Tarzan and the Huntress (1947) – Review

Tarzan and the Huntress is the last of the Tarzan films to feature Boy played by Johnny Sheffield, at the time of this picture's release Sheffield was sixteen and producer Sol Lesser had come to the startling conclusion that maybe the kid had outgrown the role of cute jungle boy.  Thus the character of Boy would no longer appear in further Tarzan movies.

This entry begins with your standard idyllic jungle moment with Tarzan and family, of course white man will enter the picture and ruin all this, but until then Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller) is having fun swinging through the trees, Boy (Johnny Sheffield) is making a fishing rod, and Cheeta is doing her Winnie the Pooh impression while trying to steal honey from bees. Jane (Brenda Joyce) informs Tarzan and Boy that it’s time to leave for King Farrod’s (Charles Trowbridge) birthday party, and the trio head off down the river. Tarzan gives the raft's pole to Boy and tells him, “Boy man now. Do man’s work.”

 

“If I'm a man now does that mean I’m finally going to get a real name?”

The other key players in this jungle drama are Tanya Rawlins (Patricia Morison), one of the world’s foremost animal trainers, her financial backer Carl Marley (John Warburton) and Paul Weir (Barton MacLane) the ruthless hunter who will do anything to get the job done. Tanya Rawlins has come to Africa to bring back as many animals as possible due to a shortage of animals in American zoos following World War II. She is quite upset to find out from Marley and Weir that King Farrod will only allow them to take two of any one species. This is disastrous for Tanya as all her money is tied up in this expedition, and getting just two of each animal will not be enough.

 

“I really should have looked into that quota thing before coming all the way here.”

They attend the King’s birthday celebration with the hopes of Tanya sweet talking the King into lifting the quota, but the kindly ole codger sticks to his decision. Weir suggests to his compatriots that they pull an end run around the King and secretly deal with his nephew Oziri (Ted Hecht). This evil bastard wouldn’t care if they emptied the whole jungle as long as he got a cut, but he’s not even satisfied with that, during the hunt he orchestrates the assassination of King Farrod.

 

“I’m sorry, I thought he was coming right at me.”

The young Prince Suli (Maurice Tauzin) does not buy it being an accident, and after spotting the killers lurking in the jungle he runs after them. Sadly this results in him being tossed off a cliff overlooking a pool of crocodiles, and he is left for dead. Now that Oziri is king pillaging of the jungle can proceed post haste, and a sad Tarzan and family return to their home across the river. Unfortunately before leaving Boy was shown a flashlight by Smithers (Wallace Scott), Tanya’s pilot and comic relief, and is offered a trade, “I’ll swap it for the chimp.” Boy tells Smithers that Cheeta is like family, and cannot be traded for.  But later Boy spots a lioness and her cubs and thinks they’d make for a perfect trade.

 

Boy is a dick to jungle friends.

Eventually Tarzan finds out about this trade and returns to the American encampment to get the cubs back. When Tarzan arrives at he is shocked to find more animals than the late King’s decree would have allowed. Weir isn’t a fan of Tarzan and tells the jungle man mind his own business and, “Take the cubs back to your side of the river and stay there, if you know what’s good for you.” When the Ape Man says, “Tarzan stay on his side of river, hunters stay on theirs.” Weir thinks he has won, but nothing could be further from the truth because Tarzan is one canny son of bitch, and he just uses his stock jungle call to bring ALL of the animals in the jungle to HIS side of the river.

 

"AAAAaaahh Ooo AAAHHhhh Aaa!" That’s ape talk for “You're screwed!”

This doesn’t stop that bastard Weir though, he just marches the men right across the river and proceeds to hunt and trap on Tarzan’s land. How they manage to remain unnoticed for so long, trapping and shooting off their guns as they do, without Tarzan noticing is beyond me, but eventually the idiots try and cage Cheeta. Big mistake. The chimp escapes and lets Tarzan know about the intruders, and what follows is some fun with Tarzan and Boy sneaking into the camp at night, knocking out the sentries, and stealing all the guns. Our two heroes hide all the apprehended guns in cave behind a waterfall, and without those guns the chances of those bozos surviving in the jungle is very slim. Tarzan let’s Tanya know that if they release the animals they’ve trapped so far he will safely guide them out of the jungle. Sadly the idiots won’t deal

 

“The rape of the natural world is my right as an American!”

