CYBORG 2087 (US - 1966) Directed by Franklin Adreon. Written by Arthur C. Pierce. Cast: Michael Rennie, Karen Steele, Wendell Corey, Warren Stevens, Eduard Franz, Harry Carey Jr., Adam Roarke, Dale Van Sickel, Troy Melton, Jimmy Hibbard, Sherry Alberoni, Betty Jane Royale, John Beck, Jo Ann Pflug, Richard Travis, Byron Morrow. (Unrated, 86 mins) Made on the cheap and originally intended for TV syndication, CYBORG 2087 has surprisingly bigger aspirations than its paltry budget can accommodate. Shot in a flat fashion on backlots, a western ghost town set, and in a Los Angeles neighborhood, the film was directed by Franklin Adreon (1902-1979), a career journeyman who began writing Republic Pictures serials back in the 1930s like THE FIGHTING DEVIL DOGS and DICK TRACY'S G-MEN before moving into directing television in the 1950s and 1960s like LASSIE and SEA HUNT. Released by the short-lived United Pictures Corporation, CYBORG 2087 was shot back-to-back with DIMENSION 5, using the same crew and many of the same sets and locations, and both were written by Arthur C. Pierce (1923-1987), whose screenplay credits include such gems as 1960's BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER, 1965's THE HUMAN DUPLICATORS, and 1966's WOMEN OF THE PREHISTORIC PLANET. Nothing Pierce ever penned was as imaginative as CYBORG 2087, but the film is repeatedly thwarted by its cheapness and the old-fashioned, get-it-in-the-can attitude of Adreon. He's obviously constrained by a budget that looks like less than an average episode of LOST IN SPACE, but only an anonymous clock-puncher like Adreon could take this ambitious science-fiction story and end it with a old-timey brawl in a barn that looks like an outtake from yet another version of THE SPOILERS. Watching CYBORG 2087 today, it's impossible to ignore the similarities with James Cameron's THE TERMINATOR--a universally-regarded classic--and Charles Band's TRANCERS--a smaller film with a devoted cult following--two films by young, visionary directors that would come a couple of decades later while CYBORG 2087 was consigned to late-night TV well into the 1980s and eventual obscurity once battered prints of old movies on The Late Late Show followed by a sign-off became a thing of the past.
In 2087, half-human/half-machine cyborg Garth A7 (a slumming Michael Rennie, in an obvious riff on his iconic role as Klaatu in 1951's THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL) is beamed aboard a small spacecraft to 1966. His mission: abduct military scientist Prof. Marx (Eduard Franz) and bring him to 2087, preventing him from introducing his latest findings in his study of "radiotelepathy" that will result in government abuse and subjugation of future generations over the next century, turning the America of 2087 into a totalitarian hellhole of controlled thought and rule by evil cyborgs. Garth A7 is programmed to feel no emotion, his focus only on his mission, which makes it easy to exercise control over Marx's colleagues Dr. Zellar (Warren Stevens) and Dr. Mason (Karen Steele). But as they become convinced that what he's saying is true, Garth A7 learns emotion and bonding and feels a need to protect Mason and Zellar when two "tracers" (old-school stuntmen Dale Van Sickel and Troy Melton) are sent from 2087 to kill Garth and prevent him from changing the future.
It's almost certain that James Cameron saw CYBORG 2087 at a drive-in or on TV at some point in his life prior to 1984 (Garth A7's bond with Mason and Zellar also prefigures the Terminator's friendship with young John Connor in TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY). While it's entertaining and never dull, it more or less boxes itself in as an MST3K-worthy "bad" movie with its inherent time-capsule cheesiness that puts in in the same category as everything else Pierce wrote: the ridiculous western brawl between Garth A7 and a tracer; the cheap "future" sets in the 2087 prologue (featuring a lab technician played by a debuting Jo Ann Pflug, who would co-star in Robert Altman's MASH a few years later), including a time-travel console with old-school 1960s tapewriter labels, the script not even foreseeing the era of the P-Touch; the instantly-dated pandering to "the kids" with 1966 teenagers who look like they're in their mid-20s and behave like it's a decade earlier (one is played by a debuting John Beck, later of ROLLERBALL and AUDREY ROSE); the exterior of the sheriff's office being an obvious condo that probably belonged to someone on the production; the sheriff being played by a skidding Wendell Corey (REAR WINDOW), drunk and slurring his words (he'd be even more shitfaced in 1968's THE ASTRO ZOMBIES before he died the same year from liver failure at 54 but looking 74); the tracers jogging around L.A. neighborhoods with toy ray guns and Great Gazoo helmets as they scour the area for Garth A7; Garth A7's mechanized left arm just being some silver retractable pens Scotch-taped to Rennie's arm; and Rennie running around throughout the film apparently completely oblivious to how Garth A7's tight space outfit makes it awkwardly obvious that the veteran British actor is going commando and totally freeballing it.
