Squirm (1976)

SQUIRM

SQUIRM (1976) Three stars

You either have a predisposition for liking a silly creature feature like SQUIRM or you don’t.

I thankfully do.

Just a couple quick statements.

1) That’s a lovely title.

2) It’s produced by American International Pictures (1954-80), one of the best production outfits in the motion picture business.

3) I’d rate SQUIRM the second-best killer worm picture right after TREMORS.

Granted, I’m not exactly sure how many killer worm movies there are in existence.

SQUIRM, written and directed by Jeff Lieberman, reminds yours truly of the 1972 classic from American International, FROGS.

American International promoted FROGS with the immortal tagline “Today the pond, tomorrow the world.”

Meanwhile, SQUIRM received, “This was the night of the crawling terror!” Crawling terror in all caps! Like CRAWLING TERROR!

The opening title card informs us that SQUIRM is “based on a true story.” Are you gonna fall for that one?

Intense storms hit Fly Creek, Georgia and electricity from downed power lines + wet soil creates mad worms … and they develop an insatiable taste for human flesh. Of course, they do … or we’d not have much of a movie, at least not much of a one worthy of the title SQUIRM.

We have two gingers for our protagonists: Mick (Don Scardino), a no-count city slicker who seems to get on just about everybody’s bad side, especially good ol’ boy Sheriff Jim Reston (Peter MacLean) and creepy romantic rival Roger Grimes (R.A. Dow), and Mick’s romantic interest Geri (Patricia Pearcy).

Right off the top of the old noggin, I cannot think of another film headlined by a pair of redheads.

Mick starts off on the wrong foot real quick when he orders an egg cream. An egg cream in Fly Creek, Georgia? Only a city slicker would make such an order.

What’s an egg cream? Milk, carbonated water, and flavored syrup, apparently, and it does not contain eggs or cream. New Yorkers loved them some egg cream. Why do them old Pace Picante commercials leap to mind?

Mick encounters a worm in his egg cream and freaks out. Boy, oh boy, he’s not making friends very fast around here.

It all sort of reminds you of Dustin Hoffman’s work alienating the natives in Sam Peckinpah’s STRAW DOGS.

Many years ago, I brought in a DVD haul that included AFTER HOURS, ERASERHEAD, and FROGS.

Just from that day alone, I could have started the “So You’re Think You’re Having a Bad Day” Film Festival.

SQUIRM could make the cut, just based on what happens to Roger alone.

Shakespeare, “A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once. It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it come.”

Roger “dies” a thousand times in SQUIRM. At least it seems that way. You can’t keep a good creep down.

He’s the SQUIRM character remembered most.

I read an interview with Lieberman where he recounted how most of the inner-city audience in a 900-seat theater rooted for Roger and wanted both redheads to die either by Roger or the worms.

SQUIRM amounts to a whole lot of fun, but take my word with a grain of salt especially since I have a predisposition to like this kind of movie.

squirm /skwərm/: wriggle or twist the body from side to side, especially as a result of nervousness or discomfort. Synonyms: wriggle, wiggle, writhe, twist, slide, slither, turn, shift, fidget, jiggle, twitch, thresh, flounder, flail, agonize.

“SQUIRM made late Atlanta Braves broadcaster Skip Caray squirm.”

Back to the Future Trilogy (1985-90)

BACK TO THE FUTURE TRILOGY (1985-1990)
The BACK TO THE FUTURE trilogy stands up better now than when the films were originally released.

That’s partly because we’ve not seen any more sequels or remakes, retcons, reboots, and ripoffs.

The three films have been allowed to stand on their own.

They stand up tall and straight.

Once upon a time, I wrote that DAWN OF THE DEAD, THE TERMINATOR, and THE FLY are great films because they not only succeed at giving audiences satisfaction on genre terms but they also work on additional levels. For example, the satire that equates mall shoppers with zombies (DAWN OF THE DEAD), the romance between Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor (THE TERMINATOR), and the romance between Seth Brundle and Veronica (THE FLY). All three films have a lot going on for and in them.

The same greatness principle holds true for all three BACK TO THE FUTURE films: They’re all successful comedies that work on a deeper level, mostly thanks to time travel.

Speaking of time travel, I’m definitely a fan because I love THE TERMINATOR, TIME AFTER TIME, X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, and MEN IN BLACK 3 and enjoy BILL & TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME, and FREQUENCY, for example.

The BACK TO THE FUTURE films — especially PART II — play around with the paradoxes of time travel, both for comedic and dramatic effect. It allows certain actors to play multiple roles in different times — 1885, 1955, 1985, alternate 1985, and 2015.

BACK TO THE FUTURE starts with the inspiration of containing a time machine in a DeLorean and the movie revs up when that baby moves 88 mph because, as Christopher Lloyd’s Dr. Emmett “Doc” Brown says, “If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you’re gonna see some serious shit.”

We do.

Anyway, our teenage protagonist Marty McFly (played by a 23-year-old Michael J. Fox), he’s bummed out by his parents George (Crispin Glover) and Lorraine (Lea Thompson), a hopeless nerd picked on by eternal bully Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) for one parent and a drunk for the other.

Sitting at the dinner table with his family, Marty’s not too interested in how his parents met: Lorraine’s father hit George with his car and Lorraine nursed George back to health. Lorraine experienced a real Florence Nightingale effect.

However, no kid’s ever all that interested in how their parents met. Especially parents like George and Lorraine.

The DeLorean hits 88 mph and Marty ends up back in 1955 — Nov. 5, 1955, stuck there, without any plutonium to return.