In the previous film Tarzan and the Leopard Woman Cheeta was practically the bloody hero, rescuing Tarzan, Jane and Boy multiple times, that will not be the case here. The stupid chimp tries to steal Tanya’s compact and when caught at it she decides to trade for it,  and she retrieves one of the guns from the cave. Tanya tells Cheeta that she will only part with the compact if Cheeta leads them to the rest of the guns. Cheeta’s kleptomaniac tendencies have been well documented, but never with such disastrous results. Tanya even stiffs Cheeta, by keeping the compact anyway.

 

No honor among thieves, or hunters…or whatever the hell these guys are.

Meanwhile Tarzan and Boy stumble upon the actually not quite dead Prince Suli, saving him from an approaching python, and after sending Boy back to Jane Tarzan offers to take the young prince back to his people. Of course they will run into the killers who murdered King Farrod, and Tarzan will return the favor by murdering the hell out of them, and when evil Ozir shows up with coterie of armed men Tarzan does the only thing a man can do in a situation like that.

 

Elephant Stampede.

Marley is trampled to death, all the animal cages are smashed freeing the poor beasts, and Weir is chased by the herd into a pit trap that that just so happens to be holding a very pissed off lion. Irony is the most brutal killer in the jungle. Tanya and Smithers escape to their plane, but Cheeta, who really wanted the compact, sneaks aboard to get her “rightful” property.

 

“I think there is someone here to see you.”

As a Tarzan movie this has a lot going for it, but as a send-off for Boy it’s a tad disappointing. As an almost grown man, one who has lived in the jungle with Tarzan and Jane since he was a baby, I don’t buy him trading any animal for flashlight. Did he not pick up any of Tarzan's moral codes over the years? He certainly keeps forgetting that any interaction he's had with “helpful white men” has gone badly for him. So is Boy just a callous teen or is he just a stupid idiot? I'll let you the viewer decide.  Now don’t feel too bad for Johnny Sheffield, once he got kicked out of Tarzan’s jungle he landed a gig in his own series Bomba, the Jungle Boy.

 

“For crying out loud I’m sixteen, I’m not a boy anything!”

Galactica 1980: Space Croppers - Review

In this second to last episode of Galactica 1980 we get our heroes battling racism on Earth as they try to colonize the planet.  Using a science fiction show to tackle important issues is certainly nothing new, Gene Roddenberry used his show Star Trek for much the same way, but in Space Croppers any serious content is lost among the silliness and bad writing of the episode.

The show opens with the Imperious Leader (now voiced by Dennis Haysbert) telling a Centurion that he is tired of waiting for the Galactica to lead them to Earth, and orders an attack on the fleets agro ships in the hopes that it will force Adama’s hand. This once again focuses on one of the major questions I have with this show, where in the hell is the Galactica? In the first episode Dr. Zee (James Patrick Stuart) revealed to Adama (Lorne Greene) that the Cylon fleet had found them, but was trying to follow them discreetly to Earth. This led to Adama ordering the fleet to move passed Earth so that the Cylon’s wouldn't realize it was their true destination. But then where in the hell has the Galactica been hiding out all this time? Troy (Kent McCord) and Dillon (Barry Van Dyke) constantly communicate back and forth with the Galactica, and even make trips back to the fleet, so how far away can the Galactica be from Earth? How can the Cylons, who are apparently still tracking the Galactica, not notice this blue/green planet populated with billions of human beings?

“That can’t be humanities lost colony, it is littered with way too many Denny’s restaurants.”

The Cylon’s attack the Galactica fleet and destroy two of the agro ships, which should have been real difficult to do when one considers the fact that after the events in The Magnificent Warriors there was only one agro ship left. Adama orders the immediate colonization of Earth so that they can replenish their lost food stores. We then learn that one of the ways that the Galactica has apparently kept Earth safe is having decoy squadrons harass the Cylons while Troy and Dillon were making their trips back and forth to Earth. Once again this makes the Cylons out to be incredibly stupid for not realizing the Galactica has stopped its decade’s long trek through the stars, and is now just hanging around this solar system for no apparent reason. So Dagget Squadron engages the Cylons while Troy and Dillon make their way to Earth to buy up some farmland.

 

Where they immediately mistake this for an Earthling. *sigh*

I hate to second guess the great Commander Adama, but is he sure these two bozos are the best bet for establishing a colony on Earth? Our two “special needs” Galactican warriors then pay a call on local farmer Hector Alonzo (Ned Romero) whose farm has come upon some hard times due to the water hording of local bigot John Steadman (Dana Elcar). Turns out Steadman’s ranch controls most of the water for the area, and he’s built a dam on his property that prevents water from getting to people he deems not worthy, by not worthy  he means Hispanics.

