King Kong (1976, John Guillermin), the television version

You know, a three-hour King Kong movie may just be a bad idea. Though the television version of Kong is intended to be a two-night experience, turning the original two hour and fifteen minute movie into two two-hour network blocks. An almost mini-series event, only not because the only way to get it so long is to add in a lot of excess. There’s so much pointless footage. Some of it you can tell editor Ralph E. Winters cut intentionally because it’s redundant exposition, some of it is bad special effects, some of it is just more establishing shots.

There are a handful of fine additions. I can’t remember a single one, however, so not a full handful. Just little moments where it wasn’t a bad addition instead of being an obviously taped in piece messing up the flow of the editing. Like the new introduction to Jeff Bridges, which makes him more capable than Jessica Lange will give him credit for later on, at least as far as his ruthlessness. Arguably, it’s probably worse than anything bad guy Charles Grodin does (intentionally).

The worst addition are the extended Skull Island natives sequences. Unless you count the score, which doesn’t seem like the original John Barry score, rather some junior editor’s attempt to reuse the original John Barry score for another forty-five minutes or so. But it’s not just adding more music, it’s taking it away, so the television version actually breaks sequences. Often.

The stretched out Kong still spends most of its time on the island, but with a lot more material at the beginning. There’s a semi-good moment—when first mate stand-in Ed Lauter rolls his eyes at Grodin being extra and having to pretend it’s legit. Kong’s got a very interesting approach to camp; director Guillermin refuses to do it and the cast refuses to emote it, but the script’s still got it. The contrasts give the film a lot of personality (for a while).

But there’s also a lot more stuff with the natives preparing their sacrifice to Kong. There’s enough shots of the dancing natives, with a focus on the uncredited girl going to be sacrificed. See, you can’t stretch exceptionally problematic sequences too long because it just invites reflection; not only the characterization of the tribe, but the entire racist, colonizer nature of King Kong, which the film ends up playing with a tiny bit but also the logic to it. There’s absolutely no reason to think the fifty foot tall ape likes Jessica Lange more because she’s a blonde white lady and there’s also no reason to think he ate the regular native brides. It seems far more likely he takes them, plays with them like living dolls, then gets them killed through carelessness, month after month (timed to the full moon). You can even rationalize the natives’ elaborate dance sequence as amusing to Kong in the distant past so he wouldn’t eat the funny little hairless micro-apes.

There is so much empty time in Kong’s three hours. So much time to reflect.

Like how there’s an added scene with a couple guys perving on Lange onboard the ship—the only time she’s seriously objectified even though she dresses like it’s a skimpy casual photo shoot—and they end up dying first on the log sequence.

So are we supposed to feel a little less bad about them going?

The extra footage also implies more character development for the crew—namely Jack O’Halloran and Julius Harris—which doesn’t go anywhere but it’s an almost interesting idea, the perspectives of the crew on this wild goose chase.

Grodin gets another scene or two but ends up suffering the most in the extension. He’s barely in the second half of the film, which is really too bad since he’s initially the one who can sell the muted camp the best. He’s a profoundly good middle manager jackass.

The extra scenes literalize the ending with Lange and Bridges, which is too bad but I guess it’s cool to know it’s the film’s original intent. Also the more literalize, the more obvious Bridges is one weak dude. Despite his solid abs, which get at least one more scene this version, maybe two. He can’t cut it with Lange, who despite being initially characterized as ditzy is never ditzy once she gets going because her performance is too good. It’s even more clear with the excess footage—Guillermin just sets the camera on Lange and lets her vamp. It’s an incredibly bold, incredibly good, incredibly unappreciated move.

Kong’s all about the interiority of Lange’s experience. Well, when she’s in the movie. She also disappears in this version, thanks to more Kong in New York, which runs hot and cold, but then subzero when the finale—because TV version—cuts out most of the blood and gore in the showdown. Sadly the uncredited TV version editor doesn’t take advantage of the constraint to emphasis Lange and Bridges’s experience of it but what can you do.

Bridges is okay. The character doesn’t age well, what with him willing to ignore Kong in plight to finally score with Lange, even though their delayed romance seems entirely due to his classism and lack of confidence in her. There’s potential for a weird love quartet between Kong, Bridges, Lange, and Grodin, with only Grodin understanding Lange’s superego.

But it’s not in this television cut. It’s also not in the theatrical cut. But the theatrical cut doesn’t so definitely decide against it. The television cut adds a bunch of minutes, reduces a bunch of character and, consequently, performances. And the John Barry score. And it does a disservice to Ralph E. Winters’s editing.

