You Don't Know Shat !?! : Impulse (1974)

Through a lifetime of Shatner fandom and four years of running the You Don't Know Shat !?! feature in honor of The Once and Future Kirk's birthday, I felt like I had seen every wild and wacky thing that William could throw at me. I've seen him fight with Andy Griffith, play paintball, teach kids about sex, and fight invading spiders, but I don't think I've ever seen William Shatner quite so gloriously in the throes of doing that thing, which can only be described as Shatner-ing, all over today's film. Like many stars of the 60s whose fame had waned, Shatner took on a great many TV film roles to provide work, and I've covered a number of those over the years. What I didn't know is that he ever starred in a grindhouse style picture from the director of Stanley, The Hooked Generation, and Mako: The Jaws of Death. So join me as William Shatner gives in to his impulse to be involved in a strange plot, his impulse to overact in an astounding way, and his Impulse to murder. 

You Don't Know Shat !?!: Naked City: Portrait Of A Painter (1962)

It's the last week of You Don't Know Shat !?!, and that means it's also a very special day, the birthday of William Alan Shatner. Born in Montreal in 1931, The Shat has reached his 81st birthday and is  still growing strong. In the last year Shat has appeared on USA's Psych, his own sitcom (the failed Shit My Dad Says), and killed off his popular Priceline Negotiator making for the first time, I know of, that a commercial character died as part of their plot. I expect in years to come there will still be plenty of Shat to look forward to, and there's still so many of his films that I haven't got to go back and watch. In case you missed the other entries this month, go back and check out Shatner as a worried Dad in Broken Angel, a hepcat teacher in The Explosive Generation, and a cheating cad in Secrets of a Married Man, and of course, all the previous years' Shat-tastic goodness. For the last entry, I chose to look at an early Shatner TV role. William was already a veteran actor by the early Sixties, with ten years of experience under his belt, when he was cast as a troubled painter who just might have killed his wife. There's eight million stories in The Naked City. This is just Shatner's.

You Don't Know Shat !?! : Secrets of a Married Man (1984)

Over the last few weeks of the Shatner celebration, we've seen the Shat as a crusading father rescuing his daughter from gang life in Broken Angel and talking turkey about the birds and the bees is The Explosive Generation. This week finds Shatner on the other side of the ethical coin as a cad gone mad in Secrets of a Married Man. This made for TV film feels like prehistoric version of a Lifetime offering, but spun on it's head in a fever of Iron John induced melodrama. It becomes a tale of middle class male ennui where Shatner, playing for sympathy, comes up well short. Secrets of a Married Man  is a slice of of 80s yuppsterism that shows off just how flawed the free love generation became as they moved into the self centered, costumer driven decade. Plus, you get to see Captain Kirk picking up hookers on the corner.

You Don't Know Shat !?! : The Explosive Generation (1961)

Last week I talked about Shatner in the '80s "teens out of control" flick Broken Angel where he played a concerned Dad who wondered what was the matter with kids today. Today's film put The Shat on the other side of that equation. The early Sixties may well have been more of a time of chance than the latter part of the decade. With the rise of Rock and Roll (even in this pre-Beatles era) and "race" records, the conformity of the 50s was beginning to wane in the youth of the nation. As we all know by the mid to late 60s the pendulum had swung in favor of the hippie free love movement and anti-war protests. The makers of The Explosive Generation fashioned a movie that was prescient of the changes in youth culture, and even though the actions the teens take might not seem so "explosive" to us now, these were the kind of events that lit the fuse of the cultural explosion. Of course, as always, and I'm sure he'd be the first to say, William Shatner created that spark of revolution.

You Don't Know Shat?!? :Broken Angel (1988)

Today March officially begins and with it brings a longstanding tradition here at The Lair, the celebrations of the works of William Shatner that I like to call " You Don't Know Shat!?!". This is a feature I've run for the last two years, and I've been eagerly awaiting March for it to swing around again. Shatner, while often belittled and denigrated, is really an acting treasure with roles that spans over 50 years and include iconic performances, side trips into other cultures and languages, documentaries, dramas, and comedies. Even saying all that barely begins to recognize the vastness of the body of work that Bill Shatner has amassed by 2012, the year of his 81st birthday. Today I' m going to start with one of his lesser known features. During the 70s and 80s, while Bill was running around as Kirk on the big screen and T.J. Hooker on the small one, he also made more than his fair share of made-for-TV films. In the past I've looked at Disaster on a Coastliner and Pray for the Wildcats, but today's film, Broken Angel, is a far cry from either of those action oriented movies. Instead it melded Shatner's over-the-top performance with a story that was equal parts Afterschool  Special and proto-Lifetime movie.

