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Reviews
Family Affair: The Prize (1967)
Defines the show
This odd episode defines what Family Affair
Might have been but wasnt. A simple expaination of a screw up at 5he cereal company resulting in the sending of the very annoying lamb without adult clearance could have given Sebastion Cabot a priceless tirade to perfirm on the phone. Buffy and jodys impossibly maudlin adobability want to keep Snowball forever and ever could have been replaced by the simple infatuation any kid might have. French stole the show expressing the same contempt fir havibg the beast most of the audience likely felt. A good monolouge was lost when Bill did not reprimand thevtwins for not ciming home and getting help when dumb sheep ran off. Also Buffy and Jody warning Snowball that Uncle Bill was ready to warm his tail and put him in time out would have made Jodys plea that Snowball was sorry and would be a good lamb from then on a good deal more logical. Having the twins make the right decision was the best stroke as it showef them not to be thevdumb kids they we treated as in this and so many episode. Lastly this potentially great episode could have ended with Bill getying them the encyclopedia. The producers desite to keep thev kids cerubic and cute prevented them feom learning very much when 5he coukd have been speaking like little Einstiens with their exposiour to French and Bills command pf the language. Thus could have been a very amusing lesson in responsibilty but it was dumbed down in a way even ten year olds could see through. More respect for developing the charactors onto the smart kids they were supposed to be and less cute condesention forhe audience would have take the whole show in a better and more interesting direction.
Brideless Groom (1947)
Pain
This short like all slapstick walks the line between funny and gruesome. Quite frankly it tips way over into a horrid portayal of women and a brutal sadism. Tounge in cheek or not this one showed signs of extreme mysoginy
In the writing and a sexual view of violence
Sam Peckinpah would have run from. Its tome period was one that allowed for this but one wonders how women of the felt about being depicted as venal and violent. I think this bit of slapstick humor got its staging ahead of its brain. Others have expressed dismay at its supposedly innocent implications. It should be noted that the direction is for this kind of material spot on but this is the danger of slapstick. All the criticism of Clockwork Orange missed the point made so clearly there that broad humor often masks evil action.
The Ron Reagan Show (1991)
Ahead of its time
This very good format had enormous potential for growth and was cancelled too early.
Some guest proved good only at unmasking themselves. John Lofton for example only baited the crowd and frankly made a fool if himself playing martyr and calling critics heathens. This type gravitates to this kind of tv and as Mencken.once observed the are the heroes only of baffled halfwits behind the firehouse.. That being said bring this show back and include the most thoughtful guests.
Nanny and the Professor: The Great Broadcast of 1936 (1970)
Dingbat alley
Bridget Handley was beautiful and very well cast in this silly thing. However Nannys closing assertion that we should all try and be more like Bridgets dingy charactor rang leaden to my middle school ears. Go jumping in fountains and see how fast you get arrested.
Las Vegas: The Story of Owe (2006)
Ok Sam
This episode takes axcomic twist on strongarming dead beat gamblers. It succeeds in spite of the fact that in reality the Casino would have had a credit linevon whales that big to insure no bad losers would hold out.
Sam mischievious nature is made a bit sadistic here even if one considers the arrogance of the bad clients. Consult Caans great film The Gambler to see how not amusing being squeezed over gambling really is. In short tjis one was well made but a little mean spirited.
The Best Show in the Universe (2010)
Deplorable
A self serving egoist building a witless reputation on the bones of the likes of Chris Reeves - unfortunately the Gamer/internet crowd that pays attention to this kind of thing revels in insult comedy at the expense of others and essentially pointless sarcasm. Maddox may have an alternative POV but little seems based on substance but rather on narcissistic disrespect. This adolescent fare has like the poor always been with us but sadly H L Mencken has nothing to worry about in terms of social satire. The arrogant self aggrandizement of his site may be tongue in cheek but is also defensive in nature-as .if compensating for some short coming. Selah.
