Iron Eagle (1986)

You can already guess that I'm going to be talking about ripoff movies with my subject for today (if so, 20 points to you), but this is a bird of a different ilk: how familiar are you with ripoff movies that are released before the movie they are ripping off even get into theaters?

This isn't as uncommon a practice as it sounds, whenever word gets out in the rumor mill of "The Next Big Thing" in movies to come out for the summer or whatever, every Roger Corman-esque movie producer scrambles to get their head writers to cobble something together that's based on this "Next Big Thing". Whether it be alien invasions, robots morphing into cars, snakes on a mode of transportation, that kinda thing.

So when Paramount Pictures let the world know they were producing Top Gun, a sure-to-be hit with the U.S. Navy, Tom Cruise and homoerotic overtones all in full display, everybody wanted a piece of that pie. Never mind that the pie in question never made it out of the oven yet...pie is pie. So thought Tri-Star Pictures when they realized they could take the idea of young men in government-funded jet fighters flying real fast while listening to a rockin' soundtrack and blowing up foreign baddies and make their own...

uh oh, I'm about to say it again

...variation on a theme.

And that's how we got Iron Eagle, a movie that makes up for its lack of homoerotic overtones in juvenile hi-jincks and an extra shot of vitamin Lou Gossett Jr. ...and Queen.

Let's fly into some plot now: Doug Masters (Jason Gedrick) is a typical teenager with typical problems, not the least of which is the fact that his father, Colonel Ted Masters (Tim Thomerson), an Air Force Pilot, is shot down by enemy fighters from a radical Middle Eastern country and is set to be executed by its leader Colonel Nakesh (David Suchet). The US Government is over a barrel and unable to make any leeway in getting Colonel Masters out safely. Although a fair pilot himself, especially when he wears his Walkman, Doug takes it unto himself to save his dad. To this end, he finds Chappy (Gossett Jr.), an Air Force Colonel who is at first against the idea of a small-scale rescue effort, but finally relents and trains Doug to be the best he can be, steal a couple of MiGs, fly overseas and take it to the evil foreigners. Playing rock music all the way.

The first thing one notices past the kinda-sorta Top Gun story is the shining bald face of Lou Gossett Jr. - this is a man whose career is to be envied, what with A Raisin In The Sun, Skin Game, The River Niger, The Laughing Policeman, The Deep, An Officer And a Gentleman and... well, okay: Jaws 3, Finders Keepers and Enemy Mine. But still, he's a legend. Really. Besides, anyone who can overshadow Richard Gere and a mechanical shark has something going for them. That easy-going grin, sharp eyes, voice of authority and - let's face it - he's the only authority figure of any kind of worth that Iron Eagle has going for it.

Practically every other adult in this movie is seen either as a cypher, a buffoon, an over-symbolized baddie or just a background character. And there are a lot of all kinds on display here. Parent types, military types, teacher types, desk job types, all types - and all of them adults. Call it The John Hughes Syndrome: stupid adults who just can't relate to the kids, who are themselves the most intelligent creatures in the movie. See, it crosses over into other areas besides comedies.

And that certainly is a fitting description for our antagonist. As Colonel Nakesh, Suchet certainly makes one forget that this was the same man who could only have been identified as Hercule Poirot. He looks a lot more like Saddam Hussein and makes a soft-spoken dictator while quietly issuing orders as "kill the American pigs", "cut him to ribbons" and the ever-popular "Give the American his final meal. After tomorrow, he will not have much of an appetite".

As far as our Tom Cruise-wannabe, Jason Gedrick plays devil-may-care Doug as well as any young man would in the same situation. With a penchant for hot-headedness, erratic flying, getting turned down by prestigious colleges, listening to tunes on his awesome Walkman and opening his eyes as wide as he can as often as he can, it's small wonder Gedrick became as big as he did in small-scale efforts like this, going from Iron Eagle to later triumphs in Rooftops, Crossing The Bridge, Power 98, Silent Cradle, and even a couple of smaller parts in bigger efforts like Born On The Fourth Of July (which starred Tom Cruise...hmm, wonder if this movie ever came up in conversation at the commissary?), Backdraft and the inevitable Iron Eagle II. Basically, Jason was there to take the parts deemed too cerebral for C. Thomas Howell.

