Spider-Man: Night of the Clones and Escort to Danger (1978, Fernando Lamas and Dennis Donnelly)

Night of the Clones and Escort to Danger is a strange way to watch a couple episodes of “The Amazing Spider-Man.” Without anywhere near enough episodes for syndication, the show’s producers packaged a couple episodes together so they would have TV movies for syndication. Well, TV movie length, anyway. Some of these duets would come with newly shot footage to tie the episodes together; not so for Clones and Escort. One episode ends, the next begins. Seemingly the next day?

Night ends at a costume ball for the not-Nobel Prize committee; Danger begins with Robert F. Simon chastising Nicholas Hammond for spending the whole night at a party with a glamorous movie star and not getting any pictures. The unseen and in the compilation seems potentially more interesting than the rest of it. In addition to no connective tissue between the first and second halves of Clones and Escort, there’s also no character development. In the first half, Simon is mentoring Hammond. In the second half, Simon is pissed at Hammond (presumably about the movie star thing, but there’s lots more as the episode—sorry, half—progresses). Cop Michael Pataki is down on Hammond the first half, then turns around and defends him twice in the second. But it also ends up being a not-bad way to watch “Spider-Man,” if only because you can see things improving.

In particular, whiny know-it-all Hammond becomes far more likable in the second half. The first half has him puppy-dogging around mad scientist Lloyd Bochner, who’s perfected cloning and gets to play two parts. Bochner’s evil clone taking over happens pretty early on, so it’s hard to know how Bochner would be as the “good” guy. He’s occasionally camping as the villain, but he’s got his moments. He’s particularly terrifying when the Mr. Hyde version targets Morgan Fairchild, who grew up with Bochner Prime as a surrogate father.

Fairchild’s atrocious. Almost comically. She gets through the part—and the writing (script credit to John W. Bloch is terrible)—but she’s really bad. It’s a complicated bad too. First, she’s playing Karl Swenson’s granddaughter and the de facto event coordinator for the not-Nobel Committee. They’ve looked Bochner over for five years because they thought his cloning experiments would end with him cloning an evil version of himself. The evil Bochner is going to kill them all in retribution, including Fairchild. It’s unclear. Once Bochner attacks her and locks her and Spider-Man in an abandoned building’s still-working bank vault, we get much less of his perspective.

At least until he clones himself another Hammond, who hates regular Hammond, which is hilarious, and makes Hammond more sympathetic, carrying over to the second episode. But Hammond’s also sympathetic because Fairchild—after being saved by Spider-Man—capes for Bochner, even as the police investigate. She’s sure it’s all a misunderstanding, and Spider-Man… chased her into the vault. It’s a nonsensical part with lousy writing. There’s nothing Fairchild could do. But she’s still pretty bad.

In fact, her dialogue seems to be written for someone with a Swedish accent. It’s so strange.

Or maybe it’s just worse than it seems.

Danger is all about Hammond getting involved with a South American dissident BarBara Luna’s attempt to avenge herself (and her recently deceased displaced despot brother) on the new democratic president, played by Alejandro Rey. Rey’s in New York because his Stanford coed daughter (Madeleine Stowe) wants to be the next Miss Galaxy. Luna wants their country—Tavilia—to return to a dictatorship under her rule and has hired infamous international assassin Oddjob (no, really, it’s Harold Sakata, and he’s got a hat thing going) to kidnap Stowe to force Rey to abdicate. Not sure it’s how transfers of power work, but it does turn out no one really knows how those work.

“Spider-Man” aged well thanks to the world being so much stupider than anyone thought back in the late seventies.

Anyway.

Can Hammond save Stowe in time? It makes for a decent enough episode—with a phenomenal car chase (the stunt drivers)–primarily thanks to the cast. Rey’s not good, but he’s earnest and sympathetic. Ditto Stowe (who somehow gets even less to do than Fairchild). And Pataki’s fun. Sakata and sidekick assassin Bob Minor aren’t great (Minor’s better than Sakata), but it’s fine. It’s a “Spider-Man” show; it’s fine. And Hammond’s likable. After seeing him get shit for trying to save Fairchild’s life (and never getting thanked), having him get positive reinforcement ain’t bad.

Plus, Chip Fields gets more to do in the second half. She’s in the first episode a little—sort of taking over Fairchild’s screen time for the conclusion (Fairchild seems miserable in the episode, and her negative chemistry with Hammond is awkward to watch)—but then in the second, she and Hammond get to do hijinks. She’s Simon’s assistant, and outside some “I get to give him sass because affirmative action” framing, she’s a delight. And she’s fun with Hammond.

I’m curious to see how these compilations work when the second episode isn’t such a noticeable improvement, making for a bullish viewing experience, but Clones and Escort is way more successful than it ought to be. Especially since the show reused footage between the episodes (the not-Nobel hotel is the same as Rey’s hotel, with no one remembering they’d been there yesterday for another episode). Lots of reused Spider-Man stunt footage too. Lots. And editors John A. Barton and Thomas Fries—despite that fantastic car chase—are lost with fight scenes. They misapply good ideas. It’s very frustrating.

But, by the end of a very eventful week for Hammond, it’s not bad.

Oh, also—Irene Tedrow as Aunt May (there was an Uncle Max in CBS’s Marvel Television Universe, but no mention of Uncle Ben, foreshadowing the MCU, no doubt). Tedrow’s replacing Jeff Donnell from the pilot movie, and, well, imagining growing up with Tedrow… Hammond’s whiny, know-it-all persona makes sense. So, bad, but only from a particular point of view.

Kind of like the rest of it.