 

Racist asshat in a big hat.

When Troy and Dillon partner up with Hector this angers Steadman and his goons, and so they set fire to his seed and try and trick Dillon into riding a crazed horse. Luckily our heroes’ wrist computrons detect that the horse has “disturbed wave patterns” and so they give the horse a blast of alpha waves that immediately calm it down. Unfortunately without water all the seed and calmed horses in the world won’t save the farm so in steps the super science of Galactica and Dr. Zee. Standards and Practices of the time insisted on “educational moments” in each episode, mostly this was handled with Troy and Dillon learning something about Earth and the people on it, but too often it relied on Dr. Zee explaining things to Adama as if the commander of a fleet of starships was dumber than a five year old. In this episode he actually explains to Adama how rain happens.

 

“I’ll try and not use too many big words, but basically rain is caused by overexcited fairies.”

Time is of the essences, because apparently once an agro ship is destroyed all the food supplies for the fleet vanish as well, and so Troy and Dillon are told they must have the seed planted that very night. Because John Steadman has a stranglehold on the water supply, which somehow translates into power over the Grower’s Association, no one will help Hector work the farm for fear of earning the wrath of Steadman. Sadly Troy and Dillon have an easy solution to this workforce problem.

 

Return of the Super Scouts *big sigh*

Hector is a little unsure a bunch of kids can work his farm, but Troy, Dillon and the newly arrived Jamie (Robyn Douglas) assure him they are stronger than they look. Later we see Adama and Dr. Zee loading his anti-gravity ship, the one he plans to create clouds and rain nutrients onto the Hector’s farm, with a team of agricultural experts dressed in Earthling farmer clothing.  In the dark of the night Troy and Dillon blast furrows with the laser guns while the Galactica Farm Team leap around the field planting seeds.

Question: If you had these guys handy in the first place than why in the hell did you need to recruit Jamie and the Super Scouts?

 

Not sure how leaping fifty feet into the air is an effective seed planting technique.

No one notices Steadman watching all this super powered farm work, but what is worse is that in the morning Hector and his wife are only surprised at the new workers, wondering when they arrived, but don’t question at all the fact that they have a truck full of harvested produce from a field that hadn’t even been seeded when they went to bed. I’m surprised there wasn’t a scene where the religious Hispanic family explained it all away with “Angels did it.” Steadman then arrives with the police and the head of the agriculture society, the authorities have come on Steadman’s word that there is illegal aliens *snicker* working for Hector, and demand to see some identification. When Jamie pulls out her press badge, and starts questioning Steadman on what he witnessed the night before, the idiot starts going on about flying saucers and super jumping people. Needless to say the Sheriff (Kenneth Tobey) is none too pleased with having been dragged out here under false pretenses.

 

“Let me tell you a thing or two about things from another world.”

This also shakes loose Steadman’s stranglehold on the Grower’s Association, and at the next meeting Steadman is ordered to remove his dam so that all the people in the valley can have the water they need. This episode has more in common with Bill Bixby version of The Incredible Hulk where David Banner would get a job with an unfortunate family, usually fighting off corrupt officials or mob protection rackets, than it does with the rest of the series. Would the show have gone more in that direction if it hadn’t been cancelled? Would each and every week have had Troy and Dillon land more colonists who would end up helping the locals against greed and corruption, or maybe we’d finally get some Cylon attacking earth action. Poor ratings would prevent us from ever finding out.

 

And we’d never get to see Dr. Zees cool flying saucer again.

Cooties (2014) – Review

Blending horror and comedy is tricky business, getting the necessary ingredients could land you a film like Shaun of the Dead, but miss a few integral elements and the result could be something more along the lines of today’s entry Cooties.

 

*Spoiler Warning*

The key ingredient for me is the likability of the characters. You can have a person be an oblivious idiot, as in the aforementioned Shaun of the Dead, or a pompous jerk like Ash in Army of Darkness, but there still has to be something to their character that endears us to them. Something identifiable. This for me was what directors Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion failed to provide in their film. (Wait, this thing needed two directors?) The film's protagonist is Clint Hadson (Elijah Wood), a failed author who has returned to his home town of Fort Chicken to take a job as a substitute teacher. Every cliché of the “Failed Author” is trotted out here, right down to him back home living with his mother, but the script doesn’t bother to add any real personality to Clint. He’s a shitty writer, has a crush on an old classmate, and…nope, that’s it, nothing else.