Thank God that Doug doesn't have to suffer through this trying darkness of the soul alone; he has the able support of little brother Bobby Jacoby from Dr. Alien, fellow teen pals Larry B. Scott from Revenge Of The Nerds, Jerry Levine from Teen Wolf and Robbie Rist from "The Brady Bunch" (Cousin Oliver anyone?) and a girlfriend as awesome as Melora Hardin from...uh... oh hey, she was in the "Dirty Dancing" TV series! (yeah, I didn't know there was one, either) Noticing the familiar actors in smaller parts here will give all of us warm fuzzies, I'm sure, plus a sense of accomplishment in pointing at the screen and shouting "Cousin Oliver!!" at the top of your lungs.

You get pleasures in movies like this wherever you can - yeah, like you don't point and shout at characters you recognize. Right. Liar.

But we can go no further without repeating the involvement of patron saint and MBZ regular Tim Thomerson. The Grand Old Man Of B-Movies rears his tanned, authoritative head yet again as Doug's dad, the downed pilot who also plays the MacGuffin of the piece - the crux of the plot, the object that set things in motion. Tim has survived this film, Jekyll & Hyde...Together Again, Metalstorm: The Destruction Of Jared-Syn, Dollman, a whole slew of Trancers movies and still has to take a backseat to Bruce Campbell??? Love ya, Bruce, but Tim is still the man of the hour...even battling his way through and out of captivity in a foreign land long and hard enough to still recognize his son's voice in the midst of a storm of explosions and a hail of gunfire.

Director Sidney J. Furie - who has more a b-movie name in efforts such as Doctor Blood's Coffin, Gable And Lombard, The Entity and Purple Hearts - fits the bill well enough while filming jet fighters zooming past, bombs exploding and teenagers pulling goofy stunts with firecrackers in trash cans while the adults run for cover. Sure, Tony Scott may pull it off with more flair, but Furie at least had some training in battle conditions with Purple Hearts and The Boys In Company C...seniority and all....

And for cobbling something together out of hearsay, Furie and co-writer Kevin Elders did a passable job of making a script for what amounts to a bunch of meddling kids getting involved with an overseas war. Seeing that Elders wrote this, female bodybuilder Rachel McLish actioner RavenHawk and a couple of forgettable efforts, at least everything came together story-wise, with special attention to the inert goofiness of the entire enterprise. I mean, of COURSE something as stupid as this couldn't come together and get pulled off in real life but, as is usually the case, it's fun to watch.

This soundtrack has to be heard to be believed - yes, Queen submits a song called "One Vision" which is supposed to be this film's "Danger Zone". True, this is probably the only Air Force dogfighting and exploding movie whose lead song mentions religion, bars, excitation and fried chicken, but what do you expect for a rush job? We also have such artists as Dio, Katrina and the Waves, George Clinton, Twisted Sister and - are you ready? - The Spencer Davis Group offering cuts, some previously released. Gimmie some lovin', indeed.

Now, when it comes to the figures: this was all made for $18 million and released in January of 1986 - a full five months before its inspiration got to theaters - and earned nearly $24 million before Top Gun even premiered. You tell me how it did. Yeah.

This is actually a very entertaining movie to watch without any of the pretension and self-importance that would come in Top Gun. And especially in light of the fact that everything you see on screen is just another example of opportunism, it just so happens that it all meshes. Gossett Jr. makes the most of his role, Gedrick is game, Suchet does everything but twirl his mustache Snidely Whiplash-style, the teenagers wreak havoc and run all over the place, the other adults sweat and add a swear word every so often, stuff blows up, rockets show their red glare, son saves dad in the heat of battle and everyone lives happily ever after. It's all good.

Three sequels down the road and lots of dogfights and explosions later, it's easy to forget that the inspiration for all of this was a ripoff that was trying to beat Tom Cruise to the punch. Of course, that's how it goes in Hollywood: why wait for Tom Cruise when Lou Gossett Jr. is right there ready to go?

Metalstorm: The Destruction Of Jared-Syn (1983)

The first 3D movie I ever saw was Gorilla at Large. And the only reason I saw it was because so much was made of the fact that it was being shown on our local TV station at the time and we got our cheap cardboard 3D glasses at the grocery store as we checked out, so we had no excuse not to watch it.

Then the magic night came, we put on our glasses, turned on our TV, watched the little 5-minute promo before the movie to show us how to properly wear our 3D glasses, then the movie came on.

It wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

So why do I even mention it? Because there is no better lead-in I can think of to a review of a 3D movie than to discuss what it is that is supposed to make 3D so great.