And probably Richard H. Kline’s because it screws up the pace of the special effects accomplishments.

I’ve probably been wanting to see King Kong: the Television Version since my first Leonard Maltin movie guide, thirty plus years ago now; it’s all right. It could be worse. But it’s definitely not one of those cases of the expanded version bettering the film. Quite the opposite.

Though, for while he’s in the movie, Rene Auberjonois is a lot better with more to do, even when it’s mugging through transition montage material.

And Lange is excellent as ever.

Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985, Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat)

Life is profoundly cheap in Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. The film’s ostensibly about little human orphan Aubree Miller’s adventure with her Ewok buddy Warwick Davis and the old man (Wilford Brimley) who takes care of them after a group of bad guys appear out of nowhere and destroy the Ewok village and pew pew away Miller’s family, who survived the previous Ewok movie. I believe that one also had Ewoks with names other than Davis’s one (who can speak English here); no names for the Ewoks anymore. Also not much Ewok action. They disappear for a large portion of the movie, when it’s apparently more fun to watch Brimley pretend to be a mean old man to newly orphaned Miller and separated from his tribe Davis.

Davis’s subplot about the missing Ewoks is kind of the important one until evil human witch Siân Phillips—who lives in bad guy Carel Struycken’s medieval castle and has never heard of spaceships before Miller tells her about them—kidnaps Miller so Miller can explain interstellar travel to Struycken. Struycken and his gang are aliens, but extremely cheap ones for a Star Wars product; apparently their species is based on some bad Ralph McQuarrie concept drawings from Empire Strikes Back.

Doesn’t matter.

The first act, ruining Miller’s life and making Davis’s rather inconvenient, is fairly bad. For whatever reason, directors Wheat are quite bad at the action sequence involving Struycken attacking the village. Some of it’s clearly budget—not sure who decided it was too expensive to do matte paintings of the Ewok village (or just use some Kenner playset backdrops)—but some of it’s just bad directing. Rather inglorious farewells to returning actors Eric Walker and Paul Gleason, though Gleason’s is much worse just for being in the movie longer.

The second act’s tedious and cloying, though Miller’s not anywhere near as obnoxious as she could be—initially it seems weird she and Davis treat being on the run from a murderous gang like being on a nature hike, but given how bad it gets when she and Brimley talk about their feelings… I mean, at least the nature walk has pretty scenery. It’ll eventually look just like the forests from Return of the Jedi, but then because they’re obviously using footage from a better movie—even if it weren’t the competent special effects or better film stock, Davis’s costume doesn’t have the weird eyes he gets in this one.

They go really cheap on the Ewok costumes, so it’s pretty impressive when the third act action sequences are actually not bad. They can’t save Battle for Endor (it’s a fairly tepid battle, though based on the variety of alien species, it’d be interesting to know how they all evolved), but once the Ewoks come back into the movie… it’s occasionally entertaining. Even if the Ewok costumes look like pajama sets with matching slippers.

Other bad elements include Peter Bernstein’s music—he’ll occasionally imply some John Williams but never followthrough (it’s a shock when they use actual Star Wars sound effects for thirteen seconds, around the time Brimley gets to pretend he’s Harrison Ford and then they drop it because it doesn’t play because Miller clearly hasn’t seen A New Hope–but then Bernstein turns around and misses an obvious Jaws reference, which reminds me Endor gets very slapstick with its violence at the end. But no less fatal.

Also real bad is Isidore Mankofsky’s photography but what he’s going to do with the Brothers Wheat directing. Eric Jenkins’s editing is fine. Joe Johnston’s production design is not, but how much can you blame on him unless he’s personally responsible for the truly terrible matte paintings.

Brimley isn’t any good but he keeps it together far better than anyone could expect. He earns his paycheck, most definitely. He, Miller, and Davis don’t really embarrass themselves… as opposed to almost everyone else involved.

Elizabeth Is Missing (2019, Aisling Walsh)

I’m not sure what I thought Elizabeth Is Missing was going to be—I only half read a description—but when it became clear Glenda Jackson’s character (not Elizabeth) would be searching for that character (played by Maggie Steed) but also Jackson having Alzheimer’s and also sort of live action flashbacks with her younger self… Well, I hoped they weren’t going to do a Memento where the gimmick was someone’s Alzheimer’s.