Bye, Bye Bluebeard (1949)
One scene that bothered me
Porky tied to chair seeing the Guillitine being built screaming "no not that" upset me as a kid and made this the only Loony Tune I avoided. The rest of it is very, very good but it freaked me then and now. It goes to show the odd mixed of and humor terror always enterlaced and always necessary for each other. May have bothered no one else but it stayed with me. Loved the mouse and great vehicle for Porky unlike the obnoxious black sheep and other characters in Terry Tunes he really doesn't make you feel he has some terror coming and decapitation seen pretty extreme. Bluebeard is stupid and nasty and could have been blown up for the further pleasure of the audience. Did that one bit bug anyone else?
Crying Wolf (1947)
Odd combination -interesting but odd
This little fable is an odd hodgepodge which does odd things with kids sympathies. The little black sheep is obnoxious until his brothers are threatened then he is clever and brave. The rebel in society often proves its best guardian. The dog is a poor guardian who does not even try to save the black sheep and has his best moment spanking the little brat. Even this doesn't scare the little asbergers case straight. He only wails until he thinks of more mischief then its off to be a pill again. It apparently should have been harder. Mighty Mouses battle at the end is almost a different cartoon. The little black one almost causes his own decapitation. The message obey and learn from chastisements is not new but its nice to know wolves are evil and the black sheep is just as white as Mighty Mouse on the inside. The Mighty one joining a battle between the sheep and wolves would have taught loyalty even to a twerp of a black sheep brother and would have avoided the near sacrilegious and almost racist prayer to Mighty Mouse. Final thoughts: can't the wolf ever be shown as just being true to his own nature in these things? Best moment; the deserved spanking of a crummy cartoon kid - bet kids cheered as his little brothers would have if he had gotten it the first time. Also a Terry Toon classic bit of inconsistency is the 5th white sheep who comes and goes from the scenes at random. The little one on the block imagining another paddling from Mighty Mouse might have been a good bit of conscience in action. Interesting cartoon because of its uneven nature and its and slap dash construction which makes one think how it could have been better.PS wolves are maternal predators and are quite beautiful. The little sheep all thankfully lose their looks of vacant stupidity as adversity strikes. Innocence is not always a virtue as opposed to wisdom. Best bit of dialogue "Pa please stop!"
A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969)
One problem
Shultz (Great man though he was) had a flaw. Charlie wins 2nd place in the national spelling bee and thinks he is the goat. Linus admonition that the world had not end could have easily been followed by him pinning the second prize ribbon on Charlies door. His fair weather friends did not matter that much in the face of such a thing. Shultz was a spiritual man who lacked faith in people (likely correctly) but Schroeder for example had stuck up for Charlie before. The point is failure is often a perception. Had this film made that point how many kids would have seen life differently. Just a thought. Otherwise a thoughtful study in the good and evil of competition.
Surf Bored (1953)
Gruesome beast
This thing gave me the creeps. The repulsive octopus and the wildly piercing screams of the struggling guard were truly frightening. Oddly a reviewer on You Tbe found the exact same thing funny. Interesting example of hysteria in its two major forms fright and laughter. Rage is the third. The sight gag of the blown up octopus would have flown better with me if I knew the thing was dead. Rage. The rest of the shtick is OK but not one of Little Audreys best. Humor and fright away tend to mix in cartoons but when a monster is too scary it characutures real fears of assault and death. A fine balance and to be fair a hard one to please everyone with all the time.
The Honeymooners: Trapped (1956)
Scary Episode
This episode full of wisdom about getting involved and an facing down crime is still disturbing. Ralph is an unmitigated hero pulverizing one punk who is too dumb know how ready a bus driver is. But one thing has always haunted me and it is the 5 minutes I want with the sneering partner. Norton should have been allowed to deck him. I imagine this thing got some response via phone and mail. Be interesting to see of it got many peoples back up in anger the way Edith Bunkers rape did many years later. In short this thing made me angry and its final catharsis was to short to completely satisfy but is is well done nonetheless. This was TV ahead of its time in that dramedy was not typical in the late 50s
The Tree Surgeon (1944)
Snuff cartoon
The "gag" in this piece is to leave the weird but well intended lead about to have his brain gnawed through by a monstrous looking bug. No its not funny and it is creepy. This type of "innocent" cartoon betrayed the creators deep seated rage at their audience and who knows who else. It works like an anti medical snuff film and MGMs tendency toward weird sick humor let this pass. The interesting thing would be to find out exactly who the filmmakers are mad at and why they leave on such a horrific note. That particular equine has been the fool in other cartoons but he is the directors object of displaced hatred. One wonders how it was sold to the studio brass.
