The Death of Me Yet (1971)

          Exploring a zippy premise from offbeat narrative angles, telefilm The Death of Me Yet is more a compendium of promising ideas than a fully realized dramatic statement, but an engaging leading performance and solid supporting turns help make the piece as palatable as it is befuddling. The movie is about a KGB sleeper agent living a seemingly normal life in California until circumstances cause him to question his allegiance to Mother Russia. While much the plot comprises the twisty thriller machinations one might expect, The Death of Me Yet dubiously centers a love story involving the sleeper agent and his unsuspecting American wife. The picture churns through narrative elements at an alarming pace, thus depriving major plot components of sufficient oxygen—so while The Death of Me Yet doesn’t quite work as either a thriller or a love story, it’s moderately watchable as an awkward mixture of these genres, especially because leading man Doug McClure does a respectable job of selling both styles.

          The movie opens with an attention-grabbing scene at a KGB facsimile of an average American town, which effectively dramatizes the notion of prepping sleepers. Then the protagonist, who goes by various names including Paul Towers (McClure), gets an assignment from his handler, Barnes (Richard Basehart), so it’s off to America. Cut to several years later, once Towers has established himself as a newspaper publisher married to an American woman (Rosemary Forsyth). Through convoluted circumstances, Towers takes a job working at a defense contractor, which lands him in the crosshairs of an FBI agent (Darren McGavin). Then, once it becomes clear the Soviets consider Towers a security risk, he’s forced to consider switching sides.

          Based on a novel by Whit Masterson (the pen name for two writers who cranked out decades of pulpy books), The Death of Me Yet has enough story for a sprawling miniseries, so tracking every plot twist is more trouble than it’s worth. Yet many scenes within this briskly paced telefilm are potent, and McClure is casually compelling throughout. While hardly an adventurous or nuanced performer, he’s so comfortable onscreen that he gives even the most ridiculous story developments a veneer of credibility. It’s also effective that McGavin, as the FBI guy, conveys a far more menacing presence than Basehart, who plays his Russian counterpart—hardly the conventional approach.

The Death of Me Yet: FUNKY

Something Evil (1972)

          Fans can argue about which project represents Steven Spielberg’s first feature-length directorial endeavor, since he made a lengthy amateur film in 1964 and helmed a pair of 90-minute TV episodes, including the first regular installment of Columbo, in 1971. Yet the excellent made-for-TV thriller Duel is generally considered his proper cinematic debut because it’s a stand-alone project distinguished by Spielberg’s trademark visual imagination. Three years later, Spielberg graduated to theatrical features with The Sugarland Express (1974), and then came Jaws (1975). Nestled within Spielberg’s filmography, however, are two mostly forgotten telefilms. They represent his sole output for the years between Duel and The Sugarland Express, steps along his path from promising newcomer to certified wunderkind.

          The first of these pictures, Something Evil, is unimpressive. A story about demonic possession with a suspicious resemblance to The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty’s hit 1971 novel, the picture stars Sandy Dennis and Darren McGavin as a New York City couple who impulsively move to a house in the country. Written without much subtlety or verve by Robert Clouse (who later found success as a director of action films), Something Evil hits nearly every cliché imaginable. The kooky neighbor warning about evil spirits as he performs weird rituals. The strange noises emanating from various places late at night. The inexplicable changes in people’s behavior. The equally inexplicable denial by rational people that something strange is happening. So while the setup is simple enough and the climax has a small supernatural kick, most of Something Evil is boring—not a word one generally associates with Spielberg.

         Dennis isn’t especially interesting to watch, McGavin gets shoved offscreen for long stretches, and juvenile actor Johnny Whitaker (previously of the TV series Family Affair) is a generic Hollywood kid. There’s also not enough screen time for enjoyable supporting players Ralph Bellamy and Jeff Corey. Thus the only real novelty stems from searching for hints of Spielberg’s prodigious talent. A few scenes in Something Evil are shot well, with dramatic angles and moody lighting, but the whole thing feels so enervated and rushed that it’s hard to believe the same man made magic of out Duel the previous year. Maybe he was tired after rigging all those cool shots of tires and highways.

