forced’ into having sex with Porky’s daughter Blossom (Wendy Feign) causing Porky to insist that the two now must get married.

While fans of the franchise traditionally rate this at the weakest of the three films I found it to be a step up and even, at least at the beginning, to be moderately amusing particularly the pool scene where the cheerleaders concoct a scheme to get the boys to take off their bathing suits and prance around in front of the parents naked. The script was written by Ziggy Steinberg, whose career is the perfect encapsulation of Hollywood, where if you’re considered ‘up and coming’ you can find plenty of work, but the second your material is perceived as getting stale you can quickly become a leper and no offers to be found. This though came at a point where he was still a sought-after commodity, and I felt the script was better structured and seemed much more like a sequel continuing the elements from the first one versus going off on wild tangents like the second one did.

It helps having Chuck Mitchell back as the title character. It’s not like his acting is all that great, but his big presence and gruff, unfiltered delivery keep it fun and he offers a bona fide nemesis for the kids to go after. The casino boat is impressive, and the majority of the film’s $8 million budget was used just to build it. Seeing it get destroyed, which comes near the end, is exciting too and probably more memorable than the destruction of Porky’s original backwoods casino.

The characters though lack growth. Pee Wee for example is still obsessed about getting laid even though he had already lost his virginity in the first film, so his personality needed to evolve into something else. He should, especially being a senior, be the confident one who now takes some insecure freshman under his guidance to show him how it’s done instead of acting as a perpetually immature junior high kid, which by this point is no longer even remotely interesting.

The pranks continue to go overboard and boarder on cruelty. The one that gets played on Beulah Balbricker (Nancy Parsons) is especially stupid. She is set up to believe that she’s going to have a rendezvous with her long-lost boyfriend Snooky (Sandy Meilke), so she goes to a hotel room lying in bed in her nightie waiting for him to enter, so that they can return to their ‘passionate ways’ of the past. In reality though it would never work that way. These two had not seen, or corresponded with each other in many years, so there was no guarantee that both would still have the same feelings for the other. Since so much time had passed they were by this point theoretically strangers, so to avoid embarrassment and possible rejection they would instead get together at a restaurant, or over drinks in order to ‘catch up’ with things and then if they still both felt the same spark they might check into a hotel room, but nobody would just do that right off the bat.

I did though like the way her character changes, she’s the only one that does, by having her behaving like a completely different person once she’s finally able to get together with the real Snooky. However, I feel it would’ve made more sense had she been portrayed as someone who had never had sex versus one that just hadn’t had it in a while. Having her being lifelong frigid would’ve explained better why she was so hyper obsessed with suppressing everyone else’s sexuality. A better payoff would’ve had her really have sex with Tommy (Wyatt Knight) and found much to her surprise to liking it and this would then inspire her evolution.

Spoiler Alert!

The prank involving the bridge operator (Mal Jones) gets botched as well. It hinges on him believing that Wendy (Kaki Hunter) and Tommy are jumping off it to commit suicide, which distracts him enough so that he leaves to bridge operator room and allows Pee Wee to go in and close the bridge and thus destroy Porky’s boat that is trying to go underneath it. However, the bridge isn’t high enough from the water to be that dangerous. In fact, if it was truly that dangerous then both Tommy and Wendy would’ve died when they jumped off of it, but they don’t so the operator would never have been fooled. If anything, he would’ve thought they were just a couple of teens going out for a late-night skinny dip and wouldn’t have panicked at all.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: March 22, 1985

Runtime: 1 Hour 32 Minutes

Rated R

Director: James Komack

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Basketball Movies, Crude Comedy, Movies that take place in Florida, Movies with Nudity, Sequels

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Porky’s II: The Next Day (1983)

Posted on December 7, 2025 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Banning a Shakespeare play.

