"The Paleface" is one of those films that you may have seen in the past, and it was a laugh riot, but you will have second thoughts when you finally sit down to watch it again years later.
Jane Russell, looking exactly like Drew Barrymore, is Calamity Jane. The government breaks her out of jail and sends her undercover to find out who is smuggling guns to the Indians in order to prompt an uprising. Calamity Jane's original fake husband is killed, so she marries the very un-gunfighter-like Peter Potter (Bob Hope), a dentist who is constantly getting run out of towns by his very pained patients. Potter becomes a hero after Jane covers for him in an Indian attack, and the second half of the film has Peter and Jane exposing their true feelings, and Potter eventually becomes a real hero.
I am normally a fan of Hope's, but the first half of the film has no energy. The one-liners fall flat, and Russell acts as if she were not aware this was a comedy. When Potter becomes a hero, the final half comes alive but is immediately predictable. The running joke about Hope getting konked on the head every time he tries to kiss Russell is funny, but there are not enough of these moments to recommend the film.
Followed by "Son of Paleface," this film was ripe for a sequel, in order for the film makers to get things right.
Wednesday, April 22, 2026
The Wicked Wicked West (1998)
This film is hard to sum up because there is really not a plot, per se. The film follows the lives of prostitutes living in a brothel owned by Annie Ryan (Brenda Fricker). This is not the brothel of TV westerns, this is a dark, dank place barely lit by candle light in a dingy little ten building frontier town. Kelly McGillis plays Nettie, who helps the other prostitutes through their time at Annie's establishment, as well as the competition down the street. It is implied she performs abortions for unexpected pregnancies. She tries to raise her five year old son in the house, with less than successful results. Eileen (Bronagh Gallagher) is Irish, and befriends German dancer Katya (Meret Becker), who replaces Eileen's best friend who was murdered in the opening scene. Georgie (Lisa Jakub) is the new young prostitute who knows she can do better that this one horse town, and sets out to prove it. Ada (Anna Mottram) is the prostitute with children who is getting older and less desirable to the men.
The entire cast does a fantastic job. Sanders' direction, he also cowrote this, is very intimate without being exploitative, except for McGillis' topless scene. The film is sad, without being a complete downer, but you get the idea that this is what the prostitutes went through. The pace seems deliberately slow so we get to know the characters. That pace is a little too slow at times, and a few supporting actors blur in confusion here and there, but Sanders keeps things going. Despite the stupid video and DVD title ("The Wicked Wicked West" is so much worse than the original title "Painted Angels"), and cleavage baring VHS video box, this is not something along the lines of "Bad Girls" or "Hard Bounty." This tells a very realistic story of tough lives gone wrong. If anything, it is hard to forget.
The entire cast does a fantastic job. Sanders' direction, he also cowrote this, is very intimate without being exploitative, except for McGillis' topless scene. The film is sad, without being a complete downer, but you get the idea that this is what the prostitutes went through. The pace seems deliberately slow so we get to know the characters. That pace is a little too slow at times, and a few supporting actors blur in confusion here and there, but Sanders keeps things going. Despite the stupid video and DVD title ("The Wicked Wicked West" is so much worse than the original title "Painted Angels"), and cleavage baring VHS video box, this is not something along the lines of "Bad Girls" or "Hard Bounty." This tells a very realistic story of tough lives gone wrong. If anything, it is hard to forget.
Nightwatching (2007)
Controversial filmmaker Peter Greenaway tackles a conspiracy theory he believes was painted into Rembrandt's masterpiece "The Night Watch," and succeeds in making this critic hate all that art and stuff.
Rembrandt (Martin Freeman) is a famous painter living in the 1600's Netherlands. He is married to Saskia (Eva Birthistle), a relative of his agent/manager, and his house is a never ending chaos of servants, debauchery, and noise. Rembrandt is asked to do a group portrait of the Amsterdam Militia. The soldiers jockey for placement in the painting, when one of them is killed in an "accident." Rembrandt soon learns this was no accident, and paints his conspiracies and accusations into the artwork, turning a simple group portrait into an indictment. Wow, rereading the plot summary, I would want to see that movie, too. Instead, what writer/director Peter Greenaway gives us is a boring scattershot film which cannot decide whether it is a biopic, a thriller, or a work of experimental art itself.
Freeman is expertly cast- if he was playing Keith Moon. Greenaway shows us a vulgar, crass, drunk, uncouth, and unlikable Rembrandt who quickly grates on the nerves with his behavioral excesses. He is a genius, so his conduct is constantly excused. Emily Holmes, Eva Birthistle, and Jodhi May play the women in Rembrandt's life, but thanks to Greenaway's stilted direction, his servant/mistresses become interchangeable.