Something Evil: FUNKY

Happy Mother’s Day, Love George (1973)

          Despite a storyline that devolves from muddy to nonsensical, the mystery/horror flick Happy Mother’s Day, Love George is moderately interesting to watch because of its colorful cast, and also because it qualifies as a minor cinematic footnote: This is the only fictional feature directed by actor Darren McGavin. Although he doesn’t appear in the film, those who do include Ron Howard, Cloris Leachman, Patricia Neal, and McGvin’s costar from Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Simon Oakland. Some are able to find more clarity in the material than others, with Howard’s characterization suffering the worst ill effects of the dodgy storytelling, but each actor has at least a vivid moment or two. How these moments coalesce doesn’t matter all that much, because by the time Happy Mother’s Day, Love George reaches its absurd climax, so many bizarre and inexplicable things have happened that believability, logic, and suspense have evoporated. Depending on one’s level of involvement with the viewing experience, the final stretch of the picture is likely to trigger either amusement or bewilderment. Nonetheless, getting there isn’t the worst experience.

          In a small town on the Northeastern coast, young drifter Johnny Hanson (Howard) shows up one day asking questions about the past. Turns out his mother is greasy-spoon proprietress Rhonda (Leachman), who gave him up years previous, an action to which Rhonda’s domineering sister, Cara (Neal), was party. At the same time Johnny dredges up old secrets, local cop Roy (Oakland) investigates a series of unsolved murders, tagging Johnny as a suspect. There’s also some weird business with Johnny’s cousin, Celia (Tessa Dahl), who sports a British accent and takes Johnny as a lover. Oh, and singer/actor Bobby Darin is in here, too, playing Rhonda’s husband.

          The movie has solid production values and some fine location photography, but the inept storytelling renders nearly all the commendable elements moot. For instance, even though Neal is forceful as a bitchy and delusional matriarch, the contours of her relationships with other people are mostly perplexing. Furthermore, the third-act switch from twisted domestic intrigue to Edgar Allan Poe-style horror is whiplash-inducing. Yet with so many talented people participating, including screenwriter Robert Clouse (later the director of several enjoyable genre pictures), it’s tempting to examine this misfire and ponder what the original intentions might have been. Surely, at some point, rational people thought this piece would work.

Happy Mother’s Day, Love George: FUNKY

43: The Richard Petty Story (1972)

          At the time this biopic about NASCAR’s winningest driver was made, stock-car racing hadn’t yet vaulted from regional popularity in the South to nationwide notoriety. (Races didn’t find their way to national television until a few years later.) That might explain why only meager resources were brought to bear on this project, for which producers likely expected only limited exhibition opportunities. All of which is a polite way of saying that 43: The Richard Petty Story, which sorta-kinda stars Petty as himself, is a cheap-looking quickie with a dopey script, juiced only slightly by the inclusion of footage from real NASCAR races. It’s not much of a tribute to a sport’s reigning champ, but one gets the impression that no one involved took the project seriously, excepting of course Petty himself. As to the remark about him “sorta-kinda” starring, chances are the producers quickly realized that Petty had zero acting talent and not much more charisma, hence relegating him to a minor supporting role despite the presence of his name in the title. Much more screen time is devoted to seasoned actor Darren McGavin, who plays Petty’s father.

          The flick opens with a simple framing device. After Richard wipes out in a race, his father, Lee Petty (McGavin), gathers with family members at a hospital to await news of Richard’s condition. This triggers memories of the time when Lee stumbled into a career as a stock-car racer during the sport’s early days. Specifically, Lee tried to buy a car from a redneck, only to get trapped in the car—alongside young Richard—while the redneck, a moonshine runner, sped down country roads to avoid capture by police. Exposure to fast cars, combined with other circumstances (such as the family home burning down), prompted Lee to become a racer, albeit one prone to costly wipeouts and fierce competitiveness. Eventually, Richard joined the family trade, and in one scene Lee berates officials into changing the results of a race awarding Richard’s win to Lee. If there was an interesting drama, or even a lively comedy, to be found in this material, the folks behind 43: The Richard Petty Story missed those opportunities. Beyond its minor historical interest and the lively textures of McGavin’s performance, the movie comprises 83 minutes of noisy nonsense. Whether or not the title alone gets your motor running should provide  a good indication of how much you’ll enjoy the film.

