Reviews

Anthony Newley plays the title character (real name Herbert Nebbish) who walks off his TV show after 2 songs. It seems he hears a voice in his head telling him the world is going to end in February. He travels around asking what other people are doing about this, and encounters Anna Quayle (his then co-star in STOP THE WORLD), John LeMesurier, his psychiatrist who longs for more sex in his life, and Joan Hickson (a judge), among others. Clever use is made of song lyrics integrated into some of the dialogue. This seems part and parcel of the kind of gently weird plays and shows of the 1960s, like ONE WAY PENDULUM and THE BED SITTING ROOM. A copy exists on YouTube but the video is messy. The end credits are interesting for citing the then current West End shows in which some of the cast are appearing.

This last one was not written or directed by Argento, and there are no giallo traits. 'Pay close attention' he suggests at the introduction, but what he really means is 'try to stay awake' through another tedious, drawn-out hour.

This one was written by Argento, but not directed by him. It had the trade-mark close-up of the black gloved hand. But it also had old fashioned iris-in of details the director wanted you to notice, like in silent films. One of the most annoying plot devices in that no one believes the eyewitness, and there is no physical evidence. Even the blood left on the highway is gone, a nice trick, unexplained. Hard to be sympathetic to the hysterical heroine.

Another dull entry, but better than THE NEIGHBOR. This involved a murder on a tram. The police are such idiots, they have to recreate the tram ride twice, because they never ask such basic questions as how many people were on the tram when you got off? Moreover, they don't check into the criminal background of the suspects until AFTER the trial and conviction of the accused innocent. Written but not directed by Argento, this at least has his trademark closeup of the killer's black gloved hand and some POV stalking sequences.

JORDSKOTT is a police procedural set in a small Swedish town, with elements of mysticism/folklore and ecology. The very complicated plot is set out at a steady pace that does not provide an explanation until Episode 7, and then is given in such an offhand manner that if you are not paying attention, you might miss it. If remade in English, I'm sure the writers, not trusting the intelligence of the audience, would underline and repeat it, but not here.

The acting is uniformly good. The central character, Eva, looks like Anna Torv. The Crime Department cop reminded me of Jeffrey Cymbler, a lawyer I worked with for several years; his small town cop partner reminded me of Brent Spiner. The important mystic characters are either not seen (Muns, the last of his race) or barely seen (the lake spirit who we see as a small white blob who quickly grows to bathtub size). My favorite character, Elva, starts out looking like an ancient bag lady, but by the last image in the final episode, she somehow looks preternaturally young, her skin unlined. The forest setting is beautiful and eerie. A warning of two bad animal things for people like me who can't bear this.

After longing for decades to see this series, it finally popped up on Shudder in 2021. Disappointingly, this was neither written nor directed by Argento, and it's so slow and dull, one wonders how Argento let it go out under his auspices. Not only that, but it's clearly not a giallo tale, as Dario promised in his awkward introduction. Why didn't Luca call the cops when he was in the murderer's apartment? Why did the murderer wait until daylight to dig a grave? I anticipated the "surprise" ending. Just a huge letdown.

This showed up on WFUT Labor Day weekend 2017. Woody Allen always seemed uncomfortable doing stand up, and especially acting as MC, where he had to introduce guests, but after his initial appearance, he seemed to enjoy himself in this hour which originally aired around New Year's Eve.

Liza, who became more OTT and less intelligible with lyrics over the years here was not at all shouty, with MY BEAUTIFUL BALLOON and FEELIN' GROOVY, just singing, no dancing.

There was a so-so sketch about mini skirts with Allen, Byner and Minnelli that went on too long, but the next one was a gem about a spoiled child star, Baby Bobby Dimple, played by Woody in a blond wig and falsetto voice. His film career behind him, he decides to run for state senate and acts very much like Trump when he doesn't get his way.

The final sketch was a parody of BONNIE AND CLYDE, with Allen as Clyde and Minnelli as Bonnie; this was lovingly done, like the old movie send-ups on YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS. It's a shame no one offered such a series to Allen, but probably he would not have taken them up, as his movie career was about to take off.

William F. Buckley, a conservative, and Woody, a liberal, take questions from the audience, and most of the answers were jokes. All this and Aretha Franklin too!

The end credits misspelled Marshall Brickman as Marshall Brinkman, which possibly amused him.

After the recent passing of Jerry Lewis, WFUT dug out of the archive this old Kraft Music Hall roast of Jerry, chaired by the dry Johnny Carson. Charlie Callas stole the evening in a spot-on impersonation of Georgie Jessel, complete with a chestful of medals, with his whiny voice, NY accent and reputation for speaking at memorial services. Also speaking were Alan King, Jack Carter, Milton Berle, Don Rickles, and the utterly gorgeous film critic Rex Reed, infamous for appearing in MYRA BRECKINRIDGE. By the time this aired September 3, 2017, everyone was in comedy heaven, except the 78 year old Reed.

