I've been featuring a lot of cheese on the blog lately. This film is no exception - in fact, this film is an exemplary specimen of ripe, pungent, aromatic cheese, courtesy of Aaron Spelling. After flight 502 for London takes off from New York, a letter is discovered in the first class lounge warning of murders that will take place during the flight. Only the first class passengers are involved, and they include mystery writer Mona Briarly (Bergan), pop star Jack Marshall (Bono), international thief Paul Barons (Fernando Lamas), Jewish mother Ida Goldman (Molly Picon), bratty teenager Millard Kensington (Danny Bonaduce), Charlie Parkins (Walter Pidgeon) as well as a flight crew including Captain Larkin (Robert Stack) and stewardess Karen White (Fawcett). Who is responsible for the letter and who is or are the targets? As people start to die (in the "yanked from view into a closet" style of murder) we learn that the person who wrote the letter isn't joking. Red herrings abound, are dismissed and then the characters involved in them are relegated to the background. Also look for Brook Adams, Laraine Day, Ralph Bellamy and Hugh O'Brian in the cast.
Due to Farrah Fawcett's involvement in the film, it was released on DVD in the late 90's. Most of the reviews I've read seem to have missed the campier aspects of the film, but it's worth seeing for just those aspects. In addition to DVD, it can be seen in full above, thanks to a YouTube upload by smpr12.
Obscurity factor: 7 (on DVD and YouTube, known to Fawcett fans, otherwise forgotten)
Showing posts with label Fernando Lamas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fernando Lamas. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Peter Falk, Madeline Kahn & Eileen Brennan in The Cheap Detective (1978)
Obscurity factor: 7
Hot off the success of Murder By Death, Neil Simon and Robert Moore put this little film together. It extrapolates on the Humphrey Bogart style character that Peter Falk played in the film and pairs him with a bevy of saucy ladies from femme fatales to girls Friday. The film is a parody of the best of the genre, including Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, Chinatown and even A Streetcar Named Desire.
The production values are very high, it's beautifully shot in smoky rooms with dramatic lighting and the costumes and sets are nicely rendered. They provide the setting for some deftly handled, if at times silly comedy. Also look for Ann Margaret, Stockard Channing, Sid Caesar, Marsha Mason, James Coco, Phil Silvers, Fernando Lamas and John Housman.
In the clip above, Eileen Brennan plays a remarkably funny lounge singer, uploaded to YouTube by SueSnell. The film is available on DVD. The poster above is available from MoviePosterShop.com.
Obscurity factor: 7 (available on DVD, has cult following, but isn't as well known as Murder by Death)
Hot off the success of Murder By Death, Neil Simon and Robert Moore put this little film together. It extrapolates on the Humphrey Bogart style character that Peter Falk played in the film and pairs him with a bevy of saucy ladies from femme fatales to girls Friday. The film is a parody of the best of the genre, including Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, Chinatown and even A Streetcar Named Desire.
The production values are very high, it's beautifully shot in smoky rooms with dramatic lighting and the costumes and sets are nicely rendered. They provide the setting for some deftly handled, if at times silly comedy. Also look for Ann Margaret, Stockard Channing, Sid Caesar, Marsha Mason, James Coco, Phil Silvers, Fernando Lamas and John Housman.
In the clip above, Eileen Brennan plays a remarkably funny lounge singer, uploaded to YouTube by SueSnell. The film is available on DVD. The poster above is available from MoviePosterShop.com.
Obscurity factor: 7 (available on DVD, has cult following, but isn't as well known as Murder by Death)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)