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Endeavour: Zenana (2020)
Series winding up...
***some spoilers***
Despite complaints about how the Endeavour series has "deteriorated" over time, it should nevertheless have become clear to viewers that Fred Thurday realized he was becoming burned out and needed to retire sooner than later--even having declared a couple of times that he was "putting in his papers", and that Morse, realizing this, would inevitably become impatient with Thursday's growing obstinance and insistence on prematurely closing cases before Morse could tie up any outstanding loose ends.
I totally agree that more than one towpath murder should have been sufficient to require increased police patrols or, at the very least, improved lighting. Why women would continue to walk the path alone at night was, of course, beyond stupid and reckless.
I have to believe, however, that Morse must have been suspicious from the get-go of the slimy, deep-pocketed Ludo with his silly grin, his annoying habit of tilting his head, and constant offers to ingratiate himself with expensive wines. Please--lose those bloody bottles!
Over the course of the entire series, I think most viewers have managed to read Morse's facial expressions and body language well-enough to figure out that he doesn't take everything he sees at face value. However, the manner by which scenes are deliberately and quickly edited together make us forget or blind us to significant clues alluded to earlier on, so we can be forgiven for not being as observant as he. Indeed, wasn't that the genius of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?
A lovelorn, human Morse would naturally make him vulnerable but only to a point. That confrontation scene in the restaurant where Morse holds out his hand to Violetta in the firm belief that she would unquestionably choose him and walk away from the smug, self-assured Ludo felt more like impulse on his part than reasoned thinking. Morse should have known better, suspecting right then and there that he was being set up by the both of them, but I can only assume that the scriptwriters preferred to have Morse leave dejected so as to confirm once and for all that Violetta wasn't worth his time and trouble in the first place. Honestly, she wasn't his type, anyway, but...love being blind...
Finally, we should all know by now that television series, no matter how popular and successful they may be, must inevitably come to an end hopefully before the story lines become redundant and predictable and the characters annoying. Familiarity breeds contempt. The list is long of great series that have soldiered on longer than they should have, but nothing is forever.
The Fantastic Seven (1979)
Only children could possibly enjoy this.
Attention: spoilers ahead.
This has to be one of the lamest TV-movies I've ever seen. It doesn't even rate as "being so bad that it's actually good", in my opinion. No way. There is virtually no suspense created for the viewer, not to mention that the editing is very poor.
Besides the fact that the plot itself is beyond being far-fetched, none of the actors present themselves as believable in their roles, particularly since judging by the expressions on their faces throughout, they don't even attempt to hide the fact that they aren't taking their scenes seriously. There is way too much smiling, silly dialog, and evidently very little fear for their own safety or concern for the plight of the kidnap victim for whom they've volunteered to rescue.
The so-called "fight scene" near the end is a real groaner and head-shakingly nonsensical since despite it being obvious that the heroes are completely outnumbered by the bad guys, they still somehow manage to defeat them all with poorly-executed punches and karate chops. I shook my head in disbelief at how one of the good guys managed again and again to shove a half-dozen "heavies" backwards with a pole--which would have been a chore even for Steven Seagal! Even when rifles are belatedly used to fire at the conveniently escaping heroes, none of them are hit by a single bullet!
Elke Sommer and Patrick McNee (as the chief bad guy no less) must have needed the money pretty desperately to lower themselves by appearing in this turkey. What were they thinking?! Even when McNee is finally knocked half-unconscious in a less-than-believable one-on-one fight and eventually taken into custody by the Coast Guard, he seems to be relieved rather than angry (and indeed maybe he was!).
Finally, at the closing scene where the "heroes" are clustered together joking and smugly self-congratulating each other as they're ostensibly being recruited by the authorities to head off to their next adventure in South America, I said to myself, "Yeah...and don't bother coming back, either!".
One can only assume that "The Fantastic Seven" was targeted at the less-critical preteen market. Older teens and adults stumbling across it while channel-surfing would have surely begun muttering, "C'mon...this movie is so stupid!", and switched to something else--ANYTHING else.
If the producers were hoping for "The Fantastic Seven" to be picked up as a regular series, they must have been dreaming in technicolor.
I Saw What You Did (1965)
Telephone nostalgia
***Spoilers***
I don't remember if I first saw this film in the theatre soon after it was released or subsequently on TV, but it definitely stuck in my memory, although for some reason I later forgot exactly how the killer managed to track down the address of the teenage prank-callers until a more recent viewing revealed the little-known fact that for a brief period in the mid-60s, California driver registrations were required to be encased in a holder attached to the steering-wheel shaft and thereby visible to the police in the event of an accident, theft, etc.
Not sure exactly when this rule came to an end, but ostensibly it was due to potential or real abuse by busybodies and those intent on committing some type of crime against the vehicle owner. British Columbia likewise for a time offered these holders as likely did other jurisdictions. (Incidentally, John Ireland was born in Vancouver, B.C.)
The "telephone directory" used by the kids in the film was a prop, of course, where only 5 numerical digits appeared on camera and were spoken by the kids--with the one being exception when Tess blurts out their 6-digit home number OL-4367 (OL in fact being a legitimate prefix back in the day in some telephone exchanges before it was later officially referred to by its digits-only prefix 65).
As 7-digit telephone numbers were already in existence long before the release of the film, I can only assume that 6-digit numbers were still assigned to smaller towns and rural areas until they were inevitably eliminated.
The (rather reckless) usage of potentially real phone numbers in films was before the now-standard but dead-ending "555" prefix became common in North American films and on television to prevent similar pranking or inadvertent mis-dialing.
I presume that the two teenage girls Libby and Kit were deliberately scripted to be immature and--in the case of Libby--not knowing when to quit while she was ahead by actually driving to Marak's home, even getting all dolled-up beforehand!
Honestly, who would actually do this?! Is it any wonder that thoughtless young girls end up in serious trouble or murdered, yet it continues to happen today through social media, stranger hookups despite the plethora of cautionary advice and very real tragedies.
Some glaring goofs in the film were: (1) Considering the fact that in the beginning of the film Libby expressly tells Kit that her house being located so far from the city had reduced her social life to virtually nil, it then seems rather too convenient that she evidently manages to drive the presumed inconvenient distance to Marak's house in such a short time!
(2) When the policeman shoots Marak in the back through the car's rear window, it can be clearly seen in a following camera shot that the angle of the bullet could very easily have hit Libby herself since she too was directly in the line of fire!
Despite its flaws, this was another of William Castle's off-beat brand of pure escapism.