My hope was not realized. Elizabeth Is Missing is indeed a ninety-ish minute pseudo-mystery where there’s no mystery it’s just Jackson’s Alzheimer’s is getting worse and she’s having a lot of bad memory triggers. Jackson not understanding what’s going on is director Walsh, screenwriter Andrea Gibb, and presumably source novelist Emma Healey’s gimmick. Jackson can’t remember the really important parts of the plot so we discover them late, creating opportunity for Jackson to experience realizing she’s not remembering something and consequently having a trauma.

So while Jackson’s really good, it’s by definition exploitative. Like. Dementia advisor or not; the plot itself is inherently exploitative.

Bummer, I guess? In hindsight—you know, if you went through and looked for all the signs Bruce Willis was a ghost, which I’m sure you can—it’s probably inevitable it’s going to fail. The scant subplot about Jackson’s daughter, Helen Behan (who should talk to her agent about better parts), being exhausted with having to care for an ailing parent while her older brother and the prize child (Sam Hazeldine) occasionally Skypes from Germany and is no help… they definitely could’ve done it better. I just hadn’t realized it was them doing it the best they could.

Because Jackson’s really good and you’re really invested in her and flipping it to make her an unreliable narrator and a pitiable subject… it’s really unfortunate. And a waste of Jackson’s time. There’s a far better movie in granddaughter Nell Williams and Jackson, I don’t know, going to the library for ninety minutes in real time than there is in a Double MacGuffin with Cheese murder mystery.

The flashbacks are all about young Jackson—played by Liv Hill—and her missing sister Sophie Rundle, which has all sorts of analogues with missing best friend Steed. It also has the memory loss MacGuffin being the only part because there’s no character development for young Hill. And there’s also a deus ex machina? Because it’s really lazy and a waste of everyone’s time.

Kind of good music from Dominik Scherrer; like a horror movie score but he never leans into it enough.

But no. They can’t even manage to give Jackson a good part by the end of it. Once they’ve made all the reveals, the filmmakers have no enthusiasm for the finish. Behan and Williams have some good moments—though Williams’s are a lot less problematic than Behan’s—otherwise the supporting cast is middling.

It’s a strange, unfortunate ninety minutes.

Bad Education (2019, Cory Finley)

Bad Education is the story of a junior in high school (Geraldine Viswanathan) uncovering the biggest school embezzlement case in United States history, something like $12 million dollars. Only it’s not Viswanathan’s movie. It’s Hugh Jackman’s movie, which makes sense because Hugh Jackman’s great in it. Not transcendent, but he’s really good. He can’t be transcendent because Finley’s direction and particularly Mike Makowsky’s script… it doesn’t let him be. Jackman’s got to be the star but can’t be the protagonist, can’t even be the main character, even though—in its final stumble—the film tries hard to force it for the postscript.

It’s disappointing, but the whole third act’s disappointing so, while maybe a surprise, not an unpredictable one.

Also a bigger star in the movie than Viswanathan is Allison Janney. She plays school district superintendent Jackman’s assistant superintendent. The one who handles all the money. Janney and Jackman are excellent together so it’s really too bad when they don’t get to have any more scenes together. Unlike everyone else Jackman plays off—school board president Ray Romano, accountant Jeremy Shamos, boyfriend (and former student, but we’ll get to this one in a bit) Rafael Casal, and then partner of thirty-three years Stephen Spinella, Jackman doesn’t bullshit Janney, so you get some insight into the character in their interactions. Because the rest of the time you’re just watching to see if Jackman’s going to turn out to be the sociopath he seems destined to turn out to be.

Plus… they make Janney sympathetic. She’s got genuine nice guy husband Ray Abruzzo looking out for her and if he loves her, she can’t be all bad. Right? Meanwhile, the film introduces Jackman being gay after him hooking up with former student Casal (who he coincidentally meets while at a conference). It makes Jackman look like a creepy closeted teacher—even giving him an apparently fake dead wife—when, in actuality, the Casal romance seems the most honest look we’re getting at Jackman. It’s humanizing, even as the movie presents manipulatively.

Compounding it being problematic is apparently it’s all fictitious; yes, the real guy was gay, yes, he had a long-term relationship, but he never hooked up with a student or faked having a dead wife. So… odd choice, bad choice, especially since when it doesn’t pan out at all it leaves Jackman’s only character development subplot unresolved.