43: The Richard Petty Story: FUNKY

1980 Week: Hangar 18

          Only the brave or the brazen dared to make UFO movies in the immediate aftermath of Steven Spielberg’s monumental Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), which realized nearly all the potential of the genre in spectacular fashion. Undaunted, the happy hacks at Sunn Classic Pictures forged ahead with their own entry into the flying-saucer genre, Hangar 18, perhaps emboldened by their success in the paranormal realm with such “documentaries” as Beyond and Back (1978) and The Bermuda Triangle (1979). Anyway, Hangar 18, which shamelessly borrows plot elements from Peter Hyams’ larky sci-fi adventure Capricorn One (1978), begins in space, where the crew of a space-shuttle mission witnesses a UFO striking a satellite. Returning to earth, the astronauts (played by Gary Collins and James Hampton) seek an explanation for what happened but get a run-around from officials, even as their boss (Darren McGavin) receives the true story. Turns out the UFO crash-landed on earth and was recovered by the U.S. military, then hidden in a secret hangar in the Southwest. (Shades of Roswell, New Mexico.) McGavin’s character is tasked with examining the spaceship.

          Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., a presidential aide (Robert Vaughn) conspires to keep the whole mess secret until the impending election because—how convenient!—the president recently scolded his opponent for suggesting that UFOs might be real. Making the story even sillier is an action/adventure subplot about the astronauts trying to find the secret hangar, and a very Star Trek-ish thread about McGavin and his team entering the spaceship, discovering quasi-humanoid bodies inside, and trying to decode the alien language they discover on the ship’s computers. Had any of this been put across persuasively, Hangar 18 could have built up a tremendous head of steam, but the filmmaking and storytelling exist on the level of a bad TV movie, with each scene feeling more outlandish than the preceding all the way to the anticlimactic ending. Yet even with its goofy storyline and C-lister cast (apologies to Messers. McGavin and Vaughn), Hangar 18 represents a sort of pinnacle moment for Sunn Classics, combining myriad layers of speculative-fiction bullshit—ancient astronauts, government conspiracies, and so on—into one cartoonish pseudoscience extravaganza. Call it a close encounter of the tepid kind.

Hangar 18: FUNKY

The Night Stalker (1972)

          Seeing as how this playful horror show is not only a modestly budgeted telefilm but also the first of two pilot movies that preceded a short-lived series, The Night Stalker has cast a long shadow. A cult favorite for its mixture of humor and shock value, The Night Stalker and the weekly show it spawned—Kolchak: The Night Stalker—have been repeatedly cited by producer Chris Carter as the principal inspiration for his enduring X-Files franchise. Indeed, prior to The Night Stalker, it was rare for episodic television to feature ghouls and and monsters, except in the safe zones of anthology shows (e.g., The Twilight Zone) and comedies (e.g., The Munsters). Tellingly, one of the key players behind The Night Stalker, producer Dan Curtis, tested the public’s tolerance for small-screen scares by creating the vampire-themed daytime soap Dark Shadows, which ran from 1966 to 1971.

          The Night Stalker teamed Curtis with gifted fantasist Richard Matheson, who adapted the script from a book by Jeffrey Grant Rice. Like Curtis, Matheson was highly skilled at making spooky stuff palatable to TV viewers—witness his success with episodes of The Twilight Zone and the Steven Spielberg-directed telefilm Duel (1971). But enough about pedigree. While The Night Stalker is particularly interesting for its place in TV history, the movie is fun on its own merits, although its power to thrill has dulled with the passage of time and the accompanying coarsening of filmed entertainment.

          Darren McGavin, perfectly cast, plays Carl Kolchak, a low-rent reporter with a vivid imagination. Exploring the circumstances of bizarre murders in Las Vegas, Carl latches onto the wild idea that the killer is a real-life vampire—not a crazy person who acts like a mythical bloodsucker, but an actual supernatural creature. Naturally, this notion vexes Carl’s long-suffering editor, Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland), as well as local authorities including the hot-tempered Sheriff Warren A. Butcher (Claude Akins). Undaunted, Kolchak gathers enough evidence to persuade everyone that the preternaturally resilient murderer Janos Skorzeny (Barry Atwater) must be staked in the heart. Easier said than done.