Michael Rennie (1909-1971)
Rennie made a name for himself in his native England in the 1940s before coming to Hollywood in 1950. After THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, he co-starred in some prestigious productions throughout the decade (THE ROBE, DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS, DESIREE) before moving to TV in the 1960s. By the time of CYBORG 2087, his career was in a serious downturn and despite appearances in a couple of big-budget Hollywood movies in 1968 (THE POWER and THE DEVIL'S BRIGADE), he was becoming a regular fixture in European genre fare like Antonio Margheriti's THE YOUNG, THE EVIL AND THE SAVAGE (1968) and Giorgio Ferroni's "macaroni combat" outing THE BATTLE OF EL ALAMEIN (1968). Battling emphysema and forced to have his final performances dubbed by someone else due to his weakening health and voice, Rennie finished his career in an undistinguished fashion, playing a mad alien scientist sent to Earth (between that and CYBORG 2087, you can see the Klaatu-inspired typecasting that plagued his final years) to resurrect dubious incarnations of classic movie monsters in the 1970 Spanish-made Paul Naschy monster rally ASSIGNMENT: TERROR. Always a consummate professional, Rennie brings some gravitas to CYBORG 2087 and appears to be taking it seriously, despite his impressive package shifting and flopping around for all to see. CYBORG 2087 isn't the standard definition of a "good movie," but it's better than its reputation and deserves some credit for attempting some ambitious ideas with a budget that can be politely termed "woefully inadequate."
DIMENSION 5 (US - 1966) Directed by Franklin Adreon. Written by Arthur C. Pierce. Cast: Jeffrey Hunter, France Nuyen, Harold Sakata, Donald Woods, Linda Ho, Robert Ito, David Chow, Jon Lormer, Bill Walker, Kam Tong, Marianna Case, Deanna Lund. (Unrated, 91 mins) Shot immediately after and released at the same time as CYBORG 2087, DIMENSION 5 is just as cheap but completely lacking in any entertainment value. The less said about it, the better, and filled with endless clumsy exposition drops of the walk & talk variety (early on, one of these has the actors going through doors but walking down the same barely redressed corridor three times, and the same condo from CYBORG 2087 is somehow used as the entrance to a spy agency previously established as existing in the California Federal skyscraper), DIMENSION 5 runs 90 minutes but feels like a week and a half. American superspy Justin Power (Jeffrey Hunter) teams with sexy Chinese agent Kitty (France Nuyen) to use a nonsensical time travel belt (don't ask) to stop a plot by nefarious crime lord Big Buddha (Harold Sakata, best known as GOLDFINGER's Oddjob) to blow up Los Angeles (of course, it's later revealed that Kitty's reasons for going after Big Buddha are personal). Absolutely nothing happens in DIMENSION 5--one argument between Power and Kitty plays like a dry run for the "Whose reality? Yours or mine?" argument from THAT'S ARMAGEDDON! in KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE--and the whole clunky, unpolished fiasco plays like the kind of painfully bad Z-movie you'd expect from an Al Adamson or a Jerry Warren. It's hard to believe the same director and writer made CYBORG 2087, which isn't necessarily "good" but at least has some inventive ideas and tries to look as presentable as it can while being financed with pocket change. DIMENSION 5, on the other hand, is an endurance test that only has a charming Nuyen to make it remotely bearable, and not even the imposing Sakata--badly dubbed by Paul Frees, who also revoiced Toshiro Mifune in John Frankenheimer's GRAND PRIX the same year--can liven it up, other than some amusing overacting in his death scene. Fans of QUINCY, M.E. will enjoy seeing Robert Ito as a Chinese agent (never mind that Ito is of Japanese descent) a decade before his career-defining role as Sam, medical examiner Quincy's hapless assistant, constantly forced to cancel his plans and stay late at work while an easily-distracted Quincy abandoned his job duties to play amateur sleuth, ordering him to "Cover for me, Sam."
