Misadventures in Blissville

This is interesting; it’s a VHS dub, Nelson Entertainment, even has the FBI Warning (remember those?) and we have Adam Baldwin and Roy Scheider in Cohen and Tate, music by Bill Conti, and it’s an unusual score, like old time horror, like Dead Heat – that’s what it reminded me of, but first I wanted to ask if you remember the movie, My Bodyguard, also with Adam Baldwin. I did a write-up of it recently for Vintage Cable Box. This is unusual in that we pick up mid-story, a nine-year-old kid witnesses the murder of a mobster, and he is under protective custody as the movie starts, right?

This is the kid from The Believers? The kid wants to know when he can get back to his normal life, but his Dad tells him that’s never gonna happen. Shifty agent George has sweat on his upper lip. He’s nervous. I feel like something’s about to go down. I think Mom is in the kitchen. This house is like the TARDIS from Doctor Who, it’s much bigger on the inside. Uh-oh, phone’s not working. This is bad news. Something terrible is about to happen, and everybody’s nervous when George takes off. The wife looks familiar to me. They sit at the dinner table and Bill Conti goes nuts on the soundtrack. They have a spoken prayer at the dinner table. I’ve always found that creepy. The family dog takes and the kid gives chase. Roy Scheider and Adam Baldwin enter and kill the kid’s family! This is weird. I always ascribe Scheider and Baldwin to good-guy parts, but not here. Scheider makes a phone call and says, “It’s done.”

So we’re discussing some of the select work of Eric Red, writer and filmmaker, probably more famous for his scripts, The Hitcher and Near Dark than his work as a director. We talked about Cohen and Tate, and we’re going to talk about Body Parts with Jeff Fahey, as well as talk a little about Blue Steel (written with Kathryn Bigelow) and The Hitcher (directed by Bob Harmon), but I would like to say I think I knew where you were going when you suggested Eric Red for the podcast. He has a style that is very similar to Larry Cohen, the writer/filmmaker we both have enormous respect for; Eric Red is very similar. He’s a very gifted writer, because I think he writes with an eye toward shooting. He’s thinking about making the movie as he is writing it. If it came down to it, if he had no financing or support, he could do it himself. That’s what I think.

So, Blue Steel comes out in 1989, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, and I remember the critics hailing it as progressive, remember we were talking about Tyne Daly in The Enforcer last time, this affirmative action placing her character firmly in danger and she has to work to get the respect of Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callahan. This is a slightly different prospect with Jamie Lee Curtis, who, from a purely aesthetic sense, seems a lot tougher than Tyne. Isn’t that strange? That we can size people up (particularly females) in this way?

I miss the Tri-Star horse, don’t you? This takes me back, and I also remember that HBO produced the movie, and that The Hitcher was released by HBO on home video – Thorn/EMI HBO Video in the clamshell. We have another bit where a driver falls asleep at the wheel, like in Cohen and Tate, and I think he picks up Rutger Hauer just to keep himself from falling asleep. I could make a really terrible joke about Eric Red at this point, but I won’t. Remember when C. Thomas Howell was a teen heart-throb? He was all over the magazines in the early ’80s. And then came Soul Man. The movie was remade recently with Sean Bean in the title role. I love Sean Bean, but he’s no Rutger Hauer. Hauer is absolutely menacing, he’s just about perfect casting; he’s creepy, he’s inappropriate – the only problem is that he (and Sean Bean) are just too good-looking to be serial killers, don’t you think? Nine minutes in, he threatens C. Thomas Howell, right? Wow. You believe him. C. Thomas is kind-of a beta male up against an alpha male. It’s funny when the road worker calls them, “sweethearts.”

Opening credits for Body Parts, 1991 (with Jeff Fahey) are a collage of drawings of musculature, arms, legs, and torsos, which reminds me of some of Bronwyn’s drawings. As an artist, she’s constantly drawing hands and arms and feet. Frank Mancuso, Jr. ran Paramount for a time; he supervised several of Paramount’s franchises including the Friday the 13th movies. Fahey plays a criminal psychologist and a teacher. Can we stop for a moment to show Jeff Fahey a little love? He’s one of my favorite actors, ever since, I think Psycho III; he’s always interesting.

Written by David Lawler and Andrew La Ganke.
“Love Theme from Extreme Cinema” composed and performed by Alex Saltz.
Introduction written by Bronwyn Knox.
Narrator, “The Voice”: Valerie Sachs.
Artwork by Bronwyn Knox.
Head Title Washer: Ben Lauter.

Running Time: 1:33:36

This is a mini-bit tacked on to the end of the previous episode about Eric Red.

Eric Red was found to be at fault in a car accident that caused two deaths after he drove his truck into a crowded bar in Los Angeles on May 31, 2000. After the accident, Red apparently exited his vehicle, and attempted suicide by slitting his own throat with a piece of broken glass. Red survived the incident and was taken to the hospital under an alias and released weeks later. No criminal charges were brought, but a jury in a civil suit found that he had acted intentionally. The suit, which awarded over a million dollars to the families of the two men killed in the accident, was appealed to state and federal courts, which confirmed the original jury finding.

Andrew and I discuss the incident, and the L.A. Weekly article.

LA Weekly story: Death Race 2000, by Paul Cullum 01-13-2006, LA Weekly

Addendum Running Time: 15:27

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