          Unfolding with the familiar rhythms of a police procedural—clues, setbacks, witnesses, etc.—The Night Stalker builds a decent head of steam, with reliable TV director John Llewellyn Moxey delivering a lively version of the Dan Curtis house style. Think dramatic lighting, slow-burn suspense sequences, and zesty fight scenes. McGavin’s performance, as well as the motor-mouthed dialogue that Matheson provides for the actor, elevates the material considerably. Kolchak’s exasperation at the reluctance of authorities to believe the obvious is palpable, and his tap-dancing way of trying to play events for his advantage is consistently amusing. If there’s a weak link in the formula behind this piece, it’s Curtis’ usual predilection toward showing things full-frame instead of opting for mystery—the producer subscribes to the blunt-force-trauma school of storytelling.

          Nonetheless, the combination of the offbeat material and McGavin’s winning performance was worth sustaining, hence a second telefilm, The Night Strangler (1973), which Curtis directed from a Matheson script, and the 20 weekly episodes of Kolchak, airing between September 1974 and March 1975. A poorly received revival series, titled The Night Stalker and featuring Stuart Townsend in the lead, flamed out over the course of 10 episodes in the 2005–2006 TV season.

The Night Stalker: GROOVY

Zero to Sixty (1978)

A noisy action comedy with distasteful implications of romantic attraction between a 16-year-old girl and a man old enough to be her grandfather, Zero to Sixty wastes a spirited performance by versatile film/TV leading man Darren McGavin on a wispy plot. Some might find the picture borderline watchable because it features lots of cartoonish characters and car chases, but the combination of pointlessness and stupidity is hard to overcome. The film’s setup is convoluted and questionable. Briefly, McGavin plays an everyman who loses his home and his job following a nasty divorce, then falls in with a motley car-repossession crew. He’s teamed with Larry (Denise Nickerson), an obnoxious teenaged girl who lives in a trailer, and they cruise Los Angeles trying to reclaim cars from deadbeats. A typical scene involves Larry seizing a motorcycle from a biker gang, the members of which pursue her until McGavin’s character shows up to pretend he’s a cop and wrangle Larry free from danger. The movie also supports a gruesome subplot inspired by the Jimmy Hoffa story, because the protagonists discover the body of a murdered labor leader in the trunk of a car. McGavin gives the kind of exasperated, frenetic performance that one might expect to find in a Disney movie, but none of the other performers match his deft style. Nickerson is so loud and overbearing that she's unpleasant to watch, and the same can be said of supporting players Joan Collins (as a glamorous deadbeat) and Sylvia Miles (as the boss of the repo crew). Adding to the film’s death-by-a-thousand cuts vibe, Lyle Waggoner shows up for one scene as a bartender whose flirty patter sends McGavin’s character into a gay panic, and the awful musical score waffles between dopey stings and disco-inflected muck.

Zero to Sixty: LAME

Tribes (1970)

          Simultaneously disciplined and impassioned, the TV movie Tribes—which also received a small theatrical release—examines how the Generation Gap complicated America’s experience of the Vietnam War. Creating a simple conflict between characters who represent opposing ends of the political spectrum, the picture pits hard-driving drill instructor Drake (Darren McGavin) against hippie recruit Adrian (Jan-Michael Vincent). Initially determined to break down Adrian’s resistance in order to instill other recruits with respect for military duty, Drake slowly peels back his opponent’s layers and, as a result of that process, grows to respect the younger man’s pacifist attitude.