You Don't Know Shat?! Birthday Edition! : Star Trek: The Misunderstood Picture

Today friends, William Shatner turns 80 years old. The year Shatner was born The Star Spangled Banner was just adopted as our National Anthem, construction of the Empire State Building was being completed, and Dick Tracy had only made his first appearance in newspapers. In the intervening years, Shatner has become one of the most recognizable actors in the world, and Star Trek, the series that made him famous, has gone from being the stuff of fiction to feeling like it could be just around the corner. (Or perhaps that’s just how I feel every time I hold an iPad.) I thought about looking into many corners of Shatner’s catalog to find something special for his birthday, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew which film I wanted to talk about. After the cancellation of the Star Trek series, William Shatner was adrift. He faded in and out as a regular on several series and appearing in an ungodly number of made for TV films. As the ‘70’s drew to a close, Paramount, who held the rights to Star Trek, was looking into starting a new television station with Star Trek: Phase II as its marquee show.

 As the project continued to develop, Paramount ended up with cold feet about getting into mass broadcasting, and plans for Star Trek to lead the charge of a new network were shelved. Instead, thanks to the success of some other movie with “Star” in the title, science fiction in the theaters was hot, and so it wasn’t such a leap for Paramount to change their focus from the small screen back to the big. In a nutshell, that’s how we ended up with the much derided film Star Trek: The Motion Picture (often referred to as "The Motionless Picture" by Trekkies who only believe in the existence of even numbers.) There’s much more to the story, and anyone interested can find several expansive books on the subject. I should know as I’ve read them. However, for our purposes today, it doesn’t matter how it happened as much as that it did. Because Star Trek: The Motion Picture is not only the movie that gave Star Trek a second chance, it also is the movie that saved the career of one William Alan Shatner.

Before I talk about that, let me talk a little bit about the picture itself. In a way Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the genesis (weapon?) that would spawn so much throughout the movie series. The crew of the Enterprise is thrown back together (Treks I, V, VI) because a strange space object is closing in on Earth (Trek IV) seeking a higher power to give its life meaning (Treks IV, VI). At first, Admiral Kirk (Shatner. Is it necessary to specify now in a post J.J. Abrams world?) is supposed to be merely visiting the newly outfitted U.S.S. Enterprise before a shakedown run, but with the threat to Earth, he convinces Starfleet to give him command of the ship presumably to save the world one last time. Of course, he would save the “world” a.k.a Starfleet (or ultimately the universe), four more times before his appearances in the series were done (II, IV, VI, Generations). The Motion Picture also began the plot thread that Kirk is past his prime, useless, washed-up, and outmoded. This idea (despite the fact that he continues to save the world), began when Shatner (and presumably Kirk) was 48 years old in 1979, and carried on though all six of Kirk’s continued cinematic adventures.

Think about William Shatner’s career this way. Nathan Fillion starred in the short lived series Firefly, which faded for a short time before it got the movie treatment. Fillion now stars in a TV series, and he has occasionally appeared in films. Now imagine that over the next 10 years his star fades while Firefly steadily builds its cult following. Then in 2021, when Nathan would be at the half centennial mark, Firefly somehow comes back to the big screen. His career, whose course had been all but written, changes paths, and Fillion becomes a visible, hugely recognizable face for the next 30 plus years. This little tale has warmed the hearts of Browncoats everywhere, but the chances that Nathan will have the same luck as William, seem pretty slim. One of the reason’s Shatner’s career reignited post Star Trek: The Motion Picture is Shatner’s acting was rarely better.

Seriously, from the affable, charming off the cuff remarks of lines like, “Bones, there’s a thing out there.” to the ability to make Star Trek psychobabble such as,” What it needs in order to evolve... is a human quality. Our capacity to leap beyond logic. “ sound compelling. Shatner’s line delivery is on point from end to end in this film. Sure there are plenty of instances of Shatner’s pausing delivery, but at this point shouldn’t we all have to suspend our disbelief and just assume that Kirk talks that way. The dynamic of Star Trek’s three main characters, Kirk, Spock and McCoy, has long been the linchpin of the series. McCoy is guided by pure emotion. Spock (especially in this film) is pure logic. James T. Kirk should be nestled somewhere night in the middle, and Shatner hits that sweet spot giving Kirk the perfect division of idea and feeling. The problem really comes down to this. William Shatner wasn’t the only thing going on in this film.

