Episode 011: More Clarification, Movie Recs, and "Kojak"

This week on the Party, Frank begins by briefly talking about how "back-to-school" time is weird in Canyon (and probably other places) and says he may talk further about it in an upcoming show.

Next, he gives a brief clarification about his comments last time regarding college sports realignment, and if you choose to disagree please do so with a true understanding of what he means.

He then mentions another forgotten movie called The End with Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise, and Sally Field from 1978.  Although a darker comedy for its subject of death and dying, it is slapstick hilarious and he highly recommends it, but does not go to an in-depth review here.

Next, he says that he may not be able to review a lot of horror movies (including those that star Priscilla Barnes) for this show because horror is not his thing (comedy is, of course).  But he mentions that some horror films are not actually scary or suspenseful, and may be unintentionally funny.  On that note, he ran across a 1985 film called Lifeforce that stars the attractive French actress Mathilda May, perhaps 20 years old at the time, who plays a naked space vampire in a story that wreaks havoc on London.  Also just a mention and not a review.

Lastly and most important, he reviews Priscilla's appearance in another beloved 1970s detective show, Kojak, starring Telly Savalas.  In it she has a dual role playing twin sisters Vicki and Sally Addison who are topless magicians at a casino resort in Las Vegas.

Naked space vampires to topless twin magicians...you can't beat that!

The theme song is called Retro Funk by SoulProdMusic and can be found at pixabay.com.

The End is available for streaming on Tubi, Pluto TV, and Amazon Prime Video.  It is also available on Blu-Ray and DVD.

Lifeforce is available for streaming on Tubi, Pluto TV, Amazon Prime Video, and MGM + (streaming or TV channel).  It is also available on Blu-Ray and DVD.

Kojak is shown on the GETTV channel and is also available on Amazon Prime Video, Blu-Ray and DVD.

--The best way to contact is:
Twitter: @frankwebertx
Web:  frankwebertx.com
Email:  frankoweber@hotmail.com