          On the surface, this storyline may sound absurdly contrived—peacenik softens warmonger—but Tribes works because it approaches Drake’s transformation with patience and respect. Instead of portraying the drill instructor as a bloodthirsty monster who unquestionably feeds the military machine with fresh meat, the filmmakers—director Joseph Sargent and writers Marvin Schwartz and Tracy Keenan Wynn—paint Drake as a complex man confronted with changing times. Adrian, meanwhile, is a compendium of counterculture signifiers (enigmatic silences, long hair, yoga meditation postures, etc.), so it’s natural that Drake would find Adrian distasteful at first glance. Yet as the men wage their battle of wills—which Drake eventually learns is one-sided, since Adrian is, metaphorically speaking, making love not war—both characters develop empathy. Make no mistake, the filmmakers align themselves with Adrian’s antiwar stance. Yet in avoiding the obvious play of making Drake a monster, the filmmakers open the door to a touching statement about the human capacity for change. In the world of Tribes, compassion is the most valuable commodity.
          Even within the boundaries of a tight TV-movie budget, Sargent integrates feature-style flourishes that give Tribes a hint of poetry. The twee theme song succinctly articulates how America divided into antiwar and pro-war factions (key lyric: “tribes are gathering”), and crisp flashbacks are used to illustrate the gentle romantic vignettes that Adrian summons when centering himself during yoga. Better still, the flourishes complement otherwise straightforward storytelling, so the cinematic style echoes the initial gulf between Drake’s rigid existence and Adrian’s transcendent journey. The very different energies of the leading actors contribute to the effect, with McGavin incarnating man’s-man irascibility and Vincent channeling mellow Age of Aquarius vibes. Everything good about Tribes converges in the ending, which appropriately—and somewhat movingly—encapsulates the way the principal characters alter each other’s destinies.

Tribes: GROOVY

Hot Lead & Cold Feet (1978)

          Generic family entertainment from Walt Disney Productions at the nadir of the company’s live-action cycle, Hot Lead & Cold Feet is a farcical Western featuring the unremarkable British comedian/singer Jim Dale in three roles. And while Disney’s concerted effort to transform Dale into a U.S. star was admirable (he was featured in three of the company’s movies from 1977 to 1979), Dale lacks the easy charisma of a genuine box-office attraction, so a triple serving of Dale in Hot Lead & Cold Feet represents too much of a not-so-good thing. In fact, even with his multiple roles, Dale is less interesting than veteran actors Jack Elam, Don Knotts, and Darren McGavin, who play silly supporting characters. The story begins with crusty old varmint Jasper Bloodshy (Dale) announcing that he’s leaving his entire estate—which includes the crime-riddled frontier town that bears his name—to his twin sons. After a fashion, that is. One of the sons is Billy (Dale), a rootin’-tootin’ outlaw who menaces the good (and not-so-good) townsfolk of Bloodshy. The other son is Eli (Dale), a preacher-in-training raised by his mother in England. Billy’s the “hot lead” of the title, and Eli’s the “cold feet.”

          As a means of bringing his sons together, Jasper stipulates that his boys must race each other through the wilderness surrounding the town of Bloodshy, with the winner claiming the family wealth. Billy tries to rig the contest, abetted by the town’s corrupt mayor (McGavin), while Eli simply wants to provide for the pair of orphaned children who are in his care. (Because it wouldn’t be a Disney flick without orphans.) Knotts plays the town’s bumbling sheriff, the so-called “Denver Kid,” and Elam plays his arch-enemy, a crook named “Rattlesnake.” The running gag of these two men trying to stage a gun duel despite constant interruptions is about as close to real humor as this movie gets. Most of the running time comprises goofy Disney slapstick and overly exuberant racing scenes, with a spoonful of saccharine thanks to Eli’s relationships with the kids and with a pretty schoolteacher (Karen Valentine). There’s not a hint of originality or wit anywhere in Hot Lead & Cold Feet, but it’s a harmless enough distraction, with okay production values and energetic acting. Even Dale, who isn’t up to the task of carrying a picture, deserves credit for his hard work—he tries every trick imaginable to entertain viewers, so it’s a shame he can’t conjure screen presence by force of will.

