For a while now I have been working at getting a decent collection of old TV series. When I say old I mean pretty old, from the mid to late 60’s to the mid 70’s. Pre-cable shows that I grew up on essentially I can sometimes find these in boxed sets here in China. For example I have both the complete original Star Trek and Hogan’s Heroes and one day am going to get the Addams Family at the DVD stores I drop into once in a while. Of course these are all pirated and cheap as hell but of excellent quality so far. Other shows are a bit harder to locate and I am using a Rapidshare based site now to piece together The Munsters series little by little. Those RS sites have lots of series but I am really lazy about copying and pasting the files one by one so I tend to put them together over a long period of time. The shows can also sometimes be found the shows on sites like Isohunt or Pirate Bay which is great. I got the complete run of Kung Fu with David Carradine from Isohunt as well as all of the Gilligan’s Islands episodes. I also have a membership at a ratio based TV show site connected to Cinemageddon but it can hard to maintain a good ratio at those type of sites –which can result in getting banned- and so I cannot get the things I want when I want them. So I have a membership but am afraid to download anything I like. Right now working on getting in season one of Hawaii Five-O from that CG ratio based TV show site and may see if I can get somewhere else since I cannot seem to seed of any of it back. Well at the wonderful The Horror Charnel –another ration based site- I just got in the complete one season run of one of the best TV series of all time, Kolchak: The Night Stalker. I burned the 20 episodes and began watching them last night.

You can argue that if it was such a good series why did it last only one season? Who knows. We live in a world where Beyonce’s music and videos are in your face all day and night but not a person I know owns a King Crimson or Andy Summers album. The show just did not fare well against its Friday night competition on NBC it seems. The series aired in 1974 on ABC and was based on the character Carl Kolchak –played to perfection by the Darren McGavin- created for the made for TV movies The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler. The shows follow the adventures of the shabbily dressed Carl Kolchak who works at the under-staffed and under-budgeted INS news bureau in Chicago where he employs his journalistic talents either covered mob hits or filling in for the “Dear Emily” writer when she is ill. We hardly ever see any of Chicago’s horrid winter weather as Carl drives around in near constant sunshine in his convertible Ford Mustang talking into his cassette recorder. Of course the shows hook is that he is constantly getting pulled into supernatural situation or another as his investigation of a recent murder unfolds. He encounters anything and everything from incarnations of Jack the Ripper to Werewolves and Vampires. Kolchak is the absolute quintessential non-hero. He packs no gun or knife and more often than not winds up screaming like a little girl and jumping out a window in the presence of the evil force he is facing. And to be honest Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson would have probably done the same thing in real life if confronted with a werewolf or vampire in their closet.

On top of supernatural terrors Kolchak must deal with one cynical police chief after another who ignores his questions at press conferences. But the greatest adversary he must contend with each week is his old school news paper chief Tony Vincenzo –played by perennial tough guy Simon Oakland who backed up Steve McQeen in Bullitt- who spends each episode trying to pull Carl off each case and assigning him to some mundane story. Invariably Vincenzo winds up backing Kolchak and having his faith in his ‘star’ reporter restored… only to lose it again again next episode. The relationship between Vincenzo and Kolchak is classic and adds comic relief to the show’s themes of horror and mayhem. Also refreshing is that McGavin and I have only seen The Ripper episode and half of The Zombie so far but am about to hit the sofa –I am supposed to be studying Chinese- and watch a few more episodes this afternoon. This is classic TV. Before the idea of drama of comedy became a bunch of selfish over sexed yuppies insulting each other for an hour. It was a time when shows had a simple but effective formula they stuck to each week and milked it for all it was worth. Just look what was done with shows like Gilligan’s Island or Hogan’s Heroes. The same cast and same props every week but I never got tired of it. The same with Kolchak. The same clutterd office and grumpy boss each week but with a different monster and resourceful method of whacking the creature during the shows last five minutes. I guess I am just old school but this is a lot cooler than Lost or Prison Break in my book.

FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY

1973/Director: Jack Smight/Writers: Don Bachardy, Christopher Isherwood

Cast: Michael Sarrazin, James Mason, Leonard Whiting, David McCallum, Jane Seymour, Nicola Pagett, Agnes Moorehead, John Gielgud, Tom Baker

I was lucky enough to actually see this fine film when it first aired on NBC as a two part movie back in 1973. I had not been able to see it again until only recently when I got a hold of the restored and full length, about three hours or more I guess, Universal Presents Frankenstein: The True Story DVD version. I read that there was an edited VHS version that was based more on the shortened European version of the film but never saw it. Now while the title claims it to be the ‘true version’ I understand that a few liberties were made with the original Mary Shelley story, which I have never read, and we will touch on at least one of those later in the review. I guess to get the final word one may have to go visit Pierre’s Frankensteinia blog, which I did earlier when doing some research for this post but I actually did not find an article there on this most excellent Frankentstein film and hope one appears soon. If there is a post there I apologize in advance and if not beg that one be made someday. The same year that Frankenstein: The True Story came out another made for TV film was released that was written and produced by Dan Curtis that starred Robert Foxworth as Dr. Victor Frankenstein and Bo Svenson. I also saw that version though I would need to see it again to refresh my memory on the story but it too made some claims to being mostly true to the original story. I am not a Frankenstein movie scholar (I am no sort of movie scholar to be quite frank) but I know that 1974 saw the last of the Hammer Frankenstein films with the fairly decent Terence Fisher film Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell which I reviewed here some time ago. Throughout the sixties Hammer had taken the Frankenstein story and did several new things with it and whether those were always great is debatable but it did pump life back into the legend as it also did with Dracula. There is, in my opinion, visual influence on this film version by director Jack Smight from Hammer and even veteran Hammer make up artist Roy Ashton did the effective make up for the monster. After all the fantastic stories and interpretations by Hammer it seemed time to reign the monster back in and recreate him yet once again.

MORE FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY HERE >>

BAD RONALD

1974/Director: Buzz Kulik/Writers: John Holbrook Vance, Andrew Peter Marin

Cast: Scott Jacoby, Pippa Scott, John Larch, Dabney Coleman, Kim Hunter

Bad Ronald is probably one of the more enduring Movie of the Week features. People of my decrepit age range will remember that each of the networks had a Movie of the Week during the early seventies period and the selections were often cheesy but I seldom missed any.  In ABC’s Bad Ronald sott Jacoby  plays the more eccentric than bad Ronald Wilby and Kim Hunter (Stella from A Streetcar Named Desire) plays his ailing but protective mother. He accidentally kills a bratty little neighbor girl and his mom seals him up in a secret room behind the pantry to avoid the cops sending him off to prison. While in the secret room he pursues his studies and his creation of his fantasy world Atranta where he makes himself the prince. His mother dies and a new family, with Dabney Coleman as the dad, moves in and Ronald spies on them and steals food from them while they are out. He becomes fixated on the youngest daughter who become his ‘princess’ in is fantasy land.  and soon his sanity is slipping over the edge. The character progresses well from dorky geek to delusional fugitive to psycho fairly well and one cannot help but feel sympathy for Ronald. Especially anyone who knew what it was like to be a school nerd. The movie inspired the name for a rap-rock band whose music I have never heard.

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DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK

1973/Director: John Newland/Writer: Nigel McKeand

Cast: Kim Darby, Jim Hutton, Barbara Anderson, William Demarest

Don’t be Afraid of the Dark was another memorable ABC Movie of the Week starring Kim Darby (True Girt), Jim Hutton (“Pee-ta-son, Pee-ta-son” from the John Wayne directed The Green Berets) and William Demarest (Uncle Charley from My Three Sons). The film is a haunted house feature that I have read is going to remade one day by Miramax. Darby and Hutton play a married couple who have moved in the huge house Sally (Darby) has recently inherited from her aunt. It needs some fixing up and grumpy handyman Mr. Harris (Demarest) is there to fix the plumping and keep everyone he can out of the basement. And for good reason. There are tiny, mischievous stop-action animated creatures living in the sealed up chimney there aching to get out and wreck havoc on anyone the take a dislike to. For some reason they focus their ire on sweet little Kim Darby. Jim Hutton plays her husband Alex who is busy moving up the company ladder and has little time for his wife’s vivid imagination. The move ends on a surprisingly (for the time) bleak note. The creatures look pretty creepy actually and it is a tight little story. Remember these films were only about 75 minutes long with 15 minutes of commercials. It can be hard to really develop a good story in such a short time and often Movies of the Week missed the mark, but with Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark they came as close to a bulls-eye as you could get.