Now that Pee Wee (Dan Monahan) has lost his virginity to Wendy (Kaki Hunter) they decide that their next project will be putting on a production of ‘Romeo & Juliet’ at their high school, which will be directed by Mrs. Morris (Ilse Earl) Pee Wee’s mother. Problems though ensue when John Henry (Joseph Runningfox), a Seminole Indian, gets cast in the lead where he will then kiss Wendy, a white woman, on stage, which gets the local Klux Klan upset and they proceed to ambush things, so it won’t be able to proceed. There’s also outcry from a local Reverend named Bubba Flavel (Bill Wiley) as he and his religious constituents feel that the play is ‘obscene’ and therefore must be shut down in the name of ‘decency’. The teen cast then visits the office of County Commissioner Bob Gebhardt (Edward Winter) hoping he can use his influence to help keep the play going and while he initially promises them that he will, he eventually renegades. This angers the kids, and they devise an elaborate revenge on not only him, but the Klan and Reverend Flavel.

It’s quite clear that writer/director Bob Clark, who was working on Christmas Story while helming this one, had no idea that the first installment was going to be as big of a success as it was and there had clearly been no plans for a sequel. When the studio came begging for one, he felt obliged and spent 6 months, with the help of two other screenwriters, to come up with something. The result though is a movie in desperate search for a story with a script that’s a mishmash of over-the-top nonsense. What made the first one so good was that as crude as it was it still showed teens as they were with dialogue and situations that rang true, but here all of that gets thrown out with everything played up in an extreme way simply for the sake of a cheap laugh.

The most annoying aspect are the one-dimensional characters particularly the Reverend who is a cartoonish caricature in a silly send-up of a southern preacher. The same goes with the City Commissioner that is well played by Winter, which helps keep it remotely entertaining, but portraying a politician as being sleazy and two-timing is quite cliched and redundant. The return of Beulah Ballbricker, played by Nancy Parsons, is problematic as well. In the first film she was very strict with the rules, but here she’s turned into a religious fanatic, which seems like two different people. The scene where she sits on a toilet and begins singing loudly is dumb. Sure, people may talk on the phone while taking a dump, or read a magazine, or even browse the internet, but bellowing out a loud rendition of ‘That Old Black Magic’ while in a public stall is not one of them making her beyond ‘goofy’ and more into someone who should be institutionalized.

The pranks come off as unnecessarily cruel especially the scene in a graveyard where Pee Wee is made to believe that he accidentally killed a prostitute while having sex with her, which could be quite traumatic for someone and yet his ‘friends’ act like it’s ‘all in fun’. What’s worse is that Pee Wee never brings it up afterwards apparently having no qualms whether a sex worker dies at his hands or not just as long as he’s not blamed, which unintentionally makes him cold and uncaring.

The climactic bit where Wendy dresses up as a big bosomed 17-year-old prostitute who makes a major scene at a posh restaurant in an effort to embarrass the commissioner gets overdone too. For one thing it’s seems awfully extreme to put so much effort to get revenge on what’s nothing more than a tacky high school play with cheap props that isn’t going to make any money and cast members who weren’t all that excited about being in it, so why get so upset if it gets canceled? It also begs the question why these kids are so sure they can get away with their hijinks and not suffer any consequences. The ‘prank’ that gets done inside the restaurant causes a lot of damage and since these teens live in the same community as the adults they would most assuredly get recognized by someone and be either arrested for causing a disturbance and handed a very hefty bill for the repairs, or their parents would, which for them would be just a bad.

The only small funny bit, and I kid you not, comes at the very end during the closing credits, when the head waiter at the now ravaged restaurant tries to save face by convincing the patrons that it had all been an ‘April Fool’s joke’, which got me to chuckle. It’s also kind of amusing how Pee Wee gets so aroused by pics in National Geographic, or sexually stimulated by strippers who aren’t even naked, but just scantily clad enough to excite him anyways, which in this porn saturated era probably wouldn’t be deemed all that titillating, so in that aspect it’s interesting, but everything else is a disaster. It doesn’t even have Porky. How can you have a film titled ‘Porky’s’ if that character never actually shows up though he does reappear in the third installment, which will be reviewed next.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: June 24, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 38 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Bob Clark

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Crude Comedy, Movies that take place in Florida, Movies with Nudity, Sequels

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The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (1976)

Posted on December 1, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: They dissect a cat.

