The Summer of 1982 retrospective wraps up with a two-week combo installment. In a summer that began with CONAN THE BARBARIAN, it seemed only fitting that it would end with a similar effort in Don Coscarelli's THE BEASTMASTER. This was the first studio effort from PHANTASM director Coscarelli, and tells the story of Dar (Marc Singer), a barbarian prince who can telepathically communicate with animals, and his quest for revenge against an evil wizard named Maax (Rip Torn). The film was a modest hit in theaters, but became a cult classic through years of seemingly constant TBS airings, and there was also the joke that HBO stands for "Hey, BEASTMASTER's on." The film also featured John Amos (GOOD TIMES, ROOTS), and late-period CHARLIE'S ANGELS co-star Tanya Roberts. Singer seemed poised for a breakout with this and the schmaltzy Tom Sullivan biopic IF YOU COULD SEE WHAT I HEAR, and the classic 1983 miniseries V and its 1984 sequel V: THE FINAL BATTLE. It didn't exactly pan out, but he did have a busy career on TV and in B-movies. He also returned for two BEASTMASTER sequels: 1991's BEASTMASTER 2: THROUGH THE PORTAL OF TIME, and the 1996 TV-movie BEASTMASTER III: THE EYE OF BRAXIS (there was also a Singer-less BEASTMASTER TV series than ran for three seasons in syndication starting in 2001). Coscarelli didn't helm either BEASTMASTER sequel, and didn't make another film until 1988's PHANTASM II. He later had a major critical success with 2003's BUBBA HO-TEP. Coscarelli's most recent film is the still-unreleased horror comedy JOHN DIES AT THE END, with Paul Giamatti.
For such a monumental season in genre entertainment and pop culture, the Summer of 1982 started with a bang, roared all through the months of May, June, July, and August, and ended with the most pitiful of whimpers. We're covering HOMEWORK now, and wrapping this whole retrospective up a week early because this was the only film to open the weekend of August 27, and it's hardly deserving of its own entry. The teen comedy HOMEWORK was shot mostly in 1979 as GROWING PAINS, by first-and-thus-far-last-time director James Beshears, and was subsequently shelved by producer Max J. Rosenberg, best known for co-founding the British horror film production company Amicus in the 1960s. But between 1979 and 1982, two things happened that caused Rosenberg to take another look at GROWING PAINS and attempt to salvage something from the wreckage: the "hot older woman/teacher seduces teenage boy" sex comedy PRIVATE LESSONS became a surprise hit in 1981, and GROWING PAINS co-star Joan Collins, slumming in some dubious drive-in exploitation fare by the late '70s, was enjoying a major career resurgence as the supremely bitchy Alexis on the popular ABC series DYNASTY, which debuted in 1981. The producers of GROWING PAINS reshot a large chunk of the film and added some sex scenes with Collins' character--without the involvement of Collins, who was doubled in the new footage--but left in the three-year-old hairstyles and disco music that made it immediately dated for 1982 audiences. Short-lived, small-time exploitation outfit Jensen-Farley Pictures released PRIVATE LESSONS and clearly hoped lightning would strike twice, acquiring GROWING PAINS, retitling the film HOMEWORK, throwing together a slapdash one-sheet (see above), and passing the whole thing off as a PRIVATE LESSONS retread, prompting an unamused Collins to threaten legal action. HOMEWORK vacated theaters after a couple of weeks, and got into rotation on pay cable, where it was overshadowed by the ubiquitous (and awesome) PRIVATE LESSONS. The "hot older woman/teacher seduces teenage boy" subgenre also brought us 1983's MY TUTOR and CLASS, and 1984's THEY'RE PLAYING WITH FIRE among others (you could probably include 1983's "teacher finds out her student is a male stripper" variant A NIGHT IN HEAVEN in this brief craze), and may have inspired the Van Halen song "Hot for Teacher" from around the same time. Beshears, an editor given his sole shot at directing with HOMEWORK, went back to editing and has remained busy in that field to this day, most recently serving as a post-production supervisor on this year's MADAGASCAR 3.
Also of note: THE ROAD WARRIOR, released back in May, was relaunched on August 20 and reappeared in the top ten.
1. E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
2. FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III
3. AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN
4. THE BEASTMASTER
5. THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS
6. THE ROAD WARRIOR
7. FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH
8. STAR WARS (re-issue)
9. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP
10. YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE
TOP TEN FILMS FOR THE WEEKEND OF AUGUST 27, 1982:
1. E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
2. AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN
3. FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III
4. THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS
5. THE BEASTMASTER
6. FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH
7. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP
8. THE ROAD WARRIOR
9. ROCKY III
10. HOMEWORK
Much to the chagrin of concerned parents' groups and a scaremongering media, slasher films were big business in the early 1980s, especially calendar-related slasher films. John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN (1978) is usually credited with creating the holiday slasher subgenre, and while it certainly kickstarted its wild popularity and was instrumental in establishing the formula, it was Bob Clark's terrifying BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974) that did it first. HALLOWEEN exploded, becoming (at the time) the highest-grossing indie film ever, and it led to such titles as TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT, CHRISTMAS EVIL, NEW YEAR'S EVIL, and PROM NIGHT from 1980, GRADUATION DAY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, and MY BLOODY VALENTINE from 1981. 1984 brought the controversial SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, and even as late as 1986, there were two movies--one American and one British--called APRIL FOOL'S DAY, though the British film was retitled SLAUGHTER HIGH for the US.
