Airport '77 (1977).

The Scoop:
Ah yes, the 1970s disaster film -- where old actors go to die. This time around (the third of the four "Airport" films), the old Hollywood warhorses making fools of themselves are James Stewart, Olivia de Haviland and Joseph Cotten, all with their glory days far behind them.

The plot involves a huge airliner full of important people that sinks to the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle thanks to a botched hijacking attempt. Also along for the ride with the aging vets are a host of younger stars such as Jack Lemmon, Brenda Vaccaro, Christopher Lee, Monte Markham, Lee Grant (in an absolutely insane performance) and, of course, "Airport" series stalwart George Kennedy.

All the clichés (not to mention plot absurdities) are on parade. This film is very '70s -- intensely '70s, painfully '70s. It's cream puffs like this that the Zucker/Abrams/Zucker team were able to hit out of the park in "Airplane!" (1980). Becuase of them, it's so hard now to watch these movies with a straight face anymore. In short, this is an unintentional comedy classic.

Best Bit:
Son: "Who's that, Mommy?"
Mother: "That's your grandpa."
Son: "Have I ever met him?"
Mother: "Oh, once or twice."

Side Note:
The costumes were designed by old Hollywood warhorse Edith Head, also rapidly reaching the end of her career.

Companion Viewing:
"The Poseidon Adventure" (1972) and "Airport" (1970).

Links:
IMDb.
AirOdyssey.
Movie Mistakes.

Take a Look:
The thrilling crash scene:

First Man Into Space (1959).

The Scoop:
The pilot of the first manned space flight (played by Marshall Thompson) returns to Earth covered with an odd dust that causes him to go on a killing rampage. This somewhat interesting, though overly slow, cheapie from director Robert Day is one of the better of the late-'50s wave of films warning about the perils of the imminent age of manned space travel. Granted, given the quality of the other films of that ilk, that's not saying much. Still, it's an interesting look into the fears of the period, and worth a look for viewers with a soft spot for the genre. The plot was later liberally borrowed for "The Incredible Melting Man" (1975).

Best Bit:
The newspaper headline that refers to the title character as "The Highest Man in the World."

Side Note:
Although the film takes place on an American military base, it was shot in Great Britain. Usually this wouldn't be noticable on-screen, except that many of the base signs use British spellings.

Companion Viewing:
The even-worse "Night of the Blood Beast" (1958) and "Monster a Go-Go" (1965).

Links:
IMDb.

Take a Look:
The trailer:

The Valley of Gwangi (1969).

The Scoop:
One of the most endearing traits (among many) a B-movie can have is a brash spirit of experimentation. With lower expectations, filmmakers can try new things, throw mismatched genres together, take chances -- it can be fascinating to watch, whether it works or not. "The Valley of Gwangi" has just this sort of playful spirit. While it doesn't quite work, it is fun to watch anyway.

Want a western? Want a dinosaur flick? Want a turgid love story? Well, they're all here.

In this twist on the "King Kong" story James Franciscus stars as an American rodeo showman who discovers a hidden prehistoric valley in Mexico and wants to round up the dinosaurs for his traveling show. Gina Golan (Miss Israel 1961) and Richard Carlson are along for the ride, as are the always charming special effects of Rey Harryhausen, who brings Gwangi (a cranky T. Rex) and all his ancient playmates to life. It's one of those head-scratching, "What the hell were they thinking?" concepts that you just have to love, no matter much the execution might come up short.

Best Bit:
Dino fights!

Side Note:
The film was originally conceived as a follow-up to "King Kong," and there was even some footage shot before the project was scrapped. Some of that footage was recycled for "Mighty Joe Young" (1949).

Companion Viewing:
"The Land Unknown" (1957) and "King Kong" (1933).

Links:
IMDb.
Bad Movie Planet.
The Seventh Voyage.
Stomp Tokyo.

Take a Look:
The trailer:


The complete film is available in installments on YouTube, beginning here:

Topaz (1969).

The Scoop:
Much like he did with "Saboteur" years earlier, Alfred Hitchcock eschewed big box office stars to make this Cold War espionage tale. A pair of spies -- one American (John Forsythe) and one French (Frederick Stafford) -- team up to hunt for Soviet nuclear secrets in Havana during the Cuban Missle Crisis. The film is based on a Leon Uris novel (adapted by Samuel A. Taylor), which in turn was based on a true story.

Thanks to the changing times, Hitch was able to take advantage of Hollywood's looser restriction on sexual content, being more explicit with many of the things he only hinted at in his earlier films. And there are some good sequences detailing the nuts-and-bolts of espionage work. But beyond that "Topaz" cannot quite be considered the highlight of his late (post-"The Birds") period, and it is certainly not on par with his classics. This film is a must only for Hitchcock completists and Cold War spy buffs -- for everyone else, this is strictly optional.

Best Bit:
The cinematography during Juanita's death scene.

Side Note:
Hitchcock, a notorious perfectionist about his preproduction, continued to fuss with the script and storyboards during shooting. In fact, he shot three different endings, the only time he ever did so.

Companion Viewing:
"Saboteur" (1942) and "Torn Curtain" (1966).