Transcript

Frank: 0:02

Well, in this episode, I'm going to make one brief clarification from the show last week. And then I'm going to make a big movie recommendation for a forgotten movie called the end. We started Burt Reynolds from 1978. I'm gonna go into a little detail about that, but it's not a. For a movie review. And then I talked to you a little bit about horror movies and how that may be difficult for me to review, but some of those movies are. Not really scary and actually quite enjoyable. I saw part of one call. Life force yesterday. That you may find amusing and probably a little till 18, actually. And speaking of tits, the last thing that we do is review Priscilla's appearance on the popular. CBS seventies, detective show. Kojak where she plays. Twin sisters. Who are topless magicians in Las Vegas. So stay tuned I think you're really going to love this show. hello, welcome to Frank Weber's party. Once again, this is your host, Frank Weber. So glad that you could be here with me. So glad that you're listening to the podcast and however way you consume the podcast, and we'll have a really special show for you this week. can't wait to share it with you. as I record this, this is the. 15th of August and school starts here in Canyon tomorrow. School starting time is very bizarre time around here, and I don't really have a lot of. Time today to go into that. I may talk about it next week, but I'm just puzzled by it. I've been puzzled by it for a long time. I don't even have any kids. it always, sort of bothered me. I didn't really want to go to school after the end of the summer, and I've told you the story about school start dates, I think way back in episode two. But, there's a lot of things that I can't wrap my head around in our country and our world nowadays, and perhaps I'll talk about that pretty soon. But that was kind of the first thing that was on my mind. The second thing is I wanted to clarify real quick, and I don't wanna spend a lot of time on this. I go to painstaking length to. Make sure that I'm clear in my opinions. And last week I talked about, realignment in college sports and I just wanna be clear that I'm not against universities making money off their sports. I think it's great that they can make money off them and I'm not against them, positioning themselves in the best situation possible. But I think what really bothers me is this constant sense of just greed on top of greed, on top of greed, and always moving around, constant change and moving around to whatever the next best situation is, if that makes sense. I don't think overall it's really good for. College sports and it's not really good for a lot of things. I don't think it's good for our human lives in general, but you're always free to disagree with me on that. You know, this is, something of a forum as well as just a movie review show right now, or TV review show. And, so you're free to disagree with me, but I. Ask that you disagree with me. Only if you're clear on what I'm saying. if you believe that I'm saying something else and then you try to, Tell me otherwise, then I get a little bit concerned and annoyed about that. it seems to be especially common in the internet age now. but that's all that I'm gonna say about that. I watched over the weekend another what I consider forgotten movie, and I'm always fascinated by forgotten movies, especially ones that are very good, quite good in fact. And the one that I watched was a movie called, The end from May of 1978, starring Burt Reynolds and a bunch of other people that, you would know from, his stint with the Hal need movies that he was in in the late seventies and early eighties. it was a black comedy, or dark comedy, I think is what they call it now, where he plays a guy, I think he's in real estate. that he has a rare blood disorder that is going to kill him within three months to a year. And so he begins to contemplate what death is like. He has some people around him, what it's like, and he can't really handle it. So he decides throughout much of the movie that he wants to commit suicide, and it's very comical. he's very unsuccessful in doing that. and that's what makes the movie, uh, the comedy behind it anyway. but that was also a big criticism of the movie. a lot of people were taken aback that. Burt Reynolds did a movie about suicide, which is of course a very serious topic and I don't wanna make light of it or anything like that, but I enjoy the movie. I thought it was funny. I'm not really doing a full review on the show or the movie actually here today, but, I wanted to recommend it to you. I think it's free out there on Tubi and possibly Pluto tv and perhaps some others were finer movies are streamed. the movie, made a lot of money. it made over$44 million back in 78 versus a budget of 3 million. Burt Reynolds directed it as well as starred in it. He really wanted to do the movie, and Warner Brothers let him do the movie if he would star in the movie Hooper, which came out about two months later about the Hollywood Stunt Man. Terrific movie. he goes by the name Sonny in this movie, and he's also called Sonny in the Hooper movie, even though it's two totally different characters. he's the most prominent character in it. Dom de Loise is second. He plays a psychiatric patient that he befriends while in the psychiatric ward, and they go on some several adventures together. and then the other folks in it, don't have really more than a few minutes a piece of airtime, but it also includes Sally Field, whom Bert was dating at this time. Strother Martin. David Steinberg, Joanne Woodward. Norman fell, of course, who was playing Mr. Roper in three's company at this time? Myrna Loy, Christie McNichol, pat O'Brien, Robbie Benson, Carl Reiner, James Best Jock Mahoney, and even appearances by Alfie Wise, who was with Bird in. A lot of these Hal need movies, even