Ditto some of the stuff about Jackman as educator, which might be hard to play—as it involves Viswanathan (Jackman’s encouragement is what gives her the self-confidence to dig as a school paper reporter)–and there’s a scene where Jackman kind of threatens Viswanathan and Finley doesn’t direct it well. Finley’s constantly showcasing Jackman when the attention should be somewhere else. It’s disappointing. Especially after it seems like Finley’s seemingly gotten past some of the problems and adjusted the narrative distance, only for him to fall back into the same techniques.

Good supporting performances from Shamos and Romano. Janney’s great. Not much of a part but she’s great. Hari Dhillon’s occasionally in it as Viswanathan’s dad. He’s good.

It’s simultaneously not creative enough and too creative while doing the docudrama thing. Finley gets good and better performances from the cast and his composition’s… fine, but his direction holds back the character development. And the script’s already got problems with it. Someone needs to be invested in the characters, not unfolding the story. Someone besides the actors.

Bad Education’s pretty good considering it’s all over the place.

In the Gloaming (1997, Christopher Reeve)

In the Gloaming is a qualified success. If you’re trying to go for humanizing a guy dying of AIDS while his upper middle class White yuppie family is slow to realize he’s a dying person who they probably ought not to avoid because they’ll regret it… it does that job. Gloaming is an hour-long HBO movie, based on a New Yorker story, all set in and around Glenn Close and David Strathairn’s picture perfect home in Westchester County, New York. Straithairn presumably works in the city, but it’s never actually clear. Doesn’t really matter. Just they’ve got enough money to have a gorgeous house but no servants.

And son Robert Sean Leonard has come home to die.

The film’s a series of what you know the filmmakers would prefer you think of as vignettes, as Close bonds with Leonard while Strathairn gets pissy. Close has to overcome the fear she’s responsibility for Leonard being gay because she was nice to him as a kid. She wasn’t as nice to his sister, Bridget Fonda, who grew up to be too much of a yuppie even for Close, off married with child, but the son and husband don’t come around because AIDS is gross and so’s Leonard being gay. But it’s okay because Fonda’s going to cry when he’s dead? Maybe. Not resolved. The vignettes are more like clips of the character development without any follow-up. Like when Strathairn, finally coming to terms with Leonard’s impending death, thinks it’s a good time to go for some martial relations with Close. No follow-up on that one.

Plus Whoopi Goldberg’s just around as the nurse, who eventually makes Close feel better about herself.

The film’s… comprised. Screenwriter Will Scheffer does not have the chops to make the strained manners of the bourgeois somehow say more than if Strathairn actually sat down and had a conversation with Leonard. They talk a lot about how it’s going to happen, then never does. Because Strathairn’s a terrible guy, even though he grows tomatoes for Close to cook him even though he doesn’t like tomatoes much. But we’ve got to understand Strathairn’s position–he just wanted what must be a macho man in Westchester County 1997, a tennis playing gardener man. Instead he got son Leonard, who went off to Berkeley and became gay. Meanwhile, why doesn’t anyone love Fonda enough, she’s doing her part, working full-time and wearing pantsuits and being mean to her own son so he doesn’t turn out gay.

Yes, Gloaming is from 1997. Yes, it’s from HBO. Yes, it’s from a New Yorker story (but 1997 New Yorker so… I mean… right?). But it has a lot it’s not willing to address. Scared to address. Leaving Strathairn, Fonda, and Goldberg with somewhat pointless parts. Fonda’s scary good as the shittiest human being and Goldberg’s at least likable. Strathairn’s just tiresome. He’s a one note caricature, with some “details” thrown in to round him. Doesn’t work.

So after two paragraphs dunking on it, why is In the Gloaming a qualified success?

Because the stuff with Leonard and Close, as they bond and work through his imminent mortality—mind you, they don’t get real character development in the script because of that vignette structure–it’s great work from Close and Leonard. The script limits them, sure. But Reeve works the hell out of their scenes together. And it resolves their relationship just right. Then ruins it with the actual last scene, which is an eye-roll and a half.

But Leonard and Close. They’re real good. They do so much with… not so little, but so… comprised a material. They refuse to let it limit their performances, which is cool.

Reeve’s direction is fine. He likes crane shots and doesn’t get to do enough of them. Good photography from Frederick Elmes. David Ray’s editing is a little too hurried, which is strange because of the the oddly manipulative nature montages–it’s like HBO is slamming their affluent viewers over the head with, “It could be your sons too, White women ages 45-55 who like Glenn Close!”—but then Ray’s got no sense of cutting when it comes to the dialogue scenes.

It’s like Reeve tried to direct it as a stage adaptation but without the play backbone.