Jonathan (Jonathan Kahn) is a 14-year-old who lives with his mother (Sarah Miles) and nanny Mrs. Palmer (Margo Cunningham) in a beachfront house along the sea after the death of his father three years earlier. Jonathan enjoys his friendship with a group of boys lead by Chief (Earl Rhodes), but his mother does not approve due to Chief’s anti-social sentiment forcing Jonathan to have to sneak out on the sly to see them. One day Jonathan finds a peep hole in his bedroom wall that allows him to see inside his mother’s bedroom, and he begins to peer in on her when she’s undressed, and this creates an unhealthy arousal. When his mother begins a relationship with a sailor named Jim (Kris Kristofferson) he becomes jealous and conveys as much to Chief who devises a sinister plan to ‘solve the problem’.

Lewis John Carlino had a highly respected career as a screenwriter garnering 4 Academy Award nominations for best screenplay, but his three forays as director weren’t as successful and all started out well but ended up just missing the mark. This one was no exception as many critics at the time felt the problem lay in adapting a novel, that was written by Yukio Mishima, which was set in Japan, and trying to convert it to English society. The cultures differences that make up the complex Japanese society that were so integral to the characters in the book gets completely lost in the translation leaving the viewer feeling cold, detached, and genuinely confused when it’s over.

The on-location shooting filmed in Dartmouth, Devon, England, is excellent and the one thing that helps the movie stand-out particularly the isolated hillside house that gives the atmosphere an almost surreal-like feel. There’s also a really creepy performance by Rhodes who nails it as a highly intellectualized kid who displays no moral compass and effectively comes-off as a very believable young sociopath. However, these moments gets coupled with some very disturbing ones dealing with animal cruelty which includes a very drawn-out scene involving the killing and dissecting of a cat as well as putting a firecracker in a seagull’s mouth and while no animal was actually harmed during the production it still left many audiences at the time upset and will very likely do the same with viewers today.

The film’s biggest flaw though is that it doesn’t interpret the character’s actions in any way that helps makes sense of their motivations and for the most part they’re all quite two-dimensional. Jonathan’s arousal at seeing his naked mother needs much better explaining. Most kids aren’t this way, so what is it about his psyche that causes him to enjoy it without any guilt or shame? The movie gives us no clue, nor does it explain how his father died and when you add in the boy’s weird behavior and you start to wonder if the Jonathan maybe had something to do with it, which would’ve opened an interesting subtext if even brought up subtlety, but the script fails to touch on it.

The book makes the reasons for the son’s actions clearer. For instance in the novel the boy losses respect for the sailor when he sees him jump into a water fountain, which he considers to be undignified and the movie really needed to have some similar moment as the kid, like in the book, is initially in awe of the man, but it’s never totally clear what creates the deadly shift. Also, when the son is caught peeping in at his mom the response by his mother in the book is different as she feels the boy should receive a severe punishment, but the sailor, in hopes of becoming ‘friends’ with the kid whom he’s now helping to raise, resists, but the film flubs this scene too by treating it almost like a forgettable throwaway moment that has no impact versus one that would’ve helped reveal the sailor in a more in depth way.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending, which should’ve been a shocker, falls flat as well. In the novel it’s made clear that the boys plan to drug and dissect the sailor just like they did with the cat and they even bring along the tools to do it, in the movie we only witness him drinking the spiked tea. The camera then zooms way out showing the boys at an extreme distance where it’s not obvious what they’re doing. To really make a memorable impression we should’ve seen the boys stab the sailor several times with their knives, which would’ve been far more startling. I felt too there needed to be a reaction from the mother. Does she find out what they did, or does his violent demise remain a mystery? How does her relationship with her son evolve, or devolve afterwards? These questions remain unanswered making the movie seem less like a story and more as a concept that’s never adequately fleshed out.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: April 5, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 45 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Lewis John Carlino

Studio: AVCO Embassy Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, Plex, Roku Channel, Tubi, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, British Movies, Drama, Foreign Films, Moody/Stylish, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity

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Educating Rita (1983)

Posted on November 28, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Trying to better herself.