BACK TO THE FUTURE then becomes an even greater movie when it takes on the premise of a teenager meeting their parents when they’re teenagers. Marty’s a lot more interested in how his parents met, that’s for sure.

Not long after their first meeting in 1955, Marty saves George from being hit by that fateful car. Marty’s knocked unconscious instead and Nurse Lorraine grows “amorously infatuated” (Doc’s words) with her future son rather than her future husband. She’s in hot pursuit, and we remember her 1985 self warning her teenaged son about girls that chase after boys.

Just be glad that Marty finds a younger Doc to sort it all out and get him “back to the future.”

We especially need Doc around for PART II to explain the movie’s convoluted plot.

PART II gives us a version of 2015 highlighted by technological advancements. It was great fun watching the 2015 scenes in 1989 based on future speculation and it’s still great fun watching them 30 years later as we reflect what they got right and what they got wrong. The Royals, not the Cubs though, won the World Series and Universal mercifully stopped at four JAWS films.

(The Cubs ended the longest world championship drought in North American professional sports history — only 108 years — by winning the 2016 World Series.)

Futurepedia even provided a list of the new technology: Air traffic control; auto-adjusting and auto-drying jacket; automatic dog walker; automated Texaco service station; barcode license plate; binocular card; bionic implants; Compu-Fax; Compu-Serve; computerized breastplate; cosmetic factory; data-court; dehydrated pizza; dust-repellent paper; flying circuits; fruit dispenser; hands free video games; holobillboard; holofilms a la JAWS 19; hoverboards; hovercam; hover conversion; hydrator; Identa-pad; Internet; Kirk Gibson Jr. Slugger 2000 adjustable bat; Litter Bugs; Master-cook; Mr. Fusion; multi-channel video screen; neon curbing; Ortho-lev; Pac Fax; portable thumb unit; power-lacing shoes; rejuvenation clinic; scene screen; skyway; slam ball; sleeping device; soda bottles with built-in straws; flying cars; tablet computer; thumb pad; tranquilization; transponder; U.S. Weather Service; video glasses and video telephone glasses; video simulacrum; video telephone.

PART II ends up back in Nov. 12, 1955 (Marty’s final day in 1955 in BACK TO THE FUTURE), so we have two Martys and two Docs running breathlessly around Hill Valley.

Given all the plot convolutions and time permutations in PART II, it’s fitting that the 1955 Doc faints during a scene late in the movie.

Lightning strikes the DeLorean and sends Doc back to 1885 near the end of PART II … and Marty tracks him down in PART III.

We get a Western comedy in a year that included Best Picture winner DANCES WITH WOLVES and QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER.

PART III finds employment for veteran character actors Pat Buttram (1915-94), Harry Carey Jr. (1921-2012), and Dub Taylor (1907-94) in the 1885 scenes. It’s nice to see and hear them codgers.

Their presence lets us know that PART III is a different kind of Western than DANCES WITH WOLVES and QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER, more like a TV Western.

Marty takes Clint Eastwood for his 1885 name.

PART III casts Mary Steenburgen as Doc’s love interest and we remember Steenburgen as H.G. Wells’ love interest in TIME AFTER TIME (1979). Wells wrote “The Time Machine.” In TIME AFTER TIME, Jack the Ripper uses Wells’ time machine to travel to modern day San Francisco and Wells follows and pursues Jack the Ripper. During his pursuit, Wells meets bank clerk Amy (Steenburgen) and falls in love with her. (In real life, McDowell and Steenburgen became married in 1980, separated in 1989, and divorced in 1990. They met and began dating making TIME AFTER TIME.)

The BACK TO THE FUTURE trilogy ends on a satisfying note.

More notes on BACK TO THE FUTURE:

— Michael J. Fox is one of the most likable actors of all-time. He was the first choice for Marty, but “Family Ties” producer Gary David Goldberg refused to allow Fox away from that show to make a movie. That’s why BACK TO THE FUTURE originally cast Eric Stoltz as Marty. Stoltz worked a few weeks on the film before director Robert Zemeckis and screenwriter Bob Gale realized there’s something wrong with Stoltz as Marty: He’s not the Marty they wanted. Stoltz lacked screwball energy and he played scenes more dramatically. They let Stoltz go and recast with Fox, who became free to make the movie. Fox did not have to reach very far to portray Marty, “All I did in high school was skateboard, chase girls, and play in bands. I even dreamed of becoming a rock star.”

For two months, Fox worked on “Family Ties” during the day and BACK TO THE FUTURE at night, giving him at most a few hours of sleep each day.

Re-shooting added $3 million to the film’s budget, a number more than made up for by grosses for all three films that have amassed nearly $1 billion in returns.

— Christopher Lloyd’s boundless madcap energy earns Doc a place in the annals of great mad scientists and nutty professors. He becomes more than that, though, over the course of three movies. We love Doc, perhaps more than any other character in the series.

— Thomas F. Wilson makes any variation on the bully, whether it’s Buford “Mad Dog,” Biff, or Griff Tannen and whether it’s 1885, 1955, 1985, alternate 1985, or 2015, a lovable asshole. We love to hate “Mad Dog,” Biff, and Griff, especially Biff. We love every time Biff screws up a phrase like “Make like a tree … and get out of here.” We love every time he’s doused in manure. We love every time he’s burned and showed up by our protagonists. How do you feel after learning Donald Trump inspired the Biff character?