When I say going on, I mean going on… and on… and on. Every time I sit down to my DVD of the director’s cut, I forget that Robert Wise brought Star Trek: The Motion Picture in at a bloated two hours and fifteen minutes. While I like trippy visions of particle clouds or whatever V’Ger was full of, the lengthy shots bring to mind more thoughts of Kubrick’s 2001 channeled though The Filmore West than Star Wars. It wouldn’t be until Trek II: Wrath of Kahn that the writers got out of their head, got some action going, and figured out that if you’re writing a space opera you better have a space battle somewhere along the line. The whole V’Ger plotline even feels like a holdover from the proposed television show. It has a Twilight Zone-ish ending (ooh, V’Ger is Voyager) that should have been able to be wrapped up in less than an hour. Still, I find this first outing of the Star Trek movies to be enjoyable for its faults. From the maddening uniforms (everyone seems to be wearing something different, and most have belt buckles but no belt) to the pop philosophy to the new, bald female lieutenant whose sex is just way too good and way to strong for Earthlings to resist (talk about a milkshake bringing all the boys to the yard), it is impossible not to watch The Motion Picture and not crack a smile.

So the popular opinion (or perhaps legend) is that Star Trek films are only good on the even numbers. Well, I know quite a few who like III: The Search for Spock and even one or two who like Generations (the 7th and final appearance of the original cast on film). Admittedly, I doubt I can find anyone to champion V: The Final Frontier, but I’m sure I’m not the only one with a soft spot for The Motion Picture. (Possibly because my wife also likes it.) If for nothing else, fans of William Shatner should thank their lucky stars that the future star of T.J. Hooker and Boston Legal, future singer behind Has Been, and future paintball maniac behind Splatt Attack got a chance to make this film. Otherwise, there is severe doubt that today I would be writing about a man who starred in a series that went off the air eight years before I was born. Instead, here I am, and wherever you are Mr. Shatner, I want to wish you a happy birthday. I hope you’re around for many, many more.

You Don't Know Shat! : Disaster on the Coastliner (1979)

Hello folks and welcome to the first installment of the 3rd Annual Celebration of William Shatner’s birthday, You Don’t Know Shat! With all the Horrorhound talk going on around The Lair this month, some of you may have thought I would let Shatner’s birthday slip my mind, but how could I? To kick things off, I thought I’d look at a flick that I’d never even heard of before it cropped up on Netflix Instant Watch in the last few days. Disaster on the Coastliner might sound like it should involve some high seas hijinks, but this made for ABC television movie is all about run away trains… and of course the runaway locomotive of sexual magnetism that is William Shatner. I can’t seem to get away from trains these days, but where The Sleeping Car was full of supernatural terror, The Coastliner is caused by good old fashioned human arrogance and vindictiveness which is just the kind of thing The Shat was put on this world to stop.

Disaster on the Coastliner is cut from the same cloth that produced movies like The Towering Inferno, Airport, and The Poseidon Adventure in the theaters, and brought to the small screen disasters featuring one named menaces such as Flood! (1976) and Fire! (1977). Like so many disaster epics, it was also featured a cast full of notable actors hamming it up on the small screen. Apart from Shatner, the film also boast appearances from Lloyd Bridges, Pat Hingle, Raymond Burr, Robert Fuller, E.G. Marshall, Yvette Mimieux, and Paul L. Smith. Smith plays Jim Waterman, a man convinced that the Trans-Allied Railroad Corporation covered out the truth about the death of his wife and daughter in a tragic train derailment. So now to get the corporation to fess up to the truth, he’s taken over one train and remotely hijacked the other setting them on a course to collide head on unless company head Estes Hill (Burr) makes a public apology for the cover-up.

The plot is as simple as can be, but Disaster on the Coastliner doesn’t garner much of its entertainment value from the scintillating plot. Rather it picks up much of its steam from the tiny side plots that develop alongside the trains speeding toward each other. Shatner, for instance, is in disguise when we first meet him trying to avoid some cops. Using Yvette Mimieux’s character Paula as extra cover to get on the train, Shatner, the ultra slick Stuart Peters, starts up a train bound romance with her once on board. While she sees though his cat and mouse game with the police, she goes along with him because he’s just so damn charming. That’s the kind of thing that no one would ever get away with but Shatner. Then there’s the side plot about the safety of the Vice President’s wife who is on board one of the speeding trains. While neither she nor her Secret Service detail become characters in the film, Lloyd Bridges, playing the agent sent in to monitor her progress from the railway computer control, is quite the character. Anyone who has ever seen Airplane has seen Bridges play this same kind of character, but this time it was supposed to have been played straight. How E.G. Marshall, who shared all of his scenes with Bridges, kept a straight face while acting opposite the hammy star of SeaHunt is a credit to Marshall’s acting skill.