though like I said, this is not a Hal Need movie. This is the end here. And also a very young Frank McCree. I'm not doing a full review of this film, but I would highly recommend it to you. I think it's about 60% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is what, punchline was when I reviewed that about a month ago, which also had Sally Field in it. And, I think it's a good comedy. Maybe it's a little dark in the suicide thing, but it is kind of slap sticky as well. And there's all these. Crazy adventures, that he goes through as he, figures out essentially what to do with himself. so that's called the end, and you should check that out. Like I said, this is not gonna be a full review today. I didn't really look at it in depth. I did want to bring up, before we get into our Priscilla review today, I have been looking at some of the. The stats and, the last two episodes that are out, which is eight and nine. I was particularly fond of episode eight. I thought it was some of my best work. Number nine wasn't bad, but the downloads have really become, fewer and further between. on those two shows, and I'm not exactly sure why. There's probably a laundry list of why, possibly even going back to school. I don't know if that has something to do with it or not. it seems like that's tied to a lot of things around here. so I continue to think about ways to improve this show or. should I even perhaps suspend this show? I was definitely thinking long and hard about that this weekend. I will tell you. That this weekend, I was looking at, the TV lineup and, one of Priscilla's horror movies was shown on I F c, I think it was on Friday night called The Devil's Rejects. Now I haven't seen the movie and I didn't record the movie from tv, so I haven't watched it at all. I'm a little squeamish if y'all didn't know already about. watching horror flicks. I don't really care to see innocent people hurt and tortured and killed and all sorts of terrible things happen to them. It's just not my bag. And, so I read a description Of that movie through Wikipedia. they also, by the way, considered that movie as a black comedy horror movie, but it's also got a comedy component to it, which after reading it, I don't know what's funny about it, but, It was basically one violent act after another, after another, after another. And it seemed like it was just so chaotic and just didn't make any sense to me. I consider that as a possible review for this show or some time down the line, but I have not done that yet. I haven't looked at it yet and I'm not sure that I will. I'm not sure how much I can stomach some of those horror flicks. So I don't know how many of them I'm going to actually be reviewing for this show and that would, result in fewer things to review here. I will tell you though, as an aside, and I think this is funny, comedically. I ran into a movie yesterday. well, first of all, I should say, not all horror movies are really that frightening and horrific. You know, some of them get so stupid that they're actually funny and they're entertaining in that regard. Or some of them are suspenseful, but they're really not that scary. And I ran into a movie on TV yesterday that was kind of both of those things. I only saw parts of it, so I can't do a full review of it or anything. There weren't a lot of well-known actors in it. besides an appearance from Patrick Stewart Best known of course, as Captain Picard from Star Trek, the Next Generation. It was a movie from June of 1985 called Life Force, and it was really funny. And the thing that really, attracted me to it, the description, is that apparently it has something to do with British and American astronauts that have to deal with. naked vampires from space, primarily a female one who was played by the lovely, Matilda May, who is a French actress and who was probably not even 20 years old when she was in this showing everything. I mean, tits ass, uh, as well as, you know, um, genital area, but she's totally walking around. butt naked. And these vampires, they don't even bite you. They may kiss you or they may come close to you, but they have this little life force, these little lights that go off where they're transferring life force or sucking it out of their victims, I guess is usually how they do it. Or at least that's the way I viewed it in the half or so of the movie that I saw. It's really amusing that they had a little different take on vampires, naked space vampires, and, the special effects were really good for the time. I think I read that John Dykstra did them. He worked on several movies of that era. no, c g I, but typical special effects from that time and, acting not really particularly great. but that's an example of a horror movie, It's not particularly scary, I would say it's somewhat suspenseful and probably kind of funny and amusing, Matilda May walking around naked, reminded me a little bit Uh, the naked female walking around in public was, I think it was a scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Donald Sutherland and Leonard Nemo from a few years earlier. then this came out, yeah, probably overall not a really great movie, very bizarre movie. but that may actually be worth a look if you can take just a little bit of suspense. I don't really consider it a horror movie by any means, but that was called Life Force from 1985. And, so I'm not doing a review on that either. But what I am going to do a review of here in just a second is, Priscilla Barnes appearance. And another beloved detective show from the seventies called Kojak, very popular and I actually learned a lot, more about the show, doing my research. And we're going to review that as soon as I get back from this break. So see you then. All right, so I'm back. we're gonna go over this, very beloved TV show called Kojak, that starred tele Savalas, tele Savalas, obviously a