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STRAYS

1991/Director: John McPherson/Writer: Shaun Cassidy

Cast: Kathleen Quinlan, Timothy Busfield, Claudia Christian, William Boyett

The rather strange and simply bad Strays is a TV movie made for the USA network in 1991. By this time the idea of the Movie of the Week has been replaced by the made for cable TV type movies that sometimes churned out some flicks almost as good as what one can find at the local theater. Well this one is not in that category but I sat through it and can recommend it for cheese lovers only. The movie is written and co-produced by former Teen Beat idol Shaun Cassidy and the movie could have almost worked except for the fact that the ‘monster’ who we see creeping around and stalking the inhabitants of a house out in the boondocks is actually a cat. Not a tiger or even ocelot. Not a pussy cat exposed to radiation or chemical toxins, but a fat but hardly huge feral house cat who is now pissed off at human beings and kills a few of them. The house is now occupied by the Jarretts (Kathleen Quinlan and Timothy Busfield) and their daughter Tessa (who appears to have been played by twins Heather and Jessica Lilly). There is some plot tension added by Linsey’s (Quinlan) sister Calire (played by the usually suspect Claudia Christian) in the form of her flirtations with the faithful husband, father and ruthless divorce lawyer Paul (Busfield). The feral cat does not work alone as he has a pack of cats that he is the leader of. In the final scenes Busfield is trapped in the dark house fending off the angry cat who is constantly being thrown on him by stage hands. Look, house cats cannot take down a full grown man. Maybe a hundred of them could, but this is dual, in the end, between a puss and a average sized human male. Silly, unnecessary ending showing new buyers of the house and the sound of ominous meows in the distance. The acting by the main actors is not bad but house cats are meant to jump out of the closet and shock teenagers right before Jason or Michael Myers hacks them up, not be the killers themselves unless they possess supernatural powers. At least in Night of the Lepus the rabbits were mutated and became carnivorous. Recommended for marginal camp value and to see what Cassidy did after he stopped singing teeny-bopper hits.

My new TV category will focus on TV movies, series and specials as I recall them. Don’t expect much on Lost or Prison Break here, but do look for mention of The Munsters, Star Trek (the one with James T. Kirk), Kung Fu, Gilligan’s Island, assorted Creature Features, TV Movies and similar shows. Not all will be pre-cable. Expect some articles about newer shows like Masters of Horror as well. I really am not stuck in a time warp.

Until only recently I had never seen a episode of the British television production, by Granada Television, of the 1984 to 1994 Sherlock Holmes series starring Jeremy Brett as Conan Doyle’s master sleuth and David Burke and Edward Hardwicke taking turns at Dr. Watson. There were a few reasons for this that I will go into but in the end I think I may have been simply hard headed and biased towards anyone playing the role other than Basil Rathbone. But that is not the only reason and as time has gone on I can see some flaws in the Rathbone films, though not in his particularly perfect portrayal of Holmes. I picked up the boxed set with Brett a month or so ago and at the same time begin re-reading some of the stories in my two volume collection of the complete adventures of Sherlock Holmes that I keep on my bedside table, usually along side a couple books by Louis Lamour and Fyodor Dostoyevsky (my moods fluctuate obviously). I went into the series with some skepticism but not to the degree I will approach the new Guy Ritchie/Robert Downey Jr. interpretation.

My main concern was not with Jeremy Brett, who I knew nothing of but had read for some time that his performance is highly praised, but with the fact it was a British TV production. I typically do not like British TV shows, with exceptions of course, simply because of the way they look. The sets usually look like stage sets (even when they’re not) and the camera work looks jumpy and washed out, as if it were all shot on video rather than film. For all I know it may be. Sometimes the camera work is in and out of focus and the sound quality is flat at best. More like some drama you would see on PBS than on American prime time or cable. Which is not to say that what shows up on US TV is really better in substance but is usually better in form than most British TV which is in strange contrast to the usually above average look and feel of British cinema.

MORE OF JEREMY BRETT AS SHERLOCK HOLMES HERE >>

IMPRINT

2006/Director: Takashi Miike /Writers: Mike Garris, Daisuke Tengan

Cast: Billy Drago, Youki Kudoh, Michie Itô, Toshie Negishi

I really liked the movie Audition by Miike and have seen a handful of his other works such as Visitor Q, Gozu, Ichi the Killer and something called Izu I think. I guess I am getting a feel of what his work is about and it seems to be primarily shock style cinema. That is, jolt the audience with freaky and offensive imagery with an emphasis on anything taboo and deviant and blasphemous. No subtlty. There is nothing necessarily wrong with that in my book. I guess nothing in his movies is any worse than some of the scenes from Saving Private Ryan in a way. I am an above average fan of splatter and gore cinema from way back. The problem I have with Miike’s films is the same problem I have with some one like lets say Dario Argento. I just have no friggin’ clue as to what the movie is supposed to be about. Audition and Visitor Q seem to have some effective linear narrative going on but the other movies I’ve seen just seem to abandon plot for well photographed but ultimately pointless scenes designed to simply disgust or offend the viewer. The movie itself becomes nothing but a vehicle for these disturbing images rather than the other way around. The plot and story simply become secondary to the shock scenes.

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