Godzilla Week: Godzilla Game (Mattel; 1978)

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Challenge of the Super Friends: "Fairy Tale of Doom" (December 2, 1978)

In “Fairy Tale of Doom,” Toyman unveils his “newest and most awesome” invention, a weapon which can zap any living being into the pages of a book.  If someone becomes trapped in said book for more than twelve hours, they are stuck there “forever.”

The Legion of Doom traps Hawkman in Jack and the Bean Stalk, which pits him against a giant. And the Man of Steel is tricked into the world of Gulliver’s Travels, and captured in Lilliput.

Meanwhile, Batman, Robin, Green Lantern and Black Vulcan are trapped in a pit in the Hall of Justice, unable to save their friends.  Meanwhile, the clock ticks down...

Another episode of Challenge of the Super Friends (1978), another ridiculous (but enjoyable) plot-line. This week, the Legion of Doom traps our favorite DC heroes in the fictional world of books.  

It’s a dopey idea -- “Holy Science Fiction!” as Robin exclaims -- and yet an installment filled with fun little Easter eggs.

For instance, the Nautilus, Captain Nemo’s submarine from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, makes a guest appearance in “Fairy Tale of Doom,” and in design it looks almost exactly like the beloved Disney Nautilus from the 1954 film.

Later, while the superheroes fight in Japan, we see a sign for “Toho,” the studio that produces the Godzilla films (and which had licensed Godzilla to Hanna-Barbera for a 1978 Saturday morning series of his own…).

Otherwise, this is your standard episode of the series. Everyone announces what they are going to do, as they do it, and a character inevitably states “That’s what you think!” This time, Toyman gets the honor. 

And, of course, the situations are ridiculous. I noted above that Batman, Robin, Green Lantern and Black Vulcan become trapped in a pit in the Hall of Justice. It has an open-ended top, but the series writers apparently forget that both Black Vulcan and Green Lantern can fly. A hole in the floor shouldn’t impede them;

Next week: “Doomsday.”

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Challenge of the Super Friends: "The Final Challenge (November 25, 1978)

In “The Final Challenge,” a space warp sucks the Super Friends and the Legion of Doom into a strange unknown universe. There, Vartu -- the “peaceful” leader of this realm -- wants to put an end to the constant and endless battling that characterizes life on Earth. 

To that end, he arranges a series of deadly challenges for the super-powered foes. These include a labyrinth of death, a lake of terror, a mission to scale an erupting volcano, and a battle with a two-headed serpent.

Ultimately, the Super Friends prove victorious, which means that the members of the Legion of Doom are to be destroyed, dropped into acid.  

The Super Friends realize, however, that even the villains of the Legion of Doom deserve a fair trial.

“The Final Challenge” is another sci-fi TV version of Fredric Brown’s story, “Arena.”  That story, about warring races brought to fight (by aliens) in a place of personal combat, has been adapted by name not only to Star Trek, but to series including The Outer Limits (“Fun and Games”), Space: 1999 (“The Rules of Luton”), Blake’s 7 (“Duel”), Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century (“Buck’s Duel to the Death”), and Star Trek: The Next Generation (“The Last Outpost).

Here, the leader of an alternate dimension, Vartu, is tired of the strife created in the conflict between the Hall of Justice and the Legion of Doom, and so arranges a contest which will settle the battle for power once and for all.  

These challenges, intriguingly, are not all won by the heroes. For instance, Black Manta defeats Aquaman, who becomes trapped inside a giant clam. Scarecrow, likewise, defeats Apache Chief, in his particular contest.  This is a nice touch which suggests that the Super Friends are not all-powerful, and do not always win.

The original story, “Arena” ended with one alien race -- the losers in the personal combat -- being destroyed (as promised), but TV often changes this outcome. In Star Trek’s “Arena,” for instance, Captain Kirk demonstrates mercy for the Gorn, and impresses the Metrons with his behavior. A similar outcome is depicted here. The Super Friends reject the rules of the contest, and save their mortal enemies.

Intriguingly, another sci-fi TV cliché also gets a work out in “The Final Challenge.”  Specifically, the “my enemy/my ally” trope is present, which sees protagonists and villains cooperating to reach a mutually beneficial end.  Here, the Super Friends and Legion of Doom members not captured and forced to compete by Vartu work together to find their missing friends. Naturally, the Legion of Doom proves untrustworthy.

Some other intriguing notes regarding this episode include the fact that “The Final Challenge” commences with what I call a “Star Wars shot,” a view of a  large ship passing in front of the screen. 

Also, this installment  continues the general nuttiness of the series’ dialogue, which often suggests that the heroes and villains are all-powerful and all-knowing . Here, someone actually says “let’s search the universes parallel to ours!”

That sounds easy, just a quick scan of a couple -- or dozen? -- UNIVERSES…

Next week: “Fairy Tale of Doom.”

JLA Week: Challenge of the Super Friends: "The Time Trap" (September 30, 1978)

In “The Time Trap,” Grod the Gorilla invents an “interspatial time conveyer” to raid various historical time periods.  Aquaman and Apache Chief travel together through time -- 70 million years into the past -- to prevent Giganta and Black Manta from plundering historical sites.

But it is all a trap! Our heroes are left stranded in a prehistoric age.

Meanwhile, Green Lantern and Samurai end back in King Arthur’s Camelot, to stop Sinestro and Captain Cold.