While doing a bit of looking around about this film, I came across a number of sites featuring posts from what I can only describe as “train nerds”. Much like any other nerd, they seem to live to poke hole and wag their finger at anything that diverges from what they know to be the very accurate and quite dorky truth. Disaster on the Coastliner apparently is full of these instances. The first of which, that the Trans-Allied Railroad Corporation was fictitious, seemed pretty obvious to me as all the exteriors are clearly marked AmTrack. Secondly the Trainees… Trainers….Train Enthusiasts point out that movie conveniently ignores the fact that there are emergency brakes in every rail car, that no train system would ever solely rely on computer control, and that a hastily thrown together split track barely welded together would ever be able to resist the force of a 100 MPH runaway train. To these nerds I say become proper nerds of something like Star Trek and you wont care about the technical minutia because you’ll be way too busy enjoying Mr. Shatner’s performance

Director Richard C. Sarafian, who started in television before transitioning over to feature films in the early ’70’s including such gems as Vanishing Point, definitely relied on his skill at shooting speed to give the TV flick its greatest point of suspense. Filming the speeding locomotives from similar low angles just as he had in Vanishing Point certainly helps to maintain suspense throughout the movie. Though I could just as well have watched a whole ninety minutes for Shatner having fun playing the caddish con artist, Sarafian strings together all the disparate parts of the film in an interesting way. He especially excelled at the film’s final moments which of course included the obligatory walking on top of the trains shot. This final sequence, played by Shatner and Paul L. Smith, put both the actors to the test as well as Shatner’s hairpiece which never looked better or like it was working quite so hard during all of Trek.

Disaster on the Coastliner is not the only disaster film with William Shatner in it, but it is easily one of the better TV movie roles that The Shat took on in the limbo time between the end of Star Trek and be beginning of T.J. Hooker. It allowed the actor to be a charmer, do some comedy, and act as a supporting character, but in the end be hailed as the big hero. That kind of rundown exemplifies an almost perfect situation for Shatner (obviously he should be the lead character). The movie itself is not of the highest quality, but, if you’ve got Netflix, as an Instant Watch selection, one could do way, way, way, way worse. I hope you all enjoyed this first installment of You Don’t Know Shat!, and I’ll be back each Friday this month with a new entry as well as on March 22 to celebrate the Eightieth birthday of everyone’s favorite ham, William Alan Shatner.

Bugg Rating

As this was TV fare, there's no trailer, but here's the opening scene.

Kidnapping of a President (1980): Shatner to the Rescue!

When I first saw that Stacia from She Blogged By Night was hosting a William Shatner Blogathon, I was really excited to take part in it. As longtime readers will know, for the last two years, I have done a salute to Shatner each March to celebrate the great man’s birthday. So when it came time to find a film to add to the Blogathon, I was a little stumped until I remembered that there was one I wanted last time I did You Don’t Know Shat that I couldn’t get, 1980’s Kidnapping of a President. Thankfully, after much finagling, Netflix came though for me and delivered a copy of this lesser known and little seen Shatner film to my door. Released only one year after the bloated epic Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Kidnapping of a President stars a Shatner in transition. The success of The Wrath of Kahn and T.J. Hooker was still two years away, and the late seventies had found him stuck in the mire of made for TV films. Kidnapping brought Shatner to the multiplexes with a film that hints at his later, famous cop role and proves that William is a man of action even without a starship.

Shatner stars as FBI agent Jerry O’Conner. While he is second in command of the FBI, many people think he’s a paranoid crackpot who can’t get over the assassination of JFK twenty years earlier. Making his job more difficult is populist President Adam Scott (Hal Holbrook), a folksy Jimmy Carter type that wants to wave to the crowds from open top cars and shake the hands of the people. O’Conner ends up in charge of the President’s security during a diplomatic mission of Canada, but his paranoia of assassination attempts is circumvented. South American Marxist revolutionary Roberto Assanti (Miguel Fernandes)  snatches the President and tosses him in an armored car which is rigged with explosives. If Assanti’s demands aren’t met by midnight, the impenetrable truck with the president inside, will blow up. It’s up to Agent O’Conner and Canadian cop Mackenzie (Michael J. Reynolds) to come up with come way to get the President out in time.

For a film that made its debut seventeen years after JFK’s assassination, it was interesting to see how the specter of his killing along with those of Bobby Kennedy and George Wallace hung over the proceedings of this film. From the opening credits, the idea of the Presidency and the men who are charged to protect it are forefront as a montage plays out highlighting the faceless agents of the FBI. All of this is set to the tune of ‘Hail to the Chief’ which becomes the major musical theme of the film. If it ever happens to slip your mind who has been kidnapped, you don’t have to wait too long for the President’s theme song to pop up again. To the modern viewer, the thought of Kennedy’s assassination being so prescient might seem odd (especially in the scenes where Shatner’s O’Conner refreshes a room of top brass on it and other politically motivated violence), but I would imagine for the men charged with protecting Gerald Ford (who survived an attack by Squeaky Fromme) and Jimmy Carter, the idea was never too far from their minds.

