The Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973)

          Even though The Horror at 37,000 Feet is a terrible made-for-TV supernatural thriller distinguished by a dumb storyline, a motley cast, and sketchy production values, the movie provides enjoyable viewing for a certain stripe of ‘70s crap-cinema masochist. To put an even finer point on things, the emotional center of the movie is William Shatner’s portrayal of a former priest seemingly determined to drink himself to death until a faceoff with otherworldly forces compels him to test whether he’s got anything left in the tank, spiritually speaking. If that sounds appealing, then you’ve got the stuff to power through this silly picture’s dull stretches and laughable excesses. However, if you find the prospect of Shatner wrestling with angst unattractive, then you would be wise to forget you ever heard of The Horror at 37,000 Feet. Speaking now to those brave and/or foolish souls willing to learn more, it’s time to meet some of the other miscellaneous actors who wander through this flick. We’re talking Chuck Connors as a square-jawed pilot who delivers this actual line: “We’re caught in a wind like none there ever was!” We’re talking Buddy Ebsen as an obnoxious millionaire who thinks he knows more about planes than a flight crew. We’re talking the strangely cast Paul Winfield as an upper-crust British doctor. And we’re talking Russell Johnson—the Professor from Gilligan’s Island—in a small role as a flight engineer. The picture seems as if was cast by someone opening an old TV Guide to random pages and pointing at names.

          As for the dopey plot, here goes. Rich architect Alan O’Neill (Roy Thinnes) pays to have a passenger flight carry the altar from an English druidic temple because he plans to use the altar for a project in America. As the flight proceeds, strange phenomena manifest until the crew believes claims from strident activist Mrs. Pinder (Tammy Grimes) that the cargo hold is filled with evil energy. Who will live? Who will die? Who cares? Using the familiar device of fusing the disaster-movie formula with supernatural-thriller elements, The Horror at 37,000 Feet is so drably made, so mechanically written, and so slowly paced that it’s unlikely to elicit frightened reactions. Instead, the picture generates a mildly eerie vibe that occasionally captures the imagination because one of the actors does something committed or earnest or flamboyant. Shatner is unquestionably the center of attention given his signature overwrought acting style, but Grimes gets points for playing her harbinger-of-doom role so fervently, and Winfield classes up the joint even with his stilted attempt at a British accent. For those who make it through the movie’s sluggish first 45 minutes or so, the reward is a climax filled with goofy special effects, from giggle-inducing shots of green goo seeping through surfaces to the laugh-out-loud staging of the Shatner character’s final confrontation with the forces bedeviling his fellow passengers. 

The Horror at 37,000 Feet: FUNKY

Land of No Return (1978)

When listing actors who are synonymous with macho adventure, we cite such formidable fellows as Kirk Douglas, Gary Cooper, and John Wayne. We generally don’t mention Mel Tormé, the doughy crooner and occasional actor. Yet Land of No Return, a low-budget family film featuring Tormé’s last starring role in a feature, is a wilderness saga about one man battling for survival amid the frozen peaks of the Rocky Mountains in Utah. Despite being alone onscreen for most of the picture’s running time, Tormé is never more than serviceable here, and he’s such a fleshy urbanite that it stretches believability when he withstands endless suffering. Therefore, questions abound, chief among them this one: Why was Tormé hired for this project? Even William Shatner, who appears onscreen for about 10 minutes in a supporting role, would have been a more sensible choice. Anyway, Tormé plays Zak O’Brien, the animal trainer for a successful TV show featuring an eagle and a wolf. Flying in his private plane with his two superstar animals, Zak crashes and then hides out in caves and forests while slowly working his way back toward civilization. The trained eagle, whom he calls Caesar, is his only companion, so Tormé spends a whole lot of the movie talking to himself—that is, when he isn’t digging into his seemingly bottomless suitcase filled with ugly plaid sports jackets to bundle against the cold. Although Land of No Return is dull and enervated and schlocky, there’s ultimately not much purpose beating up a picture like this one—viewers who can’t resist the compulsion to seek out a cheaply made nature saga starring the man known as “The Velvet Fog” have only themselves to blame.

Land of No Return: LAME

1980 Week: The Kidnapping of the President

          An enjoyable blast of formulaic escapism with the slightest touch of camp, thanks to the presence of leading man William Shatner, The Kidnapping of the President is a Canada/US coproduction about exactly what the title suggests. While visiting Toronto, the American commander-in-chief is captured by a terrorist and dragged into an armored van laden with explosives, so an intrepid Secret Service agent—Shatner, naturally—must outwit the resourceful terrorist and rescue the president. Directed in workmanlike fashion by George Mendeluk, the picture offers virtually nothing in the way of character development and political relevance, so the only glimmers of humanity stem from exchanges between the imprisoned president and his anguished wife. That said, the makers of The Kidnapping of the President clearly knew what sort of picture they were making. This is a straightforward potboiler with a cardboard hero, one-dimensional villains, and a foregone conclusion, so those who like unexpected twists in their storytelling should seek their pleasures elsewhere.