I caught this on a DVD called TV NOIR from Netflix with 5 episodes from various '50s crime TV series. This was the only one from FEDERAL MAN. It was a bit talky and slow to develop, but worth seeing for Bronson, who played an undercover cop. There was next to no violence in this, and no car chases or explosions. Aah, the good old days!

I came to this series very late, after reading over and over how funny William Shatner was with James Spader. I got hooked on it right away and felt sorry when it was over to lose the wit and intelligence and bizarre plot twists. But this episode was clearly a New Millennia version of that old Agatha Christie chestnut WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION, where the wife of a man accused of murder allows herself to appear vindictive and out to frame him, when in fact she loves him so much, she's willing to go to jail for perjury. And the lawyers in that old film have the wool pulled over their eyes, just as these Crane, Poole & Schmidt attorneys were fooled.

This is three stories all involving high school kids. In the first one, the seniors are bullies (a theme in Asian films) and send 3 girls into a disused school to face up to a putative haunted music room. That's just an urban myth, but the girls are rather silly and squeeze through an opening in a door that is chained shut, so you know right away they aren't going to get out easily, if at all. Haunting the school is the ghost of another school girl who foolishly chased a kitten, fell to her death and now malevolently takes it out on anyone who crosses her path.

The second story is about teenage pregnancy; three students from the same class are about to apply for college; one is pregnant by another; and the third is her best friend, who has vowed to always be there for her. When she is kicked in the stomach by more bully girls, she suffers a miscarriage and bleeds to death. The friend who should have been there always was off making a deal with the father of the illegitimate baby to get her friend to have an abortion.

The third story is about a high school lad whose father is a shaman, and he has unfortunately inherited the ability to see ghosts. He can't hear them, but he can feel them write words on his back, so he is able to communicate with them. When a serial killer who has committed suicide shows up to deal with a recently killed school girl and mutilate her further, he is forced to do an exorcism after school.

I've seen several terrible compendium Asian horror films and many a dull Asian horror film set in high school, so I had low expectations for this, but it was very well acted and held my interest. I am consonantly amazed at the excellent acting chops of very young Asian actors, like the amazing child, Seo-woo Eun, in PHONE (2002) and the 3 children in the Korean HANSEL AND GRETEL (2007).

When I moved to NY from Philadelphia, this is one of the places I always wanted to visit. I was lucky enough to get there many times over a number of years and saw wonderful comics before they became nationally known. This is a tribute to the now demolished club on W 44th and 9th Avenue and its Melrose Avenue place in LA, with wonderful anecdotes from Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, Richard Lewis, Judd Apatow, Kathy Griffin, Sarah Silverman, Ray Romano, Jimmy Fallon and 4 of the Wayans brothers; clips include brief appearances by Andy Kaufman, Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin, Jerry Seinfeld and others; and briefly glimpsed photos of people like Steve Landesburg, Mike Kane, Mark Schiff, Steve Middleman, Dom Irrera. No mention of Richard Jeni, Carol Leifer, Elayne Boosler, John Mendoza or Ron Darien or other stalwarts of the day.

This was a kine-scope of a 50-minute 1959 TV special starring George Burns. It's amazing to think he died in 1996 and outlived Bobby Darin, who was only 23 at this time and died in 1973. Burns was a big promoter of Darin, and they worked well together. First Darin sang CLEMENTINE, and then he and George did a sand dance. Burns was 54 at the time and really smooth and in great singing voice.

In fact, in his later years, when he was an octogenarian and older, he did substantially this same act, making fun of his singing voice, singing really old vaudeville songs and telling stories about starting out with neighborhood kids as the Peewee Quartet, as well as all the different acts and names he had in vaudeville. There was more singing and less comedy in this, though, and it was great.

Jack Benny was on, ostensibly recreating his first time on stage without his violin, so that he didn't know what to do with his hands; it was pretty funny, although Jack was not really a physical comic; his awkwardness (except when he mimed bowing his violin) was part of the joke.

At the end, Jack, George, Eddie Cantor and Georgie Jessel sang PALS, while they each tried to upstage the other. I enjoyed this very much, although the b/w print was very smeary and hard to see someone youthful like Darin, whose face seemed washed out. Here's a clip from this sequence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUpLdLupNWk

All the ads were cut and the running time was still 50 minutes; now you hardly get 40 minutes without commercials during an hour.

Ethel Merman showed up at the end to tout her appearance the following week. She looked great.

If you have seen any film by Alex de la Ingelsia, then you know that no two of his films are alike, that they contain a lot of humor and arresting images, and often a lot of graphic gores, and are the product of a very original mind. THE LAST CIRCUS is no exception. There are images in this film that will stay with you for years.

