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Reviews
Highway Patrol: Escaped Mental Patient (1957)
Perhaps best lines ever in a "Highway Patrol" episode...
First of all, special thanks to "This" TV for bringing these wonderful memories back.... William Lally turns in a credible performance, playing escaped mental patient Haldor Matten who has delusions of being a famous concert violinist/virtuoso, "Playing at Carnegie Hall, The ""Paganini"" , "The most difficult violin piece ever" "encore after encore" . He has a very strange obsession about his hands, which suffer a strange jumping affliction, and his shoes-Any mention of his hands tend to bring on psychotic episodes, so whatever you do, do not stare at this guys hands. This episode shows once again that the best comedy is not intended as such. Being a huge fan of this funny old series , this episode would rank in my top 3 . Love the cars in this episode as well, I believe what you are seeing is actually old Packards...
Marooned (1969)
Maybe it is me, but I don't understand the low ratings for this movie
This is one of my favorite movies, always has been since I saw it in the theater way back when. Sure, the computer generated stuff is flashier but for what was around in the way of special effects in those days, it is excellent. {Remember when people used to say that the original Star Trek had "awesome" special effects, today, especially, this is totally laughable, but I guess they were a degree better the "Lost in Space" }
The movie is about way more then special effects however. The dramatic performances are solid, from Buzz Lloyd {Gene Hackman}slowly losing his mind to the underrated James Franciscus as Clayton Stone {shouldn't of done "Beneath The Planet Of The Apes" or whatever that horrible film was called} , cool under fire, trying to keep things lose in a very tragic situation. Actually, the interactions between Hackman, Franciscus and Richard Crenna {who played astronaut Jim Pruett} seem to segue and meld into one unit , as I suppose was the case in the real world of the Apollo Program. In this case , however, there is the weak link in Hackman's character that the other two have to deal with and compensate for while all the while doing there best not to lose it. {Kind of like the old experimental days of taking mushrooms, someone else always lost it and you would have to fight not to join them, why I stopped doing things like this 20 years ago} This, combined with the intensity of the characters on the ground and twist in the story made for a white knuckle ride ,for me as well as EVERYONE else I have shown the film to. The only character who was annoying really was Mariette Hartley , who plays Betty Lloyd , wife of Buzz. Her comment about leaving the men to do men's work is a bit much, even to a reformed sexist like me. Special mention should go to Lee Grant's performance as Jim's wife, {Celia Pruett} very touching, again, using every ounce of strength she has to maintain for the sake of her husband. Her longing touch of the monitor from which her husband is talking to her, trying to keep things light by mentioning an insurance problem {but then again....had those myself}Holding back tears . A wonderful performance. The whole film is basically about people battling a virtually impossible situation with impossible odds of a good outcome because it is still the right thing to do. Perhaps this is a little overstated and corny for some people but it kept me hanging on, this is all the more touching and completely unexpected with the very strange twist at the end, where political differences not to mention the cold war are trumped by humanity at it's frail best....Gregory Peck's strong leadership, David Jansen's relentless attitude of never giving up the battle to save the astronauts {he is very, very missed} And like a lot of films I love, the ending is bitter sweet , a costly victory, a victory with tragedy but yet a victory that transcends.....
I remember once this film came up in conversation with the other person saying "oh, you must mean "Apollo 13" ....well , often fiction turns into reality in a very big way. I am sure you all know that story and the super human effort to resolve a hopeless situation..the real life incident that happened several years AFTER Marooned was made.
One final thing, most people know there is no noise in space, right ? A fact that has been overlooked in so many films , one must have "noise in space" for dramatic purposes it seems and this film is no different . Satellites don't make funny beep beep beep sounds that are audible anywhere then over a radio , Russian spacecraft don't make any strange and sinister audible sounds either in space, but the use of the ambient tones in the space shots are beautifully eerie . This film has no mentionable soundtrack , but it is none the less beautiful and suspenseful and uncredited. I wonder how they did things like this in 1969, synthesizers were in the infancy, must of been a very early synth like a Arp Odyssey or 2600 or an early Moog, or it could of even been some sort of tape feedback, regardless, the poop ! Would real love to know more about it....Yes, I am not a huge fan CG stuff and I love the sounds of old analogue things, was a way different world then...