 

He makes Charlie Brown look like a dynamo of charisma.

The story itself is just a mishmash of 28 Days Later and Dawn of the Dead. Tainted chicken nuggets cause elementary school student Shelly Linker (Sunny May Allison) to go into full on rage virus mode against fellow student, and complete shit, Patriot (Cooper Roth). After biting a chunk out of his face she disappears into the playground while Clint takes the boy to the nurse’s office. The laissez faire attitude that both Clint and the nurse have towards a little girl biting piece out of another child may have been a comic jab at society’s social decline towards indifference, but really it just comes across as strange and lazy. The nurse tells Clint that the injury will need stitches, that there is nothing she can do and he needs to go to the hospital, but then the scene just ends with no real resolution. He is later seen running around infecting kids on the playground.

 

Should someone at least call this kid’s parents?

Now Patriot, named such because he was born on 9/11, is the kind of rotten kid the populates movies, but is too broad even for a comedy. He drops the “F” bomb constantly and calls Clint a cunt. Later when Clint is having a break in the teacher’s lounge with his long-time crush Lucy McCormick (Allison Pill), he recounts to her the events in his classroom, she asks him if Shelly was sent to the principal’s office and his response is, “Are you kidding? I wanted to give her a high five. That kid was a dick.” Sure, kids like that we'd love to see get their comeuppance, but a child dying or being mutilated is a bit too horrifying for this kind of karmic payback, and Clint's attitude here is just bizarre . This may have been intended to be funny, but all it did was make the movies “hero” come across as self-centered unlikable jerk. Sadly most of the characters in this movie, with the exception of Lucy, are pretty damn unlikable.

 

Case in point P.E. teacher Wade Johnson (Rainn Wilson).

Wade is your stereotypical movie/television gym teacher, he is a jerk and a bully, and our heroes rival for the affections of Lucy. We may wonder what a sweet girl is doing dating a complete asshat like Wade, but the script certainly doesn’t. He isn’t even the worst use of comedy in this film; there is Rebbekah Halverson (Nasim Pedrad) who wears a rape alarm because of the State’s conceal and carry laws, then there's Tracy Lacey (Jack McBrayer), a billboard for gay stereotypes, who shockingly reveals to his fellow teachers that he is…gay (that's comedy folks), and then we have Doug (Leigh Whannell) the school’s science and health teacher who suffers from the type of Asperger syndrome only to be found in the movies. He reads books like “How to Have a Normal Conversation” and performs autopsies on the infected kids, and sticks his hands in shit and vomit.

 

I’m betting he got his hands like that from reading the script.

Now about these “zombie” kids. From Doug’s autopsy we learn that the higher brain functions of the infected kids have already started to decay, but the part controlling their motor functions, allowing them to run and kill, are just fine, yet we see Patriot ripping out the phone’s land lines, stomping all the cellphone, cutting the school’s power, and he seems to be leader of the murderous moppets. That is certainly higher brain function then you get from your typical zombie.  This stems from the movie’s apparent need for a central villain when the stories basic premise doesn’t support having one.

 

A jaw droppingly lame villain.

Given all the missteps this movie makes it isn’t completely without merit, there happens to be a couple of decent scenes. The best one of these concerns one of the non-infected kids the teachers have rescued who turns out to be diabetic, and he needs food quickly or else he will slip into a coma. This leads to Clint being volunteered to go into the school’s air ducts to make his way to the vending machine in the teacher’s lounge. Lucy, fed up with all the idiocy of her fellow teachers, joins Clint inside the ducts, the incredibly, improbably large ducts.

 

It’s Die Hard with zombies.

The absurdity of hordes of small children fighting adults is rife with comic possibilities, but most of the movie’s running time is squandered on lame jokes between the quarreling teachers. We get very few scenes where the zombie kids seem to pose any kind of threat, and with the exception of a little zombie girl on a tricycle, we don’t get even much in the horror factor either. Worse is that they constantly cut away from the “action” to show us stoner crossing guard Rick (Jorge Garcia) who hides out in his van eating shrooms.

 

I guess laughter is supposed to relieve tension…now if only they provided tension.