Very heavily Scottish-influenced Dave Grusin score, which is weird (and figures into the plot); it’s a good score, it’s just a lot.

But it’s definitely a missed opportunity overall. It’s aged like flat root beer.

So, technically, earnestly, but unenthusiastically recommended.

Duel (1971, Steven Spielberg), the theatrical version

The first act of Duel ought to be enough to carry it. Spielberg’s direction, Frank Morriss’s editing, even Jack A. Marta’s workman photography—it’s spellbinding. It even gets through lead Dennis Weaver calling home to fight with his wife and revealing to the audience he’s a wuss. See, last night he and the wife went to a party and some guy groped her and Weaver didn’t do anything and now she’s mad. Jacqueline Scott’s the wife. She’s in one scene, a handful of shots, at home taking care of the kids after the incident while Weaver’s driving across the state (of California) for a business meeting. The whole account depends on it, but really it’s because he’s a wuss. Weaver’s a wuss, which… isn’t actually part of Duel’s initial narrative impulse because the phone call to the wife is added material for the theatrical release. Duel is a TV movie turned theatrical release (for international markets).

Weaver’s even more of an annoying wuss because he puts up his leg in a very pseudo-macho way while on the phone. It’s weird. And it’s a lot, but Duel can get through it because it’s so well-made.

See, Weaver’s driving to this meeting and he pisses off a truck driver. That truck driver starts messing with Weaver, not letting him pass, roaring past him, waving him on into another vehicle. A rural highway nightmare. What’s Weaver going to do about it with his machismo posturing after all. But Weaver doesn’t really matter—not even as much as the comedy bit playing on his radio—what matters is how Spielberg and Morriss tell this story. Well, to be fair to writer Richard Matheson… relate this anecdote.

And if Duel were a short or led Psycho-style into something else, it’d be fine. But once Weaver gets around other people and starts narrating the film with his thoughts… there’s only so much good filmmaking can do and covering for Weaver’s basically obnoxious performance is too much. Especially given how the narration doesn’t exactly sync up with the character onscreen and definitely not in the implications of his relationship with Scott. Because it turns out—though it’s a single mention then gone—Weaver’s a Vietnam vet and he might be suffering from some kind of PTSD. It’s such a surprise you spend the entire scene where white collar Weaver is trying to figure out how to speak with blue collar working men—he’s going to tell off the truck driver, who he thinks is in this roadside restaurant with him—wondering how the hell Weaver made it back alive.

There’s no help from Weaver on it, of course (I get the feeling hearing Weaver describe his character would be a trip), because his performance is… a step too far into disbelief. Killer truck driver who runs cars off the road then goes and gets their plates as trophies, yes. Dennis Weaver not being able to make a traumatized beta male sympathetic in the slightest, no.

The second half of the film—basically everything following the restaurant and Weaver’s narration starting—moves fast but not well. Nothing Weaver does is reasonable (he’s already missed the meeting, yet continues driving towards it even though the film’s established he can’t be late), Spielberg gets obvious in the reveals. Not to mention when the truck does finally turn into a six ton slasher and go all in on attacking Weaver and anyone around him (though not the school bus, in an inserted for the theatrical sequence; because Weaver in danger isn’t anywhere near as sympathetic as annoying school kids), it’s only impressive as far as the stunt driving goes.

Duel’s beautifully made for a while, then it’s well-executed albeit middling, then it’s a little tedious. Given it’s a real-ish time thriller about White middle class suspicions of the White working class being validated in a terrifying way… it shouldn’t get tedious. The tediousness of the third act is interesting—somehow Duel still moves at a good pace but Weaver’s so annoying in the action it drags.

Spielberg wanted Weaver for the role because of Weaver’s turn as the creepy motel employee in Touch of Evil, which… is definitely not the same skillset required of the role in Duel, which basically turns into a “Twilight Zone” episode once the narration starts.

So it’s this great short film with this okay “Twilight Zone” episode tacked on around halfway in.

A Tattered Web (1971, Paul Wendkos)

For its sub-genre of TV movie, A Tattered Web is pretty great. It’s a dirty cop story, only the dirty cop—Lloyd Bridges—is only a dirty cop because he’s trying to protect himself from a murder change and he’s only trying to protect himself from a murder charge so he doesn’t upset his daughter (Sallie Shockley). See, Bridges only killed this woman Anne Helm because Helm was sleeping with Shockley’s husband, Frank Converse. And Bridges didn’t even mean to kill her, he was just shoving her against the wall and, boom, somehow killed her. It was an accident. And Bridges was really about to call it in before he realized he didn’t want to go to prison; even if he got a jury sympathetic to the manslaughter nature of it… Bridges was there to harass Helm for sleeping with Converse. He was abusing his authority big time. And Web is from the early seventies so theoretically he might get in trouble for it.