Of course what brought me to Kidnapping of a President was Shatner, and he does not disappoint. During the first fourty minutes that lead up to the titular kidnapping, Shatner establishes his FBI agent as a maverick who has been marginalized due to his perceived paranoia. His acting is actually pretty reserved in this part of the film, but watch out. After the President gets taken, Shatner ramps up the intensity and he plays out the rest of the film just under the line of shuddering mania he exhibited two years later while screaming “KAAAAAAHHHNNNN!” As always the Shat is lots of fun to watch, and in particular his scenes with veteran actor Hal Holbrook stand out. He also has great chemistry with Miguel Fernandes who plays the Che Guvera inspired revolutionary. Fernandes, who also appeared in films such as Ghost Story and Trancers, provides a menacing counterpoint to Shatner’s crusading agent. Kidnapping of a President also features performances from a couple of Hollywood legends, Van Johnson as the crooked Vice President and Ava Gardner as his power hungry wife.

The main thing that struck me while watching Kidnapping of a President was how well it was filmed. From the crazed confusion of the crowds crushing down on the President to wonderful shots of downtown Toronto, there are some really striking visuals that elevate the film far above the schlock it could have been. Director George Mendeluk only had one feature film under his belt, 1979’s Stone Cold Dead, and would spend most of the rest of his career in television, but he and cinematographer Mike Molloy (Shock Treatment, Mad Dog Morgan) gave the film a feeling that worked well to heighten tension throughout the film. The same can’t be said of the score by Paul Zaza (Porky’s, A Christmas Story) and avant-garde composer Nash the Slash. Alternating between versions of ‘Hail to the Chief’ and a cross between Tinto Puente and Phillip Glass, the score detected from much of what was being done visually.

As a Shatner fan, Kidnapping of a President was an interesting addition to his body of work. I had a great time watching the Canadian actor play an American FBI agent who has to save the President when they go to Canada, but I don’t know that outside of hardcore Shatnerites if it would hold many people’s attention. As a political thriller, it is no Manchurian Candidate or Three Days of the Condor, but there is enough to like in the acting and performances that I definitely think even detractors of The Shat would find something to like here. That about wraps it up for me, but head on over to She Blogged by Night for more Shatner goodness, and I can’t wait to see what other goodies folks have to add about the man, the myth, the Shatner.

Bugg Rating

Sadly no trailer for this one, but here's a political commercial for the Shatner-Hasselhoff ticket.

You Don't Know Shat!- Incident on a Dark Street (1973)

When you’re talking about William Shatner, a few descriptives come instantly to mind. Hammy, over the top, and super mega emotive are among the first that leap into my head, and I love the guy. Words that don’t ever run though my brain are smarmy, sleazy, and weak. When you look at the most well known characters that Shatner has played, the noble captain, the rough and tumble (over car hoods) cop, and the loveable, incorrigible lawyer, there was always a likability on display. With today’s film, the 1973 made for TV film/pilot Incident on a Dark Street, Shatner does his best to try and make us forget the likeable fellow he normally plays, and he all but vanishes behind an ill-advised mustache, a pair of massive sideburns, and one of the worst, and oiliest, hair pieces I’ve ever seen.

The story kicks off when a low level thug is found floating face down under the docks. All signs point to the involvement of organized crime, but the D.A.’s office has no way of proving it. Meanwhile, Deaver Wallace (William Shatner), the city’s utilities commissioner, is trying to squeeze every last penny he can from mob boss Dominic Leopold (Gilbert Roland) in exchange for lucrative city contracts. The D.A. finally gets a break in the case when Frank Romeno (Richard S. Castellano) agrees to turn on his former bosses. With the mob closing in, Wallace and Leopold’s partnership starts to fall apart and the consequences may be deadly.

Director Buzz Kulick had a long history with Mr. Shatner starting back in 1958 with an episode of Climax! called Time of the Hanging. Speaking of climax, he went on to director Shatner in the sex scare film The Explosive Generation (1961) and then a series of four TV films ending with 1971’s Incident on a Dark Street. In his 43 year career, the workman director was involved in several memorable projects including several episodes of Have Gun, Will Travel and the interesting Sam Pekinpah penned Zapata western Villa Rides (1968) starring Yul Brenner as the titular Villa alongside Robert Mitchum, Charles Bronson, and Herbert Lom. The direction of Incident on a Dark Street makes it look like what it is, typical ‘70’s crime drama. TV shows of this era have a great feel to them and this is no exception, however nothing about the direction of the film makes it stand out from the rest of the pack.