None of these post-HALLOWEEN holiday/calendar offshoots were as popular as the FRIDAY THE 13TH series, which even inspired its own series of imitative "horny teenagers being killed in the woods/at camp" subgenre. Dismissed and practically burned at the stake by critics, Sean S. Cunningham's FRIDAY THE 13TH, is an expertly-constructed, archetypal slasher film--aided significantly by the terrifying "ki ki ki, ma ma ma" Harry Manfredini's score--that only seems tame today because it's been imitated so much. The success of FRIDAY THE 13TH, and the idea of the killer's actions being some sort of payback for the transgressions of past or present camp counselors, immediately led to THE BURNING (1981), MADMAN (1982), and SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983), which itself had numerous sequels. But even the "dead kids in the woods" angle had somewhat of a precedent with Mario Bava's 1972 Italian horror film BAY OF BLOOD, which existed under a ton of alternate titles (TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, and the misleading LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT PART II among them). FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2's famous scene of two lovers being impaled simultaneously during sex is an idea lifted completely from BAY OF BLOOD. The first two FRIDAY THE 13TH films did huge business and became a near-annual tradition for the rest of the 1980s. The hockey-masked killer Jason is right alongside HALLOWEEN's Michael Myers in terms of slasher horror iconography. Jason wasn't even the killer in the first FRIDAY film: he's only mentioned as the drowned son of Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer), revealed to be the killer, who's seeking revenge on past camp counselors who were fooling around and not paying attention while he cried for help, struggling to stay above the waters of Crystal Lake. Jason only appears in a dream scene at the end, but takes center stage as the suddenly very much alive killer in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2, seeking revenge for the killing of his mother. It was Jason who would become the focal point of the franchise from then on (except for 1985's FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING, which has a killer dressed as Jason), though starting with 1986's witty, self-mocking FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES, the series would abandon any illusion of seriousness, resulting in gimmicky fare like 1988's FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN, and culminating in 2002's JASON X, which finds the killer awakening from a cryogenic sleep in outer space in the year 2455. By this time, the rights to the character had drifted from Paramount to New Line, who owned A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and 2003 saw the release of FREDDY VS. JASON, the last in the original series, which was rebooted in 2009 with FRIDAY THE 13TH to middling interest and thus far, appears to be stalled.
Jason's FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 "sackhead" look, very reminiscent
of the killer in the 1977 cult classic THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN
The iconic hockey mask look that started with FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III, which became the second film of the summer to knock E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL out of the top spot at the box office, is also an important film for the franchise in that it's the first time Jason (played here by Richard Brooker) wears his trademark hockey mask. He had the one-eyed "sackhead" look in PART 2, and he acquires the hockey mask after killing the hapless, buffoonish Shelley (Larry Zerner), who was wearing it at the time. Jason sports the mask for the rest of the film, and the look stuck in subsequent sequels. His first appearance with the hockey mask occurs exactly one hour into PART III and it's one of the series' best moments.
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III also worked in another short-lived early '80s craze: the return of 3-D, which hadn't been widely used since its initial 1953-1954 explosion. Numerous 3-D films were made from 1981-83 before the trend flamed out again: COMIN' AT YA (1981), PARASITE (1982) and several from 1983: TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS, SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE, METALSTORM: THE DESTRUCTION OF JARED-SYN, AMITYVILLE 3-D, and JAWS 3-D.
Also, from a point of personal interest from growing up in Toledo, OH, one of the film's co-stars, Ann Arbor, MI-native Tracie Savage, quit acting after this film to pursue a career in journalism. While watching PART 3 on cable a year or so after seeing in theaters, I recognized her as a reporter for Toledo's then-NBC affiliate WTVG. At the time, being 10 or 11, I couldn't figure out how she managed to go from FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III to being a reporter in my hometown, and that was coupled with the strange feeling of having a seen a well-known local news reporter naked in a horror movie. She was on Los Angeles TV for several years and now handles news radio in the L.A. area, and was even called to the stand to testify during the O.J. Simpson trial in 1995.
Tracie Savage, soon to leave acting for a career in TV news.
FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH was based on a book by Rolling Stone writer Cameron Crowe, who went undercover as a student and chronicled his experiences. Crowe also scripted the film, which featured a large ensemble cast of future stars, including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Forest Whitaker, Eric Stoltz, Anthony Edwards, and Nicolas Cage (in his first film, and billed as Nicolas Coppola). But it was Sean Penn's star-making performance as stoner icon Jeff Spicoli that got all the attention, and deservedly so. Whether he's having pizza delivered to Mr. Hand's (Ray Walston) history class or wrecking the star football player's car ("My old man is a television repairman! He's got this ultimate set of tools! I can fix this!"), Spicoli is one of the great movie characters of the 1980s. As funny as Penn is, he largely functions as the comic relief in a film that's not as slapsticky as its ad campaign indicated. Also featuring Tom Petty's "American Girl," Jackson Browne's "Somebody's Baby," The Cars' "Moving in Stereo," and the Go-Go's "We Got the Beat," plus several girls "who've cultivated the Pat Benatar look." 1984 saw the release of the disappointing semi-sequel THE WILD LIFE, also written by Crowe, which followed a group of friends over the summer after graduation. Stoltz returns, but as a different character, and Penn's younger brother Chris stars as the resident party animal of the group, which seems to exist in the same Ridgemont High universe even though no FAST TIMES characters are carried over. FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH also spawned a short-lived 1986 TV series titled FAST TIMES, with Dean Cameron (Chainsaw from 1987's SUMMER SCHOOL) as Spicoli, but it was cancelled after just seven episodes.
PINK FLOYD THE WALL opened in limited release this weekend, and would go wide a month later. Based on the 1979 Pink Floyd album conceived by bassist Roger Waters, THE WALL would become a mainstream success but went on to a long life as a midnight movie. Working with Waters, who wrote the screenplay, and animator Gerald Scarfe, director Alan Parker brought his unique sense of visual style and his keen ability for melding music and imagery (the Giorgio Moroder-propelled chase in 1978's MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, plus films like 1976's BUGSY MALONE, 1980's FAME, 1991's THE COMMITMENTS, and 1996's EVITA) and helped create a truly nightmarish big-screen vision of Waters' bleak, disturbing magnum opus. The film opened to generally positive reviews but it was far from smooth sailing getting it to the screen. Waters planned on starring as Pink, but the role ended up going to Boomtown Rats frontman and future Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof, while Waters and Parker clashed throughout filming. Despite the behind-the-scenes troubles, the film has aged quite well and as far as cinematic rock operas go, it's arguably the best of its kind, with many haunting, unforgettable images throughout.
Also opening on this busy Friday was the very Reagan-era political action thriller THE SOLDIER, directed by James Glickenhaus, who had a huge sleeper hit with 1980's vigilante cult classic THE EXTERMINATOR. Ken Wahl (later of TV's WISEGUY) stars as a US government operative who tangles with an evil KGB agent (Klaus Kinski!) while dealing with a Soviet plot to detonate nukes in a Saudi oil field and contaminate the world's oil supply unless the US President (William Prince) starts a war with Israel. Glickenhaus, who left filmmaking years ago and became a major NYC investment broker and race car collector, was a tremendously underrated action craftsman with films like this, THE EXTERMINATOR, and 1988's SHAKEDOWN. He doesn't run from his B-movie past however, contributing audio commentaries to Synapse Films' recent Blu-ray release of THE EXTERMINATOR and their planned release of his 1991 Christopher Walken actioner MCBAIN. THE SOLDIER is probably best known for its memorable ski chase. And yes, that music is Tangerine Dream.