          Jerry O’Connor (Shatner) is second-in-command of the security detail protecting amiable President Adam Scott (Hal Holbrook). Ahead of a diplomatic trip to Toronto, O’Connor learns that a violent South American terrorist, Roberto Assanti (Miguel Fernandes), is on the move, so O’Connor counsels the president to limit public exposure. Meanwhile, the film shows Assanti meticulously planning his big scheme, which involves a booby-trapped van. Upon reaching Toronto, the president works a crowd in an outdoor plaza, so Assanti manages to handcuff himself to the commander-in-chief. He then reveals a vest filled with dynamite, allowing him to move the president into the van. This scenario is clever, and notwithstanding the predictable race-against-time climax, the means by which O’Connor and his compatriots address the situation are fairly credible. Still, this is larky stuff, especially with the weak subplot involving a morally compromised vice president (Van Johnson) and his Lady Macbeth-ish wife (Ava Gardner). The best scenes involve Shatner channeling his signature over-the-top intensity and Holbrook demonstrating his avuncular charm. The picture also gets a welcome shot of eccentricity from Maury Chakin’s supporting turn as one of the terrorist’s accomplices.

The Kidnapping of the President: FUNKY

The Tenth Level (1976)

          Based on controversial experiments conducted by psychologist Stanley Milgram at Yale in the early ‘60s, The Tenth Level explores the troubling question of why otherwise good and rational people follow orders they know to be morally wrong, simply because the inclination to comply with directions from authority figures is so ingrained into human behavior. Specifically, Milgram created an elaborate scenario involving three participants. Two volunteers flipped coins, with one becoming the teacher and the other becoming the learner. The learner sat in a separate room, out of sight, with electrodes wired to his or her body. The teacher communicated by microphone, reciting a series of phrases and quizzing the learner about the phrases. Each time the learner got an answer wrong, the teacher hit a switch on a control board. The first switch triggered a tiny electric shock. Progressing through 25 levels, each switch zapped the learner with more electricity than the last. All the while, a scientist functioned as the experimenter, sternly urging the teacher to follow the experiment to its conclusion even as the teacher inevitably balked at inflicting pain on the learner.

          The ethics of Milgram’s work were widely debated, even though his findings, which suggested that blind obedience is a common trait, sparked disturbed reactions from a populace still trying to understand, like Milgram, why so many Germans during World War II participated in genocide.

          Shot on video and broadcast on Playhouse 90, The Tenth Level stars William Shatner as Stephen Turner, a stand-in for Milgram. In addition to navigating trite melodramas during scenes outside the laboratory, he struggles to keep his work secret from college officials, lest they shut down him down. Later, he defends himself once a school committee responds to accusations that Turner manipulated test subjects. Predictably, the best scenes involve re-creations and/or re-imaginings of experiment sessions. (The real Milgram consulted on the project.) Fine actors including Mike Kellin and Viveca Lindfors imbue their runs through Turner’s moral obstacle course with palpable anguish. Somewhat less effective is the picture’s second lead, Stephen Macht, who plays an important test subject. (Explaining his relevance would reveal too much of the plot.) Handsome and sincere, Macht gives the sort of one-dimensional performance one might encounter in a soap opera, an effect that’s exaggerated by the movie’s clunky video imagery. Unfortunately, Macht shoulders most of the film’s emotional weight, with Shatner largely relegated to speechifying until the final scene. Also working against the film’s efficacy is the way excellent supporting players including Roscoe Lee Browne and Lindsay Crouse are underused. In sum, The Tenth Level is intense and thought-provoking, but it’s also preachy and wooden.

          FYI, the real-life science explored in this movie has appeared elsewhere in popular culture. Peter Gabriel’s 1986 album So features a song called “We Do What We’re Told (Milgram’s 37),” and the 2015 film Experimenter stars Peter Sarsgaard as Milgram.

