Five Desperate Women (1971) (TV)

... aka: Cinco Mulheres Desesperadas
... aka: 5 Desperate Women
... aka: 5 kohtalon hetkeä (5 Moments of Destiny)

Directed by:
Ted Post

This drab, routine made-for-TV mystery / thriller centers around four attractive women, and Joan Hackett, who eventually clash with a fresh-from-the-nuthouse loony while on a weekend get together. Our heroines are a quintet of former Brindley College "friends" (who strangely seem to barely be able to stand one another) celebrating their five year graduation anniversary. Mary Grace (Julie Sommars) is a sweet baby-voiced blonde whose controlling, mentally-ill mother (Beatrice Manley) has prevented her from achieving any post-grad success. Lucy (Anjanette Comer) is the "funny" Southern belle who opted for marriage, motherhood and alcoholism. Joy (Denise Nicholas) hasn't found much to be joyous about as sexism (and likely racism) have crippled her chances at career advancement, forcing her to work as a high class prostitute in New York City. Gloria (Stefanie Powers) is basically terminally bitchy, while poor Dorian (Hackett) is needy, whiny and horribly insecure.

After meeting up at the pier, the five go to their boat, where Captain Jim Meeker (Bradford Dillman) will take them to their destination: Sunshine Island. The small, uninhabited island, an hour's trip away, was purchased from a developer and now functions as a vacation rental. Where they'll be staying is also the only home on the otherwise uninhabited island. Upon arrival, the ladies are briefly introduced to caretaker Michael Wylie (Robert Conrad), eat, get drunk, reminisce and then start bickering. A dog that Dorian takes a liking to ends up dead on the beach and Dorian herself is soon to follow when someone sneaks into her bedroom and strangles her to death. After discovering her body, the other ladies plot to steal the boat and take off later that night, but it's blown up, trapping them there.

The killer is Edward Fawcett, a former electronics engineer who strangled his fiancee to death the night before their wedding. He was then placed in the maximum security Stonehurst Asylum, where he stayed until killing a guard and managing to escape two days earlier. After killing a man on the beach, he was able to assume the identity of a Sunshine Isle Tours worker. In other words, Edward is now impersonating either Meeker the boat captain or Wylie the caretaker. In an effort to paint both men as suspects, they're both thin, dark-haired, behave strangely and secretively for no real reason and wear the same exact brown pants, brown belt and plain white shirt. Both are also in possession of a Sunshine Isle jacket that the killer is seen stealing in the first scene.

Seeing this Aaron Spelling-produced ABC Movie of the Week dubbed "classic" and "excellent" on certain genre sites when referring to it as merely serviceable is being all too kind is something I can only chalk up to nostalgia. There's not one element of this film that's especially good. There are no thrills, shocks or interesting twists to breath life into the tired plot, the characters are miserable, the Paul Glass score blatantly rips off Bernard Herrmann's familiar Psycho music, opting for only two real suspects seriously diminishes the suspense and the whole thing is just painfully predictable.

In addition to being utterly uninspiring, this is extremely talky and neither the dialogue nor the constant arguing / soap opera melodrama nor the broad characterizations are the least bit interesting. It's so dire that even the more talented cast members are unable to make any impression whatsoever here, with the lone exception perhaps being Comer, whose role allows her to camp it up a bit. And I'm still not quite sure how Hackett, pushing 40 at the time and looking it, ended up here playing a 20-something either. In an effort to try to make her look more youthful, it appears the make-up folks have hilariously smeared her cheeks with bright red blush, which only succeeds in making her look like she needs to invest in a higher SPF.

Director Post had a long (50-year) and prolific career that encompassed both TV and feature films. Among his more notable work is the Clint Eastwood western Hang 'Em High (1968), the memorably twisted THE BABY (1973), the critically lambasted though commercially successful The Harrad Experiment (1973) and the Dirty Harry sequel Magnum Force (1973). He also directed episodes of The Twilight Zone and Thriller and a couple of other genre films, including the theatrical feature Nightkill (1980) and the TV movies Night Slaves (1970) and Dr. Cook's Garden (1971).

There were VHS releases in the UK (Guild Home Video), Finland (as 5 kohtalon hetkeä / "5 Moments of Destiny" - Magnum Video), Brazil (as Cinco Mulheres Desesperadas - ABC Video) and in some other countries. IMDb states this was also released in the U.S. on the Worldvision label though I was unable to verify this elsewhere.