— Crispin Glover proved to be the next evolution in screen nerd, taking off from Eddie Deezen and REVENGE OF THE NERDS. Glover stepped in that direction in FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER, but he gets a fuller character in BACK TO THE FUTURE.

— Lea Thompson is quite fetching in the 1955 scenes and her character unknowingly lusting after her future son fits into a career where she was attacked by The Great White Mother in JAWS 3-D, yelled at and embarrassed by her sexually frustrated and football obsessed boyfriend in ALL THE RIGHT MOVES, involved with a married police officer who should have arrested himself for his own sex crimes in THE WILD LIFE, and kissed by an animatronic duck in HOWARD THE DUCK. John Hughes at least gave her the name Amanda Jones in SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL, from the Rolling Stones song “Miss Amanda Jones.” What a career.

— Huey Lewis and the News’ “Power of Love” achieves being their only song that does not inspire my thoughts of giving the nearest person a pencil and having them stab my eardrums. For example, it seemed that for the longest time at the Pittsburg Subway I’d hear their hit song “The Heart of Rock & Roll.” Every damn single time. I survived by wisecracking, “If Huey Lewis is the heart of rock ’n’ roll, then rock ’n’ roll needs a defibrillator.” I suppose I think more positively of “Power of Love” from being in BACK TO THE FUTURE.

— Zemeckis produced some of the best mass entertainments for nearly a decade-and-a-half, everything from 1941 (directed by Steven Spielberg) and USED CARS to BACK TO THE FUTURE and WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT.

I just hope that Hollywood leaves those films alone and does not burden us with remakes, retcons, reboots, or any other ripoff.

Is that too much to ask?

BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985) Four stars; BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II (1989) Three-and-a-half stars; BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III (1990) Four stars

The Predator (2018)

THE PREDATOR

THE PREDATOR (2018) Two stars

One of these days, they’ll get a PREDATOR sequel right and make a film with only Predator characters.

Yeah, that’s right, no human characters.

THE PREDATOR — the fourth or sixth entry (depending on whether or not you want to count two ALIEN VS. PREDATOR movies that combine two 20th Century Fox cash cows) in a series that began only decades ago — gives us a tasty hint of a Predator-only film with a Mega Predator vs. Predator fight scene. It’s the highlight of the film, then it’s back to our more generic human characters.

Seeing that the Walt Disney Company recently acquired 20th Century Fox, we can bet our sweet hard-earned that Disney will be pumping out PREDATOR productions once a year or every two years.

I doubt they’ll get it right.

Anyway, we especially have too many anonymous scientist and military characters in THE PREDATOR, and they’re exhibits for why I stump for the systematic eradication of human characters in PREDATOR movies.

I mean, I get it, they’re around to amplify the body count, but their perfunctory dialogue scenes are dead weight that drag the movie down until the characters are (thankfully) eliminated.

PREDATOR ’87 does not have perfunctory dialogue and dead weight, and it does not drag. It plays like “a lean, mean fighting machine” (in the great words from STRIPES) and it’s a streamlined entertainment that moves faster than this, er, last year’s model (an Elvis Costello reference following STRIPES).

The cast of the original PREDATOR amounted to 16 actors.

By comparison, THE PREDATOR features approximately 50 credited and 20 uncredited performers.

Favorite character: “Sobbing veterinarian.” Second favorite: “Cantina bartender.” Show: “Halloween mom.”

Shane Black co-wrote and directed THE PREDATOR.

You might remember Black, and we definitely remember his movies.

Black’s screenwriting credits: LETHAL WEAPON, LETHAL WEAPON 2, THE LAST BOY SCOUT, LAST ACTION HERO, and THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT, for which he received a $4 million payday.

You might remember Black from the first PREDATOR.

He played Rick Hawkins, a bespectacled, foul-mouthed mercenary. He’s a foul mouth on an epic scale.

Hawkins tells jokes like “The other day, I was going down on my girlfriend. I said to her, ‘Jeez, you’ve got a big pussy. Jeez, you’ve got a big pussy.’ She said, ‘Why did you say that twice?’ I said, ‘I didn’t.’ See, it was ‘cause of the echo.”

Black did not receive a writing credit on PREDATOR, but we can almost bet that he wrote Hawkins’ dialogue.

Especially since THE PREDATOR features a scene where a soldier with Tourette’s blurts out “Eat your pussy!”

This character, named Baxley and played by Thomas Jane, later spouts more dialogue from the Planet X, “Fuck me in the face with an aardvark.”

At the end of the day, THE PREDATOR is not a bad movie, nor a good one, and I doubt that I’ll be able to remember it for too much longer. I’ll say that I’ve killed two hours of my life in worse fashion many times before and hopefully not as many times after.

A Force of One (1979)

A FORCE OF ONE

A FORCE OF ONE (1979) Two-and-a-half stars
We should all thank Steve McQueen (1930-80) for the acting career of Chuck Norris, because it was McQueen who encouraged Norris to get into acting.

After all, without Norris’ acting career would there ever have been “Chuck Norris Facts?” Or the lever on “Conan?”

So, thank you, Steve McQueen.

McQueen also had some important advice for Norris after GOOD GUYS WEAR BLACK (1978).

“They said I was the worst thing in 50 years,” Norris said in a 1983 New York Times article. “Well, I wasn’t good, but my feelings were hurt. I said, ‘I’m not trying to be Dustin Hoffman; I just want to project a strong positive hero image on the screen.’ I went to Steve, and he said, ‘In GOOD GUYS, you talk too much. Too much dialogue. Let the character actors lay out the plot. Then, when there’s something important to say, you say it, and people will listen. Anyway, you’ll get better as an actor. You should have seen me in THE BLOB.’”