The Tenth Level: FUNKY

The Andersonville Trial (1970)

          Calling this made-for-TV production of Saul Levitt’s Broadway play a movie is a bit of a stretch, seeing as how it’s essentially a videotaped recording of a live performance on a soundstage, but the cast is so colorful and the story is so arresting that The Andersonville Trial demands attention. Set four months after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Levitt’s play dramatizes the real-life case of Captain Henry Wirz, the Confederate officer who oversaw a massive POW camp in Andersonville, Georgia, where 14,000 inmates died from abuse, deprivation, and exposure. In Levitt’s humanistic telling, Wirz was complicit in the deaths, but he also unfairly received the brunt of the North’s anger against the South following the Civil War, since he was the first Confederate officer tried for war crimes. Staging The Andersonville Trial for television soon after the My Lai massacre was undoubtedly a conscious choice on the part of the producers, because Levitt’s play explores the thorny issue of how conscientious soldiers struggle to reconcile military and moral obligations, a relevant consideration during the Vietnam era.

          George C. Scott, who played the leading role on Broadway, slipped into the director’s chair for this production, and William Shatner somewhat improbably inherited the part. Save for their flamboyance, it’s hard to imagine two actors who are more different. That said, Shatner attacks the part of prosecuting JAG Lt. Col. Norton P. Chipman with ferocity and passion. In fact, The Andersonville Trial may well contain the best visual record of Shatner’s capacity as an actor. Many of Shatner’s excesses are present here, but so, too, are his sometimes underrated gifts—he orates well, mostly eschewing his famous dramatic pauses, and he shifts nimbly from anger to anguish. If not a remarkable performance, it’s certainly a robust one.

          As the title suggests, Levitt’s play tracks several episodes during a long trial, with each act comprising an extended real-time vignette. The defendant, Wirz (Richard Basehart), is an oddity, a physically impaired European immigrant so proud of his blind service to Confederate orders that he finds the whole trial offensive and ridiculous. He represents the familiar notion that following orders absolves a soldier of personal responsibility for atrocities. Conversely, Shipman represents a higher form of justice, since his prosecution asks whether Wirz should have defied orders in the name of mercy.

          Levitt’s exploration of these complicated issues within the framework of an exciting courtroom duel makes for compelling viewing even though The Andersonville Trial runs two and a half hours. It is also to Levitt’s and Scott’s credit that so many mid-level actors deliver excellent work here. Jack Cassidy is smooth as Wirz’s exasperated defense attorney, Cameron Mitchell conveys an interesting mixture of condescension and dignity as the head of the military tribunal, and folks shining in smaller roles include Michael Burns, Buddy Epsen, and Albert Salmi. Attentive viewers will even spot a young Martin Sheen in a glorified walk-on role toward the beginning of the piece.

The Andersonville Trial: GROOVY

A Whale of a Tale (1976)

          Perhaps because I don’t have children, I occasionally make the mistake of cutting kiddie movies slack if they’re harmless and they espouse positive values. Who am I to say where young viewers draw the line between tolerable and intolerable silliness? Even within that context, however, I’m comfortable saying that A Whale of a Tale is remarkably bad. Not only are the production values flimsy, and not only does the picture basically serve as a feature-length ad for the now-defunct California theme park Marineland of the Pacific, but the storyline involves so many inappropriate and implausible scenes that it’s enough to warp the perceptions of any child exposed to its 90 befuddling minutes.
          Yet in a perverse way, the unrelenting dumbness of A Whale of a Tale is what makes it such prime fodder for ironic viewing by grown-ups who are already so warped, myself included, that exposure to new stimuli can’t make any difference. For, lest this point not receive specific emphasis, A Whale of a Tale costars William Shatner and one of his most absurd hairpieces. Moreover, Shatner bonds with a little boy in vignettes so awkward that they recall the scene in Airplane! (1980) during which Captain Oveur asks Joey if he likes gladiator movies.

          The movie concerns a boy named Joey (Scott C. Kolden), who is obsessed with Marineland. He sneaks into the park so many times, marveling at the dolphin shows and fish tanks, that staffers know him by name. Seeking to cure Joey of his obsession, friendly marine biologist Dr. Jack Fredericks (Shatner) offers Joey a summer job as a part-time trainer, the idea being that Joey will tire of hard work and regular hours. Predictably, the plan backfires, because Joey bonds with Marineland workers and with a captive orca, despite myriad warnings from Fredericks that killer whales are dangerous.

          In one of the film’s most bizarre moments, Joey enjoys a lunch from McDonald’s—the film stops dead for a pointless scene of the kid purchasing his junkfood in real time—while the orca repeatedly leans out of its tank and tries to grab the food in its massive jaws. Or maybe the enormous mammal is trying to grab Joey. Either way, it’s played for laughs, and there are no adults around to protect Joey. Later, Joey’s Marineland friend Louie (Marty Allen), a portly fisherman, invites Joey to participate in a shark-hunting expedition. Naturally, that scene gets juiced with tacky music mimicking John Williams’ famous score for Jaws (1975). The takeaway is that the adults at Marineland are quite possibly the least responsible grown-ups in history, even though they’re portrayed as Joey’s happy-fun-time buddies, educating him with fun fish facts and teaching him the discipline of completing difficult tasks.