Links:
IMDb.
Associated Content.
This Distracted Globe.

Take a Look:
I love the vintage "swinging" look of this trailer:


We found Hitch's cameo, so you don't have to:

Wordled.

There's new content coming soon, I promise! In the meantime, here's the site rendered in Wordle (click to enlarge):



[via http://wordle.net/.]

Stargate (1994).

(Note: It's hiatus time again. The Movie Spot will return with new content in the last week of August.)

The Scoop:
When a movie is especially good or especially bad, that makes it easy to review. When it's merely average, it becomes a tougher dragon to slay. And beyond that, there are the films that are really, really average -- vigorously non-descript in a way that seems intentionally designed not to make an impression.

And then there's "Stargate."

Nothing stands out about this movie. Every aspect is competent, but not particularly praiseworthy or blame-worthy. The script tries to give a new twist to the age-old theories that the Egyptian pyramids were built by ancient aliens, but even that is swallowed whole by the all-consuming blandness of the production. If it wasn't for the fact that it spawned the highly successful (and generally better) television series "Stargate: SG-1" and "Stargate: Atlantis," there would be nothing memorable about this film at all.

So what can you say about this movie? The script, by producer Dean Devlin and director Roland Emmerich, finds Egyptologist Daniel Jackson (played by Mr. Bland himself, James Spader) discovering an alien teleportation device that sends him, Col. Jack O'Neil (Kurt Russell) and a small strike force to a distant planet ruled by the androgynous Ra (Jaye Davidson).

All the familiar hallmarks that would turn up in later Devlin/Emmerich productions -- like "Independence Day" (1996) and "Godzilla" (1998) -- are here, but they don't manage to distinguish themselves like they did in those later films. True, the imagery and effects have a way of staying with you, but you can get that from just one viewing of a trailer -- you don't need to actually sit down and watch the whole movie. The rest is just eye candy.

Best Bit:
There is none, unless you like bland.

Side Note:
As one of the last pre-CGI sci-fi effects films, Devlin and Emmerich had to do their crowd scenes the old fashioned way -- with actual bodies instead of cloning actors in the computer. However, the production's tight budget made it too expensive to hire extras, so mannequins were used instead.

Companion Viewing:
"The Fifth Element" (1997), "Stargate: SG-1" and "Stargate: Atlantis."

Links:
IMDb.
"Stargate" toys!.

Take a Look:
Dr. Jackson takes his first trip through the Stargate:


Dr. Jackson drops some knowledge (and backstory):


A clip compilation:

Rocketship X-M (1950).

The Scoop:
This purports to be the first serious film about the realities of space exploration. Boring and silly is more like it. The crew of the first-ever manned space flight takes off for the moon, led by Lloyd Bridges, John Emery and constantly-condescended-to Osa Massen as (OMG!) the First Girl in Space. Things go really, really wrong and they wind up landing on Mars instead.

What little scientific accuracy that remains quickly goes out the window as the natives of the red planet throw some rocks around, and the rocketship crew is forced to return to Earth. Unfortunately, (spoiler alert!) they don't have enough fuel to land, dying in a fiery crash instead.

And on that cheery note, the film ends. Lots of negatives here (including the cheap sets, rampant sexism and bad science), but on the plus side there is a nifty theremin score.

Best Line:
"When a Texas man says he wants to do something, that's it, period."

Side Note:
Dalton Trumbo, perhaps the most celebrated of the blacklisted screenwriters, was an uncredited cowriter with director Kurt Neumann.

Companion Viewing:
"The Angry Red Planet" (1959).

Links:
IMDb.
1,000 Misspent Hours.
KQEK soundtrack review.

Take a Look:
A few selected scenes -- followed inexplicably by a Three Stooges short:


A musical interpretation:

The Puma Man (1980).

The Scoop:
Donald Pleasance was the John Carradine of his generation (or something like that) -- a star of Oscar-caliber films who also couldn't stop making terribly bad movies. And this is definitely one of the latter.

This Italian-made cheapo monstrosity is about a dorky guy (Walter George Alton) gets chosen by the ancient Aztec gods to be the recipient of the exalted puma powers (which mostly revolve around flying, something I didn't know jungle cats knew how to do) and must fight Kobras, a Dr Evil-type (Pleasance) who plans to take over the world one person at a time with his gold-plated, mind-controlling mask.

Just watch the unintentional hilarity ensue...

Best Bit:
The geeky hero is indoctrinated into his powers by Vadinho, the leader of an Aztec cult that has waited millenia for his arrival. But first, Vadinho (Miguelangel Fuentes) must find the fledgling Puma Man, which leads to the most ridiculous sequence of the movie -- Vadinho testing random guys to see if they have the puma powers by throwing them out of high-rise windows. If the unsuspecting guy hits the ground and dies, then he isn't the Puma Man and Vadinho continues his search.

Side Note:
Alton went on to only one other starring role, in "Heavenly Bodies" (1984). Pleasance, meanwhile, appeared in more than 200 films and television shows before his death in 1995.

Companion Viewing:
"The Greatest American Hero."

Links:
IMDb.
The Puma Man action figure!

Take a Look:
The trailer:


Shamelessly copping a scene from the first "Superman" movie: