Reviews

The way reporter Caulfield's friend disappears from existence is really hard to swallow. Lots of other farfetched moments too but hey it's a film--it is allowed to be hard to swallow.

What makes the film great is its raw honesty at times. The astronaut having to kill and eat a huge snake in the desert just to stay alive. The rigged car scene. Moments it is either gruesome or terrifying or (in the cropdusting plane scene) genuinely exciting keep the movie in high gear.

Brenda Vaccaro is beautiful and appealing in her scenes and many of those scenes of hers seem like a separate film.

(Vietnam is referred to in this film as having given America many lumps. It is worth noting that Ken Burns pointed out in his own 2017 book on Vietnam that North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh mass-murdered many landlords in North Vietnam in the 1950's in a land reform. America was not actually wrong to fight Ho after all!)

She is supposed to be, for the record, a Tippi Hedron lookalike not one of Princess Grace. Her male co-star is just another fella who like all men is unworthy of name and note (to the misguided poster on here who very wrongly made a comment on him). Back to Hyland. She is amazing in this part. She is sexy, amazing, vulnerable, beautiful, sophisticated and human all at the same time. This was like her second time on AHH and she should have been on even more. As for predictability of storyline. Because the story is told in flashback it is a safe bet to presume that it will be a scam rather than the real thing (also this is AHH not TZ and mostly AHH was more straight-forward). Nonetheless, Hyland personally makes this ep so very worth your time. Watch multiple viewings of it just to catch her. (Hyland also vastly outranks her usually good co-star Mildred Dunnock in interest, beauty, and sex-appeal by far. Hyland is the best!)

It comes in a scene where she pretends to be an old lady in a wheel chair. She looks terrible in this scene and equally bad acts crotchety and repulsive. This scene leaves such a terrible impression on you that you cannot get into the rest of the film (all where she is such a feast for the eyes). This scene never should have been made. It makes everything before and after it seem 100 percent immaterial. Bullock did herself one massive career injustice for good playing her FBI agent character disguised like this ! Her supporting cast is ineffectual (only Bullock really matters in this film and she wrecked her whole career with this horrible disguised phony old lady scene)

This ep stars the great Miss. Nettleton (Norma from 'The Midnight Sun' ep of 'The Twilight Zone'). She is mostly of all of it. She is sensational in every scene (right down to the last scene when she says ought to be divorced--she is putting herself down so much).

By posters on here and in the book 'The Twilight Zone Companion' by Zicree. The actors turns in brilliant performances of strength and to the point competence ( beautiful Jacqueline Scott a standout) and the space travel scenes are far more realistic than you would expect from a 1963 TV show. Interestingly, Sheri Lee Bernath turns in a greater performance as Gaines daughter on our Earth than in the parallel one.

Never runs out of steam (though the first half of the film is best-over the second half) Two factions live on in 1972 London. The good Van Helsing line that destroyed Dracula a century earlier. And the Satanic Alucards -who have worshiped the memory of the evil Transylvanian count for a hundred years and contain his dust remains in a bottle. Johnny Alucard invites his group of young adult friends to a spiritual gathering at abandoned church. There he (with the bottled remains) resurrects Dracula from his 100 year-long rest and the vampire begins preying on young ladies with the intent of getting comely Jessica Van Helsing especially.

The film goes down just a little just after the vamp is amazingly resurrected but there are still many great moments in this fine supernatural thriller!

To the other reviewer of this ep. You have it wrong. McHale and co. Did not confiscate the furniture from Harrigan. They committed armed robbery to get it back!

I wish they had been scripted instead to have robbed Harriagn's place when he was not there.

A few considerations.

1. McHale helps the US war effort to a giant degree by sinking Axis destroyers and subs.

2. They could have soon caught pneumonia from the tent dwellings they had. The crew could have become incapable of doing their important ship bombings.

3. in a moment we did not see they could have figured that Harrigan was a superstrong Army man powerful enough to withstand armed robbery.

The writers were getting worn down and hard pressed for good ideas. They came up with a familiar bratty kid storyline. At first the story is playing surprisingly well. After all given that Binghamton and Carpenter are so incompetent why couldn't a smart alecky child of an admiral turn those two knuckleheads' world upside down? But when Bighamton dumps the monster on McHale--the PT 73 skipper also cannot (and in his case very suprisingly) handle the kid at all either. How much better it would have been if McHale had learned the kid was coming, learned the boy was a first class smarty, and out-masterminded the bad lad all along.

Mr. Parker looked like he would for sure be the smarty kid's easiest prey but surprisingly Parker is no more so than McHale's other men!

The last ep of McHale's Navy suffers drastically from too much inconsistency with previous shows and just plain ill-logic (still remembering it is a sitcom).

Inconsistency number 1: Binghamton is supposedly just a paper pusher of a military man even though in season one he bombed a Japanese island base and became a hero.

Inconsistency number 2: Col. Harrigan in an earlier ep previously saw McHale's men dress as Germans and when he catches them doing it this go around he does not mention the first time he caught them at that game.

Inconsistency number 3: Col. Harrigan himself actually gave McHale's men the very German Wermacht uniforms they wear in this ep in an earlier show when both he and the PT73 men were briefly captured by real Germans and then rescued. Yet, Harrigan never mentions that fact here either.