The Wild Wild West: The Night of the Tartar (1967)
Despicable Nicky
John Astins character is the lowest and most glibly evil since Night of The Skulls. His noxious murder of Chekov as his sister in law dryly and amusedly looks on is infuriating. His death is a pleasure to watch but her hanging would have been nice to mention. Really this type of real evil set this show apart and may have gotten it canceled early. Nicky always bothered me a lot. Perhaps that is a compliment to his creators. Some depictions of evil haunt one for life because of what they represent. Astins Tour De Force performance does this incredibly well. So I love him and hate Nicky. Love hate syndrome. Anastasia is also a La Belle Dam Sam Merci from hell. S/M hits the prairie once more.
The Wild Wild West: The Night of the Skulls (1966)
A real horror
Thia episode; well conceived, well acted, well designed and directed has always disturbed me.. The scene with the wretched prisoner leaning into the camera to scream his protests at a death sentence for being INNOCENT is like Kafka gone wild. The cold blooded horror has always stood in my mind in a highly disturbing way. When I watched this on first run I was equally appalled at Lorelie rather cheerfully mentioning he had been found innocent and hanged. He even had to wait the night for it.Lisa Gayes excellent performance as La Belle Dame San Merci and the macabre trappings make this an S/M ritual rather rare in its intensity at the time it first aired. Ultimately this kind of thing got WWW unfairly cancelled for disturbing violence.Oddly some of the jokes in this episode (Especially Artimus Gordons) Are some of the shows best. The connections to the Lincoln conspiracy, the rise of the Klan and even the Black Legion also create some creeps. A great episode but subtly unnerving in a profound way...who does determine justice? He who holds power.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent: Collective (2005)
Co Contempt
This episode is about more than the dark side of the fantasy fairs. The cult Doriens friends have made of an Ann Rice like fixation is a buffer between them and the nip and tuck of the real world. No one is welcome unless they have been passed around and made submissive to the group. This first poor schnook with his robot used his toys as substitute for intimacy and his loneliness killed him. The Vampire club with such quaint greetings as "You have so much to learn" is in effect telling everyone who approaches that you have to learn their world. They may hold jobs and do business as much as they have to but you are the mortal the dead one, they are the real people. As Bobby points out at the end they know the truth of the real world. They just do not like it and live by their own isolated law. Fanasy is the drug they cannot use an compartmentalize. It governs them not the other way around and the reward is self destruction, stupid vigilantism and the knowledge of their own alienation.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent: Lost Children of the Blood (2010)
Dear Dr. Jung
The interesting concept behind this rather gruesome episode is; How far does one go into the shadow of ones own soul? The poor girl at the beginning was entirely too enraptured by facing her own death to save herself.Others who follow the catspaw vampiric priest of a Manson like villain are in effect using the knowledge of the dark side of themselves as an excuse not to come back from the shadow and live. One might spend this episode wondering at the intellect of such types but surrounding oneself in darkness is supposed to create the inner knowledge to also embrace the light. Not everyone is strong enough to do this Jung was that strong. Poe was brave (Read SILENCE to see the point) but unable to come out of the shadow. This brings us to the central point. This episode was not an allegory about Goths or S/M (One isn't spanked into the next world) It is however something of a map of drugs and the willingness to blindly follow those who give the appearance of power. The dark way leads to death only if one gives up the self.
Hazel: My Son, the Sheepdog (1966)
Alienated a generation
This episode annoyed every kid I knew to the point of abject contempt for the Hazel program. The conceit of the writers that American children want stability in such a way as to hate having beatnik parents. I knew kids with beat parents and everyone envied them. This script insulted Alan Ginsburgs legacy to a young audience just beginning to grasp its complexities. The father tossing aside his briefcase saying "Who need silly old reports when I have a life like this?" looked good to most kids. So they play light rock. So they do the swim. So they have Beatle hair!My God the USA is in danger! A great twist would have been if the kids had bought into the joke and wanted the adults to live the fantasy and the "Brilliant" adults had to make the adjustment and (God forbid) reach a compromise. Everyones Grandmother would have liked this bit but the very young core audience found it pompous and condescending and a waste of a talented cast. The more cynical a program becomes the sooner it dies and this was cynical exploitation of a 1930s mentality imposed on a 1960s youth audience. Whitney Blake had been stuck with the misogynistic "OH George YOU'RE WONDERFUL!" submissiveness on prior seasons but this nonsense towards youth was TV with no point or future.
Naked City: Dead on the Field of Honor (1961)
Punishment
The protagonist in this piece is a man kept separate by his own mind and by his family from modern society. He is made to feel unmanly for his blood phobia and of course seeks to draw blood to prove his manhood. He lives with the delusion he heads the house he lives in and cannot stand a brother in law intruding. He cannot protect his sister or his mother due to his neurosis so he reenacts the past in his mind finding a girl who eggs an abuse lover on and ten avenges her beating by shooting the boyfriend. He observes a sneak thief of a little girl being severely if deservedly spanked in public and again does not interfere but stalks and shoots the father. His grandmother slaps him for each of his offense in an old school formal retribution which explains his rigid form of thought. Only the invocation of the Code duello gets him to give up his antique gun rather than shoot his brother in law. This script could be the basis psychology paper on the old world as seen as a refuge from the new. A man unable to relate to the world long enough to aid himself or the women he loves avenges the injuries of others by projecting his mother and sister upon the woman he sees. He punishes as his mother does but with the delusion he is fighting duels. Interestingly he punishes the punisher of the spanked little girl thus perhaps shooting the part of his out of step grandmother he hates and loves. This study in something between autism and schizophrenia was very important in 1961 when so few would seek help for fear of being labeled mad. A final note the ambiguity of Arlene Golonkas abused woman with the "But I love him" attitude is too sadly real. The public spanking the little brat received was the type of thing that makes one jump on a shopping mall. Both these bits of reality speak to good direction and integrity regarding realism. The other small girl informed by the detective that spanking little brother won't get her put in jail for a hundred years no matter what her mother says speaks to the kind of parentally inspired fear that creates the kind of neurotic this episode is about, if that fear goes unchecked
Le locataire (1976)
The measure of an adult
Understanding the self means understanding ones nightmares. I did a presentation and review on this film in college and was berated by a sophomoric fellow student(To old to be a sophomore) on Polamskis psychosis. He tried to label me crazy due to my referencing this film. His problem summarizes the essential problem in reactions to this kind of art. Be it Dostoyevski,Poe, Dali, Bergman, Picasso or Polanski. Immature minds do not want to face the cycle of self destruction expressed by such artists. I hate the slap scene but it is pivotal to the novel and film.The Ionescoesque touches Polanski ads with the serpent lashing tongue and demonic hallucinations resonate in a mature outlook on the dubious hold most of us have on reality. I really am grateful to the dummy in Doctor Hudsons class and Mercer in Atlanta those many years back. He taught me that fear of the shadow side of man is no clear path to mental health or security. I do not say one must like or dislike any film but to deny the richness of a plunge like Polanski takes into the center of Trelkovsys mental breakdown is to fail to see what many fear; the suggestible and fragile side of the mind. Bosch could not have expressed it better. So if you are out there thanks and I hope your presentations improved and have gained depth.