Lastly, this weekend also saw the re-release of STAR WARS, accompanied by a brief teaser for the next summer's final installment of the trilogy, then titled REVENGE OF THE JEDI before George Lucas changed it to RETURN OF THE JEDI.
THINGS ARE TOUGH ALL OVER was the fourth Cheech & Chong film since 1978's UP IN SMOKE (following 1980's CHEECH & CHONG'S NEXT MOVIE and 1981's CHEECH & CHONG'S NICE DREAMS). UP IN SMOKE is easily the duo's best film, but after THINGS ARE TOUGH ALL OVER, the formula got pretty stale. The next May, they starred in STILL SMOKIN', a haphazardly-constructed travelogue/concert film, and a month after that, appeared in the Monty Python offshoot YELLOWBEARD. After 1984's THE CORSICAN BROTHERS, the pair went their separate ways. In THINGS ARE TOUGH ALL OVER, the expected stoner jokes abound as the hapless pair are car wash employees hired by two Arab criminals (also played by Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong) to transport a car full of laundered money cross country.
THE PIRATE MOVIE was a musical/comedy very loosely based on The Pirates of Penzance, which itself was given an official movie adaptation a year later. Directed by veteran journeyman Ken Annakin (THE LONGEST DAY, BATTLE OF THE BULGE, THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES), THE PIRATE MOVIE was universally panned and bombed at the box office. It did little to further the big screen careers of its stars: the popular Kristy McNichol (TV's FAMILY, LITTLE DARLINGS) would star in a few more films and was dogged for years by rumors of drug abuse and unreliability. McNichol spent a few seasons as Richard Mulligan's daughter on NBC's EMPTY NEST, and left the series when she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1992. She did a few voice acting gigs for animated TV shows, but retired from acting altogether in 1998. Christopher Atkins was hot off of 1980's THE BLUE LAGOON and on his way to the male stripper favorite A NIGHT IN HEAVEN and a one-season run on DALLAS, but by 1987, he would be headlining the D-grade Mexican nature-gone-amok horror film BEAKS: THE MOVIE. Atkins has worked steadily to this day in low-budget DTV fare (PROJECT SHADOWCHASER III) and occasional TV guest spots, but is still recognized primarily for THE BLUE LAGOON, most recently appearing in a cameo in the Lifetime movie BLUE LAGOON: THE AWAKENING.
Annakin would only complete one more film--1988's THE NEW ADVENTURES OF PIPPI LONGSTOCKING--though he did co-direct (with Antonio Margheriti) the legendarily-troubled Italian production GENGHIS KHAN, which starred Richard Tyson, Charlton Heston, John Saxon, Rodney A. Grant, and Pat Morita. GENGHIS KHAN began shooting in the Soviet Union in 1991 but production was halted during the August Coup and never resumed. Enough was shot that Annakin made a few attempts to complete the film over the years--even after Margheriti's death in 2002--but was unsuccessful. Annakin died in 2009 at the age of 94, with his final film left incomplete. Once every few years, there's a blurb that GENGHIS KHAN is about to be released (most recently in 2010), usually by whatever new fly-by-night company that recently acquired it in a liquidation, but other than shoddy-looking bootlegs, it hasn't happened. It's one of those infamously lost train wrecks that can't possibly be as interesting as its backstory (especially with "Buddy Revell" from THREE O'CLOCK HIGH as the title character), but if nothing else, this trailer (from a planned 2006 release that never happened), while misspelling co-star Julia Nickson-Soul's name, at least verifies that GENGHIS KHAN indeed exists in some patched-together capacity
AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN was perhaps 1982's stealthiest blockbuster. It opened with little fanfare on July 30 and didn't have its biggest week until September. It remained in the top five until December, only taking the top spot twice, but it made just under $130 million to became the third highest-grossing film of the year. The film, directed by Taylor Hackford (THE IDOLMAKER) and written by Douglas Day Stewart (THE BOY IN THE PLASTIC BUBBLE, THE BLUE LAGOON), is predictable and manipulative (especially the storybook finale), but it's got some strong performances and for the most part, it's aged well. Aimless, troubled, and angry Zack Mayo (Richard Gere), still not over his mother's suicide when he was child, joins the Navy as a way out of his dead-end life with his drunk father (Robert Loggia), whose idea of bonding is getting a prostitute for the two of them to share. He befriends fellow recruits Sid Worley (David Keith) and Casey Seeger (Lisa Eilbacher), clashes with drill sergeant Foley (Louis Gossett, Jr), and falls in love with local factory worker Paula Pokrifki (Debra Winger) who, along with her best friend Lynette (Lisa Blount) dream of finding a Navy man to whisk them away from their dead-end jobs so they can see the world. Gere is very good as the irresponsible Mayo (aka "Mayo-naise," aka "Mayo the Wop"), who finally learns how to be a man once he's away from his loser father (fourth-billed Loggia exits the film before the opening credits, and spends most of his screen time scratching his balls), and it's he and Winger's considerable onscreen chemistry that made this the massive hit that it became. That, and the hugely popular Joe Cocker/Jennifer Warnes theme song "Up Where We Belong."
The song got an Oscar, and the Best Supporting Actor Oscar went to Gossett, who's fine in the role, but there's really nothing exceptional in his performance (and the Oscar curse led him straight to 1983's ill-advised JAWS 3-D). Of course, this was before R. Lee Ermey rewrote the book on cinematic drill sergeants five years later in FULL METAL JACKET (some of Ermey's dialogue seems to have been taken from here, as Gossett mentions "steers & queers," and threatens to gouge out Sid's eyes and "skullfuck" him). Winger first gained notice in 1980's URBAN COWBOY and helped provide the voice of E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL, and received the first of her three Oscar nominations here, and this film was big enough for her that it managed to get her top billing over established stars Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson in the next year's TERMS OF ENDEARMENT. Winger, who famously clashed with MacLaine and quickly earned a reputation for being "difficult," has never been as vulnerable and appealing as she is here. Gere, coming off of AMERICAN GIGOLO, has been in a lot of big movies but has never really gotten the respect he's deserved as an actor. Watching the film again after many years, I was surprised at how good Gere is in this--not just in his interaction with Winger, Keith, or Gossett (the boot camp scenes are beyond formulaic), but most impressively in the scene where Mayo sacrifices his chance at the obstacle course record to help Seeger over the wall. It's audience manipulation at its most blatant, but Gere and the charming Eilbacher (why was she never a bigger star?) sell the hell out of it. But was it necessary for Mayo and Foley to settle their differences with a martial-arts match-up?