So the movie is Bridges trying to stay ahead of his partner, a better than his material Murray Hamilton, while trying to convince Converse there’s another murderer—because the cops are after Converse because he’s the lover—and trying to make sure Shockley doesn’t find out about Converse and Helm. There’s always a lot going on in Tattered Web; it’s got a great pace.

It’s also got a rather strong script. There are a lot of narrative shortcuts and whatnot—it’s a seventy-some minute TV movie, after all—but writer Art Wallace still takes the time to have Bridges, now fully conspiring with Converse and framing an innocent man (Broderick Crawford), there’s still this scene where Bridges just gleefully watches Converse get his ass kicked. Even though the subplot doesn’t do much for the story, Web does have this one about Bridges becoming a violence junkie. It’s not great, writing or acting, but it’s weird and imaginative and you can cut it some slack. It’s nice Wallace cares enough to do character development, which isn’t just for Bridges.

Though Bridges also has this great one about the self-loathing his cover-up is causing. There’s visible pain in Bridges’s face when he manipulates Crawford. It’s often a good performance; Bridges isn’t phoning it in. He gets carried away but only slightly. If he doesn’t rein it in himself, it’s like the film’s Converse standing by to pull Bridges back.

Converse gives the best performance. It takes him a while to get going—as he’s doing more dick things at the beginning—but then he starts getting actually good. Shockley you wish was better because she’s clearly capable of it (she pulls off the weird infantilizing interrogation scene she has with Hamilton), but she gets abandoned for the end.

The end is a drag down fist fight on cliffs overlooking the Pacific. There’s no room for girls there, just the men who have to prove themselves. It’s a poorly done action scene—Bridges’s stunt man has brown hair versus blond—but it’s a great idea in the narrative.

A Tattered Web is all right.

Tea Party (1965, Charles Jarrott)

Tea Party opens with Vivien Merchant getting a job at a toilet bowl company. The second or third shot of Party is a toilet on display. Strikingly weird without the context; director Jarrott and editor Raoul Sobel are enthusiastic about the visual possibilities without really being any good at them. It’s the medium; Tea Party is a mid-sixties television play, shot on video; there’s only so much anyone’s going to be able to do with it, visually. And Jarrott and Sobel try. Jarrott’s better at the… visual montage than at the shot composition, which brings us back to Merchant and the beginning of Party.

She’s going to be secretary to the self-made, king of the British bidet Leo McKern. Best toilets and such in the country. The interview goes well until McKern starts asking about Merchant’s old job and she reluctantly tells him about her handsy old boss. McKern drags it out of her, then condemns such behavior. It’s weird because Jarrott’s male gaze is overt in the scene. Merchant’s legs get distracting because you’re trying to see past them after a while. Jarrott’s got to make it real clear; after this awkward start, Party’s frankness will become one of its assets. The frankness also helps inform the performances. Tea Party, at its best, is a symbiotic success—the writing, the acting, the production (if not the direction itself). But at the beginning it’s weird.

Especially since McKern is getting married the next day to Jennifer Wright, who’s way too young and pretty for portly blowhard McKern. But damn if McKern hasn’t convinced himself he’s Wright’s dream guy; him begging her for validation on their wedding night is rending, alternately making him sympathetic for asking bit her not for lying to him. It means you can’t trust Wright and not just because of her creepy brother (Charles Gray) who only showed up before the wedding and has inserted himself in their lives. McKern seems perturbed by it, so hires Gray, but then Wright just goes to work for Gray. So some possible sympathy for McKern; especially since he’s got these little shit twin sons, Peter Bartlett and Robert Bartlett, who are weird but because McKern’s got to be a weird dad. But also the twin thing.

Only once Wright starts working for Gray, McKern starts getting wild for Merchant. Like… sniffing her office chair level. It’s a gross turn and really informs how the narrative distance should be taken. It’s just the medium… Pinter and Jarrott are keeping you away for a reason.