The Untouchables: The Purple Gang (1960)
Very good
This is a well directed and well written episode. In truth the Purples would never have risked a war with Capone and vice versa. both cities (Detroit and Chicago)would have floated away in the blood. The scene where the wife is senselessly shot underscores the mad dogs these guys were. The story is completely apocryphal but it is tight and well done. Steve Cochran died too young. What a great character actor. This in spite of its depressing murder of the wife is my favorite episode. It is fashionable to be understanding of drug dealers these days. This show started on the premise they were scum. I shook with anger for Vnicks wife but had no pity for him. Money is God to that type and they are no loss.
The Untouchables: The Waxey Gordon Story (1960)
Betrayal
As a descendant of a real Untouchable I can say unabashedly that there was next to no history in this program. However what it truly was, was a passion play in the Jacobian tradition. Black and white morality and a constant sense of war with evil. SVU and other current programs while much more realistically gray are the Untouchables linear descendants and the legacy is an interesting one. This episode emphasizes a recurring theme for this program. No one attached to the mob can be trusted. The evil twin hoods from Chicago who kill Waxeys girl are hired by Waxey after there boss is betrayed. The girl is replaced like an old chair. The scummy secretary and Bobsy twin hoods who murder her boss would have made the audience much happier if they had been killed painfully on camera. Watching her examine her burning benefactor to see if he and his files are burning just right is infuriating. This show made you create and define your own ideas of catharsis and justice by leaving one with the sense that these scummy murderers were not always all accounted for. Actors Like Pershoff and DeKova-Americas best at the time- made small careers out of this program. They did good.
Willie the Operatic Whale (1946)
Revenge
Irwin Graham clearly was writing about every pompous know it all it the music business and I have no doubt the wrote from experience. Making sweet Willie a martyred artist has its point to an adult audience existentially. I am amazed at the positive reviews praising the tragic aspect of the beautifully made but but pitifully sad cartoon. Willie in heaven takes about one percent of the edge off and factually there were so many ways to allow a redemptive ending it amazes me no other ending made it to the screen the Ahab and Moby Dick approach was an early lesson in tragic obsession and there is value in teaching such things but Disney had a way of doing the beauty and the humor so well that one is not ready for the sucker punch of Willie not surviving the harpoon. Graham took his revenge of the music world and inspired me to punch him in the nose someday. So I swore at 5 years of age. There are better methods of creation for kids and teaching them about death. Noble idea badly executed Martyr complex One O one
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Anchor (2009)
OK here it is
The point of this episode which has firmly eluded O'Reilly and others is this: If one blames the pundits for what idiots do in their name, the same idiots will escape responsibility for their actions. O'Reilly unconscionably accused Dick Wolf of cowardice. Wolfs program showed the bad side of liberalism when it goes to far. And by the by; Glenn Beck accuses everyone who corrects his history as being a nerd blogger in his underwear living in his Moms house. Beck IS as his image is depicted in this episode: an impotent little man who has to make noise and O'Reilly needs to man up if he does not want to fall into the same hole.
Blondie Hits the Jackpot (1949)
Classic Spanking
When Ann Carter comes to Blondie with the integrity to admit that she is a spoiled brat with no judgment and states her Father has always said she need a mother to put her over her lap and give her a good spanking,one wonders if she means it. When the family can hear the response-Cookie says "I could feel that one from here" Blondie shows herself as the perfect traditional mom serving dinner after "applying psychology" By the by Cookie was right! That paddling -_especially the second to last swat- sounded exactly like what the little brat had coming but it was scarily realistic.One of Blondies better moments and interesting in the sense that brats really want to pay for their acts but do not often know how.
License to Kill (1984)
Sobering film; no pun intended
This film should be remembered for a lot more than Denzels presence. It was made to shock and it does. It makes one consider how easy it is to lose ones perspective on the road. The fact that the drunk driver had no conscious cognition of the level of his own responsibility until it was forced upon him is deep food for thought for everyone. The sad scene of someone asking the mother of the dead girl how she is doing in school is the sort of thing that can happen all to easily in a tragedy. This is the kind of thing one should view soberly and with thought. It needs to run more often for the good of society. Also the performance level is of a very high quality in a difficult and emotional script.