Then we come to the ending, or as I would call it, “We ran out of money.” The group of teachers manage to escape the school, get into Wade’s monster truck, and drive to the neighbouring town of Danville, unfortunately not only has the plague spread to this town as well, but going by news reports, it has spread across the entire country. The film ends with them driving off into the night with Lucy asking, “Where are we going?” and Clint answering. “Some place kids don’t want to go.” And that’s the end, we never learn what place Clint was thinking of (a library or old folks home?) or what happens to our merry band of assholes. If this is supposed to be some kind of stinger ending it fails, or if it is setting up for a sequel then the producers of this film were insanely optimistic.

 

“I’m going to be the Mad Max of zombie killing in the sequel.”

There are a lot worse zombie films out there, and certainly a lot worse comedies, but the sad thing here is that with the amount of actual talented actors on screen it’s just such a huge waste of potential.

 

"Tonight on Teaching Dead."

Tarzan and the Leopard Woman (1946) – Review

If Tarzan wasn’t finding or saving a lost city he was probably facing off against some evil cult or another. In Tarzan and the Leopard Woman our jungle hero must take down a group of natives who are hell bent on kicking civilization out of their neighbourhood, and despite the titles similarities it has nothing to do with the Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan and the Leopard Men.  Brenda Joyce returns for her second outing as Jane, and to say her character has taken a decided turn for the worse would be a massive understatement as she does nothing but play the dumb “damsel in distress” for much of the movie. She doesn't even warrant an appearance on the poster.

Tarzan and the Leopard Woman opens in the town of Zambezi where we see the Commissioner (Dennis Hoey) offering a promotion to local doctor Ameer Lazar (Edgar Barrier).  Lazar is asked to take over the medical care of the territory of Bugandi, which is just now coming under British jurisdiction, but he declines the offer stating, “I have my hands full in this territory. I don’t like to leave a job half-finished.”

 

“And it’s totally not because I lead a cult that plans to murder you all.”

Their conversation is interrupted by the commotion caused Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller) wrestling in the marketplace, and then we spend the next little while with the Ape Man, Jane (Brenda Joyce) and Boy (Johnny Sheffield) trying to purchase souvenirs for Jane’s relatives back in London. Jane is a little put out when she discovers all the items she wished to purchase have all been sent off on a caravan to the nearby village of Bugandi. The peaceful shopping trip is interrupted, lot of interruptions in this movie, by the arrival of an injured man who reports that the caravan he was traveling with was destroyed, and his last dying words inform them it was done by leopards. Tarzan doesn’t quite buy the leopard attack story because the body showed no sign of bite marks, “Leopards never kill with claws alone. Use teeth.” The commissioner dismisses Tarzan's verdict and forms a safari to hunt the killer leopards.

 

It’s not like Tarzan is an expert on jungle craft or something.

It’s here we discover why Doctor Lazar was against the promotion as he runs off to warn the High Priestess Lea (Acquanetta) that Tarzan is suspicious about the nature of the attack. The Leopard Cult releases a large amount of real leopards to attack the Commissioner’s safari, thus confirming that it must have been leopards that attacked the caravan, and not some mysterious animal/man thing that Tarzan suspects. Though Tarzan is mocked by the Commissioner he is still holds onto his belief that it was not leopards that were responsible. Unbeknownst to our heroes their conversation was overheard by Kimba (Tommy Cook), the brother of the High Priestess of this leopard cult, and he informs his sister and Lazar that Tarzan is still suspicious, and that he wants to continue spying on them. Kimba is disliked and mistrusted by Lazar, and told to stay out of it, but the kid manages to convince his sister to allow him to keep an eye on Tarzan and his family. Of course Kimba has no interest in just “watching” but wants to bring back a heart of an enemy to impress his friends.

 

He wants to impress a bunch of cosplaying furries?

Kimba shows up at Tarzan’s treehouse claiming to be lost and hungry, Tarzan, Boy and Cheeta immediately don’t trust the little shit, but Jane is about as intuitive as a petrified tree and lets the kid stay. While Tarzan and Boy are away getting bamboo for some household repairs Kimba retrieves his hidden tribal leopard skin outfit, and moves into murder Jane. I’m not sure just how impressed his fellow warriors would be with the heart of Tarzan’s wife, but at least it shows he’s not stupid enough to take on the big guy himself. Tarzan and Boy return too soon for Kimba to make the kill, so he must go back to pretending to be a dutiful guest.

 

I’m sorry, but that outfit is just too adorable to be threatening.

