Fantasy Island (1977)

          If only because his company also made The Love Boat, the campy dramatic series Fantasy Island cannot be deemed the worst television show for which producer Aaron Spelling was responsible. That faint praise being offered, the massive success of the show—which ran for 152 episodes from 1977 to 1984—underscores that much of Spelling’s career was spent manufacturing the audiovisual equivalent of junk food. From week to week, Fantasy Island served up C-list actors in ridiculous scenarios against the backdrop of a semi-supernatural vacation destination. Sentimentality, superficiality, and sexuality powered the show, together with the odd coupling of series stars Ricardo Montalban, as godlike host Mr. Rourke, and Hervé Villechaize, as Mr. Rourke’s diminutive assistant, Tattoo. Throughout its run, Fantasy Island presented escapism about escapism. That’s why it’s amusing to revisit the TV movie that served as the series’ pilot episode, because the first installment of Fantasy Island is quite dark.

          Naturally, the picture begins with Tattoo climbing to the bell tower of the main building on Fantasy Island and yelling in his French-accented English, “Ze plane! Ze plane!” Once the seaplane to which Tattoo referred lands at the main dock, Rourke gives introductory voiceover to explain the wishes of new guests to Tattoo (and the audience). In the pilot, businessman Eunice Baines (Eleanor Parker) fakes her own funeral to determine which of her associates she can trust; World War II veteran Arnold Greenwood (Bill Bixby) revisits wartime France so he can see a lost love once again; and big-game hunter Paul Henley (Hugh O’Brian) asks to be hunted, ostensibly to test his virility. The Eunice storyline generates only bland soap opera, but the Arnold and Paul storylines are grim. It turns out that Arnold suffers from PTSD because he killed his wartime lover in a jealous rage, and that Paul is suicidal. As for Rourke, he’s like a capricious deity manipulating people’s lives for amusement. After casually describing his guests as being “so mortal” (implying that he’s the opposite), Rourke later proclaims: “There are no rules on Fantasy Island except as I make them!” In addition to magically re-creating Arnold’s horrific murder scenario, Rourke hires a shapely hooker named Michelle (Victoria Principal) to sleep with Paul, and then he handcuffs Michelle to Paul so she’ll share his fate. At one point, Rourke callously dismisses a husband’s rage at being cuckolded: “Your wife was used many times by many men.” Ouch.

          Fantasy Island has all the hallmarks of a typical Spelling production, such as shallow storytelling and tacky production values (in most of the scenes, Burbank subs for the tropics), but the nastiness of the piece is striking. Things got more family-friendly once Fantasy Island went to series—notwithstanding the strange episodes in which Rourke duels with Satan, played by Roddy McDowall--so it’s possible to watch the pilot as a glimpse at an alternate version of the series that could have been. In fact, something akin to that alternate version materialized when Fantasy Island was briefly revived, with Malcolm McDowell as Mr. Rourke, in 1998. Produced by feature-film guy Barry Sonnenfeld, the ‘90s Fantasy Island went for paranormal black comedy and fizzled after just 13 episodes.

Fantasy Island: FUNKY

The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight (1971)

Here’s some irony for you: This comedy about inept gangsters it itself ineptly made. If the irony doesn’t strike you as funny, that’s appropriate, because The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight isn’t funny, either. In fact, the most noteworthy thing about this brainless flick is how many talented people worked on the project. Venerable Big Apple columnist/novelist Jimmy Breslin co-wrote the script, which was based on his novel, which was in turn based on the exploits of a real-life crime figure. Ace New York cinematographer Owen Roizman shot the picture, though you wouldn’t know it from the choppy editing that makes Roizman’s frames feel amateurish. And the cast includes a number of reliable professionals—including Jerry Orbach, Lionel Stander, and Burt Young—to say nothing of Robert De Niro, appearing in one of his earliest films. The story revolves around a mid-level gangster (Orbach) enlisting his idiot cronies for attempts on the life of a villainous don (Stander). De Niro’s character, who seems to drift in from another movie, is an Italian bicyclist brought to America by Orbach’s character; the cyclist then gets his own uninteresting subplot. The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight is such a mess that even De Niro comes off badly, mostly because director James Goldstone can’t maintain a consistent tone. The bulk of the picture is played as broadly as slapstick, but certain sequences have a dramatic vibe, notably those involving the love story between De Niro’s character and a mafia princess played by a miscast Leigh Tayl0r-Young. Alas, the comedic sequences are numbingly stupid, and the dramatic sequences are lifeless. From start to finish, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight is disjointed, episodic, and loud, with long stretches of screen time consumed by stupid contrivances: The mobsters steal a circus lion and use the animal to intimidate robbery victims; a little person (Hervé Villechaize) is the butt of assorted crass jokes; an old Italian mother (Jo Van Fleet) spews lines line, “You no take-a no bull-sheet!”; and so on. It’s all very tiring to watch.