McQueen seemed to be onto something regarding the quality of Norris movies, because Norris’ best pictures LONE WOLF McQUADE and CODE OF SILENCE both rely on strong casts around Norris: David Carradine, Barbera Carrera, Leon Isaac Kennedy, Robert Beltran, L.Q. Jones, Dana Kimmell, R.G. Armstrong, Sharon Farrell, and William Sanderson (LONE WOLF); Henry Silva, Bert Remsen, Molly Hagan, Dennis Farina, Mike Genovese, and Ralph Foody (CODE OF SILENCE).

A FORCE OF ONE, alas, features a decent supporting cast around Norris — Jennifer O’Neill (she actually receives top billing), Clu Gulager, Ron O’Neal, and Charles Cyphers — and they handle the awfully generic material rather well. We should be grateful for a good supporting cast because. …

I mean, how many times have we seen this plot filmed on TV or even in the movies? We’ve all been here many, many, many times before, sitting through cops, drugs, cop killers, drug lords, et cetera.

Screenwriter Ernest Tidyman’s credits include SHAFT, THE FRENCH CONNECTION, and HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, heavy duty action credentials.

Tidyman (1928-84), however, was not impressed by A FORCE OF ONE, called it his least successful effort, and said that he only wrote the script to buy his mother a house.

I understand Tidyman’s disappointment with his script.

That said, I enjoyed most of A FORCE OF ONE because it combines a standard issue cops and criminals plot acted out by a good cast with martial arts and a “very subtle” anti-drug message that plays like one of those infamous 1980s TV commercials, only featuring roundhouse kicks.

Wish they would have showed A FORCE OF ONE in D.A.R.E.

Oops, never mind, since all us kiddos are supposed to resist violence.

A FORCE OF ONE loses points and a positive review because of two negative elements.

Dick Halligan’s music hits the viewer like a roundhouse upside the head. I would love to make a joke here referencing either “blood,” “sweat,” or “tears” because Halligan founded the jazz-rock band Blood, Sweat & Tears and played in that group from 1967 through 1972. I just don’t have it today.

All plot roads lead to a final karate showdown between Norris and the main heavy. This is what we wait for all 80 minutes.

Unfortunately, the final karate showdown quickly devolves into slow motion and distorted / echoed vocal effects, plus Halligan’s music returns with a vengeance.

The Pride of the Yankees (1942)

THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES (1942) Two stars
A “Yeah right!” movie, why that’s THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES.

We all know what “Yeah right!” movies are, right, because, yes, they make us say “Yeah right!” It could be any plot element, a plot twist, a casting decision, et cetera.

Watching THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES again, it left me saying “Yeah right!” more than anything I’ve seen since, oh, perhaps, CRASH (2005).

We’ll start with a defining “Yeah right!” scene.

Of course, I know, THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES is the cinematic equivalent of those books we read in elementary school about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. You might remember the larger-than-life stories about George and his cherry tree and Honest Abe wrestling.

THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES does that with a bat and a glove.

Our Gehrig tall tale starts with a hospital room filled with reporters. Yankee slugger Babe Ruth (Babe Ruth) promises a boy named Billy that he will hit a home run to center field … against St. Louis in the 1926 World Series.

Why, not to be outdone, our hero Lou Gehrig (Gary Cooper) comes over to visit Billy on his own and promises the boy two home runs … in the same game, yes, the same game that Ruth’s supposed to hit a homer. What a lucky boy!

Ruth and Gehrig both get their homers out of the way in the first inning.

Well, Gehrig needs his second homer and it’s not going to be easy.

Sports writers Sam Blake (Walter Brennan) and Hank Hanneman (Dan Duryea) spend the movie bantering back-and-forth with Blake always supporting and Hanneman always doubting Gehrig. Blake and Hanneman bet on whether or not Gehrig will hit a second homer. They keep raising their stakes as the game moves on and Gehrig accumulates strikeouts. I should probably mention that Blake witnessed Gehrig making his promise.

All roads lead us to the ninth inning and why that dirty St. Louis pitcher, he’s gonna intentionally walk Gehrig.

Of course, a promise is a promise, though, and Gehrig finds a way to fulfill it in the absolute most dramatic fashion.

Later in the film, near the end of his life, Gehrig’s visited by an older Billy on Lou Gehrig Day. Billy tells Gehrig that his shining example and two homers that day inspired Billy’s full recovery.

As the reporter said in THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

Opening credits: “This is the story of a hero of the peaceful paths of everyday life.

“It is the story of a gentle young man who, in the full flower of his great fame, was a lesson in simplicity and modesty to the youth of America.

“He faced death with that same valor and fortitude that has been displayed by thousands of young Americans on far-flung fields of battle. He left behind him a memory of courage and devotion that will ever be an inspiration to all men.

“This is the story of Lou Gehrig.”

Signed by famous writer Damon Runyon (1880-1946). Far out.

Yes, THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES — made shortly after Gehrig’s death in 1941 at the age of 37 — lays it on thick right from the start.

Gehrig remains one of the greatest baseball players — his 2,130 consecutive games played streak stood as record until Cal Ripken, Jr., passed it on Sept. 6, 1995.

Great baseball players do not guarantee great movies — Babe Ruth, for example, received THE BABE RUTH STORY (1948) and THE BABE (1992), both even worse than THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES.

In a certain mood, THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES might be a moving experience.