What does set it apart is the script by long time TV writer E. Jack Newman who also served as creator and producer for this pilot film. Newman made a handful of these pilots around the same time, and he finally hit the mark with the series Police Story which ran from 1973 to 1978. His script for Incident on a Dark Street could easily be translated into an episode of any of Dick Wolf’s Law & Order series. Like many other crime shows from the ’70’s, there was no glamour involved here. Instead you see out of shape men in shabby raincoats chasing minor criminals and balding prosecutors wearing garish ties as they build their case. It’s not a thrill a minute, but it does seem like real police work.

The main stars, intended to be series regulars, did not leave much of an impression. James Olsen (Amityville Horror II), David Canary ( Candy Canaday from Bonanza), and Robert Pine (Sgt. Getraer from CHiPs) make up the legal team, and though none of their acting could be described as bad, all of them are very bland. All of the interesting performances were on the other side of the law. Richard S. Castellano, Clemenza from The Godfather, put in solid work as the low level goon who gets caught between the law and the mob. In his best scene, Castellano has to run from a street cleaning machine that’s trying to off him, and until you’ve seen Clemenza try to scale a 10 foot chain link fence to escape a killer public service vehicle, you haven’t lived. For me, it was the highlight of the film. In another baddie role, Gilbert Roland (Castellari’s Any Gun Can Play) is terrifically as Sicilian Mob Boss Dominic Leopold. I don’t know what kind of Italian name Leopold is, but Roland uses his screen time to full effect making a suave yet slimy character that should have gotten more screen time.

That brings us back around to Shatner. This is one of several wimpy, weak roles that Shatner took on in the ‘70’s when his star had nearly faded and work was hard to come by. Like his milquetoast character in Pray for the Wildcats, Shatner’s Deaver Wallace has a yellow streak as wide as they come, but his constant desire for money fuels him to put pressure on the mob boss. Eventually, he gets what is coming to him, and that should be no surprise or spoiler for anyone who has ever seen a crime drama. Shatner really reins it in this film, and actually delivers a performance that is worth watching, but again, like Roland, he is a supporting character who gets far too little screen time. His best scene no doubt involves Wallace making a phone call while rebuffing the advances of his young, baby doll wearing girlfriend. Shatner is in top form, and if you’re like me, you’ll be sitting there telling him to get off the phone and pay attention to that cutie.

On the whole, Incident on a Dark Street is fairly entertaining, but it’s easy to see why it wasn’t picked up as a series. All the interesting folks were the supporting cast while the leads fail to get the production on the ground. There are a few choice moments, but the entire story arc could have easily been boiled down to an hour or less. If you’re a fan of ‘70’s crime drama or a hardcore Shat-head like me, then this will be an entertaining little window into a nearly forgotten piece of TV and Shatner history. Luckily you won’t even have to strain a muscle to see it. This little picture is in the public domain, but I couldn't find a version I could embed. It can be watched in its entirety for free from Amazon video here.So below you can find the clip of Shatner choosing to freak out rather than get his freak on. That’s all for this week, but join us back here next Sunday for one last Shatner gem as I close out the month, and don’t forget that tomorrow (March 22) is Mr. Shatner’s birthday so Happy Birthday Bill, wherever you are!

Bugg Rating

Ladies Night Knows Shat!: Shoot or Be Shot (2002)

Once a Month, T.L. Bugg takes a day off and hands the keys of the Lair over to his lovely wife, Miss Directed, and best friend, Fran Goria. The Ladies of the Lair take this chance to shine a spotlight on some of the best and worst films out there, and you never know what might happen when it's Ladies Night! Take it away Fran....

Shoot or Be Shot (2002) Director: J. Randall Argue Writers: J. Randall Argue, Steve Catanzaro, Alistair Salton Starring: William Shatner, Harry Hamlin, Scott Rinker, and Julianne Christie.

Ben Steinman (Rinker) is an aspiring director who cannot seem to write a story. Harvey Wilkes (Shatner) is an aspiring screenwriter, who also happens to be an escaped mental patient. When low budget action producer Jack Yeager (Hamlin) teams up with Ben to shoot an artistic, improv film, the two cross paths with Wilkes. The escapee then takes cast and crew hostage and forces them, at gun point, to film his own screenplay. Will Ben be able to stop Wilkes, fall in love with the girl who is not what she seems, and still keep his integrity as a director?

One sunny afternoon, seven or eight years ago, while I was perusing the new release wall at the local Blockbuster, one cover stood out for me. On that cover was Harry Hamlin with a video camera and big fat cigar, standing next to William Shatner in a straight jacket. I knew I had to see that film, so I did. After watching it, I knew I had to own it, so now I do. I have seen Shoot or Be Shot many times over the past few years, and I have to say that I like it just as much now as I ever did. The film starts off with a simple story. It has a film crew with no script and a screen writer with no film crew. The two come together, and comedy ensues. Throw in a sleazy producer who wants to gain artistic integrity in the film world, a scorned actress/lover who changes her appearance to get in on the action, and a handful of other oddball characters; and one is in for a real treat. The film quality wasn’t the best, but the camera work was pretty good. The look was perfect for the overall feel of the movie.

