Piper12 Reviews

Sunburn (1979)

Wetsuit a poor choice for undercover work....

[5/10 · 21 October 2006]

I actually bought the VHS of this movie strictly in order to watch Farrah's (alas, all-too-brief) scuba scene about one-third through. (I hope there is a DVD in the works; the VHS of this scene is rather grainy.) Watching her swim in that French-cut white shorty is a treat for any guy, especially a diver like myself. Also, for aficionados of "only-in-a-Hollywood-movie" moments, it belongs right up there.

Farrah signs up for a scuba diving class so she can surreptitiously board a suspicious yacht anchored in Acapulco Bay. After donning the jaw-dropping wet suit, we see her hoisting her tank onto her back by herself. Hey, all I can say is, if that were any scuba group that I have ever been a part of - and an unaccompanied woman built like her showed up wearing THAT wet suit - the guys would be tripping over each other to say, "Let ME give you a hand with that, ma'am, and by the way, do you need a dive buddy?"

Which leads to the next problem. Once underwater, Farrah manages to slip away unseen from the rest of the group in order to swim to the aforesaid yacht. Like I said, riiiiggght.....With every male eye in the group fastened on her, the chances of that happening are somewhere south of zero.

Only in Hollywood, of course. Memo to Farrah: being undercover means NOT calling attention to yourself. Next time, wear an ill-fitting black wetsuit, or better yet, a full dry-suit. Nobody will give you a second look.

Fraulein Doktor (1969)

Can Only Echo Everyone Else: Where's the Video?

[7/10 · 12 June 2006]

Like almost everyone else who has commented on this movie, I can only wonder why this has never appeared on video.

I recall seeing it at about age 12 on the "The Late Show," circa 1972. I too recall the poison gas attack and the weirdly garbed horses. (I don't recall the more horrific bits I've seen described here; they were likely cut out for the TV audience.) But the scenes I REALLY liked were the ones involving the death of Lord Kitchener aboard the HMS Hampshire, almost exactly 90 years ago. The scenes of the doomed cruiser approaching the minefield in the storm were really chilling, as I recall.

Don't recall the musical score, but the comments of the others now have me curious. Get this one out on video!

The Vatican Affair (1968)

Lame caper flick

[15 October 2004]

Saw this one on television 30 years ago, so my memories of it are a bit hazy. As I recall, Walter Pigeon plays a blind academic who has spent decades studding the Vatican's art treasures - don't ask me how a blind man does this - and decides to reward himself with a retirement in the sun paid for by ripping off some of said treasures. He enlists Kinsky and Von Furstenburg to do the heavy lifting and there follows the usual split-second timing, hair-breadth escapes and double-crosses. I like this sort of picture, but I recall being oddly unengaged by this one. Nice Roman location shooting, but not enough for me to really recommend the film. A rainy afternoon time waster.

Brooklyn South (1997–1998)

No "Hill Street"

[2 May 2003]

I have to disagree with the others who have posted in praise of "Brooklyn South." As a die-hard fan of "Hill Street Blues," I have to say that "Brooklyn South" didn't come close to matching the earlier series in quality and watchability.

Don't get me wrong: I WANTED to like this series very much. It just didn't hold my interest, perhaps because so many of the situations seemed so incredibly far-fetched: One character's shrewish wife - who is even prepared to frame him for a murder - is conveniently killed off in a car accident; the first precinct captain was so cartoonishly clueless as to be laughable; the Terry Doyle character was so annoying I was actually HOPING he'd be killed off.

Actually, for me, the only character I cared about and who really came to life for me was Gary Besaraba's Sgt. Santoro. His scene in one of the early episodes with his son's grade-school teacher - who is copping a superior attitude to the sarge and his wife - was great. I also had a sneaking respect for Jim Sikking's character, a career Internal Affairs investigator with ice-water in his veins.

A good try, but no cigar.

Emil and the Detectives (1964)

A childhood treat!