I was not a fan of Greenaway's breakout "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover," and Greenaway stiffly directs this film in the same manner. Most of it is stagebound, save a few exterior scenes, but the subjects are placed far from the camera (as if in a painting), and the viewer will have a difficult time differentiating between who is speaking and who is being spoken to- and I had a big TV to watch this on.
Greenaway is in such a hurry to make the film that he never involves the audience, speaking down to the viewer who must go online to research all the names brought up. While a lecture on fine arts is about as interesting to me as auto mechanics or agriculture reporting, I gamely watched this all the way through, waiting to care about someone onscreen. The big conspiracy that Rembrandt exposes in his painting is based on nothing more than gossip and hearsay, and we must take Greenaway's word while he does everything in his writing and directorial power to frustrate the audience. What we have is an overlong, gimmicky exercise in theatre, highlighted by Greenaway's penchant for nudity. After a while, all the bare skin in the world doesn't make any of this more understandable.
Pretentiousness is sometimes mistaken for boldness, but "Nightwatching" is simply pretentious, no mistake about it.
Rembrandt (Martin Freeman) is a famous painter living in the 1600's Netherlands. He is married to Saskia (Eva Birthistle), a relative of his agent/manager, and his house is a never ending chaos of servants, debauchery, and noise. Rembrandt is asked to do a group portrait of the Amsterdam Militia. The soldiers jockey for placement in the painting, when one of them is killed in an "accident." Rembrandt soon learns this was no accident, and paints his conspiracies and accusations into the artwork, turning a simple group portrait into an indictment. Wow, rereading the plot summary, I would want to see that movie, too. Instead, what writer/director Peter Greenaway gives us is a boring scattershot film which cannot decide whether it is a biopic, a thriller, or a work of experimental art itself.
Freeman is expertly cast- if he was playing Keith Moon. Greenaway shows us a vulgar, crass, drunk, uncouth, and unlikable Rembrandt who quickly grates on the nerves with his behavioral excesses. He is a genius, so his conduct is constantly excused. Emily Holmes, Eva Birthistle, and Jodhi May play the women in Rembrandt's life, but thanks to Greenaway's stilted direction, his servant/mistresses become interchangeable.
I was not a fan of Greenaway's breakout "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover," and Greenaway stiffly directs this film in the same manner. Most of it is stagebound, save a few exterior scenes, but the subjects are placed far from the camera (as if in a painting), and the viewer will have a difficult time differentiating between who is speaking and who is being spoken to- and I had a big TV to watch this on.
Greenaway is in such a hurry to make the film that he never involves the audience, speaking down to the viewer who must go online to research all the names brought up. While a lecture on fine arts is about as interesting to me as auto mechanics or agriculture reporting, I gamely watched this all the way through, waiting to care about someone onscreen. The big conspiracy that Rembrandt exposes in his painting is based on nothing more than gossip and hearsay, and we must take Greenaway's word while he does everything in his writing and directorial power to frustrate the audience. What we have is an overlong, gimmicky exercise in theatre, highlighted by Greenaway's penchant for nudity. After a while, all the bare skin in the world doesn't make any of this more understandable.
Pretentiousness is sometimes mistaken for boldness, but "Nightwatching" is simply pretentious, no mistake about it.
No Place to Run (1972)
Sit down, children, and let me tell you a story. Back in the 1970's there were only three networks on television, not counting your lucky high society types who got PBS or an independent station...quit crying, Billy, I'm not trying to scare you. Where was I? Oh, yes, just three networks. When these networks weren't busy showing classic television fare like "Charlie's Angels" and "Good Times," or heavily edited theatrical films premiering years after their release...confound it, Billy, there was no Netflix! The networks would produce made-for-television movies. Some were very good, if not modern classics, like "Sybil" or the mini-series "Roots" and "Shogun." Some were very average, much like the mediocre "No Place to Run." The end. Sweet dreams, kids...no, Billy, if I give you a glass of water, you'll wet the futon.
Hyam (Herschel Bernardi) is a 73 year old shop owner who enjoys smoking cigars, eating badly, overwork, and slowly wearing himself out. His doctor warns him to take better care of himself, but he doesn't listen. His teenage grandson, Douglas (Scott Jacoby), helps in the store and lives with Hyam. Douglas also steals letters sent to Hyam by Bonnie (Stefanie Powers), an adoption agency worker. It seems Douglas was adopted by Hyam's son and daughter-in-law, with the couple later dying. Hyam took Douglas in, but the adoption agency feels Hyam's health and age are a detriment, and they want Douglas back. Hyam's attorney, Jay (Larry Hagman), can do nothing, so Hyam decides to flee to Canada with Douglas. Suddenly, we have a road movie with Hyam and Douglas evading the law while Jay and Bonnie help track them down.