Ron Howard previously directed and starred in 1977's GRAND THEFT AUTO for Roger Corman, but NIGHT SHIFT was his first theatrical feature as a director since leaving HAPPY DAYS to focus on a career behind the camera. Working from a script by regular collaborators Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel, Howard brought along his TV co-star Henry Winkler and created one of the most immensely likable comedies of the year. It would probably rank as a comedy classic if it didn't lose momentum in the last third and drag on a bit longer than necessary. Winkler stars as Chuck Lumley, a mild-mannered night shift attendant at the NYC morgue, but from the very moment he's introduced, the film belongs to a debuting Michael Keaton in a star-making performance as his new assistant, fast-talking "idea man" Bill "Billy Blaze" Blazejowski.
With the help of Chuck's prostitute neighbor Belinda (Shelley Long), Chuck and Bill begin running a profitable prostitution ring out of the morgue. Winkler and Keaton are a great team, and after several years of doing stand-up and assorted TV roles, Keaton immediately established himself as a major new comedic talent, and in the coming years, would prove to be just as adept in serious roles as well. Long was a few months away from starring in CHEERS, and the film also features appearances by Bobby DiCicco (who gets the immortal line "Oh, that Barney Rubble...what an actor!"), Richard Belzer, Joe Spinell, Nita Talbot, an ass-baring Michael Pataki, Vincent Schiavelli, Cassandra Gava (the witch in CONAN THE BARBARIAN), a young Shannen Doherty as a girl scout, and Kevin Costner as "Frat Guy #1" (he's at the party in the morgue, behind Keaton as he's balancing a beer bottle on his forehead), in addition to the inevitable Clint Howard.
The soundtrack features songs written by Carole Bayer Sager and Burt Bacharach, including the title track by Quarterflash (still riding high on "Harden My Heart"), Al Jarreau's "Girls Know How," and Rod Stewart's version of "That's What Friends Are For," which became a chart-topping charity single for Dionne Warwick and Friends (Elton John, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder) in 1985. Other songs on the soundtrack include Van Halen's cover of "You Really Got Me," Talk Talk's "Talk Talk," and two songs by Riggs, a band that Warner Bros. got on the HEAVY METAL soundtrack as well, and were thoroughly unsuccessful at convincing the world to give a shit.
Also in theaters this weekend was the Chuck Norris thriller FORCED VENGEANCE. Norris was slowly building a name for himself with drive-in hits like BREAKER! BREAKER! (1977), GOOD GUYS WEAR BLACK (1978), A FORCE OF ONE (1979), and THE OCTAGON (1980). AN EYE FOR AN EYE (1981) moved him closer to mainstream action and SILENT RAGE (1982) mixed Norris action into a sci-fi/horror story. Four months after SILENT RAGE hit theaters, Norris was in theaters again with FORCED VENGEANCE, which finds him in more familiar surroundings as a casino security guard taking on the crime syndicate of Hong Kong. The relentlessly busy Norris next did LONE WOLF MCQUADE (1983) and then had his first bona fide box office smash with MISSING IN ACTION (1984). FORCED VENGEANCE was directed by Clint Eastwood protege James Fargo, who served as an assistant director on several Eastwood films throughout the '70s before the star let him direct THE ENFORCER (1976) and EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE (1978). Fargo left the Eastwood stock company in 1978, doing the box-office bombs CARAVANS (1978) and GAME FOR VULTURES (1979). FORCED VENGEANCE grossed $6.5 million and was the closest thing Fargo had to a hit without Eastwood, and by 1984, he was directing Pia Zadora in VOYAGE OF THE ROCK ALIENS before settling into a TV career (directing episodes of THE A-TEAM, SCARECROW AND MRS. KING, and HUNTER), with occasional B-movie assignments. After directing a low-budget 1998 kids movie called SECOND CHANCES, Fargo went MIA but finally emerged from obscurity after 13 years with BORN TO RIDE (2011), a straight-to-DVD SONS OF ANARCHY knockoff, with Casper van Dien and Patrick Muldoon reuniting from STARSHIP TROOPERS.
TEX was the first of a string of S.E. Hinton adaptations to hit screens from 1982 to 1985. Directed by Tim Hunter, who went on to make RIVER'S EDGE (1987), TEX stars Matt Dillon and Jim Metzler as two teenage brothers whose father (Bill McKinney) abandons them after their mother dies. It's a typical Hinton coming-of-age drama, with younger brother Tex (Dillon) forced to grow up fast and big brother Mason (Metzler) shouldering the responsibility of raising his little brother. The fine supporting cast includes the great Ben Johnson, Meg Tilly, and a young Emilio Estevez as a friend of Tex's. Dillon and Estevez would become almost the de facto faces of S.E. Hinton on the big screen, starring with an army of young, promising talent (Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, and others) in Francis Ford Coppola's THE OUTSIDERS (1983) and Dillon would also star in Coppola's second Hinton adaptation, RUMBLE FISH, later in 1983. Estevez wrote and starred in 1985's THAT WAS THEN...THIS IS NOW, leaving 1988's Taming the Star Runner the only one of Hinton's young-adult novels that hasn't been made into a film involving either Matt Dillon or Emilio Estevez.
1. E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
2. THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS
3. AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN
4. YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE
5. NIGHT SHIFT
6. ROCKY III
7. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP
8. SIX PACK
9. POLTERGEIST
10. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (re-release)
July 16, 1982 was one of those packed weekends where there's so many new movies released that some are bound for box-office failure, especially with the unstoppable juggernaut that was E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL. Capitalizing on Steven Spielberg's huge success with E.T., Paramount chose this weekend to re-release 1981's RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and it ended up being the top "new" offering of the weekend, adding to the director's incredible success over the summer of 1982.