There were two great actors in Shoot or Be Shot, William Shatner and Harry Hamlin. These two really carried the film. Shatner was absolutely fantastic in this role. As the film opens, Shatner is in a suit and tie giving a speech. Maybe he was in an office building, in a meeting, or pitching a big idea. Then, as the camera pans back, the audience sees the interior of the mental hospital, and then realizes he is pleading his case for release. This was a quick scene, but it set the tone for Shatner’s role. He was very lovable as Wilkes, the escaped psychopath, and I really believed that his job as VCR instruction manual writer drove him mad. This was a great character for Shatner, and he his probably why I like the film so much. .Harry Hamlin stars opposite Shatner playing Jack Yeager, producer. Yeager has a reputation as a penny pincher and skirt chaser, and with good reason. Hamlin played this role to a tee. While Hamlin and Shatner were great to watch, the rest of the cast, not so much. They got the point across, but with no real style.

A couple of other cast members do deserve a quick mention, and I do mean quick as they were bit parts in the movie. First there was Lupe, Yeager’s cleaning lady, played by an actress that we met last month in Teenage Exorcist, Elena Sahagun. She did a fine job with Lupe. She was feisty, and it was nice to see her again. Then there was Uncle Bill, hotel owner and gun enthusiast, played by Tim Thomerson. Many should recognize him as Jack Deth from the Trancers films. Thomerson was great as Uncle Bill, and he really made the most of his small role. Many lovely elements come together in a lovely little package for Shoot or Be Shot. From the quirky story, to the lovable characters, this is just a fun film to watch. It may have its downfalls, but it makes me happy. I have seen it many times, and I am sure I will see it many more. I highly recommend to any fan of dry comedy, William Shatner, or anyone who wants to watch something that doesn’t require too much thought. It is simply Shatastic!

Shatner Rating

There are a lot of groups to fear in the world. All sorts of criminals, men that try to pick up women at Barnes and Noble, ICP fans, and that’s starting the list. One group I never thought I would be scared of is screen writers. What were they going to do pitch me to death? Before you make fun of the guy sitting at the Starbucks drinking something with soy milk and typing furiously, you need to see Shoot or Be Shot.

The first thing that jumped out at me watching this movie is that it had the production value of cable soft core porn. Even with Shatner over-acting his tush off, I was so distracted by a sound track that is at best a step above Casio level. To make it worse the back ground music is constant though the whole film. The end result makes the movie seem cheap. There are still a lot of bright spots in Shoot or Be Shot. The story itself is one of them. Even though some of the characters are very cliché, I love art of any kind that doesn’t mind making fun of itself. So I enjoyed watching the womanizing producer, the actress that will do anything to promote her career, the director without a vision, and the writer driven to insanity as they battle for control.

While that is well traveled ground, Hamlin and Shatner do a very entertaining job. William Shatner has always been one of those actors that a person loves, or loves to make fun of. Either way you fall on that argument, you’ll be happy here. Harry Hamlin relishes playing the slime ball. I feel sort of bad for the rest of the cast. These two men have a history of chewing the scenery, so no one else had half a chance of being noticed. The problem in the end is the movie’s shelf life. Back when I saw it the first time, I thought hey that’s funny. On my second viewing, I realized what I might like is seeing an actor I loved in a mildly funny role. If you love Mr. Shatner this is a must see for you. Even though I am giving this a lower rating, it is worth watching once.

Shatner Rating

The only clip I could find out there was on YouTube, but strangely it is dubbed into Russian. So bizarre, but I decided to include it anyway.

You Don't Know Shat!: The Devil's Rain (1975)

If I told you there was a movie that starred William Shatner, Tom Skeritt, Anton Levey, Eddie Albert, and Earnest Borgnine as the least threatening devil this side of Hot Stuff, you might just think that it’s something that I made up during a fever dream. Well, let me assure you, I don’t care how feverish I get Tom Skeritt is unlikely to pop into my head. The film I’m talking about, 1975’s The Devil’s Rain, is for real. This forgotten piece of Satanist cinema came to my attention because of an article about Anton Levey’s contributions to cinema, but what really caught my eye was the attachment of director Robert Fuest. Vincent Price fans will instantly recognize Fuest as the man behind the Dr. Phibes films, but they might be hard pressed to name another of his films. There’s good reason for that. After a thriller called The Final Programme and then The Devil’s Rain, Fuest fell into the abyss of TV directing.  It’s been said that The Devil’s Rain ruined him as a director, but I’m not sure that the blame should rest solely with Fuest. Who might be at fault? Well, could it be…Satan!