prominent Hollywood actor for many, many years. Greek American. been in a lot of stuff. he played, blow Failed the Bad Guy in the Bond movie on Her Majesty's Secret Service back in 1969. And then he had this very memorable run as the N Y P D detective Lieutenant. Theo Kojak. So the term detective lieutenant, that's actually a real rank. It's not just something that we heard, Frank Drebin describe himself in Police Squad or the Naked Gun movies, although they overlapped in years. it, at one point took Cannon's time slot on c b s, and aired from October 24th, 1973. To March 18th, 1978 on C B Ss. And the episode that we're reviewing today is the next to last regular episode that ever aired on c b s, similar to how Priscilla was in the next to last Canon episode on C B SS 118 episodes. Total Kojak was ranked 18 out of 50th, in the TV guide's, greatest TV characters of all time. The pilot for this show came from something called the Marcus Nelson Murders. that was based on various real life events and court cases from the sixties. And Kojak was a composite character from those times. tele Valles, of course, in real life, was a really good dude. very Fran friendly, very thankful to his fans. I heard stories of, he lived in a suite at the Universal Sheraton and apparently had a bar or maybe a restaurant there called Telly's. really a good guy, sweet guy, I guess is what they would call him. and he's related somehow to Jennifer Aniston, I believe. And I know that he had at least two other works, that he worked in with Priscilla. Besides this episode we're going to talk about, they had a movie that was filmed before this in 1977 called Beyond Reason that went Straight to video in 1985. Very difficult to find now. And they also shared a scene together at least one scene together in her third appearance on the love boat, in an episode in early 1985. So the character Kojak, he was tough and gritty. He was incorruptible. He loved lollipops, especially Tootsie Pops tried to do that as a substitute for using cigarettes. I don't remember if he sucked on a lollipop in this episode. I don't believe I saw him with one. He did light up at one point, and he had a couple of very famous catch phrases. Who loves your baby? It was the biggest one and apparently also said coochie coo, which I would attribute more to Charo on the love boat, but apparently he said that as well. Kojak himself, the character was also Greek American, like, tele Valles himself and his real life brother George Valles played Detective Stare on the show. detective Stare didn't have a big role in this particular episode. Couple of other actors that were there, Dan Frazier played his boss, Frank McNeil. And then Kevin Dobson played Detective Crocker, who was in this show very prominently. This episode that we're gonna review today, there were two c b s movies, made in the eighties. I guess you could say reunion or revisit type movies. And then a, b, C would make five more movies. Beginning in 89, there was even an all new kojack. Series on the U s A network in 2005 that starred Ving RAs. but it was only on for about two months, and then apparently the plug was pulled on it. I've heard of tons of rumors of old school, classic shows like this being remade in Hollywood, and the rumors are several years old and you start to wonder if it's ever really going to happen. But there are those rumors out there. there's several bits of trivia regarding this show, it's amazing how popular it really was. Back at the time, I was just a little bit young for this, but there apparently was a lot of toys and other merchandising including trading cards. And there's also some trivia because the original writers to Superman, the movie, the first one with Christopher Reeve, apparently we're going to put Tele Sava as Kojack in the movie where Superman Mistakenly captures him thinking that it's actually Lex Luthor and then Superman realizes what he's done and Kojak turns to him and said, who loves you baby? And so a new director and new writers said that, that's a little bit too corny or campy. And so they took that out. So the episode today that we're reviewing is called 60 Miles to Hell. It aired March 11th, 1978. I don't know where they got the title from, particularly the 60 Miles. The only thing that was really measured in the show was, crocker left a set of matches that. one of Priscilla's characters gave to him that presumably was supposed to indicate how many minutes away they were from the site where this van was dropped. but I don't know if that's actually what was determined. I will tell you that this show. Is kind of lighter hearted and probably a little bit more fun than some of the other shows that I've seen in the Kojak series. it didn't involve murder or rape or. Some other crime as some of the episodes did actually involve, there was an episode earlier in the series, for instance, that I watched where John Ritter of all people was an accidental murderer because he had a heist going or was stealing things or something, and killed one of the older ladies who guest starred on. Three's company a few years later. I always thought that was an amusing anecdote, but this episode, there's a little bit of a kidnapping that goes on and there's some discussion of drugs at the time, but otherwise It's a fairly lighthearted and enjoyable episode here, and it takes place in Las Vegas before Priscilla has her episode on the Robert Uric Vegas show. A couple years before that. Okay, so I'm gonna try really hard to describe the plot here. it was a little bit confusing after I analyzed it, but it really wasn't too bad. it's definitely understandable after taking notes and paying really close attention to it. But what happens is Detective Crocker has been sent to Las Vegas where he apprehends a guy named Whitley, who is in on some kind of marijuana ring or something, obviously charges