Rita (Julie Walters) is a young working-class woman who finds her job as a hairstylist and marriage to Denny (Malcolm Douglas) to be unrewarding. Denny wants her to have a child, but she fears that will just tie her down more. In an attempt to ‘better herself’ she decides to enroll in Britian’s open university where she takes a course in English literature.  Frank (Michael Caine) is a disillusioned college professor who lost the zeal for his job years earlier and has now taken to the bottle. Rita wants him to be her tutor, but Frank initially resists only to eventually agree. Despite their contrasting personalities the two ultimately form a bond and Frank uses Rita’s passion for learning to reignite his own dormant desires that allows him to breakout of his loveless relationship.  However, Rita too begins to see things differently when her roommate/friend tries to commit suicide and she realizes that things aren’t always greener on the other side of the fence.

The film is based on the play of the same name by Willy Russell that premiered in London in 1980 and also starred Walters in the title role. Unlike the movie the play had only two characters and everything took place inside the tutor’s office.

The story’s theme does have an inspiring quality, which is what galvanized the critics to it, but the main character and her transition is a bit hard to believe. On the surface she’s quite likable and well played by the star, but her ambition seems awfully extreme. It would’ve helped had we seen the moment when she first got the idea to go back to school versus having it just briefly be discussed. Wanting to learn a trade in order to make more money and move out of one’s humble surroundings is both commendable and understandable but becoming well versed on the plays of Henrik Ibsen isn’t really going to do that. To pay the bills she’s still going to be stuck working as a hairdresser, which was supposedly the boring routine she wanted to get out of. Expanding one’s literary knowledge may allow her to have lofty conversations among elites at posh parties, but as a whole she’d still be in her same predicament financially.

The Pygmalion-inspired theme was unnecessary. Without sounding snotty I couldn’t buy into the idea that this working-class woman with a limited education could learn to fully appreciate the great literary works or would even want to. The story acts like all that is needed is a great deal of enthusiasm and you can do accomplish anything, but history is full of people who jump into lofty goals with the best of intentions and still fail. Realistically I think this type of person would’ve eventually gotten overwhelmed and realized she was in over-her-head. To solve this the character should’ve been modified to being someone who was middleclass with a literally background, but who had to drop out because her parents died forcing her to go to work at the factory in order to make ends meet, but still longed to get back into what she really enjoyed and thus hired a tutor to help her, which would’ve been for the discerning viewer easier to swallow.

Rita’s ultimate transition is more off-putting than inspiring. I didn’t like her change in hair color where she goes from blonde to brunette, which makes her seem like a different person instead of someone who’s evolved. There needed to be more challenges and roadblocks. A brief spat with her husband, in which he throws her books into a fire, blows over too quickly and she’s able to grasp the complex material, even able to write in depth term papers with a relative ease that didn’t come off as wholly believable. Having her get a bad grade in a course and using this to reassess her goals would’ve allowed in a broader angle and not have been so fanciful, which the film starts to become.

Caine plays his part wonderfully and he certainly is much more into this role than he was in Blame it on Rio, which he did the same year. However, his character’s motives were difficult to understand. I thought this would’ve been the classic case, which can occur with a lot of academics in higher education, where the students aren’t into learning and are apathetic, which frustrates the professors, and this then turns them to alcohol. Here though that didn’t seem to be the case making him come off more like he was just tuning out on his own accord and thus making him less relatable. I also felt he should’ve been fired much sooner as the young adults attending his classes knew that he was drunk, even verbally said as much, so he likely would’ve been reported, and for him to then on top of this get a second chance when he fell over inebriated during a speech, seemed rather implausible.

I did enjoy the scenes involving Frank’s girlfriend Julia (Jeananne Crowley) and her relationship with a married man named Brian (Michael Williams) and how every time Frank comes into the room, and they are there Brian pretends, as a ‘cover’, that he is speaking to someone on the phone. These scenes, which becomes a running-joke, were amusing, but near the end Frank informs Brian that the phone was disconnected and thus revealing that he was in on their charade. This though doesn’t jive because with the old fashioned rotary phone, such as the ones shown here, there would always be a dial tone when one put the receiver to their ear, except of course if the service had been cut and thus Brian would’ve already known that it had been disconnected when he didn’t hear the tone and no need then for Frank to explain it.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: May 3, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Lewis Gilbert

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, British Movies, College Life, Comedy/Drama, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Stageplays

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Hitch-Hike (1977)

Posted on November 24, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Couple picks up killer.