Hot Lead & Cold Feet: FUNKY

No Deposit, No Return (1976)

Although it’s basically harmless, No Deposit, No Return is hard to praise for many reasons. Firstly, the movie represents the Walt Disney Productions style of inoffensive storytelling run amok—the movie contorts itself to ensure that every character is likeable except for one minor villain, thus eradicating narrative conflict. Worse, these plot contrivances cause the movie to sprawl over 112 meandering minutes, and the film’s premise is far too thin to support the running time. So, even though the picture’s performances are generally fine and the production values are respectable, No Deposit, No Return is tiresome. When the movie begins, spunky young siblings Tracy (Kim Richards) and Jay (Brad Savage) learn their mother, a magazine editor, won’t be joining them as expected for vacation during the kids’ break from boarding school. Instead, the children are being sent to stay with their super-rich grandfather, J.W. Osborne (David Niven), who detests their company. Since the feeling is mutual, the kids run away, ending up in a cab with inept robbers Bert (Don Knotts) and Duke (Darren McGavin). The enterprising urchins blackmail the crooks into “kidnapping” them—in exchange for part of the ransom the kids plan to demand from J.W., the crooks agree to hide the kids in their lair for a period of time. Meanwhile, J.W. is aware of everything that’s happening, so he lets the kids stay “kidnapped” rather than intervening. Slapstick ensues, with a side of gooey sentiment. When listing this movie’s plot problems, it’s hard to know where to begin. Bert and Duke are master criminals whom the police desperately want to catch, and yet they’re also boobs who never actually steal anything? The kids found the only two criminals in the world who like babysitting? J.W. would rather let his grandchildren stay with strangers than tolerate their company? You get the idea. Knotts, McGavin, and Niven do their best, given the shoddy material, while Richards and Savage are palatable as Disney kids go, but the movie is so absurdly contrived that it ends up feeling more like a Disney knockoff than actual Mouse House product.

No Deposit, No Return: LAME

Mrs. Pollifax—Spy (1971)

          Following in the tradition of Agatha Christie’s elderly Miss Marple character, author Dorothy Gilman introduced a sleuth of a certain age with her 1966 novel The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, launching a lengthy book series that continued through to 2000’s Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled. In Gilman’s storyline, Mrs. Emily Pollifax is a New Jersey widow so bored with her life that she volunteers to work as a spy for the CIA, declaring herself an ideal candidate for espionage because she’s expendable. Through comic circumstance, Mrs. Pollifax ends up getting a real assignment and performing her mission beautifully, leading to a new career. It’s not surprising this material caught the attention of aging actress Rosalind Russell, whose box-office luster had faded by the early ’70s. Using an alias, Russell wrote the screenplay for the first Hollywood adaptation of Gilman’s series, clumsily titled Mrs. Pollifax—Spy, as a showcase for herself. Given Russell’s commitment to the project, it would be heartening to report she crafted an offbeat gem. Alas, not so. Directed with supreme indifference by TV hack Leslie H. Martinson, Mrs. Pollifax—Spy grinds through a series of ridiculous episodes lacking originality and tension.

          Mrs. Pollifax’s entrance into the CIA is handled so quickly that no credibility is established, and then her adventure proceeds with so little momentum that it seems as if she’s on a vacation instead of a mission. Worse, Mrs. Pollifax—Spy doesn’t have a single funny joke. Russell’s inexperience as a writer dooms every scene, because she relies on comedic clichés and long-winded dialogue when cleverness and economy would work better. In fact, the whole picture feels like a trite domestic sitcom, because Mrs. Pollifax ends up imprisoned by Soviet soldiers alongside a fellow American spy (Darren McGavin); they banter their way through repetitive scenes as if they’re lounging poolside at a resort. Although McGavin survives this movie with his mischievous charm intact, supporting players including John Beck, Dana Elcar, and Harold Gould spend their screen time spewing pointless prattle. As for Russell, she’s bland in the extreme.

Mrs. Pollifax—Spy: LAME

The Challenge (1970)

          Essentially a sci-fi spin on the ’60s war flick Hell in the Pacific, this offbeat TV movie proceeds from the outlandish premise that the U.S. and a small Asian nation would agree to settle their differences by sending one soldier from each country to fight on a remote island, with the survivor claiming victory. The plot begins when an experimental U.S. satellite, capable of launching nuclear-missile strikes from space, crashes into the international waters of the Pacific. A battleship from the unnamed Asian nation recovers the satellite, but then U.S. forces establish a blockade preventing the battleship from leaving with its prize. To resolve the conflict, the countries send two heavily armed “surrogates” into battle.

