Balladeer’s Blog’s annual end of the year retrospective resumes with this look at August’s best.
BAD MOVIE REVIEW: TOWING (1978) – Even though this film’s cast includes JOE MANTEGNA, SUE LYON and DENNIS FRANZ it is a thoroughly bizarre attempt at a comedy. It’s based on some real-life unethical procedures by towing companies in Chicago. Relentlessly unfunny and very weird. Click HERE.
ETRUSCAN MYTHOLOGY – Or “Those darn Etruscans” as their category was always called on Jeopardy. I took a look at some of their gods like Tinia, Hercle, Aita and Usil plus some of their goddesses like Uni, Turan, Vanth and Feronia. They’re all HERE.
FORGOTTEN TELEVISION – Bird of the Iron Feather (1970), the pioneering soap opera about the lives of black Chicagoans HERE. Barbary Coast (1975) starring William Shatner and Doug McClure working for the U.S. Secret Service on the 1870s Barbary Coast HERE. Espionage (1963), an anthology series about spy operations from the Cold War, World War 2 and earlier wars HERE.
SOME HILARIOUSLY INACCURATE ERRORS FROM A.I. YOUTUBE CHANNELS – Click HERE.
COOL NAMED COLLEGE SPORTS TEAM – Gulf Coast Christian College HERE.
WHISKEY JIM – A neglected Old West gunslinger who interacted with the likes of Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, Hoodoo Brown, Bushwacking Joe and the 4th Cavalry. He also fought in the Buffalo Hunters War and later against the Las Lagunas Comanchero Gangs. Click HERE.
GULLIVAR JONES ON MARS (1905): ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION – The conclusion of this pre-John Carter novel about an American naval officer winding up on Mars where he romanced a woman named Princess Heru and had various adventures. Click HERE.
KARATE GIRL (1973) – This Turkish martial arts film is one of that country’s premier violent revenge flicks. Fun-bad yet badass all at once. I reviewed it in detail HERE.
COOL NAMED COLLEGE SPORTS TEAM: MONTCALM COLLEGE – Click HERE.
GIANT OF THE EVIL ISLAND (1965) – Mission Impossible‘s Peter Lupus starred in this swashbuckler movie about the Spanish Navy clashing with pirates who use a place called Evil Island as their base. Click HERE.
THE DEFENDERS: AFTER THE EVIL EYE – Marvel’s superteam the Defenders (Hulk, Dr. Strange, Sub-Mariner, Clea, Silver Surfer, Valkyrie, Nighthawk and Son of Satan) followed up their war with the Avengers over the Evil Eye of Avalon with battles against Xemnu, Nebulon, Magneto, Asmodeus and QuasiMoD.O. Click HERE. Continue reading
NON E MAI TROPPO TARDI aka It’s Never Too Late (1953) – This is one of the few Italian movie adaptations of A Christmas Carol, so that alone makes it worth seeking out for obsessive Carol fans like me. 
The misdirection went so far as to list Marcello’s name above the actual star Paolo Stoppa in the movie’s re-release title A Wonderful Night (Una Notte Meravigliosa). 
THE SMURFS: A CHRISTMAS CAROL (2011) – I generally dread Smurfs productions, which is why I put off watching this Carol for so long. Happily this was a pleasant surprise, and I really enjoyed it. 
ASTOLPHO IN ETHIOPIA – When we left Charlemagne’s Paladin Astolpho, he had just vanquished the evil sorcerer Atlantes, then freed all of the captives in his invisible castle. Among those captives was the great Roland, the Emperor’s nephew and most accomplished warrior. 
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (2015) – This 59-minute rendition of the Dickens Yuletide classic is often referred to as “the Colin Baker version.” Too bad Baker can’t sue somebody over that, since he had nothing to do with this laughable production beyond portraying Charles Dickens and narrating the story. 
Soon the image improves to conventional standards (well, sort of) and the sound improves to 1950s television levels. Unfortunately, this is a 2015 production, not a 1950s presentation, and the weak, amateurish sound work will plague this Carol the rest of the way. 
RICHARD DENNING’S PSYCHOTRONIC MOVIES – Before he was the governor on Hawaii Five-O, Richard Denning appeared in several campy sci-fi movies in the 1940s and 1950s. ** Those included Target Earth, about alien androids invading Chicago; Unknown Island, about “modern” people finding an island populated by dinosaurs; Creature with the Atom Brain, about atomic-powered zombie gangsters; Day the World Ended, about post-nuke survivors fighting a monster; The Black Scorpion, about two giant scorpions on the loose, and the iconic Creature from the Black Lagoon. They’re all 
THE DOUBLE DAGGERS (1877) – The second Dime Novel about the fictional masked Old West outlaw and champion of the underdog – Deadwood Dick. This time he and his Nighthawks face a traitor within and defeat a new set of villains. Plus, our hero falls in love and gets married in the finale! Click 
THE PENOBSCOT CAMPAIGN FROM THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR – The massive 1779 American effort to drive the British out of the area of Maine that they had seized and renamed New Ireland. Click 
FORGOTTEN TELEVISION – Stagecoach West (1960) starring Wayne Rogers as a gunslinging stagecoach driver who has adventures 
RICH LITTLE’S CHRISTMAS CAROL (1979) – Balladeer’s Blog’s SIXTEENTH annual Christmas Carol-A-Thon continues! If you’re into celebrity trivia from the 1970s and earlier Rich Little’s Christmas Carol will have you laughing from start to finish over all the sly jokes and riffs that abound in this Canadian- made special. For those unfamiliar with Little, in the 60s, 70s and 80s he was a first- class celebrity impressionist. 
For the central role of Ebenezer Scrooge Little impersonated W.C. Fields, the whiskey- soaked and curmudgeonly comedian whose misanthropic humor made his persona perfect for the role. Little impersonated Hollywood Squares mainstay Paul “The JM J Bullock of his time” Lynde in the role of Bob Cratchit and long-time Tonight Show host Johnny Carson as the cheerful and charming Nephew Fred. Rich did a turn as Laurel and Hardy as the Charity Solicitors to round out the “cast” for the opening scene at Scrooge and Marley’s. 
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME – The defending champs – the GRAND VIEW UNIVERSITY VIKINGS – took on the KEISER UNIVERSITY SEAHAWKS for the NAIA title. The Seahawks led 3-0 to end the 1st Quarter, but by Halftime Grand View University was on top 13-3. 
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