Reviews

This is an old fashioned ghost-y story which does not hold together very well. It is really too scary a movie for small children, but the protagonist is one. Nor does it capture the innocence of youth. More or less, Mom and Dad leave the kids home alone for the weekend with a big scary hole in the back yard. Some mildly creepy things happen. Stephen Dorf was pretty good as the precocious demon fighter. Made in the mid-80's it is visually and aurally a period piece. It is refreshingly relatively free of gore. Nightmares and the devil worship "associated" with heavy metal music are the horror idioms of choice. Sex and slashing are minimized.

I'm not going to say much about the somewhat schmaltzy dog survival part of the story. Yes if you love dogs (I do) this story will get to you. I did not actually cry, but it was close. And I saw it at home on a very big hd lcd.

Most of the actors were OK except Jason Biggs. It was Saturday Night Live mugging for the camera, like maybe a very bad high school variety show.

And then there is his hair which should get some kind of special award. It looks like he took a serrated bread knife and just hacked it off. It is a very bad scene stealer. The dogs are so good that they would make you forget his hair, but he is only in a couple of very stupid scenes with the dogs. Two scenes with one dog, I think.

One has to wonder who decided to style his hair like he just french kissed an electric socket and why, and hope they never work in film again.

This movie got bad reviews for a good reason--it is mediocre at the very best in spite of a stellar cast. Folks who like the movie claim it is an accurate portrayal of cold war espionage. Not likely, and how would they know? As a thriller it fails on most counts. None of the characters are likable. The plot is so twisted that it is hard to follow. At the end of the movie I thought, "who cares", and was irritated that I wasted two hours.

The sexual politics were also offensive. Gay people are treated particularly poorly and women are mostly silly. Barbara Parkins is one exception but her part is fairly small.

My only "complaint" about this film is that it is just a bit maudlin, but I have to admit that the bittersweet story line is part of the attraction for the first half of the film. Towards the second half one starts to long just for a bit more plot or focus. It is also a real ensemble piece. I think that many of the comments and message board comments here on IMDb reveal the series of unfolding surprises which make this such on overall delight. So I will not do that. The list of "keywords" is particularly ridiculous. This is a film with two streams: sex/love and death; and then a more subtle underlying theme about the artistic process.

Had this been a larger film the authenticity would have been lost to the group grope and series of business decisions that big films have become. I give this a ten not because it is perfect, but because it made me smile over and over again.

Sorry to my fellow reviewers, you got it right, but ultimately wrong. The right part was this was a B movie, not lavished with expensive "names", or much of a script. It was for feeling good after a War which we cannot even imagine. The script can be summarized as, "I wanna go home, and Boy Meets Girl". Mostly though, this just wrapped around lots of very good music. Very Good. This was about 30 years before MTV, TV's were rare . . . Watch this movie as if it is a light-hearted series of Music Videos, remembering the general times. Do that, and you will enjoy it (if you enjoy 40's music (of various styles)).

Fourth-billed Anne Jeffreys was terrific. Terrific. She glammed it up playing a jazz singer trying to get home after being stranded in occupied France. Wow!

The remaining cast (as actors and comedians) were just average, but the ensemble performance numbers were great. The second-billed Marcie McGuire was vocally decent (although the range of her numbers could have been larger--Presumably not her fault), but she was too old for the juvenile part, and the perky American kid bit got a bit old.

Jack Haley was indeed hard to watch. Third-billed Glen Vernon was forgettable. But then remember the title. Sing your way home, which this movie did. It is a bit of Americana.

This film is very underrated on this site. It is in a genre that is not really made very often any more--action adventure that is plausible both in plot and technology. And the action adventure plays equal footing to the actual acting and dialog. It is closer to an World War II action film than to, say, one of Arnold Schwartzeneger's action films.

As an artistic piece of work, the lack of women (and any romantic story) keeps this cold war picture completely focused on the primary story, and makes the actors work all that much harder to keep the viewer engaged.

There is also a good bit of spectacular on-location filming that still takes your breath away with its beauty. The actual polar icecap scenes (with actors) where the focal point of the movie's action takes place is a set. And it is a glorious one. No CGI imagery here! I bought this DVD for this film in a bargain bin. If you get the chance snap one up, or rent it and watch it on a decent TV. Great transfer.

