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.

The Dunwich Horror (1970, Daniel Haller)

There’s a handful of good things about The Dunwich Horror. They can’t overcome the bad things, but they’re still pretty neat. The script, at least for a while, is fairly nimble. There’s a lot of bad exposition from old dudes Ed Begley and Lloyd Bochner, but the younger folks do quite a bit better. See, Dunwich ought to be hip, but it’s not. The script knows it needs to be hip; director Haller can’t do it. And even if he could do it, cinematographer Richard C. Glouner couldn’t do it. Editor Christopher Holmes tries to be hip with his cutting. He doesn’t do a good job of it and the film’s poorly edited, but he is at least on the same page as the script as far as tone.

Because it’s Dean Stockwell as this smarmy geek who manages to seduce little Sandra Dee away from college with promises of hippie orgies and such. It’s a great idea for a smart genre picture. And Haller butchers every minute of it. There’s some solid dialogue from Curtis Hanson, Henry Rosenbaum and Ronald Silkosky. There’s good characterization of Donna Baccala as Dee’s concerned friend. There’s nothing to be done about Begley and Bochner however. They both refuse to chew at the scenery. They just look miserable instead.

The sets are fairly awful. They’re poorly lit, but they’d still be pretty bad. Dunwich is never pragmatic when it needs to be, except with some of the special effects.

And here’s the other big bad in Dunwich. The last third of the movie when Haller’s trying to do monster suspense. He butchers it, over and over and over and over and over again. Every time it seems like something might actually be creepy or scary, he screws it up. It’s uncomfortable to watch, just because there’s never anything going for it and it’s all Haller’s fault.

I mean, even the perv shots of Dee’s body double writhing in Cthulic anticipation get cut with some kookiness from Stockwell. He goes nuts for the part while still maintaining this creepy sweet guy thing. It’s an awesome performance. Not good, just extremely entertaining. In terms of actual acting, Baccala and Talia Shire are the best. Dee’s okay but she eventually becomes, well, a human sacrifice.

Finally, the music. Les Baxter’s score is hip, romantic, lush, subdued and a dozen other things. It doesn’t always get cut right–because Holmes is bad at the editing thing–but it’s always kind of amazing. It’s a delight in an almost delightful mess. But Haller and Glouner just tank it.