What we also have here is an odd little film. The running time is only seventy-eight minutes, yet I found my interest in the characters lacking. Bernardi's performance is too mannered, with Hyam's personality swinging between sweet curmudgeon and bitter oldster so often, I thought he might be schizophrenic. Scott Jacoby's Douglas is awfully naive for a teenager, and Hagman and Powers bring so much intensity to their roles, it felt like their scenes belonged in a different movie. Tom Bosley and the criminally underrated Neville Brand do have nice turns in small roles. James G. Hirsch's script swings as wildly as Hyam's moods. One scene has the traveling duo being pulled over by a motorcycle cop. While Hyam pretends to look for a driver's license he hasn't had since 1940, Douglas finds a giant knife in the back of their station wagon. Because of the film's uneven tone, I thought of four options for Douglas and the knife: he could slash the motorcycle's tires, shank the cop, cut his own throat after stabbing Hyam in a murder-suicide pact, or whittle a flute out of a stick. He cuts the motorcycle's gas line, instead. Academy Award winning director Delbert Mann does have a sure hand with the camera. The Venice Beach, California locale is nice, as are the road scenes -watch for a scary near-miss car collision, and the train scene. In the end, "No Place to Run" winds up being a forgettable exercise in the early 1970's television movie of the week canon. It is hard to find, but on the other hand, you can lead a fulfilling life without ever seeing it...Billy, I swear to God, you will be sorry if I have to come up there!
Hyam (Herschel Bernardi) is a 73 year old shop owner who enjoys smoking cigars, eating badly, overwork, and slowly wearing himself out. His doctor warns him to take better care of himself, but he doesn't listen. His teenage grandson, Douglas (Scott Jacoby), helps in the store and lives with Hyam. Douglas also steals letters sent to Hyam by Bonnie (Stefanie Powers), an adoption agency worker. It seems Douglas was adopted by Hyam's son and daughter-in-law, with the couple later dying. Hyam took Douglas in, but the adoption agency feels Hyam's health and age are a detriment, and they want Douglas back. Hyam's attorney, Jay (Larry Hagman), can do nothing, so Hyam decides to flee to Canada with Douglas. Suddenly, we have a road movie with Hyam and Douglas evading the law while Jay and Bonnie help track them down.
What we also have here is an odd little film. The running time is only seventy-eight minutes, yet I found my interest in the characters lacking. Bernardi's performance is too mannered, with Hyam's personality swinging between sweet curmudgeon and bitter oldster so often, I thought he might be schizophrenic. Scott Jacoby's Douglas is awfully naive for a teenager, and Hagman and Powers bring so much intensity to their roles, it felt like their scenes belonged in a different movie. Tom Bosley and the criminally underrated Neville Brand do have nice turns in small roles. James G. Hirsch's script swings as wildly as Hyam's moods. One scene has the traveling duo being pulled over by a motorcycle cop. While Hyam pretends to look for a driver's license he hasn't had since 1940, Douglas finds a giant knife in the back of their station wagon. Because of the film's uneven tone, I thought of four options for Douglas and the knife: he could slash the motorcycle's tires, shank the cop, cut his own throat after stabbing Hyam in a murder-suicide pact, or whittle a flute out of a stick. He cuts the motorcycle's gas line, instead. Academy Award winning director Delbert Mann does have a sure hand with the camera. The Venice Beach, California locale is nice, as are the road scenes -watch for a scary near-miss car collision, and the train scene. In the end, "No Place to Run" winds up being a forgettable exercise in the early 1970's television movie of the week canon. It is hard to find, but on the other hand, you can lead a fulfilling life without ever seeing it...Billy, I swear to God, you will be sorry if I have to come up there!