The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight: LAME

Seizure (1974)

          It would require someone more invested than me in the career of cinematic provocateur Oliver Stone to explain how the director’s first movie, Seizure, fits into a filmography that’s dominated by serious-minded dramas—because while Seizure certainly isn’t funny (at least not intentionally so), it’s a misguided, ridiculous mess. Seizure is ostensibly a horror film, complete with a few gory murder scenes and other shock-cinema signifiers (creepy musical score, knife-wielding psychos, morbid storyline). Yet Stone also tries for something more edifying, a probing journey into the torrid mental state of a doomed novelist (Jonathan Frid). Somehow, though, good intentions yield bad results, because Seizure is filled with laughable images: Picture a menacing little person (Hervé Villechaize) wearing some sort of court-jester costume while he knocks over normal-sized people with karate moves and goads a bikini-clad woman (Mary Woronov) through a knife fight with the aforementioned writer. And we haven’t even gotten to the Queen of Evil (Martine Beswick), an otherworldly temptress who slinks around with her cape draped across her outstretched arms, as if she’s channeling Bela Lugosi.

          Had the underlying story been strong enough to support such extreme images, the picture might have worked. Similarly, the picture might have worked had Stone simply made every scene frightening. Alas, Seizure feels like several mediocre movies stitched together. The simplest level of the film involves Edmund Blackstone (Frid) inviting several weird friends to a weekend getaway in the country. The next level involves Edmund’s recurring dreams of three strange creatures—the Queen, the Jackal (Henry Judd Baker), and Spider (Villechaize)—who threaten to hurt Edmund and his loved ones. And still another level involves these creatures coming to life and causing bloody mayhem. Think Fellini crossed with Ed Wood, then add a dash of obnoxiously overwritten dialogue about destiny and the soul, and you’re close. One suspects this material meant a lot to Stone, at least as an artistic/intellectual exercise, because he co-wrote and co-edited the film, in addition to providing voices for supernatural characters, and one hopes he learned a great deal from the failure of this project about how to channel his obsessions more effectively. As a viewing experience, however, Seizure is uniquely unsatisfying.

Seizure: LAME

The One and Only (1978)

          Steve Gordon was just beginning an impressive career when he died; after several years of writing for sitcoms, he made an auspicious directorial debut with the beloved comedy Arthur (1981), based on his own script, then suffered a fatal heart attack in 1982 at the age of 43. The only other feature on his too-brief filmography is The One and Only, which he wrote and produced, and which has similarities to Arthur. The story of a self-possessed man-child whose dreams of stardom lead him to a career in professional wrestling, The One and Only shares with Arthur the conceit that a person who lives only for laughter can find a soulmate who sees substance beneath the silliness.

          Henry Winkler stars as Andy Schmidt, a college student who’s convinced that he’s destined for greatness, despite having shown no particular skill for his chosen vocation of acting. Quite to the contrary, Andy’s such an irrepressible ham that during a school production of a classical play, he uses his one line as an excuse for interrupting the show with cheap comedy shtick. Nonetheless, his single-minded determination wins the heart of amiable coed Mary Crawford (Kim Darby).

          Much to the consternation of Mary’s uptight parents (William Daniels and Polly Holliday), the young lovers get hitched and move from the Midwest to New York, where Andy tries and fails to get an acting career going. Crossing paths with a little person who works on the wrestling circuit, Milton (Hervé Villechaize), Andy accidentally discovers his true destiny as a shameless crowd-pleaser who assumes various identities in the wrestling ring, from a psychic who hypnotizes opponents to a Nazi who bops his enemies with a war helmet.

           As directed by old-school comedy pro Carl Reiner, The One and Only goes down smoothly, mixing amiable I-gotta-be-me speechifying with terrific one-liners (some of the short jokes made at Villechaize’s expense are laugh-out-loud funny, though they definitely precede political correctness). Gordon’s script is pure fluff, and the story stops just when it’s picking up steam, but funny is funny, so it’s hard to argue with results. It helps that Winkler is terrific, all charm and comic timing, although Gene Saks (best known as a director of many Neil Simon films and plays) nearly steals the movie with his caustic performance as Andy’s hilariously crude agent.

The One and Only: FUNKY