          Not every sequence of A Whale of a Tale is fraught with danger. Some are discomforting for a different reason. In one scene, Dr. Fredericks invites Joey to help him manipulate the tentacles of an octopus while the animal is massaged out of a stupor following transportation inside an icepack. The image of Shatner guiding Joey’s hands in the proper technique of stroking slimy suction cups is just as unintentionally suggestive as it sounds, especially since Shatner and young Kolden are the only actors present in the scene. But it’s all okay, apparently, because Dr. Frederick’s only romantic designs are on Joey’s single mom.

          Anyway, the movie wanders into truly uncharted territory during the finale, which makes zero sense. Joey gets the wrong impression that his aunt has come to Marineland with a mind toward removing him from his beloved job, so he steals a boat and flees into the ocean. Dr. Fredericks leads the ensuing search, and he authorizes the use of a trained dolphin to retrieve Joey, even though it’s possible the dolphin may simply swim out to sea and never return. The dolphin finds Joey, lets Joey throw a lasso around its neck, and then leads Joey back to safety. So on top of everything else, the title of this picture is misleading, since the crux of the story isn’t the orca bonding but rather the usual Flipper business of a finny savior. Call it a case of cinematic water on the brain.

          Oh, and here’s a tidbit for trivia buffs: A Whale of a Tale contains the only movie score ever composed by Jonathan Cain, keyboardist of the rock band Journey. Suffice to say there’s nothing here on the order of “Open Arms.”   

                         

A Whale of a Tale: FREAKY

Pray for the Wildcats (1974)

          Although the bleak made-for-TV drama Pray for the Wildcats echoes many downbeat theatrical features of the same era, the movie’s principal appeal stems from a cast comprising small-screen luminaries. William Shatner, of Star Trek fame, stars as a tormented ad executive; Robert Reed, from The Brandy Bunch, plays one of his colleagues; and Andy Griffith, beloved for the sitcom that bears his name, portrays a psychotic millionaire. Standing on the sidelines of the story is Police Woman beauty Angie Dickinson. Excepting perhaps Griffith, who attacks his monstrous role with glee, none of the participants does anything extraordinary here. Nonetheless, the combination of familiar faces and menacing narrative elements is noteworthy.

          Sam Farragut (Griffith) is an obnoxious mogul who enjoys using people. Sam’s latest plaything is Warren Summerfield (Shatner). Warren was recently fired, but his agency has kept Warren on the payroll while he transitions his clients to new reps. Adding to Warren’s problems are the dissipation of his marriage to Lila (Lorraine Gary) and the lingering effects of an extramarital affair. The main characters are introduced during a dirt-bike excursion, because Sam makes subordinates keep him company whenever he prowls the wilderness on two wheels. Thus, when Sam proposes—orders, really—that Warren and his fellow ad executives accompany Sam on a punishing dirt-bike journey from California to Mexico and back, Warren sees little choice but to participate. Coworkers Paul (Reed) and Terry (Marjoe Gortner) agree without hesitation to ride along, since they’re eager to get on Sam’s good side. Once the journey begins, two things become apparent: Sam is a sadist capable of rape and murder, and Warren is so depressed that he’s looking for an opportunity to kill himself in order to leave money behind for his wife and children.

          Thematically, this is ambitious stuff for a TV movie, even if the execution is a bit on the clumsy side and the dirt-bike gimmick is given far too much prominence. (The title stems from a moniker Sam places on the leather jackets he provides to his traveling companions, “Wildcats.”) Jack Turley’s script relies heavily on repetitive voiceover to hammer narrative information, and Robert Michael Lewis’ direction wobbles between blandness and intensity. Shatner, as always, skirts self-parody whenever he tries to portray powerful emotions, though it should be noted that his performance is comparatively restrained. Dickinson, Reed, and costar Janet Margolin deliver serviceable work, while Gortner believably incarnates an avaricious prick. Griffith easily dominates. The image of the Artist Previously Known As Sheriff Andy Taylor ogling a hippie chick in a Mexican bar and howling “Now we’re gettin’ in on, baby!” is hard to shake. So even if some of the dirt-bike scenes feel endless, the savagery at the heart of this offbeat little piece resonates.