The Ninja Squad (1986)
Just when I thought "Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn" was the end-all-be-all of two lousy films combined to make one really lousy film, along comes "The Ninja Squad." The first problem? There be ninjas, but they never gather into a squad, herd, or even casual get-together. None of the actors or actresses are credited with their character names, so I cannot give credit (or blame) where credit is due. The linear story is as follows: Gordon, a ninja, keeps young Billy on as a student for ten years at the Ninja Training School. Ah, the good ol' NTS, I think they fielded a football team in the Big East Conference this year. Anyway, Billy is ninja certified and goes home to the slums of the anonymous Far East country in which he lives (I'm guessing the Philippines, but I may be wrong). Billy is welcomed back in time to kick the collective butts of a group of local toughs run by the crime boss, Larry (I kid you not). Larry runs guns and collects a bunch of girls to act as couriers, including Billy's sister. Meanwhile, Gordon is having a pocketful of ninja trouble. Red Ninja challenges Gordon to a big ultimate ninja duel. Gordon does not respond, so Red Ninja kills another ninja for every month Gordon refuses to fight. Red Ninja finds all the other ninjas easily since everybody dresses like Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, practice moves in public parks, and sport head bands that read "Ninja." I pulled my "Film Critic" head band tighter, and continued watching this in awe. Red Ninja kills a few other ninjas, then sends Gordon the head bands, usually tied to a throwing star. Meanwhile, Billy's girlfriend, Lisa, tries to support Billy, but there are not any jobs around that require ninja skills. I am not exaggerating, there are many conversations about Billy's unmarketable abilities to fade into the night and carry out silent assassinations. Billy's mom is gunned down, he also loses various friends, and eventually Larry sends all of his machine gun toting henchmen after Billy. Billy doesn't rely on his ninja skills too much once he learns how to fire a gun. And what of Gordon? Gordon receives letters from Billy before his eventual showdown with the Red Ninja. By now, you may have noticed the pattern. Gordon and Billy never appear in the same scene together. We have Gordon's story, obviously filmed later, as he receives these letters, but Billy never mentions Gordon, just Ninja Training School; ah, good ol' NTS, they have a fantastic liberal arts program, and those frat parties!
The dubbing is atrocious- absolutely hilarious. Since this is two different stories, the film has no overall pacing. It also cost about twelve bucks to shoot. With all the machine guns and swordplay, there is not a drop of blood to be seen. The action is laughable, and this does not even score on an exploitation level, since everyone keeps their shirts on. The actor who plays Billy sports a mustache in every other scene, so I did not recognize him half the time. "The Ninja Squad" is awful. I got a couple of these kung-fu/ninja videos at a previously viewed video sale, and I think my ninety-five cents may have been better spent on gum.
The dubbing is atrocious- absolutely hilarious. Since this is two different stories, the film has no overall pacing. It also cost about twelve bucks to shoot. With all the machine guns and swordplay, there is not a drop of blood to be seen. The action is laughable, and this does not even score on an exploitation level, since everyone keeps their shirts on. The actor who plays Billy sports a mustache in every other scene, so I did not recognize him half the time. "The Ninja Squad" is awful. I got a couple of these kung-fu/ninja videos at a previously viewed video sale, and I think my ninety-five cents may have been better spent on gum.
Nightwish (1989)
Bruce R. Cook loads this small horror film with everything but the kitchen sink, and loses the viewer in the process. An unnamed professor (Jack Starrett) puts his graduate parapsychology students through the paces, able to record their dreams onto video while searching for someone to foresee their own deaths. The students are assigned to a problematic house in the California wilderness. The crumbling house is on a fault line, there was a murder, mutant animals roam around the grounds, and aliens may be involved. Jack (Clayton Rohner), Donna (Elizabeth Kaitan), and Kim (Alisha Das) are driven by obnoxious Dean (the always entertaining Brian Thompson) to the house, where the professor, and bitter Bill (Artur Cybulski), await. The group gets in after learning of the mysterious groundskeeper Wendell (Tom Dugan). The students set about with their monitors and thermometers, and hold an impromptu seance that produces a green snake-like entity. It turns out the seance was rigged, but the entity was real. The professor goes a little nuts, shackling his students and calling up the entity again. Bill gets stabbed in the process, and suddenly the professor calls up his henchman Stanley (Robert Tessier) to hold the now very reluctant students to their assignments. As the students pretend to work, and try to escape, Dean returns, and Kim finds an alien breeding ground in an abandoned mine. The gory climax is a letdown, on par with the rest of the film.
Cook is certainly a competent director. He has some nice shots, and Dean's fate is inspired. KNB EFX does some great gore effects, but the weak animated entity effects are lousy. Also, Cook's script is too much. You got aliens, ghosts, satanic entities, a nutty professor, dimwitted henchmen, bunny murder, and an annoying green light that indicates "scary." There is never a focus on a heroic main character, either, as Cook jumps from Jack to Donna to Kim without giving the audience a chance to breathe. The screenplay should have been shorn of at least three or four characters, and a couple of subplots. Instead, while there is so much going on here, I was never distracted from a completely predictable climax that I knew was coming since the first two scenes of the film. With a couple of scary gore effects and Brian Thompson, Cook's film is not a complete failure. Trimming some of the fat would have made a leaner, meaner "Nightwish."
