MOMMA THE DETECTIVE (1981) – Happy Mother’s Day to the ladies who brought all of us into this world! Every single one of us alive today was given birth to by a woman, and to help mark their special day here’s my review of a made for tv production about a sleuthing mother in New York City.
This item was the pilot for a potential series to be titled Momma the Detective and is also known as See China and Die, which would have been the individual episode title had this been picked up as a series. The star was the venerable Esther Rolle, most famous for her role as Florida Evans on Maude (1972-1974) and then Good Times (1974-1979).
Rolle starred as “Momma” Sykes, a freelance cleaning woman and cook who works for several well-to-do clients in a New York high rise.
When she discovers one of her clients stabbed to death in his bed one morning, she gets the chance to put to use the detective skills that she has honed through years of reading murder mysteries. (It’s television. Just go with it.)
Momma Sykes’ son Alvin Sykes (Kene Holliday) is a detective with the New York City Police Department and he happens to be the one assigned to this particular case. His gentle exasperation as Momma persistently pursues her own parallel investigation to his sets the tone for what apparently would have been his “Bert Convy in The Snoop Sisters” role if this had gone to series. Continue reading
GRIPS 
As I indicated in the title of this blog post, I consider the Grips tales to be what low-budget, disreputable Grindhouse movies of the past were to glossy, professional films from major studios. The writing and artwork in Grips seldom approached the standards of the Big Two publishers, but the visceral violence, profanity and often taboo subject matter more than made up for the overall shoddiness of the finished product. 
That heroic duo fought the outrightly criminal Sicilian government to root out corruption despite being undermined and attacked every step of the way by bought and paid-for officials. Falcone and Borsellino were ultimately assassinated in 1992 because they refused to back down. 
A DARWINIAN SCHOONER (1893) – Written by William Alden. With so many fans of the various Planet of the Apes movies still around, I figured it was a good time to post a review of this story that’s in a similar spirit. 
PRAY FOR THE WILDCATS (1974) – That’s Wildcats as in the Baja Wildcats, the name given by the villainous Andy Griffith to himself and his fellow over the hill dirt bikers – William Shatner, Marjoe Gortner and Robert Reed! 
The latest from 
THE ABYSMAL INVADERS (1929) – Written by Edmond Hamilton. This is a nice mish-mash of elements that are part Creature Feature, part Doctor Who and part Jurassic Park. Hamilton gets bashed as a hack but his stories are harmless fun. 
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