The medical soap opera spoof YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE opened as well, to generally decent if unenthusiastic reviews, but became a surprise sleeper hit, grossing around $30 million. A stab at AIRPLANE!-style humor in the ZAZ mold, YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE was directed by TV icon Garry Marshall (HAPPY DAYS, LAVERNE & SHIRLEY) and starred familiar TV faces like Michael McKean, Ed Begley, Jr., and Ted McGinley, as well as perpetual Marshall regular Hector Elizondo, BLADE RUNNER's Sean Young, Harry Dean Stanton, Patrick Macnee, George Furth, Taylor Negron, and Dabney Coleman. It was also an early hit for future mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who would crack the big time a year later when he partnered with Don Simpson to produce FLASHDANCE.
Woody Allen's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SEX COMEDY is an homage to Ingmar Bergman's SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT, set in the early 1900s at a weekend cottage getaway for three couples (Allen and Mary Steenburgen, Jose Ferrer and Mia Farrow, Tony Roberts and Julie Hagerty). Being that this is a Woody Allen film, neuroses and comic bedhopping occur, or as much as the PG rating will allow. Far from Allen's best film, but nor is it his worst, the occasionally-amusing MIDSUMMER falls pretty squarely in the pleasant-but-forgettable camp. Allen did this between the Fellini-inspired STARDUST MEMORIES and the experimental ZELIG, and was probably more concerned with continuing to establish his auteur bona fides than making people laugh.
SIX PACK was the big screen debut of beloved country music star and future botched cosmetic surgery case study Kenny Rogers, who had recently turned his hit song "The Gambler" into a popular and oddly-titled made-for-TV western KENNY ROGERS AS THE GAMBLER. The idea of a family comedy with Rogers as race car driver Brewster Baker, befriending and taking care of a ragtag group of six orphaned miscreants seemed like a great idea, and SIX PACK was a modest success in theaters. It hovered around 10th to 12th place for several weeks, very quietly grossing $20 million, and found a bigger audience during its endless cable airings throughout the '80s. Rogers had a likable enough screen presence, and the film does have a solid supporting turn by 17-year-old Diane Lane as the oldest of the kids (a young Anthony Michael Hall is also in it). BUCK ROGERS' co-star Erin Gray has one of her rare big-screen leading roles, and the great character actor Barry Corbin is a crooked sheriff. SIX PACK spawned a huge hit single for Rogers with "Love Will Turn You Around," which was far more successful than the movie, in addition to a 1983 pilot for a proposed NBC series that never happened, with a pre-MIAMI VICE Don Johnson as Brewster Baker and Leaf (later Joaquin) Phoenix as one of the Six Pack.
Lastly, the other major opening on this busy weekend was SUMMER LOVERS, directed by Randal Kleiser (GREASE). SUMMER LOVERS wasn't a success at all, grossing only $5 million, but it enjoyed a long life on VHS and cable, where it introduced an untold number of impressionable, hormonally-overcharged boys to the concept of the menage-a-trois. The film starred Peter Gallagher, Daryl Hannah, and CONAN THE BARBARIAN's Valerie Quennessen, and while surely not on the erotica level of, say, a Laura Gemser EMANUELLE flick, anything gets the job done when you're 11 and the possibility of nudity exists. Gallagher and Hannah, both relative newcomers at the time, went on to long and busy careers and are still active today, while French actress Quennessen only made a few more movies before putting her career on hold for marriage and motherhood. She was just 31 years old when she was tragically killed in a car accident in 1989. SUMMER LOVERS also produced a pair of radio hits with Chicago's "Hard to Say I'm Sorry," and the Pointer Sisters' "I'm So Excited," which is in the film but didn't really take off until 1984.
TRON, released by Disney on July 9, 1982, had been in various states of development by writer/director Steven Lisberger since 1976, when the animator was inspired by the game Pong to create a story that fused film and computer animation. While CGI effects and visuals are commonplace today, the very idea was revolutionary in 1982 and no studio took Lisberger seriously until Disney decided to give him a shot. Lisberger worked on other projects during that time period (TV shows, commercials, directing the 1980 animated film ANIMALYMPICS), but by 1982, the video game and arcade craze was in full swing, and it only seemed natural that a movie would syngergistically combine the two. Many critics and prognosticators were wary of TRON, thinking it would change the way movies were made and that everything could just be computer-animated from that point on. It didn't quite turn out that way, and while it grossed $33 million and made back its budget, it was far from a blockbuster and regarded more as a novelty than the wave of the future. Critics praised the visuals but panned the storyline, but today, TRON is held in a generally positive light. Everyone is quick to point out how 1982 it is (and there's songs by Journey!), and by today's standards, the effects in Lisberger's film are primitively retro but the imagination is there, regardless of how badly they've aged.
Jeff Bridges as Flynn
Bruce Boxleitner as Tron
David Warner as Sark
With all the hype about TRON's groundbreaking use of computer animation, that style was really only used for landscapes and vehicles for the scenes inside the mainframe where software designer Flynn (Jeff Bridges) finds himself teaming with Tron (Bruce Boxleitner) in battle against Sark (David Warner). Most of the imagery involving the actors was achieved with a combination of backlit animation and depth cueing (shooting the actors in high-contrast black & white on a black set), with rotoscoping and other animation techniques to color the actors and fill in the backgrounds of the computer world. According to Lisberger, this technique was more costly and time-consuming than it would've been to simply animate the whole film. But for better or worse, TRON is an important film in the evolution of visual effects and CGI. CGI has made obviously huge strides in the ensuing decades, but many--myself included--feel it isn't quite where it should be considering the extent to which filmmakers rely on it. But at least with TRON, it was supposed to be in the context of a sci-fi/fantasy world and was justified in looking the way it did. And it's hard to disregard a film whose look was designed in part by contributions from French comic book artist Moebius and BLADE RUNNER "visual futurist" Syd Mead.
TRON led to numerous product tie-ins, including video games and toys, and led to the belated 2010 sequel TRON: LEGACY, made at a time when CGI technology was finally capable of being used to the extent Lisberger intended in 1982. Lisberger was only onboard as a producer for TRON: LEGACY (Joseph Kosinski directed it), and has only made two films since TRON: the John Cusack romantic comedy/adventure HOT PURSUIT (1987), and SLIPSTREAM (1989), a big-budget British-made sci-fi epic with an interesting cast (Ben Kingsley, Mark Hamill, Bill Paxton, and F. Murray Abraham) that ended up bankrupting producer Gary Kurtz, a former Lucasfilm executive (hence the casting of Hamill) who went off on his own after a falling out with George Lucas during the making of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Kurtz used his plentiful but apparently not limitless STAR WARS profits to finance SLIPSTREAM, but got divorced in the meantime and lost everything. SLIPSTREAM ended up going straight to video in the US and has since fallen into the public domain and can be found on numerous $9.99 "50 Sci-Fi Hits!" collections that you find at Wal-Mart. SLIPSTREAM is no classic, but it really does deserve a little more dignity than that.