Cook is certainly a competent director. He has some nice shots, and Dean's fate is inspired. KNB EFX does some great gore effects, but the weak animated entity effects are lousy. Also, Cook's script is too much. You got aliens, ghosts, satanic entities, a nutty professor, dimwitted henchmen, bunny murder, and an annoying green light that indicates "scary." There is never a focus on a heroic main character, either, as Cook jumps from Jack to Donna to Kim without giving the audience a chance to breathe. The screenplay should have been shorn of at least three or four characters, and a couple of subplots. Instead, while there is so much going on here, I was never distracted from a completely predictable climax that I knew was coming since the first two scenes of the film. With a couple of scary gore effects and Brian Thompson, Cook's film is not a complete failure. Trimming some of the fat would have made a leaner, meaner "Nightwish."
NightScream (1997)
The only screaming I experienced during the viewing of this film were the results of my uncontrollable laughter. Drew (Candace Cameron Bure) shows up in a small Oregon coastal town, a town still reeling from a murder-suicide a year earlier. It seems Julie's (Teri Garr) daughter Laura was strangled by her boyfriend Ted, who promptly threw himself off a cliff into a river. Clue Alert! Clue Alert!: his body was never found! Drew begins taking on the personality of the dead Laura, and because the two look exactly alike, Julie spends more time with her. The sad news is that the whole Drew/Laura ghost thing is a scam. Unbunch your panties, the film makers let us in on the secret way too early as well. Drew is in Oregon with Laura's old boyfriend Ted (Casper Van Dien). The couple wants to find Laura's diaries and solve the case themselves, clearing Ted's name. This is an obviously foolproof plan, except Drew begins having visions of Laura for real. Everybody is not who they seem, and Drew and her scrunched up button nose are plunged into a whole sack of peril.
I was never a "Full..." or "Fuller House" fan. It wasn't funny, the cast was terrible, and yet it was on the air forever. Candace Cameron Bure has grown up but she cannot shake the role that made her a star. She still looks thirteen here, and I halfheartedly waited for a 'Dave Coulier as Bullwinkle' cameo to liven things up. Bure annoyingly spends most of the film looking slightly nauseous and telling everyone she's not crazy. Casper Van Dien has too few scenes to be totally terrible, and Teri Garr does her best Teri Garr impression- kinda ditzy, kinda weepy, and kinda disinterested in the film. The film is full of so many "oh, come on" moments, it should be covered in screenwriting classes at university level. Nosseck's direction is terrible. The awful musical score NEVER stops until the end of the film, when a Chris Isaak wannabe croaks a nonsensical ditty about two loves. The film premiered on television, and in the VHS version I saw, the black spaces where commercials were to be put ran a lot longer than a simple fade-out and fade-in, instilling a false hope that the thing was over. Dangling plotlines include the mystery of the sheriff's dad, and exactly how long did Drew rent that car for? "NightScream," an awful title, might take you in with its flashy video cover art and the promises of a scary horror film. Yes, this is horror, but the kind of horror that comes from knowing you are watching a very bad film. Muffle this Scream.
I was never a "Full..." or "Fuller House" fan. It wasn't funny, the cast was terrible, and yet it was on the air forever. Candace Cameron Bure has grown up but she cannot shake the role that made her a star. She still looks thirteen here, and I halfheartedly waited for a 'Dave Coulier as Bullwinkle' cameo to liven things up. Bure annoyingly spends most of the film looking slightly nauseous and telling everyone she's not crazy. Casper Van Dien has too few scenes to be totally terrible, and Teri Garr does her best Teri Garr impression- kinda ditzy, kinda weepy, and kinda disinterested in the film. The film is full of so many "oh, come on" moments, it should be covered in screenwriting classes at university level. Nosseck's direction is terrible. The awful musical score NEVER stops until the end of the film, when a Chris Isaak wannabe croaks a nonsensical ditty about two loves. The film premiered on television, and in the VHS version I saw, the black spaces where commercials were to be put ran a lot longer than a simple fade-out and fade-in, instilling a false hope that the thing was over. Dangling plotlines include the mystery of the sheriff's dad, and exactly how long did Drew rent that car for? "NightScream," an awful title, might take you in with its flashy video cover art and the promises of a scary horror film. Yes, this is horror, but the kind of horror that comes from knowing you are watching a very bad film. Muffle this Scream.
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