Walter (Franco Nero) and his wife Eve (Corinne Clery) are constantly bickering about Walter’s alcoholism. They go on a trip to Los Angeles and on the way pick-up Adam (David Hess) whose car is stranded on the road. Unbeknownst to them he’s a robber who has doubled-crossed his partners and absconded with a suitcase full of $2 million dollars. It doesn’t take long before Adam has a gun to both of their heads demanding they take him to Mexican border where he plans to escape while also killing them in the process. As the two try desperately to figure a way out they are also being secretly followed by the two young men whom Adam betrayed and who are now intent on extracting a revenge.

One of the biggest problems I had with the movie is that it’s supposed to take place in California but was actually shot in the mountains of Gran Sasso in Italy, which looks nothing like the state. I realize that California has a varied topography but the locales here are screaming southern Europe and the highway signs are done in blue, which anyone living in the U.S. would know is fake as here they’re green, which only accentuates the off-kilter look of the production. Since where they’re driving to makes no real difference to the plot I would’ve just had it be some city in Italy like Rome, which would’ve helped the authenticity.

The other problem I had is that, at least the version I watched, it’s spoken in Italian. Normally I prefer movies that are subtitled versus dubbed, but I could’ve sworn years ago I saw it in English, but what’s available on YouTube, which is the only service currently streaming it, doesn’t offer that, which is a big shame. Not so much because of Nero or Clery, but more Hess as his own voice is not used, which then defeats the whole reason for having him. He’s best known for playing the sadistic killer in The Last House on the Left, and he has an excellent way of being menacing, but because we don’t hear him actually speak in his native tongue all of that gets lost and the creepy energy that was supposed to be there by casting him gets completely wasted.

Spoiler Alert!

The story, which is based on the unpublished novel ‘The Violence and the Fury’ by Peter Kane, doesn’t get off to a good start as it features two people, particularly Nero, who are not likable, and thus the viewer really doesn’t care about their predicament making the tension mediocre at best. There are also elements that are stolen from better known movies like the mysterious truck that keeps chasing them during their drive, with the identity of the driver hidden, that’s taken straight from Duel. Loopholes abound as well as we later learn that Hess is the driver of the truck, but how was he able to avoid being shot by his cohorts earlier with a gun aimed right at him and how was he able to hijack the truck as he had been without any vehicle? Maybe he was able to hitch a ride with a truck driver, just like he did with the couple, and then do away with the driver once inside, but this is stuff that needs to be shown as otherwise it comes-off like the filmmakers are just making up the rules as they go with no concern whether it’s logical.

The twist ending is limp as it features Nero setting the car on fire with his injured wife inside and putting Hess’s dead body next to hers in an attempt to make it look like both he (Nero) and she died in the blaze, but there were such things as dental records back then, so after the coroner examined the charred bodies he/she would determine that it wasn’t really Nero who died and thus the authorities would continue to search for him. Seeing him then become a hitchhiker himself leaves open too many questions and comes off like a cop-out where the filmmakers ran out of ideas and thus decided to just end it there.

End of Spoiler Alert!

The moment where Nero is forced to watch Hess make love to his wife, and witnessing the humiliation and anger in his eyes, is the film’s best moment. Watching Clery, the only person you sympathize with, is entertaining both with her clothes on and off. However, the film lacks any character development, and the plot is quite strained with a lot of moments where the story, much like with the car ride, doesn’t seem to be going anywhere and if anything, just driving itself around in circles.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: March 4, 1977

Runtime: 1 Hour 44 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Pasquale Festa Campanile

Studio: Explorer Film ’58

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Foreign Films, Italian Films, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Road Movies, Thrillers/Suspense

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Porky’s (1981)

Posted on November 21, 2025 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Revenge on nightclub owner.