Jeffrey Hunter (1926-1969)
DIMENSION 5 gets nothing from a bored, coasting Hunter, who co-starred with John Wayne in John Ford's timeless classic THE SEARCHERS a decade earlier and played Jesus in the epic KING OF KINGS just five years before this bottom-of-the-barrel dud. Hunter had recently finished "The Cage," the unaired pilot episode of STAR TREK, where he starred as Capt. Christopher Pike opposite Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock. After some retooling by creator Gene Roddenberry, Hunter declined to shoot a second pilot and wasn't interested in committing to the show if NBC picked it up, so the Pike character was essentially rewritten as Capt. James T. Kirk, giving William Shatner the role of a lifetime as Hunter made mostly garbage movies for his few remaining years. Like Michael Rennie on CYBORG 2087, Hunter was at a career low circa DIMENSION 5. His subsequent roles were TV guest spots, supporting roles in the 1968 Robert Shaw western CUSTER OF THE WEST and the same year's Bob Hope/Phyllis Diller bomb THE PRIVATE NAVY OF SGT. O'FARRELL, and several low-budget European productions, including the raunchy German sex comedy SEXY SUSAN SINS AGAIN and the Spanish gangster movie CRY CHICAGO. Hunter suffered a concussion during an on-set mishap near the end of production on CRY CHICAGO. He subsequently had a seizure on the flight back to the US, later believed to be a smaller stroke preceding a massive cerebral hemorrhage he would suffer at home in Los Angeles, during which he fell and fractured his skull. He was rushed to the hospital for surgery and never woke up. He died on May 27, 1969 at just 42, only three months after marrying his third wife. It would be 1971 before SEXY SUSAN SINS AGAIN would open in the US, along with the 1968 Italian spaghetti western FIND A PLACE TO DIE, and SUPER COLT 69, a 1969 Mexican western Hunter shot just prior to CRY CHICAGO, which ended up going straight to syndicated TV at some point in the 1970s.
Both CYBORG 2087 and DIMENSION 5 have just been released on Blu-ray (!) by Kino Lorber. They've been given the red carpet treatment with HD restorations--4K in DIMENSION 5's case, which completely undeserving. The rights to the films ended up with Paramount at some point, and they've been languishing in a vault for years, if not decades. They look better than ever, certainly an improvement over scratchy old TV prints and incomplete versions on YouTube. There's an audience for every movie, and I'm sure someone will find some semblance of entertainment value in DIMENSION 5 that a sane person cannot, but CYBORG 2087, once you get past its cheesy TV look and general cheapness and ineptitude, has something there in its concept--it's one of the earliest instances of pop culture specifically using the term "cyborg," first coined in 1960--that paved the way for smarter, better explorations of its themes and ideas.
THE EXORCIST III (US - 1990) Written and directed by William Peter Blatty. Cast: George C. Scott, Ed Flanders, Brad Dourif, Jason Miller, Scott Wilson, Nicol Williamson, George DiCenzo, Don Gordon, Lee Richardson, Grand L. Bush, Nancy Fish, Viveca Lindfors, Zohra Lampert, Barbara Baxley, Harry Carey Jr, Ken Lerner, Mary Jackson, Sherrie Wills, Tracy Thorne, Tyra Ferrell, Lois Foraker, Kevin Corrigan, Patrick Ewing, Samuel L. Jackson. (R, 110 mins)
LEGION (US - 1990/2016) Same credits minus Jason Miller and Nicol Williamson. (Unrated, 105 mins) Released in August of 1990 after a tumultuous production, THE EXORCIST III is tops among threequels that completely disregard the Part II's that preceded them, instead functioning as a direct sequel to the first film (see also HIGHLANDER: THE FINAL DIMENSION and the recent BLAIR WITCH, to name just two). William Peter Blatty, the author of The Exorcist who adapted his 1971 novel for William Friedkin's landmark 1973 classic, had nothing to do with John Boorman's insane box office bomb EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC (1977) and opted to write his own sequel, publishing the novel Legion in 1983. When it came time to make Legion into a film, Blatty adapted and directed it himself, but made the first of many compromises with Morgan Creek bosses James G. Robinson and Joe Roth when he agreed to include the word "Exorcist" in the title. Throughout production, no one could settle on a name: on-set footage of the clapboard shows it as EXORCIST 1990, and it was also called EXORCIST: LEGION and EXORCIST: 15 YEARS LATER at various points. Even before shooting wrapped, the signs of disconnect and a communication breakdown between Blatty and his backers were already glaringly apparent.