Good score as well.

My reviews often seem to be "in defense of" reviews after a group of reviews pan a movie, without really considering the genre. It is like reviewing a opera as bad when the standard being applied it a hip hop concert. Or something like that.

This movie is silly and lightweight. Folks break out singing and dancing all over the place, cuz it is an MGM musical. (I do ding it for being in black and white.)

The leads are Bobby Van and Debby Reynolds. They sing, they dance, they act as silly as can be. It is fun, it is very 50's. All is resolved in the end. It is cute. And you get to see Bob Fosse in his early days blowing everyone off of the screen with his dancing.

Great character actors abound, playing up their characters to the top, in a way that current film makers would never allow. I'm not saying I want to see lots of this kind of fluff, but as fluff it is pretty good. And the fantasy part makes me want to go back to the midwest and do college again. Well perhaps that is overstated.

Watch this to see the fun dance numbers and take a look at the Hollywood take on college in the 50's. It is a bit of an anthropological statement dressed up with some fun music. Sex,,,,Nope ya won't see that; but you do see the obsessional way that 18 year olds fall in love. And a movie that can capture that (as I remember it rather than with the rather bad parts of it) has its good moments.

Everyone is cute, everyone is white, everyone is straight (even though they sing and dance and write poetry an awful lot). If that is not you, ya got to take a bigger step or suspension of belief to become involved in the movie. The heavies are not that heavy, bad behavior is overlooked as youthful indiscretions. Looking at this view of idealized life and how it has changed in 50 years is interesting in itself. This is also one of the last of MGM's musicals. Bobby Van really did not adapt to the changing times, or at least studios did not see his potential for non-singing and dancing roles. That is a shame. Debby Reynolds is still working after the death of the musical, and Bob Fosse went stellar in spite of the death of the musical. They just kept making them for him (still do and he has been dead for about 15 years!). A good later nighter.

This is light weight, low budget camp. It doesn't really hit, but it is clear that (at some point) the director went with the flow and intentionally made a "so bad it's good" movie. (Except it isn't really quite "good") Watch it for a laugh. If you are watching it to see large breasts bouncing around: Grow up and just rent some porn.

If I understand th gist of all the grossly negative comments they mostly revolve around Vamiprella (Talisa Soto) not having large enough breasts and that her costume is not skimpy enough. Hmmm. One can guess that these guys don't ever get the chance to see an actual nude female in real life unless they pay for the privilege.

Now my take on the costumes. The female costumes are quite skimpy and tight. The red rubber costume of Vampirella has a gold bat placed right over her naught bits and appears to be a a big arrow directing the viewer to her vagina. It is hysterically funny (pun intended). If her costume was any skimpier, this would be soft-core porn rather than camp.

Unfortunately the men, although in many cases also encased in shiny sexy rubber, are not so tight, and the men are mostly pretty unattractive. (The Demos character is sexy though.) There are plenty of chances to make everyone look good, and rubber, like tight black leather, is a sexy (albeit silly) costuming material.

Enjoy this with low expectations and you may enjoy it for how bad it is (and was intended to be). The acting is mostly pretty bad. Bad enough to make it part of the campiness and funny part of the movie.

Except for Roger Daltry. One could go on for quite a long time trying to explain why he was so bad in this. He is over the top, but that is the whole idea, so that is not it. I think it is because he seems to not take it as a joke. There is no way to suspend reality at all while he is on the screen, and even with a silly piece like this, you need to do that a bit. How far has Mr. Daltry fallen since he was Tommy and part of the Who! He should never appear as an actor and just remember the days when the Who was fabulous and Tommy was hailed as the original "rock opera", and the band was considered to be the best of the best by many. He was never an actor he was a musician.

Yeah, I have to agree about the fangs; they really were cheesy and looked like they came from Wal Mart. Some times they fit so badly they distorted the actor's faces and gave them a horse-like appearance. Can't decide if this was so bad it is funny. I guess I have to give it a nod to the funny side of things.

Anyway it is silly. It is fun. It does not succeed as a good sci-fi, vampire, or as porn; but doesn't try.

This has all the makings of an underground camp hit, but just barely misses the mark. It is funny and totally does not take itself seriously. So if you are looking for a serious sci-fi, horror, or gore pic--well this is the wrong flic for you. And you will be offended. If you want a mindless somewhat funny pic for some late night watching, this might be worth a viewing.

