Barry Manilow & Annette O'Toole in Copacabana (1985)

After the phenomenal success of his hit song of the same name, Manilow starred in this television musical dramatizing the story we're all so familiar with. Tony (Manilow) and Lola (O'Toole) are talented performers, hungry for their first break. They meet, fall in love and find their way to the Copacabana, where they ultimately find success. Lola is lured away by the promise of making it big in Havana at the famed Tropicana and is heavily courted by the smarmy Rico (Joseph Bologna). Will Tony win her back? will she escape the clutches of Rico? I think you know the answer...

Though it's no classic, there are some lovely moments to be had, and it picks up as it goes along. If nothing else, it's good campy fun. Look for Estelle Getty as Manilow's mother, and some dreadful age makeup on Annette O'Toole at the beginning and end of the film.

This title is available on DVD, and can be seen in full on YouTube, thanks to an upload by nybrian5. The stream is in one big chunk, complete with the original 1980's commercials.

Obscurity factor: 8 (on DVD & YouTube, known to Fanilows, otherwise forgotten)

James Caan, Marsha Mason & Valerie Harper in Chapter Two (1979)

Obscurity factor: 8

Successful author George Schneider (Caan) has recently lost his wife and is having trouble getting back into life. His brother Leo (Joseph Bologna) urges him to go out with other women and fixes him up with actress Jennie MacLaine. While the two hit it off, George has trouble reconciling the relationship with the grief he feels about his wife's passing. Meanwhile Leo has started dating Jennie's friend Faye (Harper). Can the two couples navigate love, loss and dating in the 70's?

This is one of Neil Simon's lesser known films, and there's some charm to be had from it. Marsha Mason is charming as the slightly neurotic actress and though James Caan is a bit wooden, his natural charisma comes through. Harper and Bologna are delightful as the second leads. 

This film is not yet available on DVD, though there is a VHS release of it out. It can also be seen in full on YouTube, though the uploader has disabled embedding, so you'll have to click this link to see it. A television commercial for the film is above, uploaded to YouTube by robatsee2009. The poster above is from Romanian site gk.ro.

Obscurity factor: 8 (not on DVD, not one of Simon's better known films, available on YouTube)

Stockard Channing & Joseph Bologna in The Big Bus 1976

Before the Airplane franchise that revitalized Leslie Nielsen's career there was this 1976 disaster movie parody. The Big Bus had it all - action, suspense, danger... On the cutting edge of technology, the nuclear powered Cyclops is the first luxury bus. For its maiden run - a non stop trip from New York to Denver - after a bomb wipes out the driver and co-driver the team turns to Dan Torrence (Joseph Bologna), a promising bus driver with a dark incident in his past that kiboshed his brilliant career. The film follows the progress of the enormous Cyclops as it navigates the route to Denver and a minefield of attempts to sideline it by a group of oil sheiks and Iron Man, a diabolical villain in an iron lung. Also featured in the cast are a veritable who's who of 70's Hollywood actors - Ned Beatty, Lynn Redgrave, Sally Kellerman, Larry Hagman, Richard Mulligan Jose Ferrer and the irrepressible Ruth Gordon.

The centerpiece of the action is the bus itself - an articulated double decker affair with 32 wheels, wrap around windows and a graphic, orange and yellow paint scheme. It was fitted out with an amazing assortment of features, including automatic, enroute tire changer and flags of the world that sprang from the roof at the touch of a button. Inside were found a cocktail lounge, captains dining room, swimming pool and bowling alley. Here, in a clip uploaded to YouTube by clipfilmix we see the bus making its first appearance:





If you enjoy disaster movies, or parodies of them, then The Big Bus is a must see.

Obscurity factor: 4 (available on DVD, rarely shown on television, footage available on YouTube, recent enough to still be remembered by many)