The focus here is on Lt. Bill Kinderman, the Georgetown detective who investigated the death of the movie director thrown out of possessed Regan MacNeil's bedroom window in the 1973 original. Kinderman had a much larger role in the novel but was mostly relegated to the sideline in Friedkin's film, where he's played by the great Lee J. Cobb. Cobb died in 1976, so Kinderman is played in THE EXORCIST III by George C. Scott, whose interpretation is much more sarcastic and blustery than Cobb's more soft-spoken and easygoing portrayal. The film also features the minor character of Father Dyer, played in Friedkin's film by church technical advisor Rev. William J. O'Malley, and here by Ed Flanders. The character of Father Damien Karras, the troubled priest who sacrifices himself by jumping out of Regan MacNeil's bedroom window and tumbling down the famous steps to his death, makes an improbable return in THE EXORCIST III. It was Blatty's initial wish to have his old friend Jason Miller, who received an Oscar nomination for his work in THE EXORCIST, reprise the role but for various reasons (more on that below), Miller was replaced by Brad Dourif. The plot has Kinderman investigating a string of brutal killings where the victims all have at least tenuous ties to the original exorcism of Linda Blair's Regan MacNeil. The methodology follows that of James Venamun, aka "The Gemini Killer," a Zodiac-like serial killer who was executed in the electric chair 15 years earlier, the same night of the MacNeil exorcism. Kinderman's investigation leads him to the locked-down psych ward of a local hospital, where he sees a patient who looks exactly like the long-dead Father Karras. The priest is possessed by the spirit of the Gemini Killer. Karras' soul was taken from his body at the moment of death by what Venamun describes as "The Master," who was angry about being exorcised from Regan MacNeil and decided to put the Gemini Killer's spirit into the body of Karras. After a decade and a half of rebuilding his strength inside Karras' body, the Gemini has been leaving Karras and possessing elderly folks in the dementia ward, who are then able to escape the hospital and continue his killing spree 15 years after his presumed death.
It's an admittedly hokey story that works because of the unique elements Blatty brings to the table. It plays like a supernatural police procedural, with plenty of Blatty's trademark eccentricity, dark humor, and verbose repartee, particularly in the spirited and sometimes oddball conversations ("The carp...") between Kinderman and Dyer (Cobb and Miller were able to bring a little of that to THE EXORCIST, but there's much more of it here) and the bizarre character quirks, like twitchy, chain-smoking Dr. Temple (Scott Wilson) having stacks of newspapers ("I like to read the science articles") and nudie mag pics plastered on his office wall. THE EXORCIST III is very dialogue-heavy and at times feels like more of a companion piece to Blatty's only other directing effort, the 1980 cult film THE NINTH CONFIGURATION, which also featured Miller, Flanders, Wilson, and George DiCenzo from this film. But when Blatty turned in his cut of LEGION (or whatever it was called at the time), the studio wasn't happy. Their biggest concern was that there was no exorcism, but they also didn't like the idea of Dourif in the role of Karras and insisted Miller be summoned to reshoot all scenes involving the character. That was Blatty's original intention, but as Dourif explains on Shout! Factory's new two-disc Blu-ray set, Miller was suffering from severe alcoholism at the time, with everyone agreeing that he wasn't up to the demands of the role. The idea of replacing Miller with Dourif wasn't too hard to fathom, especially since they already had Scott replacing Cobb and Flanders in place of O'Malley. Morgan Creek didn't budge. They wanted someone from the original EXORCIST, so Miller was brought in and Dourif was informed by Blatty that his entire performance was being scrapped. But, as Blatty feared, Miller started showing signs of not being up to the task, so a decision was made to reduce his workload by having Dourif return to essay the role of just the Gemini Killer, instead of both Karras and the Gemini-possessed Karras. So in what was ultimately released as THE EXORCIST III, when Kinderman sees Karras, the priest is played by Miller, but when Karras is overtaken by the talkative, ranting Gemini Killer, the audience sees Dourif, who returned to reshoot half of his scenes, meeting the demand of the producers that Miller play Father Karras and satisfying Blatty's wish that Dourif still be in the film. It's an initially jarring effect, but it works for the most part. Nicol Williamson was cast as Father Morning, a character exclusive to the reshoots, who arrives for a climactic exorcism that comes out of nowhere and looks like a hastily tacked-on afterthought even to those not in the know about the film's troubled production. For starters, Karras is suddenly possessed by the devil for the climax (the uncredited voice provided by Scott's two-time ex-wife Colleen Dewhurst), which is filled with loud, gory special effects (Morning's skin peeling off as he unsticks himself from the ceiling) that are completely at odds with the serious, understated tone of the first 95 minutes of the film.