The film does not have any big "names" in it, or actors that really have become big in the 12 years since it was made (as of 2007). Is this good or bad . . .well you don't wonder how the actors decided to so something so silly. Much of the female acting is pretty good. It is good enough that you don't see the jokes coming. The male acting is too silly and it predicts the jokes to their detriment.

There are visual as well as story homage to some of the low budget sci-fi films of the 50's and 60's. This is good.

The reviews and comments that pan the movie for not being serious enough don't seem to get that this is foremost comedy and satire and in fairness should be reviewed as such first.

This is 70's TV at it's worst, at least the 22 minute version (cut for a 30 minute TV slot). This is the version I watched, but it is hard to imagine how adding another 15 or 20 minutes of footage could have saved this piece of ****. (In the longer version I understand that part of the time was used for the story and part for an out of character "real world" interview of Joan by Gary Collins about her own personal ESP experiences. Well, um, whatever.)

None of the story makes sense. It is not scary. The bad guys have no motivation for being bad, they just decide to murder someone for the fun of it, but there is no real sense of sociopathy. Joan just runs around, and although she knows the group is trying to kill her she doesn't just leave. etc. etc. etc. There is a very contrived bit about a deaf young woman and a boat that is so silly that it moves beyond camp.

Perhaps the longer version fills in some of the holes but there are so many of them, but I am guessing that it just would make for a longer period of pain. OK, it is Joan's last performance so you might want to see it just to see how far gone she was. That is the only reason I watched more than ten minutes of this. Her acting, makeup, and hair are so cartoonish that I wondered if everyone involved behind the camera was trying to make her look ridiculous. She is in her late 60's, I believe, when this was filmed; and she is playing a mid-40's character. Quite unconvincingly.

On the good side: The 70's clothes and hair are perfect period pieces (well except for Ms. Crawford's who was dressed in a bunch of ugly but colorful suits). A couple of the guys and girls were attractive.

But other than marveling at just how far Joan Crawford fell and watching a quintessential 70's look and feel, this is basically unwatchable.

Totally Flawed!

Sci Fi's Battle Star Galactica, with no great source material shows that with a TV budget you can make decent Sci Fi drama. This just misses in almost every way, and is much, much, much worse than the (couple of years earlier) Sci Fi's Dune.

(And my put on the David Lynch Dune of 1984--wonderful stuff, it just was too short, which made reading the book first almost mandatory to "get it".)

Firstly one has to preface this with the "fact" (or at least almost universal agreement) that while Dune (the book) was a science fiction/fantasy work that transcended the genre, his later books were more of a muddle. It just was not clear what they were really about. The source material for this movie was particularly so. In it Frank Herbert essentially said, "Oh, the whole moral, religious, and ecological basis of the the original book were all a big mistake." It is still good sci-fi, but it made the book much less universal. (And the subsequent books and especially most of the ghost written books by his son (supposed to be based on Franks notes) are more so. Some to the point of silliness.)

So the very long source material is more problematic than in the original very long Dune book.

OK, that out of the way . . .

This is just very, very, very made for TV Movie. Poorly acted. OK Alia was not so bad (Daniella Amavia), but her psychotic episodes got pretty tedious, and it was very small. In the source material Alia was a goddess, here she is just crazy mean bitch. Julie Cox as Princess Irulan gave a better than average performance; but as noted by many here and for the first Sci Fi channel, she was a minor character in the source material (the books). It seems pointless to expand characters when your already cannot fit the source material into the movie. I also agree that Alec Newman playing Paul has learned how to act between Dune and Children of Dune. He was tolerable here.

This is not a comic book kind of story. Susan Sarandon made it so. She was not scary, she was silly. She if a phenomenal actress, which makes me believe that the direction is mainly at fault. Like William Hurt (also an academy award winner) in the Sci Fi channel's Dune it is a fairly small part. They paid for a name who apparently came in for a day or two of quick shooting. (Funny Hurt was kind of wooden when he should have been charismatic. They took Sarandon exactly the opposite way.)

The other acceptable performance was in the Baron Harkonan part, Ian McNiece. He was OK, but not close to the how the book's character as a total moral abomination. Big Star Trek fans will like Alice Krige. She has a real physical presence but the acting is just OK.