[11 April 2003]

I stumbled on this entry and was glad I did! I recall watching this when it was broadcast on "Disney's Wonderful World of Color" in September 1966 when I was five and have never seen it since. I recall the Berlin locations and being fascinated by the entire enterprise. Maybe I would have a different opinion if I saw it now, but I recalled liking it as a kid.

Evening in Byzantium (1978)

Did a teenage Osama bin Laden catch this one?

[5 August 2002]

I thought of this TV mini-series after Sept. 11th because the plot was uncannily similar to what actually transpired that awful day.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

In the movie, the terrorists (the "anarchists") simultaneously hijack three civilian airplanes and load them with nuclear weapons, while blowing out of the sky three other aircraft. The first three aircraft then assume the "identity" of the three destroyed planes and the terrorists then plan to crash the nuclear-armed craft into three major cities. Unlike on Sept. 11th, however, fighter planes successfully intercept and destroy the suicide planes.

As I said, not identical, but close enough to send shivers down one's spine. That's really the only reason to ever watch this otherwise pretty standard sudser.

Closing Ranks (1980 TV Movie)

Good Cold War Thriller....

[24 November 2000]

I saw this one on the Washington, DC PBS station back in 1982, I think, I recall being pleasantly surprised. A Soviet KGB agent defects in London with tales of treason within British intelligence. The stories seem believable, but is the defector for real, or only a plant, designed to sow havoc and unrest within an Allied intelligence service? Remarkably precient, given the "defection" to the West just three years later of a man said to be a high-ranking Soviet intelligence official who subsequently redefected to Moscow. I hope someone gets the idea to bring this one out on VHS or DVD.

Song of Russia (1944)

"Song of Stalin" would be more like it...

[21 November 2000]

Who knew that life under a brutal totalitarian regime could be so carefree? Even though the film was made for World War II propaganda purposes, the inanities that litter this film have to be seen to be believed. (That would be difficult, I know, since it is not available on videotape. or DVD.)Among the aspects of Russian life, circa 1941, to which this film introduces us are: town meeting democracy, freedom of religion, rural peasants who eat hearty meals at tables set with china, crystal and silver, and on and on. Soviet barbarities are played down or, more usually, ignored altogether. I saw this film in Washington around 1983 as part of a twin bill with the other infamous WWII paeon to Stalin's Russia, "Mission to Moscow." I think the latter was, in places, at least a bit more honest than this rose-colored clunker. If ever you wondered why Congress went hunting for Communists in Hollywood, check out these two films.

Houston, We've Got a Problem (1974 TV Movie)

"Apollo 13" the First Time Around

[19 October 2000]

When "Apollo 13" came out, I thought I was the only person in America who remembered this made-for-TV effort. As a space-crazy 13 year old, I recall watching and enjoying this film, and I'm surprised that no effort was made to bring it out on video or DVD so people could compare the two films. No doubt the production values of "Apollo 13" are far superior and the presence of a by-then burnt out Sandra Dee in the cast probably signals the film wasn't all that good. Still, I'd like to see it again.

The Extraordinary Seaman (1969)

What Were They Thinking?

[13 October 2000]

That's just about all you can say about this film that is so bad you simply have to gape in wonderment. Although just 80 minutes long, the film features an extraordinary amount of padding via moronic file footage of such events as Bess Truman trying unsuccessfully to break a bottle of champagne across an aircraft's nose. The plot has something to do with a ghost (David Niven)whose old scow of World War I vessel is discovered by some American sailors in the final days of World War II in the Pacific. The producers probably thought that with Alda, Rooney, Dunaway (just off her "Bonny and Clyde" fame, recall) and Frankenheimer helming the whole thing, it couldn't miss. Well, it did.

The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz (1968)

BOMB! Lowest rating....

[31 August 2000]

The absolutely one and only reason to watch this cinematic stinkeroo is to see the cast of "Hogan's Heroes" in a Cold War setting rather than World War II. (And that's a dubious enough reason.) Instead of Nazi Germany being run by a bunch of bumbling idiots, in this film, it's East Germany. The taste of the original television series was questionable, and this film only underlines that judgement. Avoid it if you can.