THE EXORCIST III opened to middling reviews but its reputation has improved over time. It remains a flawed mess but has so many effective moments throughout that the good far outweighs the not-as-good. The long, static hallway shot of the nurses' station culminates in one of the greatest jump scares in horror movie history. The nature of the Gemini Killer's murders and Kinderman's investigation ("the victim had an ingot driven into each of his eyes, then the killer cut off his head and crucified him on a pair of rowing oars") are profoundly disturbing and get under your skin in ways that prefigure the likes of David Fincher's SE7EN and help make this film as terrifying as THE EXORCIST in its own way. It's worth noting that all of these creepy scenes and the incredible hallway jump scare were in the LEGION cut, which built up a mystique over the years, with rumors always swirling that Blatty wanted to assemble a director's cut. But extensive searches yielded little and the footage was never found, leaving LEGION a title regularly mentioned with other Holy Grails of lost films, like the never-to-be-assembled original cuts of Erich von Stroheim's GREED (1924) or Orson Welles' THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942). The original prints of LEGION have been lost to time for now, but we've got the next best thing on Shout!'s Blu-ray: in addition to the theatrical version, there's a composite assembling of Blatty's original vision using VHS dailies combined with footage from THE EXORCIST III that remained from the original cut of LEGION. Because they were part of the studio-mandated reshoots, neither Miller nor Williamson are in LEGION, so other than incidental bits (like shots of photographs) reinstated to indicate that Dourif was indeed playing Father Karras, most of the big differences start around 50 minutes in when Kinderman first visits Karras' cell and Karras is only being played by Dourif. The cell is different in LEGION, which was shot at the DEG Studios in Wilmington, NC, while the reshoots were done in Los Angeles on a different set, which necessitated Dourif filming his scenes a second time. It's easy to see why Robinson and Roth were unhappy with LEGION. As brilliant as it is at times, it's got one of the most abrupt and anti-climactic endings you'll ever see. Dourif's memorable performance is more hammy and his voice electronically altered a bit in THE EXORCIST III, but the actor prefers his slightly more restrained LEGION interpretation and remains dissatisfied with the released version.
As incongruous as the exorcism is in a film called THE EXORCIST III, it's the best of two imperfect ways to end the movie, and it's the only cut that includes Scott's incredible "I believe!" speech, which wasn't in LEGION. Even with Blatty's original version now newly-assembled for fans to finally see, it still doesn't explain the inconsistencies with the 1973 film. The biggest of these is Scott's Kinderman repeatedly referring to Karras as his "best friend," when, going by their relationship in the first film, they had one testy but generally good-natured conversation before Karras' death. When did they have a chance to pose for a happy photo on what looks like a fishing trip? Kinderman's friendship with Father Dyer makes sense, especially considering the reinstated ending on the 2000 "Version You've Never Seen," where Cobb's Kinderman and O'Malley's Dyer walk away from the MacNeil house with Kinderman quoting CASABLANCA's "beautiful friendship" line (faithful to Blatty's novel, but unnecessary in the film). And it's still hard to accept that a detective as observant as Kinderman, even in a state of concern over his friend Father Dyer being hospitalized, would fail to notice a headless statue right in front of him by the elevator. Also, in LEGION, Dourif's possessed Karras has an ability to mimic sounds, like roars and train whistles, a concept that was wisely dropped for THE EXORCIST III. Another key difference is that the closing scene of THE EXORCIST III--Kinderman and cop Atkins (Grand L. Bush) standing over the grave of Father Karras--actually comes much earlier in LEGION, when they're exhuming Karras and discover the remains of Brother Fain, an elderly Jesuit who vanished in 1975. In LEGION, the Gemini Killer reveals that Fain was tending to the burial of Karras when the possessed-by-the-Gemini Killer priest awoke and crawled out of his coffin, inducing a heart attack and scaring Fain to death. The explanation is also in THE EXORCIST III, but it makes little sense without Fain's backstory and the exhuming of Karras' remains.