brought against him in New York. And he goes over there to extradite him and bring him back for trial. And early on it's made clear that while it's good that they've gotten this guy, he's only part of the problem. his brother is running another operation, similar operation. And so the case can't really be closed, fully. And so Crocker, Takes this guy, they're about to get on a passenger plane. He of course, can't carry his gun with him. They're about to get on this passenger plane, and all of a sudden on the tarmac there, he crocker and his prisoner Whitley get kidnapped along with, an agent, Las Vegas or Hollywood agent, a female agent. And someone known as Sally Addison, which is, one of Priscilla's characters. and I say one of Priscilla's characters because, she's actually playing a dual role here. She's actually playing twin sisters, the Addison sisters, who, our Las Vegas entertainers, they are topless musicians at a hotel casino that was not actually named in this episode. But Vicki was on the plane with Sally, but only Sally was kidnapped. And so these guys who are allegedly with this other marijuana ring, they kidnap these four people. They take him over, downtown Las Vegas to a pawn shop and keep them there as prisoner. And so Kojack of course, doesn't like the fact that his buddy Crocker's been kidnapped. So he comes to Las Vegas, talk to a lot of people, especially Vicki, the twin sister, and, through a series of events and clues, which are probably best going to be described through the, scene by scene thing that I'm about to do here, they ultimately, and cleverly wind up solving the case. there is a very magical quality to the show because it involved magicians. And then there was also a luck aspect to the show because they were in Las Vegas. and it was really, amazing. Not impossible I guess, but amazing about how magic and luck kind of work together to make a nice pretty bow on the end of this episode. I should say also before going on that the sheriff's department there in Clark County, Nevada, where Las Vegas is, they apparently were putting on a program, I don't know if this was real life or not, but it was for this show, where regular businessmen and women, would wear these special red suits and volunteer with the sheriff's department to. Help solve various crimes. And some of these volunteers, at least one of'em, maybe two of them, were part of the bad guys that were in on this, marijuana ring. one other thing I wanted to mention though, too. So Priscilla playing two characters, twin sisters. There's only one Priscilla in real life. but she plays these twin sisters, Vicki and Sally Addison. I need to mention that because that was a fairly popular plot device. And a lot of seventies and eighties show it ranks up there with, cutting the brake lines as people are in a car chase or going downhill or with somebody coming down with amnesia because they were hit over the head or something else happened to them. there wasn't even really any camera tricks in doing this. I don't know exactly how they do it, but they used to have to do certain camera tricks in order to have only one person, playing a dual role. Of course, there was no c g I back then. but they were able to arrange it to where, Vicki and Sally were almost never in the same scene together. So that obviously cut down on some of the difficulty they were in the end reunited in the very last scene when the plane came back to land. obviously Priscilla was one of them. And there was a body double there who did look a little bit different in the face from a distance. I've always been amused because that's one of those things that people used a lot back then. I don't know that they really do it as much now. All right, so finally to some scenes, like I said in an earlier episode when we did the, Robert Uric Vegas episode, this is a time capsule for an earlier Vegas, and one of the things that we see is not only some old casinos and resorts that are not there anymore, but we also see the old McCarran International Airport. Which now for some crazy reason that we're not gonna get into here, has been renamed Harry Reed International Airport. haven't been out there in a few years, but apparently that has happened. intriguing to me, how different it looks, at least at the front door to the airport versus how it looks now. Some of the terminals though, especially this terminal that they were getting on to get on a t w A flight, crocker and, Whitley here. Some of the terminals though, looked exactly the same as they do now. and then of course you have. several scenes that take place. when the four prisoners are locked up in the pawn shop, they get along fine. they are able to very creatively make a little bit of a bomb that will become important later out of the agent's gold, lighter and some gunpowder from Crocker's. Bullets that he had left on him. He was able to carry his bullets, but not his gun on the plane. that was, fun to see how they interacted and how Crocker asked Sally what she did and that she was a topless magician. And I found that, of course, very amusing as well. You of course, don't get to see anything though, no boobs or anything because, it's a c b s show, so don't get. your hope's up there. when Kojak comes to Vegas, one of the things that he does is he goes and visits her twin sister Vicki, in her dressing room before a show. Still no ts there. So forget about that. But, he helps her with one of the birds that they use in their tricks. And, it was an interesting, unique looking pink bird. And then they have this little trick with the box, where the bird disappears and then reappears she also does a watch trick where she makes his watch disappear. And apparently at the end of the show, crocker says that Sally did perform the same. Trick with him and Kojak tells him to shush about it. and it was from that point in her dressing