For the rest (to quote from the original books and movies), "nothing". The twins were apparently extracted from some mediocre daytime soap opera. Very pretty blonds who smile constantly.

Dialogue has been partially updated but dumb.

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Story: You just don't care. In the book, even though it isn't close to the the original Dune in quality, you really do. There is mystery. There confusion (in a good way). There is a premise (even if it is opposite of the first book). Gone.

I'm not going to go into the relationship to time and place and religion of the 1960's that produced Frank Herbert's original material. Just will say, this is not about anything. A good movie needs to be about something, or have a riveting plot, or have great (or OK) acting. This is just a movie that is sort-of about the book. -- Special effects: Good special effects alone don't make for a good movie, they make for a very good video game. You need the rest for a good movie. That being said. These are not good special effects. I watch it and think, O, I could do that on my Mac at home with Apple's software. Which is what I think they mainly did. Lots of it doesn't get there. And those stupid tigers---so video game-ish. CGI characters just aren't there yet (for movies), and these are not good ones.

And what is with the racing across the desert lots and lots and lots. And lots. And lots. BFD.

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And the absolute worst: The costumes and overall look and feel. Lots of velvet Jester's hats. Dark clothing for the desert. Green jungle camouflage stillsuits. Hello? Jungle? Really distracting. Cheap. They do not drape properly. Wigs look like they are made of yarn. The human species is supposed to be diverging, there is not attempt at representing this. The "reverend mother's" head pieces barely stay on their heads and seem to be made out of rice paper. Oh, and the Bene Gesserit are not supposed to age, so the actresses are just too old (except for Susan Sarandon who is just too silly).

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And the final resolution between the women . . . Huh? Dumb. Stupid. A comedy's ending, not a drama of a thousand worlds.

I just never got the folks who hated this movie. Plot concessions (compared to the book) were made, but all of the basic plot lines and characters were included. The amazing part was how Lynch was able to imagine and bring to life the Sci Fi/Fantasy elements in a way which pushed the story line forward. The actors were very well directed (mostly) and a more handsome cast men and women are not to be found. However, the duologue is very stylized--just as it is in the book. Actually, without reading the book, it may be difficult to "get" the reason for much in the movie. But then you have to let go of your expectation that everything in the book will be in the movie--it would need to be about 20 hours long. (The book is long as well, and this just covers the first of a bunch of em.) It is SciFi Fantasy on a very grand scale, and the book is the best of em all.

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The "Baron" is appropriately disgusting and fat and scary. Really disgusting. Paul is mysterious but played a bit cold (compared to the book), perhaps necessary to emphasize his transformation. The "Witches" are just phenomenally cast and played. Sting (the musician) plays a major part (Feyd) surprisingly well and in 1984 had an amazing body which he shows off.

The main conceptual elements driving the books complex plot are all present: Eugenics taken to extreme, Science/Technology Limitations and the result, Feudalism, a nominal relationship to Islam, a messianic story, Ecological Balance - - - all wrapped up in a brilliant visual piece. But this is an adult piece. No Star Wars concessions to marketing toys and fart jokes for six year olds. There is very adult sexuality which really would be disturbing for a child or young adolescent.

10/10 for being a true must-see if you are a Sci Fi fan.

Good concept that was not realized. It has some charm and giggles though. Mostly this is a bunch of really silly sight gags and physical comedy gags. In something like this the plot could actually get in the way. But you do need some plot to set the gags up. No plot here, the writers should have watched some old Marx Brothers or Bob Hope movies for some guidance.

The gags are all over the place and some are funny. The 20th repetition of a fart joke

started to stink after the second time.

The director and writers were truly obsessed with sexual orientation, from the obligatory gay bar scenes to locker-rooms. It isn't horribly offensive, but these are very, very, very tired. Perhaps if these had been just slightly more offensive they would have been funny. OK, in this film the jokes are things like just like saying the word "gay" or finding out someone was gay. This is only funny to 15 year olds (or 30 year olds with sexual orientation issues). Oh, the leather pants on a fat gay guy has been done a gazillion times. In British comedy skits I've even seen it be very funny; but when the point is just to make being gay be silly (I guess so that being gay is not so scary (i.e., attractive), it is just dumb.