Meanwhile the Commissioner, now sure that the route to Bugandi is safe, authorizes another caravan, and this one will include a group of young women teachers who will be spreading civilization's teachings to the locals. Lazar hears of this and implores his Leopard Men to strike at the caravan and bring him those women, “They hope to bring Bugandi under the control of their civilization that detests our way of life. They will stop at nothing to destroy us. They are ready to kill us for our beliefs. So that they can exploit the riches of our jungle and steal from us the treasure that is rightfully ours.”

 

Lovely rhetoric, and the Leopard God statue is a nice touch.

When Boy stumbles upon the hidden leopard costume belonging to Kimba he of course tries it on and is immediately mistaken by members of the cult as Kimba. Seeing steal clawed leopard skin wearing cultists approaching Boy makes the sensible decision of running like hell. While fleeing the Leopard Men he witnesses the kidnapped teachers being loaded onto rafts by more of the cultists. Boy is spotted by one of the Leopard Men but just as he’s about to be disembowelled by those brutal claws Tarzan, who had been alerted to Boy's danger by Cheeta, shows up to rescue him. Boy tells Tarzan about the captured girls and the Ape Man rushes off to the rescue, but he rushes off before Boy can warn him about Kimba. So it’s up to Boy to save Jane.

 

Kimba versus the really useless Jane.

Boy arrives in the nick of time and he and Kimba have a brutal fight that has them toppling from the high branches of the treehouse. During this entire fight Jane stands around looking horrified instead of stopping Kimba from trying to fillet her son. Eventually Cheeta has to step in and knock Kimba unconscious with a nice stick up the side of the head.

 

Cheeta, tens times more effective than Jane.

Meanwhile over at the river Tarzan has managed to rescue the girls by swimming under the Leopard Men’s raft and cutting the ropes holding it together. As the cultist spill into the water he murders the hell out of them, but unfortunately there are still many more Leopard Men out there and Tarzan and the girls are quickly in trouble. Tarzan is able to take out several of them with the nice use of an old pit trap and a tree rigged to fall on their pursuers, but there is still too many of them, and eventually Tarzan and the girls are captured. As is Boy and Jane when Leopard men show up at the treehouse to rescue Kimba, and like his dad Boy manages to kill several of the invaders by cutting down the suspension bridge a group were crossing and he topples a large scaffolding on more of the bastards, but like Tarzan they are vastly outnumbered and brought to the cave of the Leopard Cult.

 

“Mom, is it just me or do we spend a lot of time captured?”

Does the Commissioner track the cult down and rescue Tarzan and friends? Is Tarzan able to break his bonds and free Jane and Boy? Nope, Cheeta sneaks in and uses one of the clawed clubs to cut everyone free. Cheeta is certainly this movies Most Valuable Primate. Jane and Boy usher the girls out of the cells back door… wait, their cell had a back door? That seems like a pretty big design flaw to me. While Boy, Jane and the teachers sneak out Tarzan than proceeds to pull a Samson, and starts taking out the cave's support pillars.

 

Tarzan goes Biblical on their asses.

The whole place collapses in a shower of falling rock, and all of the cultists are killed, all but Lazar and Kimba. Lazar readies himself to shoot Tarzan, but is attacked by Kimba who is still pissed at his sister’s second in command for being such a jerk, and they end up killing each other. The Commissioner arrives to investigate the disturbance, and everyone has a good laugh at his befuddlement when he is told what has occurred under his nose.

 

“I say, this is terrible.”

Director Kurt Neumann brings us another solid jungle adventure that is just chock full of action. Both Tarzan and Boy get to show off their badass jungle skills, and even Cheeta gets to step in for a rescue or two. Jane on the other hand should have stayed in London with her relatives; she is a complete waste of space in this movie. One can’t blame Brenda Joyce as she is stuck with a terribly written part, and the producers just don’t seem to know what to do with the character. The biggest criticism I have is that the title character of the movie, the Leopard Woman, has even less of an impact on the story than Jane does.  She is too passive, letting Lazar, her number one henchman Mongo (Anthony Caruso), and her brother Kimba do all the work.

 

"Mongo just pawn in game of life."

What is most striking about this script is that villains' motivations are very understandable, they feel that their culture is being destroyed by colonization, and that is pretty much what was going on in Africa at the time. The movie is quick to show us that these rebels are evil cultists, and that they deserve the beat down they'll get at the hands of Tarzan and friends, but it’s really not that hard to see things from their point of view. And that’s what makes for a great story.

Trivia Note: The clawed leopard club used by the cultist kind of makes another appearance in Tarzan and the Great River (1967), only then it’s a Jaguar Death Cult in Brazil.