Satanist John Corbis (Ernest Borgnine) has one never-ending desire, a book of unending power, but it has been kept secret for centuries by the Preston family. When Mark Preston’s (William Shatner) father goes missing, the family is worried, but when he returns home, hollow eyed, to deliver a demand from Corbis before melting away, they become terrified. Mark takes matters, and the book, into his own hands and confronts Corbis at his Satanic church deep in the desert challenging the Satanic priest to a duel of faith. Mark loses the battle, and he becomes a prisoner of the cult. Mark’s brother Tom (Tom Skeritt), along with his wife Julie (Joan Prather) and psychic detective Sam Richards (Eddie Albert), try their best to save Mark, but their only chance is discovering the secret of the Devil’s Rain.


In 1975, when Roger Ebert reviewed this film, he didn’t have much nice to say. Perhaps the nicest thing he had to say was that film was “painfully dull”. This notion, and the idea that the plot was incoherent, was the common consensus among movie reviewers at the time. I can assure you that neither criticism will be appearing in this review. I might call the film “painfully silly” at moments and agree that some of Shatner’s acting style was incoherent, but overall, The Devil’s Rain was an interesting little film. Fuest clearly had a vision when he directed this film, and that vision surely seems like one imported from Italy. From the long, wide, barren shots of desert that bring to mind Sergio Leone to the rich color palette right out of Mario Bava’s toolbox, Fuest’s film seems awash in Italian influence.

Not only do the rich colors and incredible panoramas bring to mind Italian genre film, the plot (remember the incoherent mess) feels much more slanted toward an atmospheric tale than just a straightforward narrative. The mood of the film is oppressive, and it feels like pallor of doom hangs over the proceedings. Considering the film details a centuries old curse placed on a family by Satan’s ambassador to Earth, that stands to reason. Now, I don’t want to lead you folks to believe that this is a script that could rely solely on atmosphere to keep the film afloat; it’s not. For every interesting camera movement, well-lit, richly colored location, or atmospheric undertone, there are scenes full of trite dialog delivered with a range of skill from the actors.

Shatner himself is in full super-Shat mode, and he plays the role of the doomed son scarified to Satan to the hilt. If you ever needed to see how far over the top Shatner can go, merely check out the scene where his character Mark is crucified on an inverted cross during a Satanic ritual, and you’ll have all the information that you’ll need. As a Shatner fan, I still enjoyed William doing the broad thing, but this script would have benefited from a more reserved performance. On the other end of the spectrum is Tom Skeritt. The mustachioed actor looking like a cross between Sonny Bono and a walking butterfly collar, but his acting was on the mark. Skeritt holds the second half of the film together after Shatner’s character goes M.I.A for the conclusion of the picture. Eddie Albert also impresses and only when he first showed up did Green Acres enter my brain. I actually wished that his psychic investigator had been a slightly larger role.

The main event in The Devil’s Rain is really Satan incarnate, Ernest Borgnine. I’ve always kind of thought of Borgnine as a great tough guy actor or a solid supporting player, but it has never crossed my mind that he would be good at playing evil. Apart from the “menacing laugh”, that he punctuates too many sentences with, his portrayal of John Corbis is impressive. He definitely pulls off a menacing stature, and I almost have no reservations about his performance. I have to say almost because when he’s John Corbis, he’s great, but a puff of smoke later he might turn into a horned devil. That sounds like it would be awesome, but the Borg-devil looks a lot more like a reject from Labyrinth than the force of evil on Earth. Plain old Earnest isn’t cute at all, but apparently, the manifestation of Satan is adorable. Needless to say, these moments pulled me right out of whatever atmosphere the film had managed to build, and seeing as it happens every fifteen minutes for a while, it was nearly impossible to get myself immersed back in The Devil’s Rain.

It’s too bad that The Devil’s Rain put the brakes on Robert Fuest’s career. While the film has a plethora of problems, overall it’s nowhere near the mess it has a reputation for. With a little recasting, and perhaps an Italian director at the helm, this could have been a rather interesting film wrapped in the mythos of Satanism. From the article I read, Satanic High Priest Anton Levey, who cameos in the film as Borgnine’s right hand man and served as technical consultant, thought the Borg-devil was one of the best representations of Satan on screen. I have to say that as far as advertisements for the power of Satan go, this is not going to get many people to come around to the side of Old Scratch. So if you like supernatural film, William Shatner, or Bob Fuest, then you should definitely check this one out, and if anyone gives you a hard time about watching it, you can always say that the devil made you do it.

Bugg Rating