room that Vicki and Kojack, somebody opens for Vicki and Vicki wants the show to go on and the show is going on with the opener, but he decides, Hey, why don't you cancel the rest of the show? I don't know if you can do that after it started like that. So I thought that was a little bit odd. But they go ahead and go out to the Las Vegas Hilton after that, looking for some more clues. Kojak does a little bit of gambling. He plays, roulette for, I believe it was for his boss, Frank McNeil here. McNeil gave him a little bit of money to bet it all on 36 Red and he loses. perhaps one of the bigger memories from this show is then he goes and visits, the late great Liberace who's doing a show. There at the Hilton visits him in his dressing room and, ask him some questions because this lady agent who was kidnapped is his agent and he really can't give him a lot of details. other than this agent, got him involved in some sort of scam where he lost some money. He also had Doc severance involved. by the way, I believe Doc Severance is still alive with us. but he was also known for having some very loud and flamboyant outfits. and then he gets an autograph, a picture autograph to take back, to one of his, coworkers or coworkers moms there at the precinct in New York. but it was always fun to see Liberace. There was always a rumor going on around there that he was gay, he attracted a lot of women. after reading some things, I don't think that was ever proven. like I said, it's always nice to see time capsules, whether we're talking about people or places I. Now, eventually Vicki and Kojak, they wind up out in the desert, because there's a plane full of valuable cargo that turns out to be marijuana that's going to be coming in. And they're out there in the desert with the sheriff or sheriff's deputy and this big posse that's helping to alleviate crime in the area. And, they get thrown off course by some of the moles, if you will, that are in this volunteer group to go one way while they're going another way where the plane is going to land because they're gonna go out there and hijack the plane and try to take off with the marijuana, of course. Right. And so, I found the crazy part here, Kojak was staying at the dunes. And in this scene he's with Vicki in this Jeep and he's wearing a lightweight satin New York Yankees jacket, and he's got the, the open shirt look. So it's pretty much unbuttoned or unzipped. Unbuttoned or unzipped down, to his belly button or so. he doesn't really have a lot of chest hair like me or Burt Reynolds But, he's doing this open shirt thing, which was very popular in the seventies and I really wish it would come back into style now'cause I would definitely do it. But it was odd to me because telly, as a great of guy, he was, I don't know that he was really known as like the best looking guy. I just don't see him as that. And, it was unusual for me to see him with that open shirt look, that was so common in the seventies. nothing against telly or his family great guy, like I said, but I don't know if he was ever really known as a really handsome dude or anything like that. But, they realized that they're being thrown off course by these bad guys. one of the sheriff's deputies, I think his name was Quinn, went to that pawn shop to try to rescue these, hostages. And, one of the bad dudes in the red suits winds up swapping him out for Sally. And that's how Sally gets out to the desert for this plane scene. And so the plane lands and those bad dudes, they hijack it. They get on board, they find a lot of weeded on there, and somehow they managed to get Sally's, or the hostages little bomb that they created from the lighter, and they start, lighting up marijuana cigarettes. They didn't really look like joints per se, but they start lining up these marijuana cigarettes and the bomb goes off and catches the rest of the weed on fire, and then they're forced to land. And that's how the, the show is ultimately solved. And then you have the scene where Vicki and Sally are reunited. Sally is definitely being played by a body double there, although they did a pretty good job of concealing her face, I have to admit, especially back in that era. and then of course, the final scene where they get back to New York and. Kojack, of course, lost at roulette, but was able to give another coworker the Liberace picture, and then Kojack and Crocker talk about the, watch trick. I don't think they were talking about. sex or romance or good old fashioned fucking or anything like that. I think that they were just talking about the watchy trick. I don't know that they really had any relationship, but I think they were quite a bit older than. Priscilla in this episode. But anyway, I give, both the episode and Priscilla an a plus in it. I really enjoy the episode. It's got a good premise, plot that's reasonably easy to follow. I didn't quite get the intricacies with the bad brothers and the marijuana thing, but, I would definitely recommend it and it's available out there. and I'll leave that, information in the show notes there. that sounds like a pretty amazing show to me. And thank you for listening once again. And if you think about it, we've gone from, a challenging topic to another movie recommendation to. Another movie recommendation, but with, naked Space Vampires to a show with topless magicians. I think that's quite a bit of great ground to cover today, don't you? I. But with that, I'm gonna go ahead and, call it a cha for today. like I said, thank you for listening. Again, please tell your family and friends, tell everybody you can, we're really trying to push those numbers up. I work hard on this show and I really feel like I bring you a lot of value. So for now, this is Frank Weber's party and Frank Weber's signing off. The theme song is called retro funk. Bye soul prod music and can be found@pixabay.com.