Lisberger hasn't directed a film since SLIPSTREAM, and other than a 2010 Comic Con appearance to promote TRON: LEGACY and doing Q&A's at occasional TRON screenings, he maintains a pretty low profile. Still, even if he isn't a household name, Steven Lisberger is held in high regard by visual effects artists and technicians for his envelope-pushing work on TRON 30 years ago. Even the Pixar folks have name-checked him as a major influence and gone on the record in saying that Pixar wouldn't be what it is had TRON not helped pave the way.
TRON director Steven Lisberger being interviewed by Walter Cronkite in 1982.
1. E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
2. TRON
3. ROCKY III
4. FIREFOX
5. POLTERGEIST
6. ANNIE
7. STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN
8. BLADE RUNNER
9. THE THING
10. THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER
THE SECRET OF NIMH didn't open nationwide until July 16, 1982, but it was given a limited release in a few markets two weeks earlier. The animated film was much-hyped at the time because it was the debut effort from former Disney staffer Don Bluth. It may be hard to believe now, but there was a time when Disney animation was in decline. The films were getting more expensive and time-consuming to produce, and the focus had shifted to television. By 1980, Bluth decided to leave Disney and took a number of animators with him. In 1982, the independently-produced THE SECRET OF NIMH, based on Robert C. O'Brien's children's book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, was distributed by United Artists to much critical acclaim and moderately successful box office. The film, about widowed field mouse Mrs. Brisby, who encounters a secret society of super-intelligent former lab rats in her quest to move her home and her children out of the path of Farmer Fitzgibbons' field plow, was so expensive to produce for the new Don Bluth Productions that the company ended up filing for bankruptcy despite the success of the film. Bluth and his team quickly rebounded by forming The Bluth Group and designing the animation for the arcade games DRAGON'S LAIR and SPACE ACE, but even that was short-lived when arcade game popularity began to wane shortly after.
Bluth eventually hit his stride when he found a benefactor in Steven Spielberg, who produced 1986's AN AMERICAN TAIL, which quickly became the highest-grossing non-Disney animated film. By that point, Disney was licking its wounds with the tanking of 1985's THE BLACK CAULDRON and their animation department was barely showing a pulse. In 1988, Bluth and Spielberg released THE LAND BEFORE TIME, and on the same day, Disney released its animation comeback OLIVER & COMPANY. Bluth's film was the bigger success at the box office, and for a brief time, his was the biggest name in animation, and while he continued to make high-profile films like ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN (1989), ROCK-A-DOODLE (1992), THUMBELINA (1994), A TROLL IN CENTRAL PARK (1994), THE PEBBLE AND THE PENGUIN (1995), and ANASTASIA (1997), Disney eventually returned to animation dominance with THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989), BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991), and ALADDIN (1993) and they've remained at the top since.
A 1982 publicity shot of Don Bluth
Now 74, Bluth hasn't made a film since 2000's ambitious box office flop TITAN A.E., but has remained busy in the world of video game design and has written two books on the art of animation. Though he seems to have left the world of film, Bluth's name is forever cemented in cinematic animation as the guy who, albeit briefly, bested Disney. He had ambitions and saw possibilities beyond Disney's capability in the 1970s and made the ballsy decision to branch out on his own. And while he faced some financial stumbling blocks along the way, one could argue that Bluth's massive success with AN AMERICAN TAIL and THE LAND BEFORE TIME was the kick in the ass the complacent Disney needed to step up their game. Without Bluth bolting and taking other similarly frustrated animators with him, starting with THE SECRET OF NIMH, there's always the possibility that the Disney renaissance of the 1990s wouldn't have happened.
A publicity shot of Elizabeth Hartman as Mrs. Brisby
Dom DeLuise as Jeremy
John Carradine as The Great Owl
The voice cast of THE SECRET OF NIMH is headed by Elizabeth Hartman as Mrs. Brisby. This was the final film project for Hartman, an Oscar nominee for 1965's A PATCH OF BLUE. She struggled with depression and was just 43 when she committed suicide by jumping out of a fifth-story window in 1987. Other voice actors include Dom DeLuise as a comic relief crow named Jeremy, Derek Jacobi as the wise rat leader Nicodemus, Paul Shenar as the treacherous Jenner, Aldo Ray as his flunky Sullivan, Peter Strauss as the heroic Captain of the Guard, John Carradine as The Great Owl, Hermione Baddeley as Auntie Shrew, and early film credits for Wil Wheaton and Shannen Doherty as two of Mrs. Brisby's children. Bluth had nothing to do with the belated, cheap, and universally-reviled 1998 sequel THE SECRET OF NIMH 2: TIMMY TO THE RESCUE, which went straight-to-video and was directed by veteran TV animator Dick Sebast (FONZ AND THE HAPPY DAYS GANG, THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG). Hartman, Shenar, Carradine, Baddeley, and Ray had passed on by then, and only DeLuise returned from the 1982 film, with other voices being supplied by Ralph Macchio, Eric Idle, Harvey Korman, and William H. Macy.