Galactica 1980: The Night the Cylons Landed - Review

With apologies to Orson Welles, or they certainly should have apologized, this episode of Galactica 1980 has to do with alien invasions and a radio broadcast on Halloween.  In this two-parter Glen A. Larson pits our heroes against a new breed of human looking Cylons, something that will be greatly expanded in the Ron Moore reboot decades later.

The episode begins with a recon patrol encountering an advanced Cylon Raider. This new ship is heavily armored, faster and with greater fire power, and with its jamming capabilities it is able to prevent the Viper crew from informing the Galactica. The Colonial fighter flies closer to the advanced Cylon ship so as to get a good scan of it and discovers that some of the crew are humanoid, or at least humanoid shaped.

 

Not quite a Series Six model.

Realizing they don’t have the fire power required to destroy this Cylon Raider they go with their only other option, and ram it.  Wait, that is your only option? How is bumping your ship into the enemy better than a laser blast? Well for whatever reason this works, though neither ship is destroyed just crippled. Back on the Galactica they are concerned with their missing recon fighter and when their scanners detect an unpowered ship heading for Earth they assume it's their missing Viper. Commander Adama (Lorne Greene) radios Troy (Kent McCord) and Dillon (Barry Van Dyke) down on Earth to hurry to the East Coast and rescue their comrades before the American military can find them. This means once again ditching the Super Scouts with Jamie (Robyn Douglas).

 

“Damn it, I’m a reporter not a galactic babysitter!”

On the plus side this gives us a little break from the Galactican children, but it doesn’t stop the show from aiming a lot of their humor to younger audiences. Jamie warns Troy and Dillon that they can’t fly a Viper to New York because there is a new Air Force officer looking into them by the name of Colonel Briggs Briggs (Peter Mark Richman) the man replacing Colonel Sydell (Allan Miller) who, since being shot by Xaviar in the episode Spaceball, is apparently in a coma. So Troy and Dillon are forced to get tickets for a commercial jet, and it is never explained to us how this is safer than taking a Viper that can turn invisible. This decision is proven to be even more unsafe when it turns out they just so happen to get seats right across from Cuban hijackers.

 

In all fairness this is still a better plot than the one we got in Airport ’79: The Concorde.

Or heroes don’t have time to take a side trip to Cuba so they use their blasters to stun the hijackers, but these heroics will force them to be interviewed by the FBI when they land. This is of course worse than going to Cuba so they ask to visit the lavatories first, use their wrist computrons to turn themselves invisible, and sneak off the plane. Meanwhile onboard the Galactica Dr. Zee (James Patrick Stuart) and Adama have located the missing Viper and learned that the ship Troy and Dillon are off to meet is in fact a Cylon craft. One with an advanced humanoid Cylons on board.

 

This is either an advanced Cylon or Eros from Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Dr. Zee hopes that Troy and Dillon will be able to intercept it, but Adama notes that they don't even know they're going to rendezvous with the Cylons. Hey guys, do you know why they don’t know that the ship they are about to meet is a Cylon craft? Because you haven’t bloody well told them! Communications between the Galactica and their agents down on Earth have always been plot convenient, but in this episode we clearly see Adama contacting Troy and Dillon to inform them of a ship about to crash land on Earth, so why not call back and say, “FYI it turns out this is a Cylon ship not our missing Viper.” Does the Galactica have a really bad phone plan and they've run out of minutes?

 

“We could call and warn them now, but if we wait until after 6:00 it will be cheaper.”

The Cylon ship crashes a few miles north of New York City, but only one advanced Cylon, Andromus (Roger Davis) and one Cylon Centurion named Centuri, have survived. Andromus sets the damaged crash for self-destruct, and retrieves a distress beacon which he will use to broadcast a message to their Cylon brothers.

Note: No one seems to realize that a radio signal to the Cylons would take years to reach them, giving the Galactica plenty of time to get ready for them.

 

"I just hope there isn't any of that alien killing common cold bacteria around here."

Troy and Dillon arrive only in time to discover the “dead” crew of the ship, and manage to escape the craft just before it self-destructs. Because Troy is an intuitive genius he figures that a humanoid Cylon had survived the crash, and that they must somehow track him down before he can alert the Cylon Empire to the location of Earth. Unfortunately while dawdling around the crash site this give the local authorities’ time to arrive, and these police immediately assume Troy and Dillon were aboard the exploded craft, and most likely drug runners. Our heroes stun the cops and steal a police car, get in a high speed car chase, and then crash it in the East River. They manage to elude the police again, but with an all-points bulletin out for them they realize they'll  have to ditch their conspicuous damp clothes if they hope to complete their mission.