Pray for the Wildcats: FUNKY

Impulse (1974)

          The would-be horror movie Impulse, which concerns a psychopath who makes his living by swindling gullible women with shady investment opportunities, was doomed to become an exercise in camp the moment William Shatner was cast in the leading role. For example, the lead character’s signature gesture is placing his pinky on his lower lip, so whenever Shatner gets caught in a homicidal fury, he delivers florid dialogue while mimicking a baby with a binky. Suffice to say, the effect is more comedic than chilling. And so it goes throughout Impulse, because at nearly every turn, Shatner reduces his characterization to something infantile, even though he’s supposed to seem dangerous. In one special moment, Shatner strings up a victim by a noose, then dances around the victim and swats the dangling body like it’s a punching bag. Making matters worse, Shatner’s ridiculous costumes include the staggering ensemble of a striped wife-beater T-shirt accompanied by red bell-bottomed slacks and a wide belt. Wow.

          The story begins with a bizarre prologue, during which young Matt Stone watches a WWII veteran attempt to rape Matt’s mother. Setting the pattern for his life, Matt “impulsively” murders the man with the samurai sword the man brought back from Japan. (The prologue also introduces the pinky-in-the-mouth trope.) Afterward, the movie cuts to the present day, revealing that adult Matt (Shatner) is a smooth-talking swinger who uses women for money, then kills the women once they’ve outlived their usefulness. One day, Matt meets a little girl named Tina (Kim Nicholas) and gives her a ride home from school. During the ride, Matt runs over a dog. Yet when Tina shares this anecdote with her sexy single mom, Ann (Jennifer Bishop), Ann scolds Tina for lying. Meanwhile, Ann’s best friend, blowsy socialite Julia (Ruth Roman), meets Matt and decides to fix him up with Ann. You get the idea.

          A final thread of the story involves Matt’s criminal connection to Karate Pete—played by Harold Sakata, best known as “Odd Job” from the 007 flick Goldfinger (1964)—because ex-con Karate Pete demands a piece of Matt’s earnings as a kind of protection money. Although Bishop and Roman try valiantly to deliver legitimate performances, every scene with Shatner is so innately silly that Impulse is impossible to take seriously. Sakata’s acting is terrible in a different way, just plain old-fashioned incompetence, but he appears in only a few scenes. All in all, Impulse is quite shoddy, but thanks to its high quotient of unintended humor, it makes for a somewhat amusing 82 minutes.

Impulse: FUNKY

Disaster on the Coastliner (1979)

          Despite its misleading title, the schlocky TV movie Disaster on the Coastliner is actually a hijacking thriller, not a disaster epic. Executed competently (albeit without much flair) by director Richard C. Sarafian, who usually made theatrical features, the picture has a solid kitsch factor thanks to the presence of hammy actors including Lloyd Bridges and William Shatner. Furthermore, the fast-moving story ticks off every cliché on the hijacking-flick checklist, so the picture sustains interest even though it lacks anything resembling originality. The premise is the usual contrived hokum. The day the vice president’s wife is scheduled to ride a train from LA to San Francisco, a disgruntled railroad employee mucks with the railroad’s computer-guidance system and threatens to crash the train carrying the vice president’s wife into a locomotive unless officials meet his demands. Overseeing the crisis at the railroad’s command station are noble dispatcher Roy (E.G. Marshall) and uptight Secret Service agent Al (Bridges); their unlikely ally is a con man named Stuart (Shatner), who is on board the train and helps try to prevent the crash. Naturally, all of this is spiked with romantic subplots—Stuart woos Paula (Yvette Mimieux), a housewife who’s ready to give up on her philandering husband—and corporate intrigue. You see, the hijacker has an axe to grind because railroad officials skimped on safety inspections in the past, resulting in tragedy, so newly installed railroad CEO Estes (Raymond Burr) has to pressure his people in order to determine whether the hijacker’s claims have validity.

          Even though most of Disaster on the Coastliner is padded with dialogue scenes, the picture pays off nicely with an elaborate action sequence involving helicopters chasing after a runaway train. The control-room scenes with Bridges and Marshall have a fun bickering vibe, with Bridges representing by-the-book rigidity and Marshall representing compassion, and it’s a hoot to see Bridges playing a non-comedic version of a character very much like the lunatic he played in Airplane! (1980). In fact, one of his motor-mouthed Disaster on the Coastliner speeches would have been right at home in Airplane!: “It’s all gone wacko, right? The whole flaky system. You can’t control the train!” With the exception of Shatner, none of the actors in Disaster on the Coastliner breaks a sweat, though each brings the requisite level of comfort-food familiarity. As for Shatner, he seems to have a grand time playing with disguises, courting Mimeux, and climbing atop the runaway train during the finale.