The settings are many and varied, beginning with the Spanish Civil War in 1937 and winding up in 1973 on a War Monument that includes a giant cross and statues for an ending that will bring to mind Hitchcock's NORTH BY NORTHWEST. Along the way there is a nightclub dedicated to Telly Savalas called Kojak!

Pedro Rodríguez has created two very different special effects makeups, one of a man who has self-mutilated his face with acid and a hot iron, and another by man who has had his face slashed with a grappling hook and then stitched back together by a veterinarian. Rodríguez is someone whose future work bears watching.

The setting for much of the action is a traveling circus reminiscent of FREAKS crossed with Alejandro Jodorowsky's SANTA SANGRE. Clowns have always been pretty creepy anyway, but you will never look at them the same after this film.

I have longed to see this film and pestered Turner to show it for years, and finally they put it on in October 2011 as part of a Peter Yates series. It has a wonderful cast of British actors, including Graham Crowden (who appeared in the original play), George Cole, Mona Washbourne and Glyn Houston.

Jonathan Miller is cast against type as an almost nonverbal character who is training talking weighing machines to sing as a chorus. I was amazed to hear one of the songs they sang was Michael Brown's LIZZIE BORDEN from NEW FACES OF 1952! If you haven't read the play, you may have trouble following this when a living room turns into a court room; it must have been easier to grasp this watching it on stage where the room was assembled before the audience by the eccentric father.

Thank you, Turner, for finally letting the public see this!

NEW FACES of 1952 has a backstage structure imposed on it of the cast requiring cash in order for the show to continue; and two cast members being in love, against the wishes of the girl's Texan father. The cast mainly featured Ronnie Graham, Alice Ghostley, Robert Clary and Eartha Kitt. Additional cast members included June Carroll, Virginia DeLuce, Paul Lynde, Bill Mullins, Rosemary O'Reilly, Allen Conroy, Jimmy Russell, George Smiley, Polly Ward, Carol Lawrence, Johnny Lavery, Elizabeth Logan, Faith Burwell and Clark Ranger. The words and music were "mostly" by Ronny Graham, Arthur Siegel, June Carroll, Sheldon Harnick and Michael Brown, with additional contributions from Murray Grand, Ellisse Boyd, Alan Melville, Herbert Farjeon (who gave Joyce Grenfell her start in revues), Francis LeMarque and Peter DeVries. The sketches were written by Ronny Graham, "Melvin" Brooks, Paul Lynde, Luther Davis and John Cleveland. The numbers included: C'est Si Bon Eartha Kitt Meet the Senate Paul Lynde, Ronny Graham & Others Lucky Pierre Robert Clary Penny Candy ? Boston Beguine Alice Ghostley Love is a Simple Thing Robert Clary, Earthy Kitt Famous Southern Writer Ronny Graham Time for Tea Alice Ghostley & Others Alouette Robert Clary Santa, Baby Eartha Kitt Waltzing in Venice ? Take Off Your Mask Ronny Graham, Alice Ghostley Mr. Canker in Darkest Africa Paul Lynde Raining Memories Robert Clary I'm In Love With Miss Logan Robert Clary Pickpocket Paul Lynde, Alice Ghostley, Ronny Graham Lizzie Borden Ronny Graham & Others Monotonous Eartha Kitt Finale Entire Cast

MEET THE SENATE was a senate investigation into jazz, with Ronny Graham in a zoot suit. PENNY CANDY is a heart tugging song by a bejeweled lady thinking back to her childhood when a piece of penny candy could make her happy as nothing in her rich life does now. BOSTON BEGUINE is a famous Sheldon Harnick number which Alice Ghostley really shines in. I couldn't figure out who the "famous Southern author" was supposed to be - Tennessee Williams; Truman Capote (the character's name is Kaput). TIME FOR TEA is a sad lament of missed opportunities in youth which lead to becoming two old maids. TAKE OFF YOUR MASK is Ronny Graham importuning Alice Ghostley to remove her mask at a ball in Vienna, but when he pulls it off, he begs her to put it back on and dashes away on a gondola. MR. CANKER IN DARKEST AFRICA is Paul Lynde in bandages and on crutches, narrating his unfortunate experiences on a recent trip to Egypt. I'M IN LOVE WITH MISS LOGAN is Robert Clary as a young boy with a crush on his teacher and not even knowing her first name. PICKPOCKET is a skit in which Paul Lynde is an unsuccessful pickpocket who is disappointed in his son, Ronny Graham, who plays baseball and gets A's on his report card, and doesn't seem to want to follow him into the family business. MONOTONOUS is Eartha Kitt as a femme fatale, bored with her life even though she "made Johnny Ray smile for me; a camel walked a mile for me."