Grod and Solomon Grundy, in turn, tramp Batman and Robin in Ancient Rome.

As its title suggests, “The Time Trap” concerns a crime spree through time itself, as the Super Friends pursue agents of the Legion of Doom, throughout history. 

Intriguingly, the presence of the Super Friends in epochs past doesn’t seem to impact or pollute our timeline. Thousands of Roman citizens see Superman fly down into a Colosseum, fend off a tiger, and rescue Batman and Robin.  

And miraculously, no Roman poet or politician ever wrote or spoke of such a remarkable and spectacular occurrence.

Actually, Superman is out of action for most of the episode, before performing that heroic rescue. The episode writer sends him off to “Check the perimeter of the Milky Way to check things out.”  

Yep, that’s a mission that could take a log time.

The baffling thing about “The Time Trap,” and many Challenge of the Super Friends episodes, actually, is that the series straddles so arbitrarily the line between stupid and clever. 

On the clever side, consider Aquaman’s radio/walkie-talkie trick for a moment. He realizes that it runs on a nuclear battery (!) with a life of 100 million years. So if he buries it in prehistory -- in the exact spot where the Hall of Justice will be built -- then in the 20^th century, it will still send out a signal.

Smart idea, right?

The stupid part is the timing, and how it plays out. The Hall of Justice has been around for some time, and it seems like the nuclear battery would have been detected earlier in the time line, rather than at the exact point in the timeline that the Legion of Doom is launching its time raids. After all, the walkie-talkie has been there since the prehistoric age.

Once more cataloging our familiar lines of dialogue, I see that this episode has Captain Cold barking “That’s what you think, Green Fool,” to Green Lantern. And Robin comments on “Holy Vanishing Acts!”

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Challenge of the Super Friends: "Wanted: The Super Friends" (September 9, 1978)

Lex Luthor and the Legion of Doom use a “dream machine” to control the will and actions of the Super Friends.

Under the influence of the dream machine, Superman steals the gold from Fort Knox. Meanwhile, Batman and Robin commit a “strange crime" (!) at the U.S. Mint.  Also, Flash steals the Crown Jewels of the U.K, while Black Vulcan raids King Tut’s tomb, and Wonder Woman steals fine art from the Louvre.

Once the Super Friends realize what they’ve done, they turn themselves over to the authorities, but that action, too, is part of Luthor’s strategy to conquer the world.  Once they are in jail, their cell is launched on a collision course with the Sun.  Then, Lex uses a "mutation ray" to turn the world's human population into doppelgangers of Bizarro and Cheetah.

“Wanted: The Super Friends” is the first episode of Challenge of the Super Friends (1978), the Super Friends variant that is my favorite for one reason: The Legion of Doom.

The other variants of the series feature didactic life-lessons, magic tricks, safety instructions, and morality tales for children, but -- dispensing with all that -- Challenge of the Super Friends pits the DC Justice League against a diabolical mirror image in the Legion of Doom.

Besides, the Legion acts from of the most awesome villainous headquarters ever: a giant, rocket-powered Darth Vader head. 

When I first saw that HQ, at eight years old, I knew I was hooked on this superhero series. I would have done anything, at that age, to have a play-set of the Legion of Doom base.

In broad strokes, Challenge of the Super Friends features the “thirteen of the most sinister villains of all time” battling against the Justice League, which, as in previous Super Friends series, operates out of the famous “Hall of Justice,” responding to “Trouble-alerts" from across the globe.

The thirteen bad guys, introduced in this episode are: Lex Luthor, Captain Cold, Sinestro, Bizarro, Solomon Grundy, Cheetah, Brainiac, Grod, Black Manta, the Riddler, Toy Man, Giganta, and Scarecrow.  It’s a great and colorful rogue’s gallery, and one that represents variety of villains from DC's Valhalla. The rights could not be acquired for Joker, or the Penguin, but strangely, that's okay. It's nice to see Scarecrow and The Riddler, get a little more action than usual.  My favorite villain, at least in terms of appearance: Black Manta.

In terms of the heroes, the series features Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and Robin, The Flash, Green Lantern, Apache Chief, Aqua Man, Hawkman, and Samurai. Neither Wendy and Marvin, nor the Wonder Twins, are featured. And that may be another reason why I prefer this series to the other Super Friends iterations. It’s straight up superhero action, and down to business, without the goofy comic relief.

Of course, the central problem with the series is that if you are a fan of the “modern” or contemporary Justice League of America, you will find the DC superheroes here quite toothless and generic. Batman isn’t the Dark Knight in this iteration, and Aqua Man is not the long-haired, hook-handed, angry character of the modern age, either.  

All the heroes, in terms of character, are largely interchangeable. They are distinguished only by their specific powers, not by any personality differences. They all love justice, and they are all "good."  That's about as deep as the characterization gets.

The stories are also largely free of any attempt at scientific accuracy, and stick rigorously to a predictable formula. In every episode, the Legion of Doom comes up with some new device to threaten the world, and plans to use it. 

The villainous strategy succeeds, and the Super Friends are defeated. 

However, the Super Friends manage to turn the defeat into a victory, and capture the Legion of Doom. But before the story ends, Lex Luthor uses some trick to free himself and his comrades from custody, while the Super Friends note, almost dogmatically, that justice will always carry the day.