The just pure ill-logic comes in why Binghamton so bothered and faked this German-soldier bit when he could have merely just falsely put it on the record that he had gone out on patrol with the PT73 and they heroically sank a German sub.

Despite these flaws this ep is still great fun. Stanley Adams (Cyrano Jones in Star Trek's 'Trouble with Tribbles') turns in one of the finest near-great performances as a visiting Congressman. Also, there is good deal of action in this one in the second half.

This ep was very well done in a lot of ways. Pat Harrington Jr. Is excellent as the English-speaking Italian con man who swindles gullible Capt. Binghamton (obviously not a difficult task) into giving a lot of money for a fake golf course. This element about a golf course is actually not quite 100% clear and established. Forgivable! But! Where the ep falls down is that McHale and his men have no action scenes at all in this one (except for the opening credits we do not even see the PT 73 even once in the ep). Even the tag, which has McHale and co. Heading off to some shore leave, does not have them actually sitting on the PT 73 getting ready to go. They are, instead, inside the underground cellar they gather around in and are now getting ready to depart from on leave. A common viewer beef with the fourth season is there was too little action and not enough 73--this ep strengthens that belief immensely!

Mark and a blonde, beautiful Earth lady (played by Celeste Yarnell) meet up. She is the daughter of an Earthman Mark used to know. She has a little house of her own and (best scene of the show) on a screen in the house is a giant scientist talking to Mark. Presumably in the Giant's connected-lab is a big screen.

How this ep figures in with the rest of the series is complicated. We will never see this Earth lady again. Does the Giant scientist work for the police-state government? They already had an earth woman in their possession? It fits badly with the rest of the show but it fabulous as a self-contained ep thanks to beauty Yarnell!

One problem is that the microphone system in this ep seems to be at weaker power than usual. Hard to hear claerly what is being said. I think this is done on purpose to make this ep a little more raw in feeling --almost like a late 60's hippy movie.

Next problem is Vietnam is again mentioned and again no matter and no mention of how Ho Chi Minh was a mass-murderer of landlords trying to take South Vietnam.. (Joe could have retaliated against talk against the Vietnam War by pointing that out--in 2017 Ken Burns himself pointed that out in his own book on 'Nam!)

Next problem. Why did Joe let that professor admit he (the professor) takes marijuana? No legal action at all against the educator?

This ep indeed badly suffers from a lack of Friday's narrations. It would have made things much clearer had there been one. But his voice over lacked in at least one other ep as well. So this is not out of usual theme for the show.

Some high points are the deserved arrest of the druggie classmate Jerry. He deserved it through and through! And the lady playing the female student that fancies Joe. She is very beautiful!

It is way too far-fetched the way the married couple takes in this young lady they have never seen before like she is their daughter. Also, guest McLiam is horrible in this ep as a good guy. He made a better sneak or creep in a show.

The ending when Christian disappears but drops his rifle and now the gun looks a hundred years older is both uneven and pointless.

Another problem. He has seen too much of the future and brought back a modern bottle of pills into 1847. More unevenness.

Here is the ep should have been. The couple from the diner should have been out hiking in the desert and suddenly they come across a man (Christian) in a stovepipe hat who tells them he is from a wagon train and about his sick son with pneumonia. They just give him a few health pointers (no bottle of pills) to help and then he wanders off and the couple is left to wonder if he really was from the past. Later back at the diner they look in an encyclopedia and find mention of Christian's son and they believe they really did meet a man from the past. Much better even story.

Festus is accused of illegal activities (including murder) before he ever came to Dodge. Some believe he is actually a crook named Frank Eaton. Script retains much interest throughout! Very deep when the Dodge City-located judge's court looks over some paperwork about Frank Eaton!

Guest George Matthews is all wrong for a western (he's too 20th century).

Too bad Festus was not in this show at this time. His character might have helped the young lovers find each other. Chester can be no help at doing so.

The fist fight in this ep shows how stupid the young man, Johnny, really is. There is really no referee and the brute (played by Matthews) could have easily and literally murdered him.

Perfect and facially beautiful actress playing Lily!

This fun ep is about three young men who kidnap 3 saloon girls from the Longbranch to be their wives. The former live on a farm on I guess the outskirts of town. Thanks to the sequel ep to this one the episode actually has fine credibility because we actually see the farm again. The clothes the guest characters wear look authentic to the last quarter of the 19th century as well

Some comments about comments. Karen Grassle is not quite beautiful. The other two women (one being Michelle Marsh who turns in a brilliant performance as well) are a good deal more attractive and incredible. Nothing at all wrong with saloon girls being attractive as there are no really homely women.

The poster who said that Grassle as Fran was replaceable in the sequel ep was indeed right. She is kinda ridiculed and a joke in this ep being seen out cold(?) and the dirty soles of her feet prominent. Her character is for laughs and she does badly with the role in other ways like when she laughs at the saloon. (Probably got teased forever for that scene I just described!) She got in one Gunsmoke ep but as she did really bad (and since Little House co-star Victor French directed this ep and the continuing one) she apparently was correctly rejected for a second. A blow to her career. The fine actor who played Ike, the son-then-turned-lover of her, probably could not make it back to the show again for time schedule reasons (and thus he was replaced by David Soul in the sequel ep).

PS No problem(contrary to previous poster) with the three attractive women falling in love in this fast. Hannah tells Matt she never saw so much romance happen so quickly!