 

And pick up some nice subtle Earth attire.

Yes, Troy and Dillon sneak into a Broadway review, steal white tux and tails, and then somehow get stuck performing “The Good Ship Lollipop” on stage. Undercover geniuses these two are not.  They manage to escape being arrested by once again turning invisible, this time in front of a live audience. Meanwhile we still have the problem of Andromus and Centuri hunting for broadcast equipment so that they can alert their brethren to the fact that they have found the location of the last outpost of humanity. Lucky for them it’s Halloween so they are mistaken for partiers who must have a broken down car somewhere, and are offered a ride.

 

“A vampire, a clown and two Cylons walk into a bar.”

The unwitting aids to mankind’s downfall are Norman Blore (William Daniels) and his wife Shirley (Lara Parker) who are on route to a Halloween party being held by co-worker Arnie (Val Bisoglio) who works for Norman at a New York radio station. This is great news for Andromus for this could lead him to equipment needed to amplify his emergency beacon. Unfortunately it also leads to them meeting Wolfman Jack because this is the only celebrity cameo this show could afford.

 

“Hey, I was in America Graffiti.”

Andromus smoozes the party guests, pumping Andy and friends for information about the radio station, and what kind of security the building has. When Norman gets suspicious and tells Andy that these two may be dangerous, Centuri the Centurion interrupts in a very threatening manner, but only to be foiled when Andy turns on the microwave which paralyzes the Cylon. So apparently the Cylons have made major leaps in technology in thirty years, but not in the ability to shield circuitry from something as commonplace as microwaves. Norman and Andy assume that Centuri is having some kind of medical emergency, but before anyone can dial 911 Andromus lightning blasts the microwaves with energy blasts from his hand.

 

So the Cylons developed Force Lightning?

Troy and Dillon, having tracked the Cylons distress beacon into the heart of New York City, find themselves accosted by a group of thugs in Central Park. The gang demand, “Your money or your life,” but Troy is hesitant to give them the money as they are the funds that they had illegally obtained in the episode Super Scouts, and could implicate these fine youths in the bank robbery. This is a genuinely funny scene, but kind of makes one wonder what kind of society did these guys come from that they don’t understand a mugging or hijacking. In the original series we certainly saw our cast of characters dealing with numerous unsavory characters, so has everyone somehow become monumentally naïve over the last thirty years?

 

At least they didn’t run into the Baseball Furies.

They escape the street gang by using their super ability to jump really high, and once again I wish the show hadn’t added this element as they keep forgetting to use it. Eventually Troy and Dillon make it to the Halloween party being attended by the Cylons, but they are too late, the Cylons have escaped with a kidnapped Wolfman Jack, and the exploded microwave has caused a raging fire. Dillon rushes off to track them down while Troy stays to rescue a small boy from the fire. This I’m assuming is to remind us that these bumbling idiots are actually the good guys. Andromus forces Wolfman Jack to take him to the roof of the building that houses the radio station so that he can tap into the Emergency Broadcast System, but before he can start sending the signal to the Cylon Fleet Troy and Dillon show up and engage them in a firefight. The Centurion takes a hit, and is...stunned? Andromus orders Centuri to keep the Warriors away from the antenna dish; however the stunned/damaged Centuri reverts to his primary directive to protect Andromus, picks up his master, and jumps from the roof.

 

It’s a very touching and romantic moment.

Troy blasts the dish and the day is saved. Colonel Briggs and the police arrive, but are unable to find anyone because Troy and Dillon have once again gone invisible, and the two Cylons fell in a dumpster that was picked up and taken away. Troy tells Dillon it's time to head for home, but Dillon really wants to stay and enjoy some more of this lively and exciting city, despite the “excitable youths” in Central Park, and would really like to see the rest of the entertainment they interrupted.

 

And this is the show he really wanted to catch more of. *sigh*

This was not a terrible episode, and William Daniels as the poor put-upon husband really classed up the place, but the whole Halloween convenience that allowed two Cylons to wander around New York was a bit much, and Troy and Dillon bouncing from hi-jackings to park muggings seemed even more forced. There was a whole side-plot of Colonel Briggs trying to convince a New York Police Chief (Bernie Hamilton) that they men they are after are aliens from out space, and it really was just an excuse for more bad comedy.

 

“Colonel, please take your illegal alien problems to Donald Trump.”