★1/2

Last Bride of Salem (1974) (TV)

... aka: ABC Afternoon Playbreak: 'Last Bride of Salem," The

Directed by:
Tom Donovan

The night before her family's big move, little Kelly (Joni Bick) has a really bad nightmare about a black-robed cult chanting over a potential human sacrifice. A bad omen? Offff course. Dad Matt Clifton (Bradford Dillman), a painter, and mom Jennifer (Lois Nettleton) have decided to move from Boston to tiny Salem Village in New England so that Matt can have some peace and quiet to concentrate on his artwork. And with a name like Salem Village, you may already know what to expect (if some Lovecraftian character names don't also clue you in). They've been set up in a home owned by another artist - the famous Sebastian Mayhew (Paul Harding) - and been allowed to rent it dirt cheap. When they show up, they discover just why it's so affordable. The place is dusty, dirty, dark and well over 200 years old and looks like it hasn't been inhabited in about so long. Well, all except for one upstairs room, which has a fresh coat of white paint, a skylight and modern furniture. The strange out-of-place room appears to have been added on just recently. Across the street is a gloomy old mansion, and it's the same one Kelly had seen in her premonition. Their first night in the home, the lights flicker on and off and Jennifer is startled when the home's stern caretaker Seth Whately (Ed McNamara) and his strange mute son Thomas (Robert Hawkins) wander into her kitchen unannounced.

The next day they're off to church, where they meet some of the locals, including Dr. Hiram Fletcher (Murray Westgate) and his wife Grace (Susan Rubes), and the village's only doctor, Dave Glover (James Douglas), and his wife Rebecca (Patricia Hamilton). Everyone seems nice and friendly, so Jennifer invites them all to dinner. Dave takes it upon himself to then tell all about their home and what had supposedly gone down there. According to local legend, back in 1691, accusations of witchcraft spread like wildfire around the village, but the real witches and warlocks actually ran the entire town and the innocents they branded witches and later executed were actually being killed as sacrifices to Satan. A man named Prosper Morgan, who lived in the same farmhouse the Clifton family now occupy, supposedly burned down the witch's house, killing all of the evildoers... except for one. The sole survivor then made a pact with Satan to continue on living until he could destroy Morgan and all of the family bloodline. Being wily, the man decided to let one descendant keep living each generation just so he himself can remain alive.

Kelly's doll turns up missing, Seth peaks in windows, draws an upside down cross on their door and cuts off a lock of Matt's hair while he's sleeping and Thomas keeps trying to unsuccessfully warn the family. Not long after, Jennifer notices changes for the worse in both her husband and daughter. Both have become antisocial, short-tempered, secretive and moody. Kelly's premonitions continue and she stops wanting to do things with her (they think) imaginary friend named "Abehu;" who she claims lives in the woods. Matt becomes immersed in his work, barely leaves his studio and keeps painting the house across the street over and over again. As it turns out, the mansion across the street is occupied by a witch named Elsbeth March (Moya Fenwick), a coven of followers and a young man known only as "The Master" (Rex Hagon); all of whom have dark designs on both Matt and Kelly. Jennifer, with help from the local reverend, must try to get to the bottom of things before it's too late.

This ABC Afternoon Playbreak presentation (which runs just 73 minutes minus commercial breaks) is well acted by the leads and is competently made and plotted within its low-budget limitations. The most fascinating thing about it though is that somehow this meager, completely unknown videotaped TV presentation seems to have influenced Stephen King in his writing of "The Shining." The similarities are actually quite striking. Parents with one small child go to a secluded area so that the father can have peace to concentrate on his work. Matt and Jack Torrance are actually quite alike. Both work in an artistic profession; one's an artist, one's a writer. Both become completely and unhealthily immersed in their work. While Matt paints the same thing over and over again, Jack writes the same sentence over and over again. Both snap at their wives for disrupting their creative flow and both seem to be going crazy, possibly because of some supernatural force. Comparisons can also be drawn between the child characters as both have premonitions and both have imaginary friends; as well as the Jennifer character, who's at first almost annoyingly overly cheerful, just like Wendy Torrance, until she's forced to try to get to the bottom of things. There's certainly enough here to raise eyebrows.

Never released on VHS of DVD, Last Bride (which was a 20th Century Fox production) hasn't even been shown on TV for many, many, many years, and is extremely difficult to find these days. Dillman won a Daytime Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Daytime Drama Special for his work here (the film itself and Nettleton were also nominated). A very young John Candy can be spotted several times as a cult member.

★★1/2

Treasure of the Amazon, The (1985)

... aka: Diamonds of the Amazon
... aka: El tesoro del Amazonas
... aka: Greed

Directed by:
René Cardona Jr.