Impulse (1974, William Grefé)

It’s an insult to hacks to describe Impulse director Grefé as such. There are very few directors with less sense of how to direct a movie (or anything) than Grefé. But then he’s simpatico with cinematographer Edmund Gibson at least in terms of skill. Grefé’s got terrible shots, Gibson shoots them terribly. But Gibson’s credited as Edwin, so apparently, at some point, he realized maybe he was impulsive working on Impulse.

Grefé kind of—and only because every other option is exhausted—but he reminds of a TV commercial director. Like, a seventies TV commercial director. He’s got way too much headroom, and he never does close-ups during the protracted expository scenes. Outside a handful of action sequences and field trips, it’s primarily people standing or sitting inside talking to one another. Impulse filmed in Tampa, Florida, but it’s supposed to be in a much smaller place. Maybe. Maybe Shatner just drove from one side of town to the other, looking for his next mark.

More on Shatner in a bit, I promise. But there aren’t any real exteriors. Either the producers couldn’t figure out how to get permits, couldn’t afford them but then also couldn’t just guerilla the shots. Impulse is artless low-budget filmmaking. If the whole thing was about getting Shatner to wear a bunch of silly, silly, silly seventies outfits—silly—to embarrass him later, it might make sense. Except in 1974, the producers wouldn’t have known Shatner can survive anything–even seventies Florida fashion.

So it doesn’t look anywhere near as good even a TV movie from the same period. Impulse is unpleasant to view. But it’s surprisingly well-edited. Editor Julio C. Chávez initially seems as unimpressive as everyone else involved, then there’s a long shot beach scene, and it’s ADR, but it’s not bad. And then there’s some sound work where it ends, kind of breaking the third wall. Like, someone’s not hearing a conversation, then the conversation directly addresses them, and they hear.

It’s wild. It’s not good; it’s bad, but it’s at least something different.

Then the last half hour, which has Shatner’s mentally unwell gigolo conman breaking down and attacking the entire supporting cast… the editing’s really good. The scenes are still crap—especially Gibson’s day-for-night, which is ghastly—but the cutting’s nice. So, kudos to Chávez.

Otherwise, there’s Ruth Roman.

Impulse is just degrees of bad performance and how close the needle gets to embarrassing. Shatner’s spins around the whole time occasionally slows down a little, but then reliably zooms. For terrible camp Shatner, Impulse delivers.

But Roman’s all right. She’s the local rich lady whose mansion gets the only establishing shot, and her best friend is young widow Jennifer Bishop. Bishop has a late tween daughter, Kim Nicholas, who cuts school to go moon over her father’s gravestone. She even projectile cries on it. She’s very sad.

So Bishop doesn’t date.

At least not until stud Shatner arrives. Of course, he neglects to tell everyone he first met Nicholas, giving her a ride to the graveyard one day. But don’t worry, Shatner’s got no further designs on Nicholas than killing her for being a tattle rat.

Nicholas is bad, Bishop’s bad. Harold Sakata—Odd Job from Goldfinger—cameos as Shatner’s former partner-in-crime who wants in on the take. He drives around an RV with a giant “Karate Pete” sign on it; like on the crime job. It’s silly.

Sakata just embarrasses himself. He’s at least having fun. Or what amounts to it in Impulse.

For the Shatner-inclined, Impulse is required viewing, like Portrait of the Artist at a Low Point. It’s also early-to-mid-seventies-low budget Shatner, so it’s hard to be too upset at the film. It’s always bad, it’s always strange, it’s always problematic. From the start—the flashback where young Shatner (Chad Walker, in his only credit) kills his mom’s violent john, defending them, but she resents him because women are awful. Only they won’t be later; they’ll do everything Shatner says; except Nicholas because kids are terrible. Anyway.

It’s poorly shot, but it’s also exceptionally mean to Walker.

Then the opening titles are actually incompetent. The title cards pause the action, but they’re not in line with the current action. They’re mini-flashbacks. It’s inane, in addition to incompetent. Another reason Chávez is an unexpected boon.

Impulse is awful. Of course, it’s awful. It exists just to be awful.

Except for Roman and Chávez, obviously.

Goldfinger (1964, Guy Hamilton)

How can a film, with such a beautiful, awe-inspiring fight scene (Bond and Oddjob), have such terrible editing overall? In fact, how can the technical side be so contradictory… terrible direction from Guy Hamilton on most scenes, but fine or excellent when he’s on set. Terrible editing for most of it, but then the rest of the time, perfect editing. Or the rear screen projection. All the rear screen projection is atrocious, but the second unit photography is inspired. The only non-contradictory production element is the music. John Barry’s score is a masterpiece of effectiveness. The sequences where it overpowers the scenic audio are… they’re amazing. It’s like watching a scored sequence the way it should be.

Oddly, I have nothing but good things to say about Sean Connery too. He plays his role with a smile and a great deal of athleticism. He’s just a lot of fun to watch and he does great with his co-stars, particularly Gert Fröbe and Cec Linder. Fröbe and Linder, besides Harold Sakata’s fantastic performance as Oddjob, are the two best in the supporting cast. Problematically, the romantic interests in the cast leave a lot to be desired… Shirley Eaton is probably the best, with Honor Blackman not doing particularly well, but much better than Tania Mallet, who is awful.

Unfortunately, the movie is unaware of its own silliness (in terms of plot)… but once Bond is done using all his gadgets, it gets real good… starting with a great scene between Connery and Fröbe. That scene, though too short, comes after one of the film’s worst… when Fröbe meets with all the American gangsters (they aren’t called them the Mafia, of course, which makes it both dated and hilarious). That one good scene kicks off the last part of the film, which does very, very well….

And even though the last scene is poorly paced, Goldfinger comes off fine (thanks to Sean Connery of all people, which I find… given his work post-1970, rather amusing).