"Because it immerses you in the story," some say.

"Because it feels like the characters can reach right out and touch you," even more say.

"Because it's the only way some producers can sell their cheap little flick," I say.

Look at the facts: from the early Fifties on, and every subsequent renaissance that three-dimensional movies ever had, 85-90% of the titles were cheap, chintzy little also-rans that barely anyone remembers.

Oh sure, there were important 3D films back in the day like Hondo and Dial M for Murder, but for each good one there were a whole mess of counter-points like Cat Women of the Moon and Robot Monster and The Bellboy and the Playgirls. Whenever Hollywood has a gimmick, man do they ever play it up.

So you can best believe when the next big renaissance of 3D movies came around in the Eighties, there were plenty of sorry examples of the "art" to be had for blue-and-red glass-wearing geeks all over.

There was furor and assorted 15 minutes of fame during this re-renaissance with films as well-known as Jaws 3-D and Friday the 13th Part 3 in 3-D, as semi-known as Comin' at Ya! and Treasure of the Four Crowns and as never-heard-of as Earl Owensby's Rottweiler. Sharks, cowboys and killer dogs. Who needs clever writing when you have all these things tumbling out of the screen and into your popcorn?

And it was during this short-lived repeat bobbing to the surface of pop culture that Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn came to be.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who remembers this movie. Nor am I the only one who admits that they saw it back in the day. I know full-well that there were other people lurking behind their anaglyph glasses in the theater at the same time.

Unlike those who hide away their cardboard frames from long ago and far away, and dutifully trot off instead to such "proper" 3D flicks as Avatar and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, I feel it is my duty as a battle-hardened veteran of the old school to not let Metalstorm fade into obscurity. Mostly because I know it's still out there waiting to be scooped up by some callow youth, and if we forget our past, it will sneak up on us when we least expect.

So. Plot, anyone? In a distant universe, a seeker - which is a kind of glorified forest ranger for barren desert planetoids - named Dogen (Jeffrey Byron) rescues the beautiful young Dhyana (Kelly Preston) after her father is murdered by the evil Jared-Syn (Michael Preston). Dogen must then find Jared-Syn's hideout in the mysterious "Lost City", but the only person who knows where it's located is an aging, burned-out seeker named Rhodes (Tim Thomerson). Along the way, they will need to do battle against evil humanoid rusty robotical Baal (R. David Smith) and his Cyclopean minions then engage Jared-Syn in a final Metalstorm of an encounter that will take them into a dimension from which only one will return....

Now right there is a plot that almost screams at the viewer that things will be thrown at them, backgrounds will whiz by as if they were all-encompassing panoramas and, once those glasses are in place, they will feel as if they are in a galaxy far far away. Almost.

In fact, I would say it's a safe assumption that most of these 3D films of the Eighties were by and large science fiction. What better a venue where just about anything can happen and, since other-worldly things will be flying all about anyway, why not make it all in 3D?

A few things conspire to throw a 3D monkey wrench in the works, though.

First of all, we have the director and producer - a man you may have heard of. Charles Band? Know him? Know his dad? Albert? If you read this site, you darn well BETTER know him. Chuckie is the man who has over 240 production credits to his name, over 30 titles as director and a few more as writer. He probably brewed coffee for the crew and swept up afterwards while he was at it. Of course, there is a wide chasm between quantity and quality. This is the man, after all, who gave us Parasite, The Gingerdead Man, Prehysteria!, Crash and Burn, Trancers I and II, two Evil Bong movies and Last Tango in Burbank. If you've heard of any of these movies, then you're in the right place but have every reason to worry about our subject herein.

Of course, Charlie Boy isn't the only one to blame for this. After all, Metalstorm was written by Alan J. Adler. Who? Why, the man responsible for penning such filmic odes to joy as The Giant Behemoth, The Concrete Jungle and a couple of Band's projects, not to mention an episode each of "The Real GhostBusters" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation". And as far as quality goes, there's a reason Adler hasn't written anything since 1990...and it's not because he's been otherwise occupied, I'm sure.

You know how they make jokes like "it took three people to write this letter"? Well, to paraphrase the works of David Letterman, it took five people to produce this movie. Not only were Charlie and Big Daddy Al Band and writer Adler on hand to produce but so were such big-deal cigar-smokin' luminaries like Gordon W. Gregory and Arthur H. Maslansky, who between the two guys have three production credits to their names (Metalstorm being the most recognizable title if only because we're talking about it now).