Otherwise, it might be a “Yeah right!” movie for the ages.

Caddyshack (1980)

CADDYSHACK

CADDYSHACK (1980) Three-and-a-half stars
Harold Ramis’ CADDYSHACK gives the consumer four movies for the price of one.

1) Rodney Dangerfield vs. Ted Knight.

2) Chevy Chase and his meandering philosophical musings and lady man ways.

3) Bill Murray and his bizarre shenanigans.

4) The caddies and their little melodramas.

Most films don’t even give us one.

We have four distinct comedic styles at work in CADDYSHACK: Dangerfield (1921-2004) comes on and thankfully never stops doing variations on his night club act; Knight (1923-86) plays the ultimate snob and perfect counterpoint to Dangerfield; Chase gives us Zen wisdom filtered through deadpan absurdity; and Murray creates a world of his own that combines Dalai Lama and Cinderella stories, gross out snooty old ladies Baby Ruth taste testing, hunting and blowing up animatronic gophers real good, and Bob Marley joints.

Murray’s like a gopher within CADDYSHACK itself, burrowing underneath Dangerfield vs. Knight and the caddies.

CADDYSHACK plays like a 98-minute throwback to the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, and W.C. Fields.

First-time director Ramis (1944-2014), in fact, envisioned Murray as Harpo Marx, Dangerfield as Groucho, and Chevy as Chico. Guess that made Ted Knight the villainous Sig Ruman (A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, A DAY AT THE RACES) and Cindy Morgan a more risqué Thelma Todd (MONKEY BUSINESS, HORSE FEATHERS).

Improvisation and cocaine fueled CADDYSHACK.

It seems like Ramis and gang threw away the script written by Brian Doyle-Murray, Ramis, and Douglas Kenney (Ramis and Kenney worked together on NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE) just to make it all up as they went along, especially Chase, Dangerfield, and Murray.

This is one example of how the makers of a film went in expecting to make a certain film and came out with something completely different. The original plan had been to make the movie focused on the caddies, of course with a title like that, but the comedians took over and stole the show.

To be fair, however, the caddies have their fair share of funny moments and Doyle-Murray steals every scene that he’s in as caddy master Lou.

Chris Nashawaty’s book “Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story” details just how much of a miracle it was even that the movie got finished.

“I had never seen cocaine before I got to the set of CADDYSHACK,” actor Peter Berkrot said. “This was really good cocaine. Pure, like they had just beaten it out of a leaf in Columbia and somebody had carried the leaf to us and turned it into powder in front of us just so we knew how pure it was,” said actor Hamilton Mitchell.

Ramis and Kenney (1946-80) turned in an original cut that ran four hours. A consultant recommended a through line with Danny Noonan (Michael O’Keefe) and his quest for a caddy scholarship and his relationship with a waitress (Sarah Holcomb, who played the mayor’s daughter in ANIMAL HOUSE).

Like classics by the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, and Fields, though, we don’t require much of a plot when there’s so much funny going on.

Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate Knight’s asshole Judge Elihu Smails just as much as Dangerfield’s Al Czervik and Murray’s Carl Spackler.

Smails is every bit as quotable as Czervik, Spackler, and Chase’s Ty Webb.

My favorite Smails line comes right after Noonan says that he would like to go to law school after he graduates but his parents do not have enough money to put him through college.

Smails says, “Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too.”

July 1980 undoubtedly ranks among the great months for comedies: AIRPLANE! debuted July 2, USED CARS on July 11, and CADDYSHACK on July 25.

Bette Davis: Tougher than Anybody Else

BETTE DAVIS — WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?

BETTE DAVIS: TOUGHER THAN ANYBODY ELSE
Like most people in my generation, I first encountered Bette Davis (1908-89) through popular music rather than her 123 movie or TV roles from 1931 through 1989.

Oh, let’s see, Davis made a starring performance in Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes,” a hit that spent nine weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and proved to be 1981’s biggest song. You might vividly remember that one and songwriters Donna Weiss and Jackie De Shannon gave their heroine — er, their femme fatale — not only Bette Davis eyes, but also “Harlow gold hair” and “Greta Garbo’s standoff sighs.”

Davis also made the hall of fame in songs by Madonna and the Kinks.

Madonna Ciccone and Step Pettibone (Ciccone-Pettibone has got a better ring to it than Lennon-McCartney or Strummer-Jones) co-wrote “Vogue” and Madonna’s rap (her best) finishes off with “Bette Davis, we love you” after running through Garbo, Monroe, Dietrich, DiMaggio, Brando, James Dean (called Jimmy Dean, not the sausage manufacturer), Kelly, Astaire, Hayworth, Bacall, Hepburn, and Lana Turner.

Like the other two songs that came later in time, Ray Davies’ lyrics on “Celluloid Heroes” mention Garbo and she gets top billing (first mention) before the song moves on to Rudolph Valentino, Bela Lugosi, Davis, George Sanders, Mickey Rooney, and Marilyn Monroe. Davies groups Davis with Valentino and Lugosi, capping off six lines with “But stand close by Bette Davis / Because hers was such a lonely life.” (Davis named her 1962 autobiography “The Lonely Life.”) For the record, Garbo gets six lines, Monroe four, and Valentino, Lugosi, Sanders, and Rooney two each.

— The first Bette Davis movies I saw were ALL ABOUT EVE (1950) and WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962), both highly enjoyable for different reasons.

Their common ground, though, centers around Davis.