While not adhering to the tone or style of Friedkin's 1973 classic, LEGION is a film that still gets under your skin, demonstrating some distinct similarities to MR. FROST, a little-seen and now-forgotten 1990 supernatural thriller that was also released not long after THE EXORCIST III, with Alan Bates as a cop dealing with chatty serial killer Jeff Goldblum, who claims to be Satan. EXORCIST sequels seem to be a doomed lot, as shown again 14 years later when Paul Schrader's EXORCIST prequel DOMINION was shelved entirely for EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING, a completely reshot version directed by Renny Harlin, with both starring Stellan Skarsgard as a young Father Merrin, Max von Sydow's character from the original. Similar to LEGION in that it was a thoughtful look at the nature of evil rather than a conventional, head-spinning and green-barfing possession movie, DOMINION eventually got a limited release before appearing on DVD. but was further evidence that no one was sure what they really wanted out of an EXORCIST movie. Still, even with its problems, THE EXORCIST III is easily the best of the bunch after Friedkin's original trailblazer. Shout!'s Blu-ray is packed with extensive vintage and new supplemental material, including an audio interview--played over the LEGION cut as a commentary track--with the now-88-year-old Blatty who, not surprisingly, hasn't directed a film since.
MIRACLE MILE (US - 1989) Written and directed by Steve De Jarnatt. Cast: Anthony Edwards, Mare Winningham, John Agar, Lou Hancock, Mykel T. Williamson, Denise Crosby, Kelly Minter, Kurt Fuller, O-Lan Jones, Robert DoQui, Earl Boen, Danny De La Paz, Claude Earl Jones, Alan Rosenberg, Diane Delano, Alan Berger, Brian Thompson, Jenette Goldstein, Edward Bunker, Howard Swain, voice of Raphael Sbarge. (R, 88 mins)
Despite rave reviews from critics, MIRACLE MILE wasted no time vacating theaters as quickly as possible. Opening on May 19, 1989, the last weekend before that year's big summer kickoff (back when Memorial Day weekend signified the beginning of the summer movie season) and the same day as the immortal ROAD HOUSE, the Richard Pryor-Gene Wilder comedy SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL, the inferior horror sequel FRIGHT NIGHT PART II, and the teen comedy HOW I GOT INTO COLLEGE, it landed with a thud in 15th place. A box-office bomb, MIRACLE MILE has gone on to become one of the essential cult films of the 1980s and has just been released on an extras-packed Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. An apocalyptic AFTER HOURS or DR. STRANGELOVE remade as a meet-cute date movie that also prefigures Don McKellar's 1998 film LAST NIGHT, MIRACLE MILE has lovestruck trombone player Harry Washello (Anthony Edwards, also the star of HOW I GOT INTO COLLEGE) charming waitress Julie Peters (Mare Winningham) after spotting her at the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits. As Julie goes to her night shift at a coffee shop, Harry tells her he'll meet her outside when she's off at midnight, but a power outage causes him to oversleep and he doesn't get there until nearly 4:00 am. Julie's long gone and after leaving a desperate message for her, a romantic comedy enters the TWILIGHT ZONE as he picks up a ringing pay phone. On the other end of the line is Chip (voice of Raphael Sbarge), who's calling from a missile solo, frantically explaining that the nukes have been launched and they've got an hour before they hit. Chip thinks he's talking to his father, but dialed the wrong area code. Chip's ranting goes silent when Harry hears gunshots, followed by a voice warning "Forget everything you've heard and go back to sleep."
Still not sure if it's an elaborate prank, Harry describes the phone call to Julie's co-workers and overnight regulars at the diner. Disbelief escalates when a well-dressed coffee shop regular (Denise Crosby) makes some calls and finds out that many of America's politicians are mysteriously away in South America. Panic immediately ensues, with cook Fred (Robert DoQui) herding everyone into his food truck and heading to the airport, where the well-dressed woman has chartered several flights out of L.A. Fred refuses to go the opposite direction so Harry can pick up Julie, so Harry jumps out of the back of the truck and begins an hour-long odyssey into the night to get Julie--the woman he's waited his entire life to find--and get out of L.A., which is rapidly descending into a state of lawless chaos as the word of the world's end has quickly spread, making Harry wonder if he's needlessly incited a Chicken Little panic.