Virtually no episode varies from this rigorous structure. “Wanted: The Super Friends” is no exception, although it does feature a novel early section which spends a lot of time introducing the Legion’s individual members.

In terms of scientific flaws, this episode sees the Super Friends launched into space in a jail cell…toward the Sun. 

Can Batman and Robin breathe in space, and survive without pressure suits? Here, they clearly do. This is one of the aspects of the series that drives me crazy. The characters will sometimes name-check physical qualities like "gravity" or the need to breathe air, but then are depicted traveling in space in just their uniforms, and sometimes at warp speed equivalents.  I accept this with Superman or Green Lantern, or on an understanding day, perhaps even Wonder Woman. But Batman and Robin?

Also, bizarrely, in this episode a 1970’s satellite is equipped with “mutation rays” that transform everyone on Earth into duplicates of Bizarro and Cheetah.  It is just completely nonsensical and anti-science.

Also, the Super Friends are depicted as being so advanced here that it would seem impossible to beat them. At one point in this story, Batman tells Alfred to bring him “another nuclear power pack.”

How many does he have? And if he's such a powerful and good superhero, why isn't he tending to the energy needs of the globe?

Finally, this episode features a line that, with no exaggeration, recurs in every episode of Challenge of the Super Friends: “That’s what you think!”

Indeed, there are two lines to expect in each episode of Challenge of the Super Friends.  First is “That’s what you think!” And secondly is Robin’s exclamation of “Holy…something.”  Here, he says, “Holy coincidences, Batman!”

One element of the episode that I enjoy, by contrast, is the moment in which the individual characters are seen in their individual environs: Superman at the Daily Planet (as Clark Kent), and Batman and Robin in the Batcave.

Next up: "Invasion of the Fearians."

Cult-TV Movie Review: The Initiation of Sarah (1978)

In The Initiation of Sarah (1978), two very different sisters -- popular Patty (Morgan Brittany) and shy Sarah (Kay Lenz) -- attend freshman year at Waltham College. Although she keeps them bottled up, Sarah appears to possess powerful telekinetic abilities.  As her sister notes, “there’s something very strange” about Sarah.

At Waltham, the school’s sororities soon assiduously pursue Patty. In particular, ANS (Alpha Nu Sigma) -- the sorority of popular young women -- wants her to join.  At the same time, however, these “sisters,” led by the vindictive and snobby Jennifer (Morgan Fairchild), reject Sarah.

Sarah is accepted only at PED (Phi Epsilon Delta), a sorority of misfits overseen by a house mother and instructor, Mrs. Hunter (Sarah Winters), who is reputed to be a witch.

When Sarah has a psychic outburst that causes Jennifer to fall into the water, Jennifer plots a terrible revenge against Sarah.  Mrs. Hunter, meanwhile, sees Sarah as the supernatural avatar who can restore PED’s place on campus.  Both Jennifer and Mrs. Hunter see Sarah as their means of consolidating power in their respective hierarchies.

After Jennifer’s twisted joke, Sarah is initiated at a PED ceremony in a hedge maze.  The last time this ritual was undertaken, a student died under mysterious circumstances.

But Sarah is not about to let that happen again.

The Initiation of Sarah (1978) aired originally in prime time on ABC, February 6, 1978. Since then, it has become a beloved and much-remembered cult-TV movie, and one that was even remade in 2006.  In terms of its particular energy, the film from director Robert Day is strengthened by the performances of Kay Lenz and Morgan Fairchild, but clearly derives the majority of its energy from a then-current horror blockbuster: Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976).

One subplot, in particular, seems familiar. In Carrie, a former enemy’s boyfriend is enticed to take Carrie (Sissy Spacek) to the high school prom. Once there, Carrie is viciously humiliated by Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen) and Billy Nolan (John Travolta). The delinquents rig a bucket of pig’s blood to spill on Carrie when she is anointed prom queen in a rigged vote. This is the act that sends Carrie over the edge, and makes her a (psychic-powered) killer.

In The Initiation of Sarah, Jennifer makes her boyfriend (Robert Hays) invite Sarah to a party for a teaching assistant that Sarah has a crush on. He does as she wishes, and Sarah leaves her house -- all dressed up -- for the party. Unfortunately, Jennifer and the other sisters are waiting outside PED to pelt her with mud and tomatoes.  This is the act that turns Sarah to the dark side, embracing her ability to do harm with psychic powers.

On a broader level, both productions involve meek, shy girls, who can’t successfully negotiate a “rite of passage” in life (either high school or college), and strike back at a social event (a prom; a sorority initiation). Both young women also have overbearing mothers, who don’t understand them.  Carrie’s mother is a religious fanatic (played by Piper Laurie). Sarah’s mother is a shallow social climber.

And of course, both Carrie and Sarah possess frightening supernatural or occult capabilities.

The Carrie model was used very often by horror productions circa 1977-1978, including in efforts such as Jennifer (1978) and even Laserblast (1978). When viewed in this company, The Initiation of Sarah doesn’t look quite so bad. There are a few reasons for this assessment, and most of them have to do with the idea of what it means to be a “sister.”

Throughout the telefilm, Sarah and Patty negotiate the meaning of that word.