ALL ABOUT EVE, that’s the one featuring her famous line “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” Margo Channing — a highly-regarded but aging and difficult stage actress — must not have been a great stretch for a Davis in her early 40s.

Other actresses considered for the role were Ingrid Bergman, Marlene Dietrich, Susan Hayward, Gertrude Lawrence, and Barbara Stanwyck. Think we can all agree that Davis was the perfect choice for Margo Channing.

You can almost feel Davis herself speaking through dialogue like “Lloyd, I am not twenty-ish. I am not thirty-ish. Three months ago I was forty years old. Forty. 4-0. That slipped out. I hadn’t quite made up my mind to admit it. Now I suddenly feel as if I’ve taken all my clothes off” and “Bill’s 32. He looks 32. He looked it five years ago. He’ll look it twenty years from now. I hate men.”

BABY JANE capitalized on the real-life feud between Davis and Joan Crawford, where most of the fun comes from speculating how much reality crossed over into their fictional characters.

Just a casual search on the Internet will bring up all sorts of quotes from Davis on Crawford and I might as well as share a few within this space: “You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good … Joan Crawford is dead. Good”; “There may be a heaven, but if Joan Crawford is there, I’m not going”; “Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think it’s because I’m not a bitch. Maybe that’s why Miss Crawford always plays ladies”; and “The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?”

Davis never had a problem being the villain and that’s one of the things that made her so great. Let’s face it, sometimes we like the villains infinitely more than bland, square heroes.

She played a strong character in almost every single role.

Davis became the first performer to be nominated for 10 Academy Awards, all for Best Actress, and she won statuettes for DANGEROUS (1935) and JEZEBEL (1938), her first two nominations.

— Recently, I caught up with OF HUMAN BONDAGE (1934), FOG OVER FRISCO (1934), and THE PETRIFIED FOREST (1936).

OF HUMAN BONDAGE — her 22nd film — is renowned for being the film that made Davis a star.

Davis’ character Mildred Rogers has been described as “callous,” “manipulative,” “cold,” “shrewish,” et cetera, and Davis really sinks her teeth into “You cad, you dirty swine! I never cared for you, not once! I was always makin’ a fool of ya! Ya bored me stiff; I hated ya! It made me SICK when I had to let ya kiss me. I only did it because ya begged me, ya hounded me, and drove me crazy! And after ya kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth! WIPE MY MOUTH!”

That’s her big scene with Leslie Howard’s Philip Carey, an overly sensitive, club-footed man who’s in love with Mildred despite the fact that she treats him like trash.

— FOG OVER FRISCO came out 26 days before OF HUMAN BONDAGE in 1934 and it’s a fast-moving crime melodrama over in 68 minutes. Action-packed and the big chase scene called to mind BULLITT and THE DEAD POOL, believe it or not.

Davis considered this one of her favorite pictures, though her character Arlene Bradford does not make it to the final reel.

Maybe here’s why FOG OVER FRISCO rated among her favorites: Davis received top billing after Warner Bros. boss Jack Warner caught drift of the Bette buzz from rushes of the film and she found out while filming FOG OVER FRISCO that Warner agreed to loan Davis out to RKO to make OF HUMAN BONDAGE.

Davis also said that FOG OVER FRISCO had a good script and that it was superbly directed by William Dieterle over a shoot that lasted around 20 days (Monday, January 22, 1934 through Saturday, February 10, 1934).

Davis plays characters on opposing ends of the social spectrum in FOG OVER FRISCO and OF HUMAN BONDAGE. In both films, though, she has a weak male admirer. She’s the stronger character, as usual.

— A lot of the fascination watching THE PETRIFIED FOREST came from seeing both Davis and Humphrey Bogart in roles early in their career.

Bogart had done 10 feature films before THE PETRIFIED FOREST and he first played the Duke Mantee role in the 1935 Broadway production alongside Leslie Howard. Warner Bros. wanted Edward G. Robinson (LITTLE CAESAR) for the film adaptation, but Howard refused to appear in the film unless Bogart got the chance to revisit Mantee, a character and performance inspired by John Dillinger. The rest was history. (Bogart and Lauren Bacall named their daughter Leslie Howard Bogart, born 1952, in honor of their friend.)

Bogart is just dynamite in THE PETRIFIED FOREST.

Like OF HUMAN BONDAGE, Davis plays a waitress and Howard’s love interest. Unlike that earlier movie, however, her Gabrielle Maple’s almost instantly smitten with Howard’s Alan Squier and their fates are reversed from OF HUMAN BONDAGE.

The New York Times’ review of the film said of her performance in THE PETRIFIED FOREST, “There should be a large measure of praise for Bette Davis, who demonstrates that she does not have to be hysterical to be credited with a grand portrayal.”

Gabrielle’s a very sympathetic character, a dreamer and an aspiring artist.

— Davis once said, “I survived because I was tougher than anybody else.”

ALL ABOUT EVE (1950) Four stars; WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962) Four stars; OF HUMAN BONDAGE (1934) Three-and-a-half stars; FOG OVER FRISCO (1934) Three-and-a-half stars; THE PETRIFIED FOREST (1936) Three-and-a-half stars

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

DAY 81, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962) Four stars
John Frankenheimer’s political thriller is one ripped, twisted movie, borrowing famous words from Hunter S. Thompson.

It should make one reconsider both Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury, for example.

I did.