Pee Wee (Dan Monahan) is a teen living in the Florida everglades during the 1950’s who suffers from a small penis size, which has prevented him from losing his virginity. He and his high school pals have hatched a plan of pooling their money together and then hiring a prostitute, which they can then all have sex with. Their first attempt doesn’t work out, so they decide to go to a nightclub that sits in a lagoon on stilts and is called Porky’s, which is the nickname of the owner of the establishment, ‘Porky’ Wallace (Chuck Mitchell) that he attained for being overweight. The boys feel they’ll be able to hire one of the strippers at the club to have sex with and Porky agrees to ‘set it up’ and takes their money only to then have the teens fall through a trap door and into the water below. This enrages Mickey (Roger Wilson) who set-up the deal and he becomes consumed with getting revenge on Porky, but when he goes there to ‘settle things’ he gets badly beaten-up, which sends him to the hospital and convinces his friends that even sterner justice is needed in order to get the proper payback.

I remember when this movie came out and there were TV ads capturing people as they left the theaters and getting their first reaction. At the time this was considered ‘outrageous’ and many of the folks in the ad seemed either shocked or embarrassed. Nowadays though it’s unlikely most will consider it extreme, and some might even call it boring particularly in between the moments when it’s raunchy. The idea for it was conceived in 1972 by writer/director Bob Clark who based the story on his own experiences as a teen going to school in rural Florida during the 50’s. The studios though didn’t like the script, and it got shopped around for years before finally getting modest funding out of Canada where it could be used as a tax write-off and thus even though it was filmed in the U.S. by an American director it still gets labeled as one of the highest grossing films in Canadian movie history.

The critics like with the studio heads, didn’t care for it with both Siskel and Ebert naming it one of the worst movies to come out of the 80’s though when compared to the other teen sex comedies from that decade this one doesn’t seem all that bad. The characters have distinct personalities and much of the dialogue while raunchy seemed realistic for that age group and not all that different from what got talked about during my own high school days. The film also manages to tackle some serious topics like antisemitism, which was also a part of that era, so it has an adequate balance and doesn’t just stay hyper-focused on the sex.

On the negative end Nancy Parsons as the female coach version of Nurse Ratched is one-dimensional and Kim Catrall, playing a cheerleader nicknamed ‘Lassie’, plays too much of the bimbo caricature to be even remotely interesting. Neither is the fault of the actresses, who are okay, but more the writer. On the other hand, I loved the bit part of Susan Clark playing a prostitute. She had been in a few Disney movies just before this and later the TV-show ‘Webster’, so seeing her playing against the family image is fun.

I also loved Kaki Hunter who seems just as dirty minded as the guys and how she’s very average looking as I’ve found those types tended to be a little more ‘easy’, as evidenced by her doing it with Pee Wee, in order to get the guys’ attention and make up for not being as attractive versus in other teen flicks where it’s only the super-hot ones that sleep around. In that vein too I enjoyed the fact that during the shower scene when the boys are peeping at the girls there’s an overweight one impacting Pee Wee’s ability to see the thin ones, which is realistic too as in most high schools there’s a mix of body types and not all skinny like most other teen comedies would make you believe.

I did have some problems though with the nicknames mainly with Pee Wee and ‘Meat’ the name for Tony Ganios’ role. Supposedly this is for their penis size, but how would anyone know what their penises looked like? Normally one gets nicknames for physically attributes that everyone can see for instance if they’re a short height they could be called ‘shorty’. Yes, there is a scene where all the boys strip naked together, but their nicknames had already come about long before then. One could argue that maybe it started while they took showers after gym class, but in my high school if some guy was caught looking at another’s genitals, they’d be accused of being ‘gay’, which during that time period would be considered a stigma.

While the plot is lean and there are a few lulls there are enough comical moments to keep it afloat. The segment dealing with Nancy Parsons character going to the principal to ‘report’ seeing a penis in the girl’s shower and advocating for all the boys to undress so she could spot which one had a dick with a mole on it, is a gem especially with the way the camera zooms in on a hanging portrait of a smiling Dwight Eisenhower like even he too is in on the humor. The demolishing of Porky’s bar, which comes near the end, isn’t bad either and helps to make this thing a minor cult classic.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: November 13, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 38 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Bob Clark

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Crude Comedy, Movies that take place in Florida, Movies with Nudity

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Mother, Jugs & Speed (1976)

Posted on November 19, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: A corrupt ambulance company.

