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Tag: '80s Films Page 3 of 4

Jaclyn Smith Believes in Santa in The Night They Saved Christmas

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On December 9, 2022

In TV Movies

Jaclyn Smith with her brood in The Night They Saved Christmas.

There is no greater ’80s holiday fantasy movie than A Smoky Mountain Christmas (1986), with its savory squirrel stew blend of witchcraft, fairy tales, backwoods orphans, country music stardom and poisoned maybe-lesbian pies. But once you’ve completed your annual viewing of that Dolly Parton classic, you might consider checking out The Night They Saved Christmas (1984), another family-oriented telefilm that will leave you staring at the screen in confusion, murmuring “What the jingle hell is this?”

Nearly as bad as Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, it essentially hinges on whether an oil company will slaughter Santa and his elves (who number in the thousands) for a shot at greater riches. But there’s so much more to it than that, nearly all of it bleak and depressing. The Night They Saved Christmas doesn’t only inspire ’80s nostalgia because of its sophisticated robot toys, parents on the verge of divorce, fashionable winter jumpers and references to Saudi involvement in American oil. It’s also a heartwarming reminder of our constant proximity to ruthless annihilation in the waning years of the Cold War.

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Valerie Harper Says Goodbye, Supermom

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On November 4, 2022

In TV Movies

Valerie Harper and Wayne Rogers in Goodbye, Supermom.

A semi-earnest social commentary obscured by empty sitcom yuks, 1988’s Goodbye, Supermom (also known as Drop-Out Mother) is a television movie that hates television. “Know what the ‘M’ in MTV stands for? Moron,” a teenage character tells her little brother. An elderly woman later declares “I have no skills, I’m not talented. I read People and watch Entertainment Tonight. I take Robin Leach seriously. I live through other people’s lives.”

If that isn’t compelling enough on its surface, you ought to know who wrote it. Supermom’s credited screenwriter was Bob Shanks, a longtime producer of The Merv Griffin Show. As an ABC executive in the 1970s, Shanks helped birth infotainment-peddling programs like Good Morning America and 20/20, which permanently rearranged the American television landscape—and not necessarily for the better. In the ’80s, he wrote a handful of telefilms that were variations on the theme of corporate burnout: Supermom follows Drop-Out Father (1982, starring Dick Van Dyke) and He’s Fired, She’s Hired (1984).

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Dial ‘M’ for Murder: The Angie Dickinson Remake

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On October 24, 2022

In TV Movies

Angie Dickinson with Ron Moody in Dial ‘M’ for Murder.

Onscreen adultery rarely looked more glamorous than when it was being committed by Angie Dickinson, who followed her turn as one of the more significant straying spouses in the history of cinema—in Brian De Palma’s 1980 classic, Dressed to Kill—with a TV remake of another notable tale of extramarital betrayal, Dial ‘M’ for Murder. In an intriguing departure from other adaptations of Frederick Knott’s stage play, Dickinson was 50 years old when she tackled the role of Margot Wendice—twice as old as Grace Kelly, who played Margot in Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial ‘M’ for Murder (1954).

That Dickinson’s Margot and Christopher Plummer’s Tony Wendice are an age-appropriate pairing subtly reconfigures their power dynamic. Grace Kelly’s youthfulness, contrasted with the Ray Milland’s cool, mature composure as a retired tennis player, enhanced her character’s vulnerability. In Andrew Davis’ A Perfect Murder, a 1998 remake, Gwyneth Paltrow would’ve been more believable as the daughter, not wife, of an embattled Michael Douglas. Dickinson, who held her own in westerns, exploitation flicks, police fare, and opposite the Rat Pack, was no ingénue by 1981, raising the domestic stakes.

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Teen Witch: Go and Top (or Bottom) That

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On October 17, 2022

In '80s Movies

Mandy Ingber and Robyn Lively in Teen Witch.

As its theme song warns—or perhaps threatens—you’re never gonna be the same again after watching Teen Witch (1989). The phrase is emphatically repeated no fewer than 17 times in the track that accompanies the film’s baffling opening sequence, which plays like a ponderous perfume ad aimed at tweens. When that sonic nightmare is finally over, 15-year-old Louise Miller (Robyn Lively) awakens to find her little brother, Richie (Joshua John Miller), binge-eating junk food beneath her bed.

It is as difficult to convey Richie’s essential gayness as it is burdensome to adequately describe the many tortures of the Teen Witch soundtrack. Louise will soon learn, on the cusp of her sixteenth birthday, that she is a witch poised to assume control of her powers. But to focus solely on her supernatural gifts is to overlook the flaming young Richie’s demonic possession by the spirits of Paul Lynde and Alice Ghostley. Zelda Rubinstein plays Madame Serena, Louise’s mentor in mischievous magic, and I kept imagining her Poltergeist character spotting Richie and chanting “Cross over, homos. All are welcome!”

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Kate Jackson Does Time in Inmates: A Love Story

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On October 10, 2022

In TV Movies

Killer Bees were nothing compared to hard time.

Kate Jackson’s incarcerated again in Inmates: A Love Story (1981), and while it’s frustrating that her love interest is Perry King and not Meg Foster, we must learn to accept it and move on with our lives. (Gluttons for punishment will recall that Foster was King’s lesbian love interest in 1978’s seven-layer dip of offensiveness, A Different Story, in which he also played gay, but that’s a rant for another day.) If you can manage your disappointment, even as Jackson wears flannel and performs garbage duty, you’ll be rewarded with a bizarre, mostly enjoyable telefilm with a rare early ’80s lesbian subplot.

Jackson’s Jane Mount (no comment on the butch surname) is doing “a nickel to a dime,” as she puts it, at the Greenleaf State Co-Correctional Institution, an experimental coed facility. The men and women bunk in separate areas but fraternize in the cafeteria, prison yard and other shared spaces. Sexual contact is a verboten but couples pair off anyway, which is how Jane’s closest friend, young Grace (an affecting Fay Hauser), becomes pregnant. When Grace spots the baby’s father canoodling with another inmate, Jane tells her to leave and approaches the cad with her cafeteria tray — and a trademark mischievous Jackson smile that signals he’s about to receive a helluva comeuppance.

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The Deliberate Stranger: Before There Was Netflix…

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On October 5, 2022

In TV Movies

Mark Harmon in The Deliberate Stranger (1986).

Netflix, the streaming giant once poised to join or overtake HBO as a premiere destination for prestige programming, now happily wallows in lurid filth—and, sadly, I don’t mean that in the best spirit of the phrase. Whether it’s the new Marilyn Monroe film (which I’m avoiding for reasons better articulated by Michael Campochiaro of The Starfire Lounge), or an endless parade of deeply exploitative true crime ‘documentaries’ that aren’t worthy of the name, I regularly receive promo emails from Netflix touting irredeemable content.

Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, one of its most recent ghoulish offerings, is produced by Ryan Murphy, a titan of tabloid tragedy who has never met a murder he wasn’t happy to exploit for profit. Even as real-life families of victims called the series re-traumatizing, it was quickly watched in its entirety by more than 56 million households. I’ve heard more than one viewer justify their decision by insisting they’re merely interested in abnormal psychology, which is absurd. No one is bingeing a 10-part series about a cannibal weeks before Halloween for academic reasons.

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I Think I’m Having a Baby: A Teen’s Pregnant Pause

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On October 3, 2022

In TV Movies

Jennifer Jason Leigh, dressed in a red shirt, waves.
Jennifer Jason Leigh waves goodbye to her childhood in I Think I’m Having a Baby.

As strange a title as it is — it’s preferable to possess a degree of certainty about whether you’re expecting — I Think I’m Having a Baby is also perfectly in keeping with the utter cluelessness of this 1981 Afternoon Playhouse special’s 15-year-old protagonist. Laurie McIntire (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a child with the hair and makeup of a divorced and disillusioned single mother of two, has entered that hideous phase of adolescence where she’s constitutionally incapable of doing anything but mooning over an unimpressive boy.

Star athlete Peter (Shawn Stevens) dates her older cousin Phoebe (Helen Hunt), whose preppy sweater draped over the shoulders tells you all there is to know about her. Peter isn’t particularly bright (Phoebe does his schoolwork) and teases Laurie on the rare occasion he notices her at all. But when her best friend Marsha (Bobbi Block, now known as Samantha Paris) and little sister Carrie (Tracey Gold, years away from the torments of Lady Killer and Midwest Obsession) mock his ape-like walk across the football field, Laurie gets defensive. “He’s not really like that,” she insists.

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Tricks of the Trade: Laverne & Squirrelly

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On September 7, 2022

In TV Movies

Markie Post and Cindy Williams stare nervously at criminals who aren't pictured.
Markie Post and Cindy Williams in Tricks of the Trade.

“They don’t teach Prostitution 101 at Vassar,” prim Beverly Hills housewife Cathy (Cindy Williams) huffs to streetwise hooker Marla (Markie Post) in Tricks of the Trade, a saucy 1988 telefilm. This very dated buddy comedy serves as her crash course. When stockbroker Donald (John Ritter), Cathy’s husband, is gunned down at Marla’s seedy apartment by a mystery assailant, the women are plunged into zany criminal intrigue — a milieu more comfortable to the lady of the evening than the staid suburban spouse.

They first spot each other at the police station, where there’s an obligatory scene of Marla snapping “Are you gonna charge me with something? Because if you’re not gonna charge me with something, I’m outta here.” But it’s not until Cathy’s therapist encourages her to get in touch with her anger that she finally knocks on the other woman’s door, interrupting a date with a kinky john to ask how long Donald was a client. “What is this, female bonding?” Marla asks, admitting it was a years-long arrangement.

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Fear Stalk: Even the Title is Stupid

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On August 29, 2022

In TV Movies

Lynne Thigpen teaches Jill Clayburgh to shoot in Fear Stalk.

Fear Stalk (1989), an irredeemably awful telefilm as generic and stupid as its title, follows Alexandra ‘Ally’ Maynard (Jill Clayburgh), a soap opera producer known as “the blood and gore queen of daytime,” as she’s stalked by… a purse thief?! The gimmick here, explained by security expert and former Beverly Hills detective Barbara (Lynne Thigpen, in the film’s best performance), is that the contents of women’s purses make us uniquely vulnerable to bad actors. To demonstrate, she has volunteers empty their bags, which contain ID cards, checkbooks and insurance information.

“What does the average man carry with him?” she asks. “A wallet, driver’s license, a few credit cards. Men travel lighter than women. In essence they live more defensively. Not stuff. See, we love stuff. It makes us feel secure to carry everything with us. Then our purse is stolen. Then all that security, all that power, is in someone else’s hands.” These days, of course, the most sensitive details of our lives are often stored in the cloud. But Barb’s argument isn’t unduly persuasive even to those of us who remember the clunky, bottomless purses our mothers carried pre-smartphones.

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Just the Way You Are: A Different Kind of Comedy

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On July 29, 2022

In '80s Movies

Kristy McNichol disguises her handicap in Just the Way You Are.

“Don’t you sometimes wish you could just meet someone who’d carry you off and take care of you?” Susan Berlanger (Kristy McNichol) asks her friend Lisa (Kaki Hunter) in the opening moments of Just the Way You Are (1984). It’s a funny sentiment coming from a character so ambivalent about all the amorous attention she attracts wherever she goes.

Susan, a flautist about to embark on her first recital tour in Europe, is catnip to men. Her quick wit, adversarial posturing, dazzling smile and structurally complex hair even win admirers over the phone. Jack (Lance Guest of Please Mom, Don’t Hit Me), an answering service operator, is so smitten that he knocks on her door in a gorilla suit. He scampers away just as quickly after noticing her leg brace.

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