Lost Command (1966)

If You Liked "Zulu," You'll Like "The Lost Command"

[24 July 2000]

Perhaps because it came out so soon after Pontecorvo's classic "La Battaglia di Algeri" (The Battle of Algiers), "The Lost Command" got, well, lost. That's too bad, because I saw this movie only once about 20 years ago, but still recall it vividly as a surprisingly well-done action film spiced with social commentary that doesn't overwhelm the whole.

Anthony Quinn is especially believable as a hard-bitten professional soldier who manages to rise to high command in spite of his peasant birth. Alain Delon is his pretty boy right-hand and George Segal has a particularly interesting turn as an Arab serving with Quinn and Delon in Indochina at the film's beginning who is radicalized upon returning to his native Algeria and takes up arms against his former comrades.

The highlight of the film is its retelling of the Battle of Algiers, with Quinn in the role of the real-life para colonel Jacques Massieu.

The battle scenes are well-done and realistic, especially the opening sequence, which is set in the final, desperate hours at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Despite being well-made and underrated, this film is not often shown on television, so you'll probably have to rent it.

The Patriot (2000)

What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?

[18 July 2000]

A pretty good film overall, I thought. The one exception was the outrageous scene where British troops are shown locking innocent women and children inside a church and burning it down. Nothing like that ever happened in the revolution. But it did happen in World War II, when troops of the Nazi SS 2nd Panzer Division burned the church in Oradur, France in June 1944. If what I read in the papers is accurate, German-born director Roland Emmerich insisted on including this scene in spite of the objections of historians.

I find it interesting that a German director should insist on attributing to the British - who helped beat Hitler, after all -an atrocity that was in fact commtted by his own kind. Perhaps some journalist should ask Emmerich what his old man was doing in the summer of '44....

Victory at Entebbe (1976 TV Movie)

Victory at Entebbe Meets Defeat on the Small Screen.

[12 May 2000]

The bargain-basement production values that mark this quickie shoot-em-up, filmed and released literally months after the dramatic Israeli commando raid, would be enough to consign this turkey to the dustbin of TV history. But it gets worse. The audience can play spot-the-star as Hollywood legends Liz Taylor, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Helen Hayes etc., turn in embarrassing cameos. Unintentional hilarity is the only possible response to the scene in which Linda Blair offers a box of chocolates to the flight crew and the terrorists holding them at gunpoint. Mirth gives way to anger, however, when the film depicts unruly hostages being deliberately shot down by Israeli soldiers during the rescue scene! With rescuers like these, who needs hijackers? "Raid on Entebbe," which came out a year later with Charles Bronson, is much the superior account of this operation.

Portrait: A Man Whose Name Was John (1973 TV Movie)

The Church Did Try to Save Jews in World War II; This Film Shows How

[20 April 2000]

The Roman Catholic Church has come under attack recently for its supposed "silence" with regard to the Holocaust in World War II. This is a rare film that demonstrates the actual record.

Angelo Roncalli, who later became Pope John XXIII, was serving as the Holy See's Apostolic Nuncio (ambassador) to Turkey in World War II when Germany sought to pressure Turkey to expel Jewish refugees there. The film shows how Roncalli foiled this effort. His was one of many similar efforts across Europe.

I would also recommend, for those interested in films in this general area, "The Scarlet and the Black," a 1983 made-for-TV movie with Gregory Peck as Monsignor Flanigan and Christopher Plummer as the Nazi officer.

Wild Geese II (1985)

A Wild Goose Chase

[19 April 2000]

As a fan of the original "Wild Geese," I couldn't help but be crushingly disappointed by this disjointed, boring "sequel." Scott Glen goes through the film as if on Prozac and Barbara Carrera is strictly no-talent eye-candy. Edward Fox looks bored in yet another of his Jackal-ripoff roles. As for Laurence Olivier as Hess, well, it looks like he thought he would reprise his embarrassing performance as Neil Diamond's father in the 1980 "Jazz Singer." This was just one more of the many child-support-and-alimony-payments-are-due roles that crowded the end of his otherwise distinguished career.