I would have loved to have known where Adler and Chuckie Band worked out their final storyline - most likely at the bottom of a pitcher of sangria, but anyway.... What we have here is just another of your typical revenge against an evil overlord / saving the universe storylines made popular by George Lucas and his big yellow notepad way back when.

The differences are there, though: the evil humanoid gets its robotic arm ripped off in slow motion 3D, with all kinds of green juices and alien hydraulic fluids spewing out at the viewer. A fight with a mutant cyclops guy employs daggers as sharp as your elbow that get stabbed straight at ya in 3D (surprise). A few aliens fly through the air in clunky flying scooters while 1-inch wide blue matte lines flicker around their edges in 3-D (making them more obvious) and Dogen finally dukes it out with Jared-Syn in one of the most confusing fight scenes ever EVER filmed in 3D or otherwise; jumping from one dimension to another dimension to yet another repeatedly within a few minutes' time should be exciting...not confusing - or headache-inducing. This is both.

You want to know the most entertaining aspect of Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn? There are two, in fact. One is that there are so many people here that are readily recognizable to those of us who watch so many of these movies on a regular busy. I already mentioned Jeffrey Bryon, who had parts in films like Donovan's Reef, At Long Last Love, International Velvet and even a small part in 2009's Star Trek reboot. How 'bout dat?

Of course, we also have Kelly Preston, who not only made a career out of marrying John Travolta, but also starred in such classic flicks as Christine, 52 Pick-Up, Twins, and suffered through two 1985 flicks (Mischief, Secret Admirer).

And one of the cyclops mutants? None other than Richard (Bull from "Night Court") Moll! In fact, it was his shaving of his head for this role that gave him the look of the big bald bailiff we all know and love. Thanks, Metalstorm!

Jared-Syn, however, will be familiar to anyone who's seen The Road Warrior. It's Pappagallo himself, Michael Preston, who's also a part-time Flying Karamazov Brother and probably found it more palatable to juggle swords, hot coals and broken bottles than be featured as a grouchy baddie.

OH! And we also have Tim Thomerson again, folks! The Grand Old Man of B-Movies strikes again and leaves us with the patented "funny backsliding chum of the hero" character that every movie like this needs. At least he's a dependable presence and makes the most of what he does. As usual. Oh, Tim Thomerson: you'll never let me down.

The other entertaining thing is that this movie is such an obvious blueprint of many other Westerns/science fiction/urban dramas/war movies (many of them by the Bands, pere and fils), some of them done better, many of them done even worse - believe it or not. It's just enjoyable to see how the same familiar characters (hero, heroine, sidekick, colorful villains) and situations (fights, chases, climactic showdowns) fit into a completely different setting. AND in 3D.

About the 3D: It isn't very good. Fuzzy, jerky, seemingly incomplete or unthought. The only way this could possibly be made palatable is by getting James Cameron drunk, convincing him he needs to go and refit old 3D movies and make them look as good as his product. How else do you think Quentin Tarantino got involved with The Mighty Peking Man?

There's no way Metalstorm will ever turn up in an AFI All-Star Salute for anyone involved; though it IS possible as the subject of a Friar's Club Roast, I'd say. Seeing that this movie made so little bank and is now only notable as a footnote in the history of 3D film-making, the only ones who could have possibly benefited from this are the Charlie and Al Band, who both used this and their other early works to build up a dynasty of films that not only continue to be made to this day but will continue on as long as there are cheap effects, hack screenplays, mediocre directors and cheap ways to distribute them.

Of course, for all we know, Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn could have been made as a big joke on the 3-D sci-fi moviegoers of the Eighties; a kind of obscure parody on these kind of films.

...albeit a really obscure parody.

1985 was the WORST Year for Movies - Part Six

I know there's going to be a few movies in this series that many of you won't agree with. And I'm fine with that. After all, if we all agreed on every topic and liked the same thing, then Carrot Top would be President.

Just go with me on that one, I'm making a point.

Understand, however, that there's a lot of pain and anger towards the product here as well. This IS 1985 we're talking about after all, and I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that this was not only a year of pain and misery but also one where many different things were tried and also failed miserably.

It just so happens that many of the new things that were tried were filmed and shown at your local theater.

There's nothing unreasonable about that at all - it's just the truth.

So, fellow scarred children of the Eighties, join me as we trudge bravely through the boulevard of broken dreams and review some more choice agony of a painful year. As random as it ever was....