It takes Merchant a while to realize what’s up, but then she starts playing along. We get no insight into her as a character because… Pinter writes her like a cartoon. She prances around the office, swishing at McKern. Is it intentional or passive? Is it just the sixties secretary or is Merchant doing it with agency? Pinter goes on to raise a few questions, seemingly without any intention of answering them because answering them would give the supporting characters too much depth. It’s all about McKern and his descent into jealous horniness. It makes him see spots. For a moment it seems like fellow old (and optometrist) John Le Mesurier is going to have a real talk with McKern, which seems like it’d be great, but Pinter goes another way and whatever he comes up with isn’t great. It’s fine, but not great.

Like the ending, when they bring it all together for—well, for a Tea Party. It’s a pragmatic conclusion but relies entirely on Jarrott’s direction instead of anyone’s acting. He and editor Sobel try a lot with Tea Party, but very rarely actually succeed. They’re not up for the task at the finish.

Quite strong performances from McKern, Merchant, Gray. Le Mesurier’s good. Wright gets an incomplete but because of the script. You keep expecting the Bartlett brothers to stand at the end of a hall, holding hands, telling McKern to come play with them. They’re Party’s greatest potential. Their perspective on the whole thing would’ve given a lot more possibilities.

Instead, it’s a tad blah. Especially when you consider it copped out on its more interesting implications.

The Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973, David Lowell Rich)

I should’ve realized there was no hope for The Horror at 37,000 Feet when Paul Winfield shows up the first time and he’s got an English accent but it’s probably supposed to be somewhere from previously colonial Africa. 37,000 is a TV movie from 1973; there’s a cultural context to the only Black person in the movie doing a really silly English accent and being a doctor. Winfield’s there to be a cartoon character more than a caricature. It’s Winfield, of course, so he at least manages to make it seem legit but… he’s not supposed to get to actually do anything. William Shatner, on the other hand, he gets to do something. Nothing really good, but some things. There are a couple moments when it seems like he’s actually engaged with his performance and not just on auto-pilot. No pun intended.

37,000 is a haunted house story set on an airplane. Roy Thinnes plays a rich guy architect—they were a thing in seventy-three, no doubt—who has rented out the commercial airplane to transport a bunch of English ruins back to the United States. The ruins are from wife Jane Merrow’s estate. Thinnes is just trying to be a good guy and bring them back. Because he cares about his wife’s family history even as he tries to make time with fellow passenger France Nuyen while away Merrow.

So Thinnes is a bit of a prick. Eventually he stands up for Merrow when it counts, even though it’s not particularly memorable. Maybe because most of the supporting cast is plotting to destroy Merrow; see, haunted airplane, they’ve got to make a human sacrifice.

How 37,000 isn’t more amusing after it turns Buddy Epsen into a would-be human sacrificer….

What’s weird about 37,000 is at least one of the writers—Ronald Austin and James D. Buchanan—gets the whole “people in intense situations lose their grip” thing. Professional mansplainer Epsen, Spaghetti Western star Will Hutchins, Shatner groupie Lynn Loring, and supermodel France Nuyen all deciding the only rational response to the haunted airplane is to sacrifice someone? It works. Narratively speaking. Sadly the script’s crap, so it doesn’t matter if it’s got sound character development. The acting’s also crap and Rich’s direction is drab; it’s not all the script’s fault. There’s lots of fault to go around.

Though you can’t really get mad at whatever effects person said the onscreen personification of the haunting was going to be shit coming up from the floor. Bubbling shit. It’s really gross. Unfortunately, it’s a tick in the more frequently ticked narratively unsound column of the movie’s details: no one get sick seeing the bubbling shit.

There are no good performances, though there are terrible ones. Loring in particular, followed by Hutchins and Epsen. Thinnes seems like he’s going to be good, but then isn’t (he and Merrow have marital problems caused by Thinnes’s constant gaslighting and implied infidelity; it’s the early seventies so he’s also trying to have her labeled insane because she doesn’t like those behaviors). Merrow’s bad. Tammy Grimes is almost good, but not. It’s not the script, it’s Grimes. She can’t layer her performance.

Shatner’s kind of fun. When he’s not, it’s not his fault. It’s the script. As the captain, Chuck Conners gets some terrible expository lines and doesn’t really react to his plane being immobilized at 37,000 feet by ghosts realistically, but he escapes mostly unscathed. Flight attendants Brenda Benet and Darleen Carr are fine.

Again, Winfield also gets through it with some dignity, which is probably the most successful thing in the film considering how much malarky the film lobs at him.

The Horror at 37,000 Feet is most interesting as an example of when a bad movie isn’t bad in the right ways to be amusing.