Having been responsible for hundreds of films between them, René Cardona (who passed away in 1988) and his son René Cardona Jr. (who passed away in 2003) were a force to be reckoned with in Mexico. The secret of their success? They both knew it was wise to pay close attention to whatever hot trend was going on at the time to ensure their films were profitable. In 1974, the two worked together (Sr. co-writing and directing; Jr. producing) on the bio-pic La isla de los hombres solos ("The Island of Lost Souls"); which detailed a man's 20-year stint on a brutal prison island. Because of the "based on a true story" angle and the fact the film was based on a popular, best-selling novel, the film went on to break Mexican box office records. Wanting to keep striking while the iron was still hot, the duo would start milking sensationalism for all it was worth. 

They made Survive! (1978), about that 1972 plane crash in the Andes where the survivors were forced to cannibalize each other in order to stay alive, TERROR STORM (1977), which was based on the same story but was set on a boat, Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979), which hoped to capitalize on the Jim Jones tragedy, The Bermuda Triangle (1978), a popular "real life" mystery in the late 70s and others. Treasure of the Amazon came late in the game. It too professes to be based on a true story, though I'm not sure what true story they're talking about. The opening titles state "This story is based on actual facts that occurred in 1958 in the depths of the Amazon Jungles of South America." and adds "The action does not take place in a specific country but in a fictitious place." As you read the plot synopsis below, keep the "true story" claims in your mind.

Things begin on a steam boat, where we learn not to try to rob grizzled old Gringo (Stuart Whitman). If you do, you're bound to get your finger cut off and then get tossed overboard where hungry piranha will feast on you. So what has made Gringo such a tough s.o.b.? Years earlier, he and five friends ventured into the jungle on a treasure hunt. Six long years later, a maddened Gringo emerged with the shrunken heads of all of his fellow travelers. Since then he hasn't mellowed out too much, but he is reconsidering risking another jungle trip after two guys he meets on the boat; Zapata (Pedro Armendariz Jr.) and Jairo (Jorge Luke), claim they know where they can find some gold and are in need of an experienced guide.

Meanwhile, pilot Clark (Bradford Dillman), whose idea of a good time is hitting birds with his airplane propellers mid-flight, is escorting prissy Southern belle Barbara (former Miss World Ann Sidney) and her whiny boyfriend Dick (Clark Jarrett) around as they scout for oil. They've been coming up dry, but during one dig, they find a diamond and decide to stick around and see if they can find more. Elsewhere in the jungle, Nazi-in-hiding Klaus von Blantz (Donald Pleasence) is also on the search for treasure. He wants to use his potential findings to "revive the glories of the Third Reich" and has a tough and always-topless female native guide named Morinba (Sonia Infante), who needs money herself because her daughters have been forced into sexual servitude by a horny old slimeball (Emilio 'El Indio' Fernández) she's indebted to. Whew! These three groups of treasure hunters battle the elements, the vicious jungle animals, tribes full of blood-thirsty machete-wielding natives and blowgun-shooting cannibal headhunters and, of course, each other on their quest for riches.

Cardona leaves nothing out of this kitchen sink jungle adventure and moves things along at such a fast quip you never have time to get bored. Seemingly every other shot is of some jungle critter (alligators, snakes, parrots, tarantulas, panthers, leopards, monkeys, pigs, anteaters, you name it) and there's lots of blood and gore (throats slits, heads cut off), various animal attacks (bats, gators, some really strange bugs that suddenly fly out of the water), nudity (mud-covered topless native women in thongs enacting an Amazon wrestling ritual), people eating spiders and snakes, a tied-up man getting eaten alive by a slew of flesh-hungry crabs (!), quicksand, leeches, real animals eating each other and much more.

The cast is also excellent. This has to be the best role Whitman has had in years and he does a great job as the centerpiece for all the action. Pleasence, sporting a terrible German accent, is hysterically funny chewing the scenery and spouting lines like "I've killed many... Yanks... vith... zis...gun." He also gets to spend his last scene suspended from a tree by a hook stuck through his tongue! All of Infante's scenes are performed topless and she clearly doesn't know English at all because she reads all of her dialogue phonetically and with no inflection whatsoever (though it's somewhat fitting for the role of a native guide, I guess). John Ireland (a priest) and Hugo Stiglitz (a riverboat captain) also have small roles. The director's son, René Cardona III (now a prolific director himself), was the second unit director.

Very entertaining and lots of brainless fun's to be had in this one, folks. The ending's great, too. Initially released on video in the U.S. on the All-American label. VCI handled the DVD release.

★★★