Disaster on the Coastliner: FUNKY

Big Bad Mama (1974)

          In his autobiography Up Till Now—well, one of his many autobiographies, that is—the incomparable William Shatner derides this Roger Corman-produced action flick as Big Bad Movie, which isn’t fair. Sure, Big Bad Mama is yet another Corman rip-off of Bonnie and Clyde (1967), but it’s a hoot. Campy, funny, sexy, and violent, the picture has just about everything you might want from a silly drive-in flick. Set in the Depression era, the story follows tough Texan Wilma McClatchie (Angie Dickinson), who’s having trouble paying the bills with her small-scale bootlegging operation. When she meets a charismatic bank robber, Fred Diller (Tom Skerritt), she embarks on a new career as a machine-gun-toting thief, abetted not only by Fred but also by her two sexy daughters and, eventually, by dandy-ish con man William J. Baxter (Shatner).

          The plot meanders because too many characters are involved, and it’s odd that Wilma’s the lead character but not actually the leader of her gang, but this sort of picture is all about creating a badass vibe and presenting exciting events. Wilma gets to spout power-to-the-people propaganda while she’s robbing wealthy people—yes, this is one of those soft-edged crime pictures in which the heroine just wants to make enough money to care for her family—and the movie offers a steady stream of sex scenes and shootouts.

          Regarding those sex scenes, one of the reasons Big Bad Mama has enjoyed a long life on home video is that Dickinson appears in the altogether during a pair of scenes, including a yowza full-frontal reveal. Since Big Bad Mama was released the same year Dickinson’s TV series Police Woman debuted, the movie captures her beauty at just the moment she enjoyed her greatest notoriety. Corman has speculated that Dickinson did the risqué scenes because she had reached her early 40s and wanted to prove she was still sexy, a classic Corman justification for exploiting an actress if ever there was one.

          As to why Shatner considers the movie a stinker, one can only speculate that he didn’t like getting upstaged by Dickinson’s body or that he didn’t like playing a ridiculous coward of a character. In any event, Corman and his cheerful accomplices, including reliable B-movie helmer Steve Carver, deliver the goods in Big Bad Mama, but not gracefully—the story sputters through awkward rhythms even as the screen fills with vivid vignettes. FYI, Dickinson reprised her Wilma McLatchie role in the poorly received sequel Big Bad Mama II (1987), also produced by Corman but helmed by sleaze-cinema hack Jim Wynorski instead of original director Carver.

Big Bad Mama: FUNKY

Chariots of the Gods (1970) & The Outer Space Connection (1975) & Mysteries of the Gods (1976)

          The notion that space aliens visited Earth in the distant past was the stuff of science fiction (and Scientology) until Swiss author Eric Von Däniken published his blockbuster book Chariots of the Gods? in 1968. Utilizing a sexy mix of conjecture, factoids, and pseudoscience, Von Däniken argued that because ancient civilizations accomplished seemingly impossible tasks (for example, building the Pyramids), “ancient astronauts” must have provided extraterrestrial assistance. Although considered a joke by the scientific community, Von Däniken’s book was quickly adapted into a German documentary movie, which was then re-dubbed into English and released in America as Chariots of the Gods—without the question mark, a telling detail. While it’s easy to imagine the movie thrilling audiences during an era rich with drugs and existentialism, Chariots of the Gods is thoroughly ridiculous, and quite dull, when viewed today.

          Comprising National Geographic-type footage of various locations around the globe, the movie is driven by wall-to-wall narration and cheap-sounding electronic music. The following excerpt from the narration captures the movie’s loopy perspective: “Hardly more than a thousandth of these ancient sources has given up its secrets. Moreover, what has been decoded calls for careful study to determine just what verifiable facts they contain. We should no longer permit ourselves to dismiss accounts of sky vehicles and traveling deities as sheer imagination.” In other words, who needs proof when we’ve got exciting theories? Things get really silly when literal interpretations of the Bible are offered as evidence of alien technology—what if Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by the world’s first nuclear bombs? At its worst, Chariots of the Gods succumbs to childish mental exercises: “If you multiply the height of the pyramid by 1 billion, it equals almost exactly the distance from the earth to the sun—a mere coincidence?”