TURK 182!

So, instead of another Porky's sequel, Bob Clark did a film about fighting bureaucracy. He should have stuck with Pee Wee. Kim Cattrall and Edward Winter show up from past Porky's installments, but then so does Tim Hutton, Peter Boyle and Robert Culp, too! None of whom do anything for themselves but incriminate by association. They try to be heroic and make a statement, but the only statement made by Turk 182! is "duhhhh...".






YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES

A lot of talent went into this movie; Barry Levinson directed, Chris Columbus wrote, Steven Spielberg produced, Industrial Light and Magic provided an impressive effect of a stained glass window coming to life...but everything else was so cobbled together out of bits and pieces of story lines that worked in other movies and so thoroughly trashed the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that the entire affair has been all but forgotten. Do YOU remember Sherlock Holmes meeting John Watson in an English boarding school? Didn't think so....





GHOULIES

What's worse than a ripoff of a successful movie? A ripoff of a successful movie done by ripoff artists whom have never watched the successful movie they were ripping off before making their own ripoff. Ghoulies deals with people who resurrect a vengeful warlock in a castle somewhere...and a by-product is that these little rubbery creatures pop up from behind props and wiggle around. I don't even think any of the cast members react to any of these Ghoulies at any time. I'd say this was a waste of resources, but I don't think very many resources were used in making this one.





AMERICAN FLYERS

Oh good; a sequel to Breaking Away - only it has nothing to do with Breaking Away, doesn't have any of the first movie's characters (or actors for that matter) in it, it's set in the middle of the desert and it sucks. This was also the year that Kevin Costner made it big thanks to Silverado, but if this was all he had to hitch his star to, he'd only be best-remembered as the best fry cook that Denny's ever had. Is it me or were Quest for Fire and Commando (another 1985 anomaly) the only good movies Rae Dawn Chong's ever been in?





INTO THE NIGHT

I know, I know: John Landis is a funny director guy. On one hand, Animal House. On the other, The Stupids. Back on the first hand, though, Trading Places. Returning to the other hand however, THIS movie. To be honest, I don't really even remember what the movie was about, save that it had Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer in it. And they were running. And Landis plays one of a quartet of Iranian hitmen after them. And lots of people die. Ha-ha? The Blues Brothers may have been as chaotic but there was a good story and lots of good music in that one. And while a good actor, Jeff Goldblum can only carry so much of a movie. Poor guy....




ONE MAGIC CHRISTMAS

This has to be one the most depressing damned movies I've ever seen in my life - AND IT'S A CHRISTMAS MOVIE! Mary Steenburgen has never been more put-upon in a movie before or since, even when she played Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in 1983's Cross Creek. Hey, I'm all for slice-of-life films, but not ones where the slices are all of a rotten, maggot-riddled pie filled with black splotches and green mold...and there's only one very small piece of good fruit in the whole thing! Max Ophuls was more upbeat than these guys! And it's a Disney film - boy, they were on a roll in 1985, weren't they?





DUNGEONMASTER

When it takes seven directors and eight writers to make a movie that isn't even 80 minutes long, you not only have a lot of trouble right off the bat, but a pretty good candidate for Worst Concept Ever For A Movie since Marion Davies stepped under the klieg lights. And when the whole idea centers around a computer nerd learning that his girlfriend is more important than his PC, you could have saved the producers a lot of money by just having Charles Band come to your house to slap you in the face. Same results.






VOLUNTEERS

What? Tom Hanks was in bad movies? Worse than Every Time We Say Goodbye? Worse than The Money Pit? Worse than The 'Burbs? Well, let's not get carried away, but Volunteers doesn't do anyone any favors with Hanks as a rich snob who joins the Peace Corps to get away from gambling debts. Not even Gedde Watanabe and John Candy help matters, nor does Tim Thomerson, the Grand Old Man of B-Movies. This is where Hanks met future wife Rita Wilson, and we all know how well on-set romances effect the final product; just look at Taylor and Burton's Cleopatra....





PRIVATE RESORT

Pre-fame Johnny Depp and Rob Morrow in a stupid beach sex comedy? Yep, and they also brought along Andrew Dice Clay, Hector Elizondo and Dody Goodman, none of whom do anything worth the extra effort of having Andrew Dice Clay, Hector Elizondo or Dody Goodman in front of the camera. Geez, when you have to count on Andrew Dice Clay to get laughs in a comedy....