They are not biologically related; Sarah is adopted. Similarly, they are different in terms of temperament and looks. Patty is more concerned with her physical appearance and “belonging” to a group of well-liked people than is shy, intellectual Sarah.  And yet despite these differences, Sarah and Patty each attempt to care for the other throughout the events of the film.  They are able to love and respect one another, even when they experience differences.

And then, of course, we have the setting of the sororities, where all those who belong to a house are defined as “sisters.” These individuals are joined through their sense of belonging at a specific house.  But again, we have two distinct examples to consider here.

Jennifer bullies Patty, forcing her to eschew her ties to Sarah.  She threatens Patty too.  It is clear at ANS that “belonging” is defined by hating those who don’t belong. In other words, camaraderie is encouraged by putting down others. We see this in ANS’s nickname for PED (“Pigs, Elephants and Dogs.”)  These sisters can only feel satisfaction with one another with they have someone else, someone outside, to hate.

Meanwhile, and in quite opposite fashion, Sarah befriends a sister named Mouse (Tisa Farrow) at PED and helps her to feel better about herself; to not be so “down on” herself, to use the film’s disco-decade lingo.  Sarah -- being adopted, perhaps -- recognizes that being a sister is not only about blood, but about how you treat people; about how you care for people; how you support those you love.

When Sarah strikes back in the film’s not entirely scintillating climax, she strikes back both against Jennifer, who is an abuser, and Mrs. Hunter, an exploiter, who has hurt Mouse. Sarah doesn’t limit her assault to those in another sorority house.  She sees through someone closer to home, too, and that’s important to remember. She is not bound by the tribalism we see at ANS and in Jennifer.

Sarah does not kill innocent people in her psychic attack either, another key factor that differentiates her from Carrie in the DePalma film. Sara causes Jennifer to age incredibly fast, but I don’t think Jennifer dies, unless I missed it. Sarah’s redemptive act, saving the innocent and hurting only the guilty, supports the film’s dramatic through-line that the only real evil power is “hate.”  We see that evil power practiced by Jennifer and Mrs. Hunter, but not importantly, by Sarah herself.

Even when Sarah is gone, at the end of the telefilm, her example makes sisters of others. Mouse and Patty find one another, and strike up a friendship. They begin to care for one another at PED.

It’s intriguing to me how this TV-movie compares sister relationships across many characters, and is able to get its point across. Yet watching the movie today, I wish The Initiation of Sarah were a bit less cartoonish in depicting the “bad” sorority characters, and a bit less dependent on the details of Carrie from a narrative standpoint.

The Initiation of Sarah is derivative, but not without merit. The movie might be described as Carrie's little sister, actually. It's easy to see the similarities, but if you look a little more closely, you can see that The Initiation of Sarah works hard to have an identity of its own too.

Cult-TV Movie Review: Someone's Watching Me (1978)

Originally titled High Rise, this made-for-TV movie from director John Carpenter stars Lauren Hutton as Leigh Michaels, a headstrong, single, career woman who moves into Los Angeles' impressive Arkham Towers.

Arkham is a state-of-the-art (for 1978) apartment building replete with computer-controlled air-conditioning, high-tech elevators, "eighty miles of wiring and cables" and boasting a restaurant in the foyer, a gift shop, even a wedding chapel in the lobby.

Despite such "modern" conveniences, TV-director Leigh finds herself targeted and pursued by a dedicated and obsessive technological stalker, one who operates from a safe distance with the very latest tools of the trade: electronic surveillance devices, telescopes, tape recorders, walkie-talkies and the like.

In a way, it's the "flip side" of Halloween. Because here, the killer doesn't need a knife to do damage. The telephone will do just fine.

The film's central notion, well-captured by the young Carpenter (who also wrote the teleplay), is that - as Hutton's Philosophy professor boyfriend (David Birney) opines -- "we insulate our lives" and "guard our spaces," but technology can bring terror home; to our very hearths.

The invisible stalker, Birney suggests, is "trying to hurt" Leigh "without touching" her.

Or, as Leigh's lesbian friend, Sophie (Adrienne Barbeau) aptly describes the situation: "rape is when a man consciously keeps a woman in fear."

This is a premise that carries a new meaning, certainly, in the 21^st century, with the advent of social media and ubiquitous iPhones. We have seen, just in the last few years, how these tools are harnessed to diminish and bully women.  See Gamergate for just one example.

As a filmmaker, Carpenter is a neo-classicist, an old-fashioned visually-skilled auteur who here -- instead of evoking Howard Hawks (as in Assault on Precinct [1976]) -- suggests the canon of that master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock.  For example, th film opens with a Saul-Bass style opening credits scene that could have been ripped right from Psycho (1960). The credits are accompanied by Harry Sukman's Herrmann-esque score, which squawks like Psycho too.

Also, the film involves the pursuit of a woman by an unseen killer, and there are plenty of Hitchcockian red herrings among the characters to keep things lively, including a "slick man" who accosts Leigh at night, an obnoxious co-worker named Steve who doesn't take "no" for an answer, and the odd horticulturist who lives across from Leigh, in the parallel building called Blake Towers.

Each one of these men could be the long-distance stalker, and Carpenter wrangles maximum (for TV...) suspense out of the killer’s identity. In one telling shot that evokes the best tenets of film grammar, the killer tells Leigh he can see her through her open window, and she retreats whimpering to the sheltered bathroom, to a tight, confined space between toilet and bathtub, Carpenter's camera adopts an overhead angle. It's as though we're gazing down at Leigh in a fishbowl, which is precisely what the comfortable apartment has become for this woman. Her privacy has been stolen from her.

Carpenter's telefilm also cogently suggests the anonymous, disconnected and isolating manner of modern metropolitan life.

An early shot at street-level reveals a group of cars traveling in one direction endlessly, not unlike lemmings. 

Who's in them? Where are they going? Could one of the drivers be the stalker? 

These are the questions the uncomfortable composition suggests.

The film also pauses during scene transitions to include views of gleaming skyscrapers, ones with mirrored windows.

In other words, you can't see in; can't see what's behind the panes. All we see is ourselves, looking in; reflected. The identity of others (like the stalker...) are protected.  This also seems like an uncanny premonition about our modern culture. Social media is about seeing ourselves in a positive light; about narcissism.

Two things tend to date Someone's Watching Me!

The first is the film's technology. The surveillance devices, tape recorders and telephones all appear antique today, in the world of micro-technology, apps, wi-fi and the like. It's up to the minute for the late 1970s.  But watching the film, you can't help but realize how far we've come.

And yet -- simultaneously -- that's a reckoning that supports the film's thesis too. Via the Internet (and faxes before it), and cell phones and beepers and the like, technology has infiltrated our homes in ways deeper than Carpenter -- or anyone -- would have imagined in the disco decade. Today, it's even easier for a stalker to "get in" while simultaneously remaining "far away."  This is actually the premise of a brilliant Black Mirror episode, “Shut up and Dance,” in 2016.

The second aspect of Someone's Watching Me that's aged, but which – personally-speaking -- I enjoyed, is the idea of having a character, in this case Hutton's Leigh, voice her fears as a running, external monologue. This device recurs in Halloween: we are often privy there to Laurie Strode's (Curtis's) thoughts. She has a running dialogue, calling herself “kiddo,” and the like.

Today, we might decry this running verbal soliloquy as stilted or dated, but again, it's right from the Marion Crane/Psycho playbook. It's a nice window into Leigh's thoughts in Someone’s Watching Me, but today we'd consider the device "hokey."

It's interesting to consider Leigh Michaels, as played by Lauren Hutton, because she represents the late-1970s ideal of the liberated American woman.

She's depicted as "kooky" but extremely smart; professional but with an off-kilter sense of humor. She reserves the right to say "no" but is also sexually aggressive when it suits her. Because she is a single, career woman in a "man's business," Leigh is also disbelieved by the authorities when she reports the nature of her stalking (which includes phone calls, and unauthorized visits to her apartment while she's at work.).

This allows for a "don't cry wolf" kind of subtext to the telefilm, but the point is exactly what Leigh says: "Whenever I get around to telling the truth, no one believes me." 

Someone's Watching Me! suggests that this happens because Leigh has stepped out of the "traditional" role of women in society. She can't be believed or trusted because she's sexually aggressive and unmarried, a heterosexual woman "making it on her own." Society has already dismissed her before the killer first sets his telescopic sights and sites on her.

Leigh's only friend, noticeably, is a gay woman, another female "outsider." Sophie believes Leigh where the men  -- the police -- don't.

The notion of voyeurism, the terrain of fellow Hitchcock heir Brian De Palma (see 1984's Body Double...), is also vetted carefully in Someone's Watching Me!, making it a sort of latter-day Rear Window (1954).

There are plenty of telling shots here adopting the perspective of the telescope lens as it peers in at other apartments, at women going about their business...unaware that they are being visually stalked. Carpenter alternates between this "remote" view of invaded personal lives with a series of stunning, desperate, faster-than-usual P.O.V. subjective shots symbolizing Leigh's "eyes." These occur as she finds her personal space (her apartment) violated by an unwanted visitor.

Had Someone's Watching Me! been made for the cinema, it would likely have been scarier than it is; but it's still one of the very best TV-movies of the era, in part because Carpenter's screenplay is filled with ideas about "modern" life in the disco decade; the change in women's roles in our society; the easy availability of technology, the isolating nature of city life, and the like.

These ideas make the perfect background for a solid thriller in the Hitchcockian vein, even if -- occasionally -- you'll marvel at how much things have changed since the era of Jimmy Carter and the ERA.

Technology continues to invade our homes, unabated, and the question becomes: is it still victimizing us today?   I’d have to say that it is, and to a much more significant degree.

Note: The avid Carpenter fan will find plenty of the director's trademark touches here, but also some direct references to his next project, 1980's The Fog. For example,The building across from Arkham is called Blake Towers. Blake, as you will recall, is the name of the Leper Leader in The Fog. Also, the first victim of the stalker in Someone's Watching Me! is named Elizabeth Solley. That's also the name of Jamie Lee Curtis's character in The Fog.

Cult-TV Movie Promo: Someone's Watching Me (1978)

Cult-TV Movie Review: The Return of Captain Nemo (1978)

"I am Captain Nemo. I have been asleep for 100 years aboard my submarine, Nautilus. I would probably still be left encapsulated had it not been for two intrepid agents of American Naval Intelligence...who quite by chance came upon my ship trapped by seismic underwater quakes..."

-Opening voice-over narration to The Return of Captain Nemo (1978)

On March 8, 1978, CBS began airing in prime-time the latest science fiction TV series from the master of disaster Irwin Allen (The Towering Inferno, The Swarm, etc.)