          Chariots of the Gods was re-edited, and given a new Rod Serling narration track, to become a 1973 TV special called In Search of Ancient Astronauts, and Serling also narrated the 1975 theatrical documentary The Outer Space Connection. Dry and meandering, the movie rehashes ideas from Chariots of the Gods and wanders into other puzzlers that captured the popular imagination in the ’70s, including the Bermuda Triangle. Serling’s vocal work is as robustly eerie here as it was during his Twilight Zone days, but the parade of unanswered questions and vague insinuations gets boring. At its goofiest, The Outer Space Connection features an interview with some beardy scientist who claims “It’s very possible that pyramid energy could be used to preserve tissues over extended periods of time, such as long space travel or cloning purposes.” A similar doc, Mysteries from Beyond Earth, was released in 1975, with Hollywood actor/director Lawrence Dobkin hosting, but that one covers such a wide spectrum of pseudoscience topics that it’s tangential to this set of films.

          In terms of sheer kitsch, the most enjoyable “ancient astronauts” doc is Mysteries of the Gods—or, to cite the full title that reveals the movie’s secret ingredient—William Shatner’s Mysteries of the Gods. Yes, our beloved Captain Kirk leads the search for evidence that little green men once bivouacked on Earth. Originally filmed as a German documentary titled Botschaft der Götter (which was based on a Chariots sequel book by Von Däniken), the picture was refurbished for American audiences by adding Shatner’s narration and several long scenes of Shatner interviewing “experts” about life beyond our planet. The combination of Shatner’s campy performance style and the film’s low-rent electronic music makes Mysteries of the Gods entertaining despite the movie’s dubious assertions. Wearing tacky ’70s fashions, Shatner strolls around places like the Kennedy Space Center, listening to outlandish claims that alien visitations explain the Big Bang and the development of the human brain.

          In the movie’s most unintentionally hilarious scene, Shatner visits a woman who discovered a “crystal skull” among Mayan ruins. “We’ve used the modern airplane to come and see something very ancient, the crystal skull—it’s ominous, it’s awesome,” Shatner intones dramatically. Then, once he’s got the artifact in his hands, he says, “I’m trying to put myself back in time and space, back to when the skull was used for religious ceremonies. Can you describe to me [dramatic pause] how it was used?” By the time Shatner’s chatting with psychic Jeanne Dixon—who says that absolutely, definitely, for sure aliens will visit Earth in August 1977—Mysteries of the Gods has achieved liftoff as a masterpiece of reckless bullshit. Although the “ancient astronauts” genre is still going strong, with projects including occasional revivals of the Chariots of the Gods franchise, nothing will ever capture the sheer ’70s-ness of the fad better than Shatner’s stupefying spectacle.

Chariots of the Gods: LAME

The Outer Space Connection: LAME

Mysteries of the Gods: FUNKY

The Devil’s Rain (1975)

          Ernest Borgnine as a bug-eyed Satanist, complete with ram’s horns and a shaggy fright wig. Bit player John Travolta as a victim of supernatural forces, his eyes weeping blood and his face melting away. A shirtless William Shatner crucified, upside-down, in a church defiled by Satan worshippers. All this and more can be yours for the price of admission to The Devil’s Rain, a perpetual contender for the title of Worst Movie Ever Made, and therefore cinematic catnip for masochistic viewers. Directed by cult-fave Brit Robert Fuest, who cleverly blended camp and horror in The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and therefore should have known better, The Devil’s Rain makes the fatal mistake of taking itself seriously. So even though Fuest’s innate artistry gives a few scenes visual grandiosity, The Devil’s Rain is dull and sluggish, and only the scenes of shameless scenery-chewer Shatner getting tortured achieve campy bliss.

          The big problems are the unnecessarily convoluted story and the lackluster production design. The backstory of the picture has something to do with a cult of Satanists who populate a ghost town in the American Southwest, performing human sacrifices in order to gain immortality or power or whatever; the current story depicts a family rebelling against the Satanists’ oppression, which leads Mark Preston (Shatner) to confront the bad guys. Not the smartest move. For reasons that strain credibility, Mark’s mom (Ida Lupino) owns a book that’s mystically connected to the Satanists’ power, so head villain Jonathan Corbis (Ernest Borgnine) tries to exchange Mark’s life for the book. However Mark’s brother, Tom (Tom Skerritt), will have none of this, so he storms into town with a shotgun hoping to rescue his sibling. Also drawn into the overcooked mix are a local doctor (Sam Richards) and a local sheriff (Kennan Wynn).

          One might assume that The Devil’s Rain zips along with this much plot crammed into 86 minutes, but that’s not the case. Instead, the movie lumbers slowly because the filmmakers favor lengthy setpieces like people melting to death in what appears to be real time. Furthermore, the picture’s ghost-town sets are cheap and sparse, the shocker moments are so clumsy and obvious that tension never builds, and stiff acting by nearly the entire cast gives every scene a leaden quality.