Steve De Jarnatt at a recent MIRACLE MILE screening
Written and directed by Steve De Jarnatt, MIRACLE MILE took nearly a decade to get made the way its creator intended. A hot property coming out of film school with his acclaimed 1978 short film TARZANA (with cult actors Timothy Carey and Eddie Constantine), De Jarnatt started shopping his MIRACLE MILE script shortly after, generating plenty of buzz but always getting the same reaction: the ending had to be changed. To De Jarnatt, the bleak ending was key to what made the film work, and the near-decade-long ordeal in making the MIRACLE MILE he wanted to make likely had a major hand in him shifting gears and abandoning feature films to focus on TV series work. While MIRACLE MILE languished in perpetual turnaround throughout the 1980s, De Jarnatt sought out journeyman gigs--he scored a co-writing credit on the 1983 SCTV cult comedy STRANGE BREW and directed the "Man from the South" episode of the rebooted ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS on NBC. He was offered films like THE PURSUIT OF D.B. COOPER (1981) and PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE (1985) and he was in talks to direct DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN (1985) before he left the project and was replaced by Susan Seidelman. De Jarnatt ultimately bought back the MIRACLE MILE script to ensure it would be made his way or not at all (on the MIRACLE MILE Blu-ray commentary with film critic Walter Chaw, De Jarnatt says "I was perceived as being arrogant, but I wasn't being arrogant...I just wanted to make my movie"). Still lacking the pull to get MIRACLE MILE made, De Jarnatt stashed it away and went to work on the post-apocalyptic action/romance hybrid CHERRY 2000 for Orion, who shelved it for three years before sending it straight to video in late 1988. By the time CHERRY 2000's belated and unceremonious release came about, De Jarnatt already had MIRACLE MILE in the can.
Support came from Hemdale Film Corporation, the indie that had just hit the respectable big time by backing Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning PLATOON (1986). Not only did Hemdale chief John Daly love De Jarnatt's script, he insisted that the downbeat ending remain intact. Figuring he'd have to make some concessions, De Jarnatt shot a somewhat less bleak--but still bleak--ending and Daly disapproved. "No," the supportive producer advised. "Let's rip their hearts out." Hemdale's credits included favorites like THE TERMINATOR (1984) and RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985), but they were hitting their artistic and commercial pinnacle around the time they gave the green light to MIRACLE MILE. Over 1986-87, the company produced the feel-good sleeper hit HOOSIERS, Oliver Stone's SALVADOR and PLATOON, Tim Hunter's grim RIVER'S EDGE, and Bernardo Bertolucci's epic THE LAST EMPEROR. Their fortunes would quickly wane over 1988-89 with box-office under-performers like CRIMINAL LAW, SHAG, and STAYING TOGETHER, and outright bombs like HOTEL COLONIAL, BUSTER, THE BOOST, COHEN AND TATE, THE TIME GUARDIAN, and the Nicolas Cage-eats-a-cockroach classic VAMPIRE'S KISS. They never had a moneymaker after THE LAST EMPEROR, and by the time MIRACLE MILE came out in 1989, nearly two years after it was shot, Hemdale was starting to run on fumes before sputtering to a quiet end in 1994 with the animated film THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN.
"It seems every year, more people find it," De Jarnatt explains on the commentary. Like most Hemdale releases in 1989, MIRACLE MILE played to empty theaters, but it's managed to find a place in the consciousness of the cult movie collective. Along with the NYC-set AFTER HOURS and John Landis' L.A.-set INTO THE NIGHT (1985), it's one of the great "night" movies of the 1980s, the kind of film that brilliantly captures the look and feel of a city in the wee hours of the morning and that distinct L.A. flavor with its desolate streets ("New York is the city that never sleeps," De Jarnatt says, "but L.A. goes to bed at ten o'clock"), oddball characters, absurdist humor ("Fuck Joyce Brothers!"), and its extremely effective score by Tangerine Dream (De Jarnatt only worked at night while writing the script, and did so while listening to the duo's soundtrack to William Friedkin's SORCERER). It's a distinct product of its era--with pay phones, TV stations that sign off after 2:00 am, and the all-consuming fear of nuclear war--but it's aged very well. Sure, some of the visual effects reveal just how little money with which De Jarnatt had to work, and the fashions unquestionably date the film in the late '80s, but the best things about it stand the test of time, particularly the vivid performances of the cast. Everyone from Edwards and Winningham down to the character player with the smallest bit all get their moments--from the ensemble at the diner (most of the surviving supporting actors all reunite for a group interview on the bonus features) to '50s western and sci-fi hero John Agar, who's just terrific as Julie's grandfather, setting aside his 15-year argument with his estranged wife (Lou Hancock) as the two reconcile on what Harry knows will be the last night of their lives. MIRACLE MILE is a film that has stuck with the few people who saw it in 1989, and it's obviously an important one to everyone involved (Edwards and Winningham also have an intervew on the Blu-ray), all of whom look back on it with nothing but fond memories and are clearly happy that its reputation has grown.