In essence, this new venture -- which represented Allen's final attempt at series work -- was an unholy hodgepodge of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-1968) mixed with a little Jules Verne, and with a huge helping of Star Wars, which was still playing in theaters and had become nothing less than a national craze. 

The extremely short-lived series was called The Return of Captain Nemo, though some viewers may remember it by its foreign, theatrical title, The Amazing Captain Nemo.

Only three hour-long episodes of The Return of Captain Nemo ("Deadly Black Mail," "Duel in The Deep" and "Atlantis Dead Ahead") were produced and aired, and the obscure, extremely rare series has mostly been seen since in an abbreviated compilation movie format. 

This strange broadcast and distribution history has resulted in some apparent confusion about whether or not the original production was a mini-series, a made-for-TV movie or simply a series. All the evidence suggests the latter, since the three 45-minute segments feature individual titles and writer/director/guest star credits. 

The series aired in prime time, drew terrible ratings, was unceremoniously canceled, and then exhumed from its watery grave as the theatrical or TV-movie that many nostalgic folk of my generation remember.

The first episode of The Return of Captain Nemo, "Deadly Blackmail" commences as a diabolical mad scientist, Dr. Waldo Cunningham (Burgess Meredith) blackmails Washington D.C. for the princely sum of one billion dollars from his perch in the command center of his highly-advanced submarine, the Raven.

Unless the President pays up in one week's time, Cunningham will fire a nuclear "doomsday" missile at the city. To prove his intent is serious, Cunningham destroys a nearby island with a laser called "a delta ray." 

The creature in charge of firing this weapon is a frog-faced golden robot in a silver suit and gloves. Every time the delta ray is fired (over the three episodes...), we cut back to identical footage of this strange frog robot activating the deadly device.

This introductory scene sets the breathless tone and pace for much of the brief series, proving immediately and distinctly reminiscent of George Lucas's Star Wars. Specifically, Cunningham's right-hand man in the command center is a giant, baritone-voiced robot/man called "Tor." This villain -- when not speaking directly into a communications device that resembles a high-tech bong -- looks and sounds like the cheapest Darth Vader knock-off you can imagine, right down to the rip-off James Earl Jones voice.

Tor even boasts psychic abilities not unlike the power of the Force. When intruders steal aboard the Raven, for instance, Tor can psychically senses their presence there; just as Vader could sense the presence of Obi-Wan aboard the Death Star. Yes, I know Darth Vader isn't actually a robot and his power wasn't actually psychic, but this is the kind of distinction that escaped the creators of The Return of Captain Nemo.

And speaking of The Death Star, Cunningham -- who essentially plays Governor Tarkin to Tor's Lord Vader -- the submarine Raven's deadly delta ray looks an awful lot like the primary weapon of that destructive imperial space station. 

Much more troubling for this fan, however, is the fact that the Raven, Cunningham's powerful submarine, is actually a just barely re-dressed Space:1999 eagle spaceship, replete with the four rear-mounted rocket engines, the dorsal lattice-work spine, the modular body, and the front, bottle nose capsule. 

Yep, it's all there. 

Many of the underwater sequences in The Return of Captain Nemo are incredibly murky and feature superimposed bubbles and dust in the foreground (probably to hide how bad the miniatures look...), but I've attempted to post a few photographs of the Raven here, so you can see for yourself that Cunningham's ship is an underwater Moonbase Alpha eagle transporter.

Anyway, while Washington D.C. puzzles over the nefarious threat of Professor Waldo Cunningham, two Navy frogmen, Commander Tom Franklin (Tom Hallick) and Lt. Jim Porter (Burr De Benning) happen upon an ancient submarine trapped on an undersea reef. From an exterior port hole, they detect a figure trapped inside a smoke-filled glass tube. They board the ship and find that this figure is actually the legendary Captain Nemo...in cryogenic freeze! 

The two men immediately free Captain Nemo (Jose Ferrer) from hibernation and he steps out heroically, wearing a cape and ready for action (after exclaiming "my experiment worked!")

Turns out Nemo has been asleep for one hundred years, and it is now April 9th, 1978. The spry captain reveals to Tom and Jim that Jules Verne was no mere novelist, but actually his biographer...and that all his adventures are true. 

Furthermore, Nemo wants to resume his search for the lost continent of Atlantis immediately. Jim and Tom, meanwhile, are astounded to see that the 127-year old Nautilus is a nuclear-powered submarine, one equipped with all the latest technology...including radar scopes. Interestingly, it is not just any radar device Captain Nemo has invented (along with cryogenic suspension and nuclear-powered submarines...), but rather radar devices that are identical in shape, mode and design to ones we have now on board our state-of-the-art ships. 

Incredible coincidence, no?

Jim and Tom help free the Nautilus from its perch and convince Captain Nemo to return to their headquarters in San Francisco. There, they all report to the leader of an Elite Navy Group commanded by a man named Miller (Walter Stevens). Miller promptly recruits Nemo as a secret agent for the government, and in return the Nautilus gets a refit (though it clearly doesn't really need one...) and a full Navy crew.

At this point in the story, I must admit, I nearly lost my lunch. 