That scary pretty muscled wrestling chick (who never really seemed like a chick) Joanie Laurer appears in a variety of unbelievable scary sexy get-ups and actually is extremely funny. She is a comic gem.

Okey Dokey, the real reason I gave this a six is cuz Dolly Parton is in it, kind of believable as the paranoid Mother. Credible acting and her comedic timing was better than the lead Dave Sheridan. It is really too bad that more parts aren't around in the comedic arena that can use her ability to laugh at her persona. Dolly is both good and funny looking, she knows it, and totally works it. She looks great here (in her late 50's looking and playing someone in her mid-40s). (Oh, I just saw her in concert up pretty close and she really does look amazing in person. This is a woman who is fully in-charge of her physical presence, it is just fun to look at her.)

About the leads--Cameron Richardson is the "straight guy" in the film. She is a very blond sexy girl-next-door type; unique pretty face and great body. Real boobs. With better material she could be the next Cameron Diaz type. Mostly here she is just the love interest of the guy with the jokes. She is better than Dave Sheridan (the male lead) with the few jokes she has, and this probably would have been funnier if they could have used her talents better. There is a lot of funny face making kind of comedy and she is better at that too--looking goofy sexy. Ya have to suspend reality for any film, and for a silly bunch of gags like this, even more so. But no one could suspend their belief enough to think for a silly this woman would be remotely interested in the Dave Sheridan character. Since the ongoing theme of this flic is male sexual insecurity, perhaps this is supposed to be the resolution of that tension (as in many films of this ilk).

Dave Sheridan plays a part that is a good ten years younger than he actually is (I think he was mid 30's when this was made and the part is a mid 20's-ish part.) He plays a super dork, lots of silly outfits, silly face making, disguises running from celebrity black-face (amazingly not as obnoxious as you might think, but also surprisingly unfunny when it could have been), straight-guy being amazed at masculine gay men (that being a revelation, and like the black-face surprisingly not obnoxious (and also not funny when it conceivably could be); and mostly a 4rth rate Will Ferrell. He was very approachable though, and the total lack of anything but ultra-nice guy probably made this less funny than it could be. Well he is a nice looking guy and without his shirt on has really nice upper body definition.

There are a surprising number of 2nd string cameos that are mildly interesting. Scott Baoio is relentlessly ridiculed and he finally makes an appearance in tights with a broken nose. His "package" is apparent and they must have given him salt peter to make it so small. Other than some very, very skinny legs looks pretty much like he did 25 years ago. It was so very, very small that one has to wonder just how nervous the director really is about male genitals. (Honest.)

Enrico Colantoni (you will recognize as Elliot from the TV show "Just Shoot Me") has a major role in this film. Totally not funny, whereas in Just Shoot Me he consistently was funny. The physical comedy and sight gags of this film (even accounting for the bad writing) may just not be his forte. He is an actor whose performances are all over the place (quality-wise) and in this film he just isn't funny. Or any good in his unfunny parts. He is a sexy barely middle aged bald guy in Just Shoot Me, in this film his physical presence is totally gone. Funny given that film folks are generally better at making the "stars" (he is really more of a "featured player" look great.)

It is watchable, ultra-silly, and the concept was better than the execution. But it has Dolly and the wrestler sexy-scary chick and their roles take this from a 3.5 to a 6. Barely.

In the early 70's many of the same actors made one excellent and a second really good but not quite excellent fun action film based on Dumas' classic stories with a small amount of fairly inaccurate history thrown in. By this film history is completely gone as is any relation to Dumas' book other than the characters. This film is based on the concept of aging musketeers. It is a funny concept, but just doesn't carry a film. The same gag, guys who can't do it anymore, gets old pretty quickly, and it then it just isn't fun to watch. There is a reliance on things like dwarfs being funny to look at, and elaborately silly hidden panels and such, funny costumes, and Mel Brook-ish humour and funny accents in very poor rhythm with the plot line. The move between gags and the plot is just plain jarring. It is intended as a parody of the first two films--a lovely idea in concept--but it would work as a 15 minute skit, not a feature.