CHERRY 2000 (US - 1988) Directed by Steve De Jarnatt. Written by Michael Almereyda. Cast: Melanie Griffith, David Andrews, Ben Johnson, Tim Thomerson, Pamela Gidley, Harry Carey Jr., Brion James, Michael C. Gwynne, Larry Fishburne, Marshall Bell, Jennifer Mayo, Cameron Milzer, Robert Z'Dar, Jack Thibeau, Howard Swain. (PG-13, 99 mins) Prior to MIRACLE MILE, De Jarnatt made his feature directing debut with CHERRY 2000, a dystopian action sci-fi romance that at times seems to be going for some ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI-style eccentricity. Orion Pictures had no idea what to do with CHERRY 2000, which completed filming in 1985 and saw its release date shuffled multiple times throughout 1986 and 1987 before it was shelved indefinitely. Orion ultimately released it directly to video in November 1988, seven months before the already-completed MIRACLE MILE hit screens and just a month before star Melanie Griffith's breakout, Oscar-nominated performance in Mike Nichols' WORKING GIRL.
In the year 2017 with most of America a desert wasteland and unemployment at 40%, Sam Treadwell (David Andrews), a successful white-collar exec at a recycling business, is heartbroken when his cherished robot lover Cherry (Pamela Gidley) short-circuits and fries during a bout of vigorous lovemaking on a floor flooded by an overflowing dishwasher. Cherry was one of the last of the priceless 2000 line, and when Sam manages to salvage her data chip, he becomes obsessed with doing whatever it takes, whatever the cost, to find a pristine Cherry 2000 to replace his beloved unit. To do this requires the toughest tracker in the area to get him to Zone 7, the location of the last remaining Cherry warehouse, and he finds her in the desolate helltown of Glory Hole: renowned bounty hunter E. Johnson (Griffith). On their way to Zone, located in what was once Las Vegas, they bicker back and forth, with E. Johnson chiding Sam for loving a robot and Sam developing feelings for E. Johnson but unable to let go of his cherished Cherry. They eventually get some help from wily old tracker Six-Fingered Jake (Ben Johnson) and cross paths with treacherous Snappy Tom (Harry Carey Jr), the owner of the Last Chance Brothel & Gas before the introduction of chief villain Lester (Tim Thomerson), who rules what's left of a sand-covered Vegas.
Thomerson!
Written not by De Jarnatt but Michael Almereyda (best known for his modern update of HAMLET with Ethan Hawke) from a story by Lloyd Fonvielle (THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE), CHERRY 2000 is a little silly at times, but it gets a lot of mileage out of a very likable performance by Griffith as the tough and charming E. Johnson, and it really picks up with the arrival of Thomerson, then fresh off TRANCERS, as the ruthless but hapless Lester. It's also enjoyable to see old-school western stalwarts like Johnson and Carey dropped into the middle of such a goofy setting, but CHERRY 2000 has a hard time getting by the black hole in the center that is human charisma vacuum David Andrews. Had the studio's original choice for Sam--a then-little-known Kevin Costner, who backed out after doing FANDANGO, SILVERADO, and AMERICAN FLYERS in quick succession--made himself available, the film likely would've had a more magnetic hero and more box office potential once THE UNTOUCHABLES and NO WAY OUT became big hits in 1987. Andrews has had a busy career in supporting roles and guest spots on TV--with his major series lead coming on NBC's short-lived MANN AND MACHINE in 1992--but there's a reason he never became a star. He plays Sam as whiny, needy, and even a little bit creepy, and while it still would've been silly, Costner would've at least been able to more convincingly sell Sam's devotion to Cherry without coming off in such an unappealing way. Still, CHERRY 2000 plays a bit better now than it did in 1988. It works it fits and starts, but it's a generally enjoyable and appealingly odd fusion of love story, western, and post-apocalypse, and shows what could've been a recurrent De Jarnatt theme of romance blossoming under the unlikeliest of circumstances. When the filmmaker seemingly removed himself from the game after the box-office failure of MIRACLE MILE, making ends meet with TV assignments on shows like THE X-FILES, ER, and LIZZIE MCGUIRE, cult cinema's had a potentially unique voice largely silenced for 25 years. With the Blu-ray releases of De Jarnatt's two forgotten late '80s gems, perhaps it's time for that voice to be heard again.