STITCHES

Well, when you look at all the comedies that were made in the Eighties, there are bound to be a few of them that rip on other more successful themes. But since 1985 already had Bad Medicine for the Police Academy-in-a-hospital idea, all that Stitches could do was get the token Asian Stereotype Guy from the Police Academy movies. Then throw in Parker Stevenson, Eddie Albert and The Unknown Comic WITHOUT his paper bag. Oh, and some of the unfunniest gags, jokes and situations in a movie posing as a medical comedy since...well, since Bad Medicine. You'd get more laughs having an emergency appendectomy.



Come on, tell me you can argue with these. Yeah, just come on and try - they couldn't stink worse if they were made of limburger.

Join me again next time when we tackle FOUR of the worst sequels ever, the biggest lump of coal ever mined and a sports romance that had nothing to do with neither.

Dope out.

- TGWD

Jekyll & Hyde...Together Again (1982)

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that there are more than enough examples of stupid parody movies out in the world as it is?



As painful as it is for me to say this, it nevertheless comes to the fore of this review not only because of the subject for today, but also due to the fact that this epidemic of parodies can all be traced back as early and as simply as the late '50s/early '60s and the movies of Vincent Price.



Follow me on this; many rightfully believe that Price played more than his share of sinister characters in many a film, but he also lampooned those types of characters in several more movies (The Comedy of Terrors, Beach Party, The Raven, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine), a practice which served him long and well later on, to be sure. Which then got others on the bandwagon, making fun of respected actors and their personae in a manner which came across as self-important and utterly ridiculous.



Somewhere along the way, however, it didn't seem to matter whether or not the lead actors in such enterprises were dramatically-respected, highly-regarded or even that well-known.



And a larger spectrum of films came into the fold as well - not just horror movies but... well... everything. Spy movies are a good example, since just about every one of these spy films released in the mid-to-late '60s was an outright spoof of the better-known James Bond series, and some even featured members of that series' cast in major parts (but never Sean Connery..his brother, maybe, but not Sean).



So it then came to be that other film-makers, stars and the like created films that had fun with the traditions of movies in general. Which led to films like The Big Bus (a '76 parody of disaster movies), The Kentucky Fried Movie (which parodied many movies and TV shows/ads in its 90 minutes or so) and a slew of other also-rans like The Boob Tube, Tunnelvision, American Tickler and many more that I know I'll kick myself for not remembering, but there was a whole glut of them, trust me.



By this time, Vincent Price was long forgotten.



Come the end of the '70s these films were still going strong, and it seemed that a new example of such cinema came out once every other weekend at the local theater, multiplex or drive in - just the thing for a struggling studio to cobble together, film and release to make a quick buck (like, pornos, for example). And in 1980 this genre had something of a renaissance thanks to the wild success of Airplane!, which stayed firmly in the realm of parodying disaster films like the earlier Big Bus, but also went off on unexpected side trips into the realms of From Here to Eternity, Jaws, Knute Rockne: All-American, vaudeville jokes and immolation.



This movie being funnier than it had a right to be, proved the success of irreverent, inconsequential humor and spawned not only a sequel but several other films from the same team of directors and writers (Top Secret!, The Naked Gun - itself spawned from a TV series, "Police Squad!", Hot Shots!), which all had their own degrees of success, sequels and so forth.



As with all other successes, however, also came ripoffs and copies of the same ideas, which is also Hollywood's bread and butter, it seems. Which is also why we were treated in the years after Airplane! to movies like Student Bodies, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, The Creature Wasn't Nice (aka, Naked Space) and many more lower-budgeted direct-to-video deals that littered many a video rental places shelves for years after; you know, those VCR tape cases in the "COMEDY" section that were all light blue and washed-out from being out in the sunlight too long. Those ones.



This brings us to Jekyll & Hyde...Together Again, and also to the minuscule legacy of an almost-forgotten ABC TV show called "Fridays". You see, "Fridays" came out in the early '80s and was supposed to topple long-standing late-night comedy king "Saturday Night Live" from its golden throne. It didn't but it did introduce some intriguing b-level comedians to the viewing public such as Melanie Chartoff, Bruce Mahler and John Roarke, and even some who went on to the proverbial "bigger-and-better" things like Rich Hall, Larry David and Michael Richards.