The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988, Nicholas Corea)

The Incredible Hulk Returns is severely lacking. It’s severely lacking pretty much everything. Despite being set in and filmed in Los Angeles, the movie looks generic and constrained–director Corea has a truly exceptional aversion to establishing shots. The interior shots often have a different visual feel. More like video (Returns was shot on film, but edited on video). The video feel makes everything seem more immediate. But the last thing Returns has is immediacy. It lacks an immediacy, even though it’s incredibly dramatic.

No pun.

The movie’s set an indeterminate time since the TV series ended, but two years since Bill Bixby has turned into Lou Ferrigno. He’s in L.A. making a gamma ray to cure himself and romancing fellow scientist Lee Purcell. Despite a not too big thirteen year age difference, Bixby and Purcell lack chemistry. They’re not bad together, they just don’t seem into one another. The script tries too hard to make them cute and they’re not. The dialogue’s real bad on their romance too. There’s a lack of affection, even implied.

It doesn’t really matter because Purcell’s not important. She even gets kidnapped at one point and manages not to be important. The movie willfully ignores her. Because after the first act, it becomes a pilot for a “Thor” TV show and not really a Hulk TV movie.

Bixby’s about to cure himself when annoying rogue nerdy but late eighties nerdy cool doctor (medical doctor… sure, why not) Steve Levitt shows up. Seems Levitt’s gone and found himself an ancient Viking war hammer and become bound to giant, buff, blond Viking warrior god Eric Allan Kramer. Pretty soon Kramer is fighting Ferrigno and they break the lab, causing a big problem for Bixby.

Except not because they just fix up the lab, much to the chagrin of Bixby’s boss’s little brother, Jay Baker. Baker works his ass off in The Incredible Hulk Returns. He takes this movie really, really seriously. More seriously than anyone else, including Charles Napier playing a Cajun mercenary without a Cajun accent but TV Cajun speech patterns. It’s painful. Anyway. Baker. He tries. He’s also a corrupt little shit who hates his older brother John Gabriel. Baker doesn’t like Bixby much either. Or Levitt. They work too hard. Not really a subplot, but it comes up a couple times and it’s a lot of character development for Returns. Baker goes wild with it.

The movie utterly fails him, of course, but he does try. No one else really tries. Tim Thomerson doesn’t try as the villain. He’s also a Cajun but he’s ashamed of it. Or so Napier implies. Because Corea’s script for Returns puts more effort into the back story on the industrial mercenaries than on its lead female actor. Oh, wait. It’s only female actor. Purcell manages to weather Returns with dignity. Maybe having less to do helps.

Bixby’s completely flat throughout. He’s default likable, but never anything more. He’s not bored or condescending to the material or anything. He’s just completely flat. He’s supposed to have figured out some zen thing to control the Hulk but still. A lot of it is probably the script. Or Correa’s direction. Neither succeed at all.

Regarding Baker and his valiant efforts in his role–he’s not auditioning for a series. Levitt and Kramer would be the leads on the “Thor” show and, although Kramer does try, he doesn’t try as hard. And Levitt is exceptionally bland. Again, some of it’s the script. Some isn’t.

Kramer at least has fun. But his character is supposed to enjoy having fun. No one else in the movie enjoys anything. Not even Ferringo enjoys breaking things. Then again Correa kind of gives Ferringo the worst stuff in the movie. Not just the script or how Correa directs him–though I guess Ferrigno does get a couple spotlight action sequences–but also the make-up. When Ferrigno needs to do “Hulk sad,” he can do it. Shame Correa only has him emote twice in the movie.

Jack Colvin (from the “Hulk” TV show) comes back too. He’s barely got a part and spends a lot of his screen time talking on phones. He’s not good but he’s not terrible.

The music from Lance Rubin needs to be heard to be believed. At least for the first thirty or so minutes. Then there’s less or different music, but Rubin’s action sequence music? It’s loud, fast, layed, and terrible. There’s one good bit of music–when not using the show theme–and it’s a shock, because it suggests Rubin can do different approaches. He actually can’t. The good bit was anomalous.

The Chuck Colwell photography is bad. But is it because Colwell’s work is bad or because Correa doesn’t really do the whole shot composition thing. Either way, the result is bad. The movie never looks right. Or good. Unlike some things, the bad photography is quite bad. It isn’t just not good. It’s bad.

I suppose at the very least, The Incredible Hulk Returns is never boring. It’s just never good. And it’s often bad. Correa does a rather poor job, both at the directing and the writing.