          Improbably, the U.S. recruits an unpredictable maverick, court-martialed Vietnam veteran-turned-mercenary Jacob Gallery (Darren McGavin), instead of the logical candidate, patriotic commando Bryant (Sam Elliott). This decision, authorized by top-level government operative Overman (James Whitmore), understandably grates hard-nosed General Meyers (Broderick Crawford). Nonetheless, Bryant and Meyers sit on the sidelines while Gallery treks to the island for a series of machine-gun shoot-outs with his opposite number, Yuro (played by durable character actor Mako).

          The Challenge, originally broadcast at 74 minutes and later expanded to 90 minutes for cable exhibition, features several exciting scenes of jungle combat, showcasing each combatant’s inventive guerilla techniques. (Gallery poisons the island’s fresh-water supplies and booby-traps the huts in an abandoned village, while Yuro employs similar tactics.) By the time the warriors reach their final confrontation a week after their fight started, they’re dehydrated, delusional, and wounded. Making matters worse, their respective governments covertly send backup soldiers onto the island.

          Despite its iffy concept and rudimentary execution, and notwithstanding the unnecessary flashbacks that dilute key moments, The Challenge is a fun ride from its disorienting opening to its bummer denouement. Accordingly, it’s odd that rank-and-file TV director George McGowan took his name off the picture and replaced it with the Directors Guild alias “Alan Smithee.” The Challenge isn’t great, but with McGavin’s enjoyably florid performance and an abundance of credible action, it’s respectable escapism.

The Challenge: FUNKY

The Six Million Dollar Man (1973)

          Surprisingly, the first onscreen appearance of beloved ’70s superhero Steve Austin has more than a hint of darkness. Adapted from Martin Caidin’s novel Cyborg, this TV movie begins with former astronaut Austin (Lee Majors) working as a test pilot. After the experimental plane he’s flying crashes, government operative Oliver Spencer (Darren McGavin) approves the $6 million procedure of replacing Austin’s damaged body parts with lifelike, super-powered bionics. The procedure is executed by Dr. Rudy Wells (Martin Balsam), the bleeding-heart yin to Spencer’s coldly calculating yang. When Austin wakes from surgery and discovers what transpired, he’s enraged at being turned into a freak. Nonetheless, Austin agrees to conduct a covert mission in the Middle East, the purported goal of which is rescuing an American hostage—but in fact, Spencer engineered the mission as a test. He allows Austin to get captured, then waits to see if the “Six Million Dollar Man” can escape without assistance. Suffice to say he does, but that success merely triggers an oh-so-’70s bummer ending: Spencer orders Austin into an artificially induced coma, keeping him on ice until some future mission.

          The Six Million Dollar Man is highly watchable but quite gloomy, and thus a world away from the escapist vibe of the resulting series. After the first Steve Austin movie scored in the ratings on March 7, 1973, a pair of follow-up telefilms were broadcast in the fall of the same year, taking the character in a totally different direction: Wine, Women, and War and The Solid Gold Kidnapping awkwardly shove Austin into James Bond-style adventures. Featuring comic-book plots and a goofy theme song performed by Dusty Springfield, both movies are enjoyable but far too derivative. Once the weekly Six Million Dollar Man series launched in January 1974, Majors’ aw-shucks stoicism and the spectacle of bionic-assisted heroism took center stage, with Austin reworked as a devoted government servant thankful for a second chance at life. Although the first episode introduced the series’ iconic opening sequence (“We can rebuild him,” and so on), the show didn’t reach cruising altitude until later seasons, thanks to recurring tropes like Austin’s mechanized love interest, the Bionic Woman, and a robotic version of Bigfoot (first played by wrestler Andre the Giant). In the context of what followed, the original 1973 pilot movie offers not just the foundation for a fun franchise, but also a window into a more serious version of The Six Million Dollar Man that might have been.

The Six Million Dollar Man: FUNKY