Mother (Bill Cosby) is a part of a team of ambulance drivers working for Harry Fishbine (Allen Garfield) who runs the F & B Ambulance company that is competing with Unity ambulance to get a contract with the city of Los Angeles. Harry is willing to do any underhanded deal that he needs to in order to keep the company competitive, which many times is at the patient’s expense. Tony (Harvey Keitel) is a former cop whose been suspended due to allegations of him dealing cocaine and thus gets hired to partner with Murdoch (Larry Hagman), a man whose compulsion for sex seems to know no bounds. Jennifer (Raquel Welch), nicknamed ‘Jugs’ due to her ample breast size, mans the switchboard, but longs to be a driver and is excited to finally get her certification, only for Harry to refuse to hire her due to sexist reasons.

The disco song ‘Dance’ by Paul Jabara, which gets played over the opening credits, may get some viewers to think it’s a silly 70’s flick, which it definitely isn’t. The concept was inspired by cartoonist Joseph Barbera, who after taking an ambulance ride, became intrigued with the idea of doing a movie about an ambulance company and hired noted screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz to write the first draft. Mankiewicz had plenty of success writing James Bond movies but was at a loss at how to approach this one and only after tagging along on some ambulance rides over a span of three nights was able to come up with the plot. He then bumped into Peter Yates at a party. Yates, best known for having directed Bullit, was interested in a change of pace by doing a comedy, but one that he hoped had ‘some bite’. Mankiewicz then immediately ran out to his car and dug the script out of his trunk and handed it to him and by the next day, after having read it during his flight back, Yates was solidly onboard.

As dark comedies go this one has to be one of the darkest and is compelled to look at every grim aspect of the human experience from drug addiction to poverty and the basic apathy people feel about their jobs and the little things they have to do and tell themselves in order to get through it. What surprised me though was that it was only given a PG-rating. Granted they never say the word ‘fuck’, nor is there any nudity, but it’s still very adult, nonetheless. Because it stars Cosby, who at the time was known for his family-oriented comedy it could’ve given parents the mistaken impression that this would be safe for kids, but it’s definitely not. There’s a lot of caustic humor including Hagman making jokes about having sex with 13-year-old twins and one moment where he attempts to get-it-on with a comatose patient. There’s even a shocking scene where somebody gets shot and killed, so what Jack Valenti and his MPAA board where thinking when they viewed it, I don’t know, but this is certainly not material for young eyes.

Mankiewicz’s acerbic script hits all the right targets, but the acting scores as well. Cosby is terrific as a sort of anti-hero who drinks while he’s driving and harasses nuns but also shows the required proportionate jaded sensibilities to handle the grim challenges. Hagman is outrageously crass but countered nicely by Bruce Davidson and Keitel, who manage to bring some likable qualities into the cast. The funniest person though, despite everything, is Garfield, who’s the perfect caricature of a shyster owner more than willing to do whatever it takes to stay afloat and his motivational rants, particularly the one that starts things out, are hilarious.

The only one that seems miscast is Welch, who despite being easy on the eyes, has never really shown to have much of an acting range. I did like her character’s arch where she’s finally given the chance to go on an ambulance run and learns the hard way that not every life can be saved, as well as a scene where she takes an ambulance on a joyride and gets pulled over by the cops, but sympathetic wise she’s kind of cold. She just doesn’t seem to have the ability to show vulnerability, which is what her character required it’s just a shame the part wasn’t played by Valerie Perrie, who would’ve been perfect, but she declined due to her unwillingness to accept a deferred payment.

Spoiler Alert!

My one caveat is the ending, which has Hagman taking some narcotics that causes him to have a psychotic reaction where he holds the owner’s wife Peaches, played by Valerie Curtin, hostage at the station, but this came off as too jarring. While Hagman’s character certainly had a creepy factor it was still done in a humorous way making him benign and just ‘one of the gang’, so having him go nutso without any type of forewarning didn’t make a lot of sense. Would’ve been better had some addicts looking for drugs robbed the station and held Hagman and Peaches at gunpoint and thus requiring the rest of the employees to work together to find a way to save them.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: May 26, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 38 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Peter Yates

Studio: Twentieth Century Fox

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy

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The Premonition (1976)

Posted on November 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Wanting her child back.