But then there was Mark Blankfield. In spite of vigorous comedic acting in various roles in "Fridays" and his manic reminder of a more spastic, geekier (and shorter) Jim Carrey, this poor guy has never gotten a break; he doesn't even have a Wikipedia listing.



He must have had something about him, however, because the same year that "Fridays" was canceled, Blankfield got the top-billed role in a comedy that promised to be his launching pad to those same "bigger-and-better" things that all his betters seemed to attain with their debut film. You know, like Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman...and yes, those would be perfect examples in this case.



How does this all tie in with what I started out my review with? It all fits, you see, since Blankfield starred in a comedy based on the Robert Louis Stevenson horror classic The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Hey, it's no stranger an idea than any of Price's cornier appearances in a Roger Corman-directed Edgar Allen Poe adaptation.



What is strange, however, is the idea to make a horror parody filtered through the Airplane! ideology with a heavy dollop of Cheech and Chong thrown in for good measure.



The story goes: at the hospital known as Our Lady of Pain and Suffering, Doctor Daniel Jekyll (Blankfield) is intent on creating a super drug that will make surgery obsolete and the human body self-repairing. During his experimentation, the good doctor, through events more contrived than in an average Porky's movie, snorts some of the latest powdered drug he has been testing with and turns into a sex-and-drug-crazed wild man who sprouts chest hair, jewelry, an extremely long pinkie nail and something else extremely long that he...oh, I can't say it; you can probably guess anyway, so just go with that.



As expected, this plays havoc not just with his professional life (he's slated to perform an important "total body transplant" on the world's richest man) but with his personal life since he is engaged to the pretty-yet-vacuous daughter (Bess Armstrong) of the hospital's chief doctor and his alter-ego is seeing a very cute/hot/empty-headed young lady named Ivy (Krista Errickson).



There are a boggling amount of jokes involving pain (hospital-incompetence pain, crotch-shot pain, head-stuck-in-a-car-sunroof pain, etc.) or sex (as should be expected, but with animals?), sometimes even pain AND sex, but even more that come straight from the ol' high-school locker room involving body parts, minorities, the height-challenged, the elderly, homosexuals, Asians, the British, nuns, black people, and even more that involve combining more than one of these topics at once. Guess I gotta give writers Monica Johnson, Harvey Miller, Michael Lesson and director Jerry Belson credit for multi-tasking, at least.



And speaking of the director, Belson is better-suited for his starting point as a TV-sitcom director, seeing as how every scene is set as if it were best-suited for commercial interruptions and editing-down for its time slot. Small wonder that for every scene that is funny there are ten or twelve that are just badly photographed, set up or framed. Just goes to show that every movie can't be another episode of "Mary Tyler Moore".



I mentioned Blankfield earlier, who at least tries every physical trick in the book to make people from the fall-down slapstick school laugh. As for me, I was more concerned that he was going to hurt himself while going for the guffaws. He puts one less in the mind of Buster Keaton and more of Gerald Ford.



But like I said, at least he tried. Bess Armstrong stands there and looks pretty but is more-or-less the window-dressing of this piece, and I know for a fact that she can be funny (just watch The Four Seasons and Nothing in Common for good examples of Bess in full comedic flower). Krista Errickson plays the air-headed bimbo quite well and makes an understandable object of desire, but never rises above what she does and comes across as nothing more than "The Sex Object" - she might as well have been a RealDoll for all this movie cared.



No one else's performance is worth mentioning herein, save for one. Tim Thomerson, the Grand Old Man of B-Movies, plays the suave doctor Knute Lanyon. All teeth, hair and resonant voice, Thomerson's performance makes him the textbook example of stereotypical swaggering confidence - albeit with a startling secret. And perhaps if you've seen his performance in the short-lived NBC-TV sci-fi series "Quark", you may already know what that is, but why should I spoil one of this movie's very few funny moments?



Overall, there are maybe one or two good things in J&H...TA (the above-mentioned Thomerson performance, the train trip to London, the very last scene) but everything else is a classic example of trying too hard, relying on childish humor and half-baked ideas and depending on one person to carry a whole movie from beginning to end - when it was all they could do to carry on a 7-minute TV sketch.



My apologies to Mark Blankfield; like I said, he gave his all but he was like the poor guy who tries to hang wallpaper while the room is crumbling down around him. There's not much use in it when nothing else is going to support him.



One would have to stop and think, though: what IF this was a vehicle for Vincent Price?



Well, for one thing, I'm sure he would have asked for a few rewrites.