Before I first watched THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, I held Sinatra in very little (miniscule) esteem. Maybe it was Phil Hartman’s savage impersonation on “Saturday Night Live.” Maybe it was Sinatra’s appearances on Jerry Lewis’ MDA telethon on Labor Day and when you only have three channels and one of them’s gone all weekend, all booked up, man, we’re talking about Pits City. Maybe it was his crooning that provided the soundtrack for seemingly innocuous yuppie consumption (we all know what seemingly innocuous really means) and little old swooning ladies and every movie that wants to evoke a certain mood just by slapping one of Ol’ Blue Eyes’ standards on every few minutes. Maybe it was the fact that he lived and breathed crusty, old guard establishment, whose reactions to Elvis and the Beatles were not surprising. There was just something about that man that gave me the creeps.

Why, of course, like any child of the 1980s and 1990s, I knew Lansbury from “Murder, She Wrote” and I know I saw her in old Disney entertainments somewhere along the line. I knew that she wasn’t quite this doddering old lady, because, man, if I saw her Jessica Fletcher coming my way, I would have moved to another town or put a down payment on a passport and an one-way plane ticket and move to another country because I know that homicide’s afoot and I want no damn part of it. The homicide rate in Cabot Cove, Maine, must have rivaled Chicago.

So, yeah, in many different ways, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE warped my fragile little mind, including seeing Sinatra as a legitimate dramatic actor and Lansbury as the most wicked mother in screen history. I have no doubt she plays the most wicked mother in screen history, because I don’t want to see anybody else more wicked.

I don’t know if reading or having somebody tell you the plot summary for THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE can even adequately convey how messed up the movie’s events are, like this one I just read on the Internets: “Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco (Sinatra), finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and, together with fellow soldier Allen Melvin (James Edwards), races to uncover a terrible plot.”

Strange nightmares, you can say that again, because they incorporate those Communist brainwashing sessions.

It seems that Shaw’s platoon are surrounded by sweet little old ladies, when in fact they are Chinese and Soviet officials performing their brainwashing routine. Shaw murders two of his men, one by strangulation and one by gunshot through the head. Yet when they come back home, Shaw’s a military hero, just all part of the plan.

These nightmares are very disturbing to watch, of course, and establish the movie’s disorienting tone. We rarely catch a break.

This was one dark movie for 1962 and like DR. STRANGELOVE (1964), it holds up today because of that darkness. In her 1962 review, Pauline Kael said that it may be the most sophisticated political satire ever made in Hollywood. Here we are, decades later, and her statement holds true.

There’s a lot about the plot I don’t want to consider in this space, but there’s still a lot one can discuss considering THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE.

For example, it was released October 24, 1962, right in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis during which Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union reached their coldest.

On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. (THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE builds up to an assassination.)

For over two decades, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE became withdrawn from circulation.

Some believe it was because JFK’s assassination had such a toll on Sinatra that he sat on the film.

Apparently, Sinatra had made such a poor deal with United Artists on the film that his attorneys planned for Sinatra to buy the movie’s rights himself and bury his mistake. Sinatra’s plan succeeded in 1972.

Eventually, though, the New York Film Festival organized a 25th anniversary screening of the movie in 1987 and its success led to a theatrical re-release in 1988. Apparently, Sinatra got a better deal this second time. We all got a better deal when THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE saw the light of day once again.

The film’s tagline certainly gets at the truth of the matter: “If you come in five minutes after this picture begins, you won’t know what it’s all about! When you’ve seen it all, you’ll swear there’s never been anything like it!”

Black Belt Jones (1974)

BLACK BELT JONES (1974) One star
Jim Kelly (he of the “unorthodox” martial arts style in ENTER THE DRAGON) and Gloria Hendry (she played a role in LIVE AND LET DIE) are the stars of BLACK BELT JONES, a blaxploitation karate film half-ENTER THE DRAGON and half-SHAFT.

Their best scene involves a half-seduction, half-fight on a beach, replete with one liners, back flips, and explicit musical score, as well as one bystander’s acoustic guitar smashed and busted balloons. Finally, we have a continuation of this scene with first Kelly and Hendry in tight embrace and then holding hands on the beach until we get a morning after scene before we’re ready for the film’s heaviest action.

I did not believe a second of BLACK BELT JONES. I believed more in ENTER THE DRAGON and DRUNKEN MASTER, even if just for the length of the movie. The plot of BLACK BELT JONES defines standard issue yet its details are disgustingly inappropriate.

Sometimes the punches and kicks appear not to have actually hit their mark. Sometimes the villains are outrageously incompetent. We get a lot of those high flying slow motion sequences with deafening sound and vocal effects like grunts and groans and taped ping pong paddles struck against Naugahyde sofas. Any time any character raises their fists and feet during this film they make loud noises. This movie should have been called ATTACK OF THE SOUND EFFECTS. Granted, I realize that this complaint likely could apply to virtually every “old school” martial arts film, but I only make this complaint because BLACK BELT JONES fails on so many levels.

You should observe Scatman Crothers’ death scene. Yes, Scatman Crothers, a great character actor like Slim Pickens and Bradford Dillman. Ah, Scatman Crothers, a nice black man with a great big smile. You may remember him from ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, THE SHINING (axed by Jack Torrance), and TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. I’m trying to forget he was in ZAPPED!

In this film, Scatman plays a property owner whose property lies on the mother lode of a great big real estate development project. He’s the last property owner denying progress — here it’s a karate school rather than roller boogie rink (ROLLER BOOGIE) or barbershop (WHO’S THE MAN?).

Anyway, local heavies lean heavily on Scatman’s character, Wesley “Papa” Byrd, and he dies from the weakest punch in history. Not just cinematic history, but the history of history. To honor this man, the coroner listed cause of death as heart attack rather than “weakest punch in history.”