Backtracking a bit to spring 1982, it's worth mentioning that in this summer ruled by E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL, and with big box office takes for the likes of ROCKY III, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, STAR TREK II, FIREFOX, and others, Albert Pyun's THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER, released way back in April, was still a regular fixture near the bottom end of the top ten (or, in the case of this weekend, 11th place). The film, starring MATT HOUSTON's Lee Horsley and clearly rushed into production to beat CONAN THE BARBARIAN to theaters by a month, was by far the biggest hit (and final release) to come from the exploitation outfit Group 1. Group 1 would, on occasion, accidentally release a good movie like SWORD or ALLIGATOR or Lucio Fulci's THE PSYCHIC, but primarily offered drive-in and grindhouse trash like THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION, JAILBAIT BABYSITTERS, MEATCLEAVER MASSACRE, and NAZI LOVE CAMP 27 (Group 1 chief Brandon Chase left the movie business and, presumably with some of his SWORD AND THE SORCERER money, eventually founded the Beverly Hills-based Swiss watch company Chase-Durer). Early in its run, SWORD would consistently land in the top five despite being on just 660 screens at its widest release. As late as this, its 11th week of release, it was still taking in $1.5 million a weekend, now on just 309 screens with a $5200 per-screen average, a per-screen average that was second only to E.T. Pyun's film very quietly became a massive sleeper hit, grossing nearly $40 million and was in first-run theaters well into August, nearly five months after its initial release, which is the first and last time anyone could say such a thing about any film containing the credit "Directed by Albert Pyun." PORKY'S, released way back in March, was still landing as high as 12th place, with a total just under that of THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER. It's easy to forget that, unlike today when movies are released on 4000 screens and make $250 million in three weeks and are on Blu-ray three months later, things stayed at the theater much longer back then. PORKY'S was released in March. By today's standards, even if it made $250 million in theaters, it still would've been on Blu-ray a month ago.
When I first noticed online chatter about the 30th anniversary of the Summer of 1982 and all the classic genre fare that rolled out during that eventful season, I noticed that a lot of it was centered around this weekend. Yes, there was already CONAN THE BARBARIAN and THE ROAD WARRIOR and STAR TREK II and POLTERGEIST and E.T., but really the weekend of June 25, 1982 is what was generating the most enthusiasm as the 30th anniversary approached. Moviegoers had no way of knowing it at the time, but they wouldn't realize the impact of this weekend for quite some time. Years, in fact. On Friday, June 25, 1982, two of the most important, groundbreaking, influential, and universally respected genre films of the last 30 years were unveiled: Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER and John Carpenter's THE THING.
But it was certainly a different story in 1982. BLADE RUNNER, heavily hyped as not only Ridley Scott's follow-up to ALIEN (1979), but also Harrison Ford's first film since 1981's blockbuster RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, opened well but nosedived its second weekend and fell short of recouping its budget. Considering Ford's recent track record of STAR WARS, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and RAIDERS, audiences didn't want a slow, bleak, philosophical, meditative film noir-inspired science fiction film that didn't offer much in the way of action. Not helping matters was that the released film, as we would find out in the coming years, was not Scott's preferred version, but a compromised one with a changed ending and voiceover narration added after the fact by Ford, who wasn't enthused about this decision and sounds like he's doing it at gunpoint. Nevertheless, the film, based on Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, almost instantly developed a fervent cult following despite disappearing from theaters rather quickly. It's easy to see why: even if you don't like the story or find it too ponderous and slow, there's no denying that it looks and feels like no other film. From Lawrence G. Paull's production design to Douglas Trumbull's photographic effects to the contributions of "visual futurist" Syd Mead to its rainy Los Angeles of 2019 to the hypnotic electronic score by Vangelis, then riding high on his CHARIOTS OF FIRE theme, BLADE RUNNER was a wholly unique cinematic vision that had never been seen before.
The incredible opening scene of BLADE RUNNER:
Harrison Ford as Deckard
The film had to have a few moments of violence trimmed to avoid an X rating, but an unrated version eventually appeared on VHS. A somewhat mislabeled "director's cut" was released in 1992, done without Scott's involvement but assembled based on his original cut. It removed Ford's narration and reinstated the original ending and the important dream sequence with the unicorn. This quickly became the new "official" version of BLADE RUNNER until 2007 when Scott issued BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT, his first fully-approved director's cut with the previous 1992 changes (or reinstatements), along with some different shots, improved visual effects, corrected gaffes (like the digital removal of the visible wires on the flying police spinners), and a more smoothly-done chase sequence between blade runner Deckard (Ford) and replicant Zohra (Joanna Cassidy), a scene that was bungled a bit in past versions by Cassidy's curly-haired stunt double being all too obvious.
Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) delivering one of cinema's great speeches
No less than five versions of BLADE RUNNER exist--the 1982 R-rated theatrical, the unrated version of the 1982 cut, the 1992 "Director's Cut," the 2007 Final Cut, and, exclusively on the Blu-ray set, a pre-release workprint version--though the 2007 Final Cut is now considered by Scott to be official. Nevertheless, there are a small number of folks who prefer the 1982 theatrical. It gives you the proper visual impact, but it's not the film Scott wanted to make (which, all the way up to the just-released PROMETHEUS, seems to be the story of his career), has a happy ending (Deckard escapes with Sean Young's Rachel) and makes clear the many plot elements that co-writer Hampton Fancher preferred to remain ambiguous, though Scott has been pretty clear in his own interpretation of the "Deckard is really a replicant" ending. It took 25 years for Scott's intended version--really a fine-tuning of the 1992 cut--to finally see the light of day, and it works because its technical changes are not overwhelming. Scott uses 2007 technological advancements on a 1982 film but does it in subtle ways. He doesn't put the changes front and center in a way that takes BLADE RUNNER out of its proper era and context. I generally don't agree with filmmakers going back and enhancing or "fixing" a film with technology that didn't exist when that film was made, but if there is indeed a right way to do it, then that's what Scott has done with BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT.
John Carpenter's THE THING, like the 1951 sci-fi classic THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, is based on John W. Campbell, Jr's classic short story "Who Goes There?" The 1951 film had an Antarctica outpost attacked by an alien being (James Arness). Carpenter's film follows the story more faithfully: an alien life form infiltrates an Antarctica research facility and starts killing, absorbing, and imitating the protagonists. It's an exercise in nail-biting, sweat-inducing paranoia and Carpenter and screenwriter Bill Lancaster (son of Hollywood legend Burt) milk it for all it's worth. But what really set THE THING apart from everything else in the summer of 1982 was its shocking, inventive special effects by Rob Bottin. These gory effects were a major gripe for film critics of the old guard, who probably saw Carpenter as a symbol of all that was wrong with horror films in the early 1980s. His HALLOWEEN was instrumental in starting the slasher craze that was flooding theaters and presumably warping the minds of impressionable children. Horror fans who saw THE THING thought very highly of it, but it was a box-office disappointment at the time. It found a strong fan base once it hit video and then became a fixture on pay cable for the rest of the decade.
Kurt Russell as R.J. "Hey, Sweden!" MacReady.