The independent, head-strong, world-weary Captain Nemo of Jules Verne is -- without much argument or debate -- transformed into a dedicated agent for the U.S. government?! After a history of decrying war? After a history of sinking warships? After exiling himself to the "liberating" world under the sea? After leaving the world of man permanently behind? 

This man of science just becomes...a tool of one particular government?

Methinks Irwin Allen (along with Franklin, Porter and Miller) never actually read any Jules Verne.

Instead, Allen must have been secretly screening recent episodes of Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman Man from Atlantis (1977), since the series premise (fish-out-of-water individual becomes government agent) of The Return of Captain Nemo shares more in common with those seventies superhero TV series than it does the literary work of Jules Verne, or any previous screen incarnations of Captain Nemo, for that matter.

Regardless, here we are presented with the most bizarre film interpretation of Captain Nemo imaginable: as genius creator of suspended animation (!), and as dashing, adventurous secret agent (!) for the United States Navy. This iteration of Nemo boasts not a whit, not a scent, not even an iota of a dark or even melancholy side. 

Instead, this Nemo is an exuberant man of action.

In fairness to Ferrer, he's quite charismatic and physically capable in this leading role, even if the writing (and the entire scenario...) is ridiculous to the point of inanity. One wonders what Ferrer might have accomplished playing the character in a more faithful incarnation of Captain Nemo's world. 

This Nemo gets to voice some flowery language ("We must stroll through this orchard without bruising the fruit," he notes metaphorically of an undersea waste dump, in the second episode), and this Nemo does seem "above" worldly concerns (like Star Trek's Spock), but Nemo almost never asks Tom and Jim any questions about the new world he has arrived in. 

He shows no curiosity about the 20th century or its customs, which seems odd. Wouldn't Nemo the scientist wish to see what man has accomplished? Or does he just assume he's already accomplished more?

Captain Nemo's first assignment as a government agent is to prevent Waldo Cunningham from firing his doomsday nuclear missile at Washington D.C. 

The Nautilus hunts the Raven at the bottom of the sea, and Nautilus evades destruction by delta beam when Nemo activates the Nautilus's protective electric force field. 

Deciding he needs to understand his nemesis better, Nemo boldly boards the Raven and is promptly taken hostage by Tor and Cunningham. Together, Nemo and Franklin escape custody and run down an advanced corridor that also appears to have been lifted directly from the Death Star construction blueprints. 

Captain Nemo -- now equipped with a hand-laser, destroys a bevy of Cunningham's storm-trooper-type robot goons in this very corridor, and the music actually sounds remarkably like a sped-up Star Wars theme. Again, I kid you not. The imitation is just...brazen.

Eventually, Nemo destroys Cunningham's nuclear missile by firing a laser beam weapon he invented(!), and the Raven slinks away under the sea to fight another day. In case you don't detect the pattern here, the writers left themselves an easy out. 

Whenever threatened with destruction, Captain Nemo has a new invention up his sleeve that saves the day. A suspended animation device, a radar, an electric force field, now a ship-mounted laser beam. Not only is Nemo a genius, I guess, he's a super duper uber genius. There's nothing this guy didn't invent a hundred years ago. Nothing.

Because Star Wars is ripped-off so dramatically in the opening episode of The Return of Captain Nemo, the series changes tactics in its second episode ("Duel in the Deep") and rips off the premise of Space:1999 instead. Here, Waldo Cunningham (again!) threatens the safety of the world when the Raven begins ripping up (with grappling hooks...) the radioactive nuclear waste containers at the bottom of the sea, 35,000 feet down, at the Mindanao Trench near the Philippines. 

Just think the dark side of the moon, the atomic waste dumps, and the inaugural 1999 episode "Breakaway."

The Nautilus and Captain Nemo are assigned to repair the breaches in the nuclear waste dumping ground before a wave of radioactivity leaks to the surface, destroying all life there. Two nuclear physicists come aboard to help out, the beautiful Kate (Lynda Day George) and the duplicitous agent, Cook (Mel Ferrer). If you've ever seen any episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, you know that Irwin Allen really loves his submarine saboteurs (secret spies show up in every other episode during the early seasons of that series...) and here the Nautilus is drawn off course by undersea magnets, surrounded by sea mines, and Nemo's bathosphere is also sabotaged. 

Fortunately, Kate helps Nemo save the day, defeat Cook, and joins the Nautilus crew, becoming a regular on the series. At the end of the day, Cunningham escapes again and the breach in the nuclear waste dumps is repaired by a lucky rock fall.

The third -- and mercifully -- final episode of Return of Captain Nemo boasts the name of Robert Bloch as one of its writers, but one has to assume he was heavily re-written, or had little to do with the show's development. 

"Atlantis Dead Ahead" also features Horst Bucholz as Atlantis's King Tibor and a very young Anthony Geary (General Hospital's Luke of "Luke and Laura" fame) as an Atlantean retainer named...Bork. In this adventure, Captain Nemo easily locates Atlantis (did I mention he's a super duper, uber genius?) but finds that Waldo Cunningham has already beaten him to the lost continent and enslaved the underwater people there with dastardly mind-control head-bands.

Cunningham captures Nemo and Tom Franklin and paralyzes the crew of the Nautilus (including Kate) with a "z-ray" that freezes the unlucky crew "in time," whatever the hell that means. Tom is fitted with his own individual brain-washing head-band (which makes him look like he's ready to participate in a Jane Fonda aerobics video...) and forced to torture Nemo.