Back to the real plot of BLACK BELT JONES.

There’s one (several, I get confused) of those patented karate movie moments where a hero’s slow motion kick dispatches a goon through a distant plate glass window garnering the goon some frequent flier miles.

There’s a lot of windows broken during BLACK BELT JONES, by the way.

Just once I’d love a hero to remain in slow motion while a goon stays in normal speed and moves out of the path of destruction so the hero flies straight out the damn window, still in slow motion of course.

In the second paragraph, we mentioned the film’s heaviest action. Here it is: an obligatory car chase, some gun shots, and the great big final karate showdown involving lots and lots and lots of bubbles (it’s a long story) with no showerhead and rubber ducky in sight. This is obviously the cleanest fight scene in film history.

After the sordid content that came before in BLACK BELT JONES, I can understand the urge to come out clean.

Friday the 13th Part III (1982)

DAY 30, FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III (1982) Three stars
On their movie review program “Sneak Previews,” Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert hated just about every slasher film (Ebert called them “Dead Teenager” movies) that came down the pike after HALLOWEEN. They lambasted MANIAC, THE BURNING, MADMAN, MY BLOODY VALENTINE, HE KNOWS YOU’RE ALONE, MOTHER’S DAY, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (nearly all those picked “Dogs of the Week”), but seemed to save their greatest reserves of spleen for the FRIDAY THE 13TH series. That’s okay, they weren’t alone in condemning the series.

Coming of age in the late-1980s and early-1990s, slasher films played a formative role in my filmgoing experience. One way or another, I caught up with all the Jason, Freddy, Michael Myers, Chucky, et cetera, movies. Why were these films so popular amongst young people? Must have felt that we were rebelling against the decorum set for us young people by our elders. Also sure that we were reveling in the forbidden.

PART III was my very first FRIDAY THE 13TH movie (saw it about 30 years ago) and that must contribute to why it’s among my favorites in the series all these years later.

It’s not a good movie in any traditional way shape or form and it has a lot of the same underlying problems as the other movies in the long-running series, but it’s very entertaining and silly at least until the body count starts piling up. Hey, let’s face it, though, we don’t watch movies like FRIDAY THE 13TH for the same reasons that we watch other movies. We go for the body count, No. 1, then the other exploitation movie elements like gore, nudity, and general vulgarity. The characters are often superficial archetypes, the dialogue is nothing to write home about, and it’s all very predictable. To some degree, we like it that way.

With it being originally filmed in 3-D, that only adds to the silliness of PART III because there must be at least 50 gimmick shots for the sake of the 3-D, including ones where Jason squeezes our male protagonist’s head until his eyeball heads straight for us and Jason’s first kill wearing his iconographic hockey mask. Additionally, we have a disco variation on Harry Manfredini’s score over the gonzo opening credits and some new character archetypes for the slaughter, like a married couple with the male partner suggesting Tommy Chong and a would-be motorcycle gang who gives Jason his first opportunity to kill outside his race.

Just keep in mind the FRIDAY THE 13TH movies have a transcendent appeal; for example, Kim Jong-il (1941-2011) loved him some Jason along with Rambo and Godzilla and rapper Big Daddy Kane used Jason for a rhyme in “Ain’t No Half Steppin.'”

For whatever reason, PART III generates more suspense than any other entry in the series. Steve Miner, assistant director on the first movie, remains the only person to direct more than one installment and that just might be the difference maker. Miner directed PART 2 and PART III.

I mentioned problems and there’s about 10 minutes of my life (multiplied by every time I see this sequence unless I fast-forward) that I will never get back when Jason dispatches Harold and Edna early in the movie, two unfortunate proprietors of a lakefront store. I call this hallmark of the genre “filler killings,” ones that pad running time or serve a body count (PART V fills that bill) and no greater purpose to the movie as a whole. Of course, haters of the genre would say that “filler killings” describe the entire movie.

Also, we have another shock ending that’s only shocking in just how non-shocking it turns out to be. Just about every slasher film in the era had a shock ending. This one almost defies belief.

Larry Zerner, who plays the asshole prankster Shelly, became an entertainment lawyer and Tracie Savage covered the Heidi Fleiss and O.J. Simpson trials as TV reporter, so undoubtedly PART III both served them well in their later careers.

Jason acquires his trademark hockey mask from Shelly. Jason’s played in PART III by British trapeze artist Richard Brooker, who apparently believed that playing a psychopathic killer was his entry way into a successful movie career. “It felt great with the mask on,” Brooker said. “It just felt like I really was Jason because I didn’t have anything to wear before that.”

After his screen debut as Jason, Brooker (1954-2013) appeared in DEATHSTALKER, “Trapper John, M.D.,” and DEEP SEA CONSPIRACY. Brooker later went into TV directing, for example “Bill Nye the Science Guy.” A fan-made documentary FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE MEMORIAM DOCUMENTARY appeared on YouTube in early 2018, which memorialized Brooker by interviews with FRIDAY THE 13TH luminaries and an on-screen dedication to his memory.

Final girl Dana Kimmell appeared in the Chuck Norris action spectacular LONE WOLF McQUADE after FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III. There’s a meme out there, “Chris Higgins survived her encounter with Jason because Chuck Norris wanted Chris Higgins to survive her encounter with Jason.” That’s great and everything, but there’s an alternate ending to PART III where Jason decapitated Chris (Kimmell).

Still, that gets me thinking about what would happen if Chuck Norris met Jason Voorhees in a movie.