But then something funny happened: years and years later, THE THING started being regularly name-checked by serious film critics as a great horror film. It's not uncommon for John Carpenter films to get belated accolades years after they're released and instantly dismissed (in recent years, critics have finally started coming around to 1987's ambitious, physics-heavy PRINCE OF DARKNESS and 1988's more-relevant-than-ever THEY LIVE), but there's almost nothing but nice things said about THE THING today. Sure, some of the critics of the early '80s have changed their tune, but it's also indicative of a new generation of film critics and historians and the films that mean something to them. In his essential 1985 study Nightmare Movies, Kim Newman was one of the first critics to praise the merits of slasher films, zombie films, and splatter films by people like Carpenter, Wes Craven, and Lucio Fulci, and to say they were just as important as the classics cherished by old-guard stalwarts like William K. Everson, who blasted new films like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and THE EXORCIST in his mid-1970s book Classics of the Horror Film, a survey of horror films going back to the silents. Everson lamented the rise of excessive violence and sex, while Newman essentially said "Times have changed, these are the new classics." One of the best lines in Newman's book is when he hopes some kid reading his book writes another decades down the road that contradicts everything he's just written.
The Norris defibrillation scene:
The point is, there were still a lot of older critics who didn't take a shine to Carpenter and HALLOWEEN and his gore effects and thought the new THING was an insult to the black & white classic from 1951. That is, if they deemed horror a real genre at all, which many highbrow critics didn't. The decades have altered that sentiment, even if Leonard Maltin's book still rates it a mere *½. Aside from Palmer's (David Clennon) top-loading VCR, Nauls' (T.K. Carter) Stevie Wonder-blaring ghetto blaster, and R.J. MacReady's (Kurt Russell) J&B-doused battle with the Chess Wizard, THE THING has aged better than arguably any horror film of its day. As a horror film, it's incredibly intense, and as a study in paranoia, it's top-notch. The characters are believable and they use their heads, and the film establishes ground rules and sticks to them, never cheating. Maybe one reason the film didn't catch on at the time or didn't initally seem appealing to audiences is because horror was fast-becoming a teen genre, and this was filled with cranky-looking character actors like Wilford Brimley, Donald Moffat, and Richard Dysart, with Russell (fresh from Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK), Carter (a comedian who was just in Walter Hill's SOUTHERN COMFORT), and Thomas G. Waites (Fox in Hill's THE WARRIORS) the closest thing to "youth appeal." Maybe everyone was still going to see E.T. and if that was sold out, they opted for BLADE RUNNER because of Harrison Ford. Regardless of the whys, THE THING's day eventually arrived (last year saw the release of a passable but pointless prequel--also titled THE THING--about the events that led up to the 1982 film). Carpenter's THE THING is cherished by fans, and Carpenter, lambasted by film snobs for so many years, is finally held in high regard and lauded as a great filmmaker. I can't recall meeting anyone--in person or online--who doesn't think THE THING is one of the great horror films not just of the last 30 years, but ever. It's a classic, period. And the DVD commentary with Carpenter and Russell is almost as entertaining as the film itself.
BLADE RUNNER and THE THING proved to be films that were years ahead of their time, and both have not only stood the test of time, but they get better with each passing year. Not many 30-year-old films can make that boast, and two of them, so neglected and underappreciated in 1982, were released on the same day.
And then there's MEGAFORCE.
Hal Needham's MEGAFORCE also hit theaters this same weekend. Budgeted at $20 million (quite a bit by 1982 standards), it grossed about a quarter of that and was one of the biggest bombs of the early 1980s, even with a tie-in Hot Wheels playset and an Atari 2600 game. MEGAFORCE is pretty hard to see these days: it was released on VHS and aired on cable, but it's never been released on DVD (though there are bootlegs, and it periodically turns up on YouTube before being taken down), despite it accruing a bit of a following over the last 30 years. Used VHS copies start at $34 on Amazon. The action-packed story centers on Ace Hunter (Barry Bostwick), the leader of Megaforce, a freelance organization of international mercenaries. Megaforce is hired to help the fictional nation of Sardun defeat an invasion by neighboring country Gamibia--an invasion led by Ace's former friend Duke Gurerra (Henry Silva). Filled with flying motorcycles and laser-shooting megacruiser dune buggies, MEGAFORCE is a total comic book fantasy, and Needham (director of numerous Burt Reynolds car chase comedies, starting with SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT) was said to be very discouraged by its horrible reception. Being released the same weekend as BLADE RUNNER and during the summer of E.T. probably didn't help. It wasn't exactly the big break to the A-list that TV star Bostwick was hoping for, either. Bostwick co-starred in THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975), but was primarily a TV actor by 1982, and after MEGAFORCE mega-bombed, he licked his wounds and went right back to TV, where he's enjoyed a busy career to this day with only occasional supporting roles on the big screen.
Also starring in MEGAFORCE were Michael Beck and Persis Khambatta. The engaging Beck established himself as an actor to watch as Swan in 1979's THE WARRIORS, but just couldn't catch a break after that (he once said--I think on the WARRIORS DVD, perhaps?--that "THE WARRIORS opened a ton of doors...that XANADU immediately closed"). After Razzie nominations for both XANADU and MEGAFORCE, Beck moved on to the Roger Corman-released WARLORDS OF THE 21ST CENTURY (aka BATTLETRUCK) and co-starred with Richard Harris in the barely-released TRIUMPHS OF A MAN CALLED HORSE, and then it was pretty much TV guest spots and made-for-TV movies after that. Beck hasn't acted since 2004 but has found a lucrative career as an in-demand voice for TV commercials and audiobook readings. MEGAFORCE did nothing to help anyone's career, but Khambatta seemed to fare worse than her co-stars. After the Indian actress' breakthrough as the bald Ilia in 1979's STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE and as a sultry international terrorist in 1981's NIGHTHAWKS, MEGAFORCE was essentially her last shot at Hollywood fame. Within a year, she was co-starring in the Italian post-nuke WARRIOR OF THE LOST WORLD and did a few TV roles and straight-to-video titles before essentially retiring from acting in the late '80s. She had a couple of bit parts on TV in the '90s and was only 49 when she died of a heart attack in 1998.
With the increased popularity of studios doing manufactured-on-demand DVD releases, it seems unlikely that MEGAFORCE will never see the light of day on DVD or Blu-ray, but there's no sign of it happening in the immediate future.**
**UPDATE: Actually, it appears Hen's Tooth is releasing it on DVD on September 4, 2012.