Part of why it worked was the quality of the stars with the three central characters (not in order of billing) (of the film) D'Artagnon, Cardinal Richelieu, and Lady De Winter being played by Michael York, Charleton Heston and Faye Dunaway. Chareleton Heston and Fay Dunaway do not return to this film and they are very missed. Kim Catrell plays the Faye Dunaway role (as her daughter) and lovely though she is, she just is not close to the actress that Dunaway was. Dunaway managed to be really be scary and sexy (Think Vagina Dentata as a surprise to a lover kind of feeling). And Heston, crazy gun coot that he was then, was pretty scary in a fun way too. The actor in his role just is not very convincingly malevolent. Also missing from this cast is Raquel Welch, playing the dumb, funny gorgeous sexpot (against Dunaway's scary, super-intelligent sociopathic sexpot).

Given the quality of the original two films, and how mediocre the script for this is, I am surprised the rest of the major players returned: Christopher Lee (great in all), Oliver Reed (playing a drunk--big surprise), Geraldine Chaplin (her role is larger and Much more poorly written--she is not a comedienne), and Richard Chamberlain. All wonderful actors but poorly used in this film.

There is a young love interest couple: OK I've mentioned it exists.

Finally, Michael York was rivetingly sexy in the first two films. In 1974 he was 32 and played an 18 year old quite convincingly. In 1989 he was 47 playing a 47 year old who appeared to be 30. He was still fun to watch, but I think he kind of dumbed-down his physical grace, where as the other musketeer actors clearly couldn't run (ya know in real life) couldn't run more than four or five steps. Oliver Reed and Richard Chamberlin did still sizzle a bit in 1974 but by 1989--nada in the sexy pants division for these two. Like Chaplain, comedy is not their forte. This has no credible dramatic elements. They are not enjoyable to look at, so it doesn't leave lots for them to add.

Oh yeah, don't confuse this with the Disney Three Muskateers film made in the 90's. It is almost unwatchable.

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I noticed from someone else's review that an actor known in the UK for physical comedy actually was killed doing a horse stunt, and that partly accounts for folks in the UK likely this film more than folks in the US. It always seems awful when you read someone dies making a film doing a stunt. It is especially dreadful when the film comes out to be mediocre like this one.

I gave this a five, meaning fair. An unfortunate thing about this site is that if you actually watch a film, you rarely really hate the film--at least if you are watching it on video. So my evaluation of 5 really does mean fair, but a film that has an average of 5 on this site is generally truly rotten.

A message movie, but a rather good one. Outstanding cast, top to bottom. Interesting in that Bette Davis's plot line is essentially back story! The extremely negative reviews (name throwing at the screenplay/playwright, associating this somehow with extremely negative comments about 'Angles in America', etc. etc.) object to the movie being too preachy about Germany in WWII. Gosh, that is just a bit too sophisticated an understanding of morality for me.

Theatrical and movie-making, and acting styles vary over time and of course 70 years later this particular movie would not be made in this way. Yes Casablanca is a better movie (I guess), but although made in the same year and both having Nazis in them, Casablanca is primarily a love story. The love story in this movie takes second seat to the spy plot--more of a thriller. Both have a rather large number of somewhat cheesy accents and wonderful character actors. The children ARE a bit tedious and could have been edited

This film is a comedy. Dame Rutherford has one of the funniest faces ever to be filmed. It is worth watching just to see her parading around in a formal maids costume, and she slogs her enormous saggy breasts around like comic sidekicks. Watch it for that. She is enormously entertaining in all senses of the word! Watch this for her mugging! She is a parody of the elderly, fat, but stouthearted English lady seen in Hitchcock films. And a really, really funny one.

As a mystery, however, this fails completely; and if this is your introduction to Agatha Christie, well too bad for you. There are no clues. There are no red herrings. Actors are knocked off all over the place but since they don't seem to have anything to do with the plot, it doesn't make much difference. It is wrapped up in the last five minutes or so, but in a way almost unrelated to the earlier part of the film. I also was able to identify the killer as soon as he or she appeared, although not from any clues.

There are several other Miss Marples that are better: Joan Hickson is very close to the books. And you couldn't have a worse script (from a decent enough book of this genre).

Finally, although filmed (if it was actually "filmed" and not "videotaped") does not have the depth one expects in a black and white film (visually). It looks like a Munsters TV show, including some of the characters (like the Eddy Munster-esquire kid).

Finally, the soundtrack is truly TV quality and consists mainly of a harpsichord playing the same phrase over and over and over again. Cheasey to the max. But kind of comfortingly cheesy.