Andrea (Ellen Barber) is a woman who was institutionalized and lost custody of her child Janie (Danielle Brisbois). Janie was then adopted by Sheri (Sharon Farrell) and Miles (Edward Bell) who became her foster parents. Andrea though gets released from the hospital and manages, along on with her boyfriend Jude (Richard Lynch), who works as a circus clown, to track down where Janie is currently living. Andrea wants Janie back and the two conspire to kidnap her, but their initial attempt backfires. Jude becomes irritated at Andrea’s inept abilities to retrieve the child, along with her obsession over a doll that she treats as being a real baby, which sends him into a rage that ultimately kills her. Now, Sheri begins having weird visions of Andrea tormenting her from beyond the grave, but when she complains to her husband about it he refuses to believe her insisting that it’s simply hallucinations from all the stress.

Odd film that seems to be a hybrid between sci-fi and thriller, with just a drop of dramatic character study, that doesn’t fully work despite some moments of potential. The on-location shooting, done in Jackson, Mississippi, allows for some visual flavor, but the story isn’t fleshed out enough to be impactful. There are some shades of an early version of Nightmare on Elm Street, but the film doesn’t go far enough with it. In fact, on a creepy level, it’s very low. The one and only slightly scary moment comes when an eviscerated, ghostly Andrea appears in Janie’s bedroom and tries to scare Sheri, but the scene is too brief and doesn’t go anywhere. The only other ‘spooky’ parts entails when Sheri watches her bathroom mirror fog up as well as the windshield of her car, but that’s literally it. No other scares or shocks to speak of making it confusing trying to figure out what type of audience the producers were going for.

Story-wise it’s muddled. No explanation given for how Andrea and Jude where able to track down where the kid was currently living and Andrea’s ability to get inside the house, where she simply turns the knob of the front door and is able to sneak right in, was too easy. Most people lock their doors at night, and this couple especially should’ve since Andrea had already been spotted by Sheri harassing Janie earlier at the school playground, so having them forget to do this makes them seem dumber than dumb it also hurts the tension. Forcing Andrea to come up with creative ways to get in the home, like maybe trying to slide through the basement, or attic window, would’ve given this segment more intrigue.

There’s also no suitable reason for how Sheri is able to receive the premonitions that she does, or how Andrea is able to give them off. Did Andrea at some point dabble in the occult? Or has Sheri always showed signs of ESP all her life and therefore making her susceptible to Andrea’s ‘messages’? None of this gets even remotely addressed, which ultimately makes the movie poorly thought out. 

Spoiler Alert!

The ending is particularly goofy as it features Sheri performing a musical piece written by Andrea in an attempt to appease Andrea’s angry spirit and get Janie back. However, this all gets done late at night while on the steps of the Mississippi state capitol where a small piano has been placed that Sheri plays while in front of a crowd of curious onlookers. The police then stand-by waiting for any ‘suspicious’ people to arrive, so they can be arrested, but the chances that the authorities would allow such an insane ‘show’ to take place on government property, or believe in evil spirits and visions to begin, with is highly unlikely.

End of Spoiler Alert!

I did though enjoy the acting. Farrell is quite good as the distraught mother and Brisebois, who’s probably best known for playing Stephanie on the ‘Archie Bunker’s Place’ TV-show, is cute and looks to be no more than 3 or 4. Lynch is fantastic playing against type as his character has moments where he seems genuinely concerned and I loved the scene where he dresses in mime make-up and does a silent routine while taking someone’s picture. The best though is Barber who’s unnerving as the unhinged woman, and I wished her role had been bigger.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a payoff. Too many questions get left open and the story doesn’t explore enough angles to make anything that occurs here either memorable or riveting. Some may say this was a precursor of better, more well-known thrillers/horror/sci-fi films to come, and they may have a loose point, but it doesn’t do enough with the material to deserve any recognition. 

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: May 5, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Robert Schnitzer

Studio: AVCO Embassy Pictures

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Kidnapping Movies, Movies that take place in the South, Thrillers/Suspense

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