Nemo himself is attached to a brain-sucking device that will reveal to Cunningham all of his one-hundred-year old secrets, including the formula for Nautilus's laser ray. Since Cunningham already has a death ray, why he needs Nemo's death ray is a bit of a mystery. 

Anyway, Nemo outsmarts Cunningham by re-playing in his mind (and broadcasting his thoughts on the view screen...), information about the Navy and U.S. government that re-activates Tom's sense of patriotic loyalty. They escape together and there's yet another shoot-out between Cunningham's robot storm troopers and our heroes in the very same Death Star corridor. Still, Cunningham proves more dangerous than ever because he posses twenty pellets of a poisonous element called "Crosar" which he plans to release in 20 world cities.

After an undersea battle between Nautilus and Raven -- in which the Raven is apparently destroyed-- Captain Nemo decides to leave the freed Atlantis behind, "untouched by our progress." King Tibor thanks him and then jumps into the water, never to be seen again.

Then, apparently with nothing left to accomplish, Nemo turns to Kate (a possible love interest...) and suggests they head back to San Francisco and have a meeting with Mr. Miller, so the boss can give the Nautilus new orders. Yep, the inventive and brilliant captain Nemo can think of nothing else to do with Nautilus, and just wants a new assignment from a government bureaucrat. 

A sad end for a sad re-vamp.

I was nine years old when Return of Captain Nemo first aired on CBS, and I have to confess...I loved it at that age. It had lasers, submarines, evil robots, Captain Nemo, underwater adventure...everything a young, imaginative mind could ask for. 

As an innocent, impressionable youngster I had no inkling just how nonsensical, how ridiculous, how vapid, how inane and how derivative the Allen series was. Seeing the program today, I'm amazed but just how craven it remains: how desperate and frenzied it is to latch on to the latest trend in the pop culture (Star Wars) and artlessly exploit it.

I've blogged many, many TV movies and series here -- and if you read my blog often, you know I endeavor to highlight the positive -- but off the top of my head, I can't recall another TV series so regularly, so routinely, dreadful. The Return of Captain Nemo is so bad, so confused about itself, that it's actually baffling at points.

Tor, for instance, is not only a robot sidekick with psychic powers (why? why?), but also a xenophobic bigot! For some reason, he is constantly seen railing against "aliens." 

Only problem, there are no aliens on the show. Tor keeps blaming aliens for everything...and there aren't any aliens around.

Why would Cunningham program a robot with this weirdo tic? If Tor is not a robot, what the hell is he, and why is he working for Cunningham in the first place? 

He can't be an alien and hate aliens, can he? 

It's clear the character was just thrown in to the mix, apparently at random, to appeal to the demographic that thought Darth Vader was super cool. But no real thought was ever given to Tor as a character. No thought was given to his background, his creation, his very nature.

Tor's not alone, either. The two Navy officers, Tom and Jim, continually play second fiddle to Nemo and have absolutely nothing of interest to do but issue orders from the bridge of Nautilus in Nemo's absence. In Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Captain Crane suffered from some of the same issues (always proving far less interesting than his boss, Admiral Nelson), but Tom and Jim are approximately a million times more uninteresting even then Crane.

And for Cunningham to act as the primary villain of all three episodes, escaping and returning, forever escaping and returning, makes the series seem repetitive and dull. And that's being polite. 

Imagine if The Master were the only villain the Doctor ever encountered, and you'll understand what I mean. Some essential sense of jeopardy is lost because you just know here that Waldo is always going to get beaten, always escape, always return, always gets beaten and always escape, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Burgess Meredith is a good actor, of course, but at times (particularly in one view screen exchange with Nemo...) you can see the veteran glancing down out of shot and then back...apparently to read the off-screen lines.

A talented writer could probably tell a Captain Nemo story with a flavor of Star Wars thrown in and get away with it if he or she had an airtight narrative, interesting characters and some sense of style. But The Return of Captain Nemo is bereft of all those ingredients. It is poorly-written and seems dashed off from the Irwin Allen assembly line in order to exploit Star Wars before the craze wore off.

Again, you have to feel sorry for Jose Ferrer. He's got the gusto, the presence, the intelligence, the wit, the attitude, and the physicality to make an excellent Captain Nemo, but the scripts here require him to speedily race from one crisis to another, saving the day like a campy superhero, and the result is that he never seems like a fully-developed human being.

Many genre fans of my generation have -- like me -- spent an inordinate amount of time seeking out The Return of Captain Nemo. It's an item of nostalgic remembrance, something that appeared on a major network (and remember, in those days of the disco decade there were only three networks...) and then disappeared, never to be heard from again. 

The pull of such a production is tantalizing. Did I really see that? Did it really exist? Have I lost my mind? Was I dreaming? Was it any good? 

Indeed, this is the very journey I undertook.

Unfortunately, in the case of The Return of Captain Nemo, this is but a dismal voyage to the bottom of the barrel. 

Go ahead and watch it if you dare, but sometimes old memories -- like Captain Nemo himself -- are best left in stasis. 

I'll always cherish my memory of watching (and loving) the show as a nine year old kid, but I dare not re-visit this series again as an adult. Not trying to be mean here. Believe me, I'm being as charitable as possible. The great Captain Nemo deserves so much better than this travesty.