          Through normally an energetic asset to any picture, Borgnine is a weak link, because he’s miscast as an aristocratic character in the classical mold—he looks ridiculous spouting verbose curses in monster drag. Even solid actors Lupino and Skerritt are hamstrung by the goofy goings-on. Only Shatner gets into the spirit of the thing, dropping to his knees and flailing and shouting like he’s playing grand opera—or at least Grand Guignol. Accordingly, the fact that he’s only in the movie for a total of about twenty minutes is a shortcoming.

          Still, there’s no denying that The Devil’s Rain comprises 86 of the weirdest minutes in ’70s cinema, even though it’s more of a slow-moving unnatural disaster than a high-speed train wreck. And as for the poster's claim that the flick features “absolutely the most incredible ending of any motion picture ever”? Let’s just say you can’t blame the hypesters who sold The Devil’s Rain for trying.

The Devil’s Rain: FREAKY

Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)

A bad movie that comes perilously close to being a half-decent movie, Kingdom of the Spiders delivers a story that makes sense, a campy lead performance, and lots of creepy-crawly mayhem. William Shatner stars as Dr. Robert “Rack” Hansen, an amiable veterinarian living in a dusty armpit of a small town in Arizona. When livestock start falling prey to spider bites, Hansen and bug expert Diane Ashley (Tiffany Bolling) realize that excessive use of pesticides has destroyed natural food sources for local arachnids, and sparked a nasty evolutionary cycle producing millions of aggressive bugs with extra-potent venom. The narrative follows the standard B-movie rulebook, right down to the idiot mayor who only cares about the impending county fair, so every beloved element of creature-feature hokum is included. The picture evades total ridiculousness, however, because the spiders aren’t given weird powers or proportions; they’re dangerous simply because they’re hungry and plentiful. Gross-outs arrive courtesy of icky spider attacks and also via random weirdness like the scene in which a character played by Altovise Davis (Sammy Davis Jr.’s spouse in real life) shoots herself in the hand while aiming at a predatory insect. Shatner is more casual than usual but still watchably goofy, with his comically overconfident swagger and awkward line deliveies, plus there’s great fun to be had watching him scamper around spider-infested locations; he skips girlishly to avoid stepping on bugs and daintily swats his hands to wipe them off his body. Adding further unintentional comedy are the warbly country song that plays over the credits and the cheerfully florid dialogue: “This is our house, and no damn spiders are gonna run us out!” Better still, the last twenty minutes or so deliver legit B-movie excitement, and the ending doesn’t take the expected route.

Kingdom of the Spiders: FUNKY

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi TV series Star Trek (1966-1969) limped through three ratings-challenged seasons on NBC, then became a moneymaker in reruns during the ’70s. Several attempts to revive the franchise for television failed, including a one-season animated series, but when Star Wars (1977) became a monster hit, Paramount dug the Enterprise out of mothballs for a big-screen adventure. Then Roddenberry picked a story without enough action, the studio hired a director prone to overlong running times, and special-effects delays kicked the budget into the stratosphere. As a result, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a lumbering monolith running over 130 minutes, with none of the swashbuckling joie de vivre that distinguished the TV series’ best installments. All of the original actors returned—James Doohan, De Forest Kelly, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, George Takei—but neither they nor newcomers Stephen Collins and Persis Khambata were given anything fun to do. Instead, the Enterprise crew is sent to investigate a gigantic energy cloud that’s creeping toward Earth, swallowing everything in its path. So rather than battling intergalactic baddies, the crew spends most of the movie watching weird celestial phenomena and talking about philosophy. For anyone but devoted fans of the franchise, the movie is close to interminable. Having said that, Star Trek: The Motion Picture can’t be entirely discounted because it’s a landmark for musical scoring and visual effects. Long FX sequences of the Enterprise in a docking station, a close encounter with a wormhole, and a trip through the energy cloud’s interior chambers are filled with gorgeous flourishes, even if the scenes are dead weight from a narrative perspective. And throughout the picture, Jerry Goldsmith’s music is magnificent: His rousing main-title fanfare became the franchise’s musical signature throughout the ’80s, and his use of an electronic instrument called a “blaster beam” gives scenes related to the energy cloud a truly otherworldly feeling. The story’s twist ending has a certain existential kick, too. None of this is quite enough, however, to compensate for the picture’s needlessly humorless tone or for such cringe-worthy false notes as Khambata’s stiff performance. (Even Shatner, believe it or not, is too restrained here.) On the plus side, Nimoy lends enjoyable gravitas, and the revival of the franchise set the stage for many delightful subsequent adventures, beginning with the infinitely superior Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982).

Star Trek: The Motion Picture: FUNKY