Month: July 2022

Video Theater 230: U.S. Marshal: Sentenced to Death

A violent criminal (Jack Lord) is sentenced to death in a fatal robbery. Marshal Morgan is charged with delivering the man to prison, but suspects he has an escape plan.

Season 1, Episode 3

Original Air Date: October 25, 1958

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EP3830: Tales of the Texas Rangers: Shaft of Death

A murdered body is found inside a closed-up mine.

Original Air Date: September 30, 1951

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Streaming Review: Runaway (1984)

In the film Runaway, it’s the near future, and people rely on robots for a lot of things, but sometimes robots go haywire and run away. It’s the job of Jack Ramsay (Tom Selleck) to fix it. However, when robots start to kill by program, it’s up to Ramsay and his partner to stop them,

The acting in this film is decent enough, with Tom Selleck turning in an expected good performance as the action hero. Kristie Alley gives the best performance in the film as the villain’s girlfriend, which netted her a nomination for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. The villain is played by none other than Gene Simmons of KISS. The film is also the movie debut of child star Joey Cramer (best known to a certain generation of 80s kids for his lead role in Flight of the Navigator.)

However, where the film really shines is on a technical level. The practical effects used to bring the robots and chase scenes to life are really impressive for the time, making for some superb action scenes and a superficially good visual feel.

The film’s weakness is really its writing. When you strip away the robots and all the cool visuals, what writer/director Michael Crighton has produced is a very standard 1980s cop film. Our hero is a cop traumatized by the death of his partner and has emotional baggage from that, which can only be overcome by engaging in copious amounts of violence, during which his new female partner falls in love with him because they’re the leads. No word on whether his partner was only three days from retirement, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that were so.

In addition. while the robots are well-designed, it feels like very little thought was given to the world they inhabit. The ready availability of skilled robots at the level of this film would have major implications for society and would literally change the world. You wouldn’t expect a film (particularly Runaway) to go into some discussion of all the ethical and social implications, but you’d expect the writer to have thought through what those would be and to shape his world accordingly. Yet, the world of Runaway is very much “The Eighties but if everyone had robots.” Given the pioneering science fiction films of the era, such as Blade Runner, Terminator, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, and the Star Trek films, it’s easy to see that this was forgotten.

It is by no means a bad film for what it is. If you think a typical 1980s cop film starring Tom Selleck and robots sounds fun, I don’t think this will disappoint. But despite its strength of cast, director and effects, it’s an ultimately disposable and forgettable film.

Rating 2:5 out of 5

As of this writing, Runaway is available for free viewing on Amazon Prime.

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EP3829: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Paul Gorrell Matter

John Lund

Johnny goes undercover on a share-the-ride trip with a robber and killer in hopes of reclaiming the stolen money.

Original Air Date: February 2, 1954

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EP3828: Philo Vance: The Peacock Murder Case


A woman brings a thug to Vance’s office who beats Vance up to stop Vance from taking a case for a wealthy man.

Original Air Date: June 21, 1949

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EP3827: Dangerous Assignment: File No. 307

Steve goes to Zurich in search of a stolen Defense Department file.

Original Air Date: August 20, 1949

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EP3826: Mr. Chameleon: The Locked Room Murder Case

Karl Swenson

A wealthy, semi-retired, cantankerous old man who thinks everyone is stealing from him is murdered.

Original Air Date: January 17, 1951

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EP3825: Sam Spade: The Adam Figg Caper

The butler of a wealthy old man, concerned by the sounds of gunshots and screams in the night, hires Sam to protect his boss.

Original Air: October 5, 1947

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AWR0200: Cosmo Jones Special (Night Cap Yarns and Studio X)

Amazing World of Radio

In The Professor Goes to the Museum, Cosmo Jones has a crazy scheme to catch an art thief. From Nightcap Yarns. Original Air Date: March 27, 1939

In The Professor Goes for a Walk, Cosmo Jones walks unarmed behind police lines into the arms of a desperate gang of armed criminals with the goal of getting them to surrender. From Studio X. Original Air Date: 1948

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Audio Drama Review: Raymond Chandler: A BBC Radio Collection

Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe novels have been adapted twice by the BBC. The most recent adaptations from the early 2010s starring Toby Stephens have been available as official releases for quite a while under the very similarly named collection Raymond Chandler: The BBC Radio Drama Collection. However, this relatively new collection (released in 2020) contains the 1970s and 1980s episodes, starring Ed Bishop, an American actor best known for his works with British producer Gerry Anderson.

Bishop starred in adaptations of the first six Marlowe novels, although the second novel was performed last due to rights issues: The Big Sleep, The High Window, Lady in the Lake, The Little Sister, The Long Goodbye, and Farewell, My Lovely.

Bishop is a strong choice to play Marlowe and his voice is probably better for the character than Toby Stephens, who starred in the more recent adaptations. Stephens uses a tough-guy accent like Marlowe came from the streets of Philadelphia or New York. Bishop’s voice sounds more like the Marlowe from the books, who, as revealed in The Little Sister, came from a small town. That said, it’s been a while since I’ve listened to the Stephens-led dramas, so I won’t comment on how Bishop’s performance compares in every detail. The BBC having given this an official release might allow me to do some fun comparisons as to which version better handled individual novels.

The acting is very good and they avoided the worst tendencies of British drama that feature American characters. The BBC’s portrayal of Americans were often hit-or-miss up until the 1990s, with exaggerated accents that made the entire thing very hard to take seriously. Here, the acting is right on the mark. Whether they were working with a lot of ex-pats like Bishop, or simply British actors who were skilled with American accents, I was never pulled out of the story by a bad or silly performance.

The sound is minimal and a bit primitive, but not more than most British Audio Dramas prior to the 21st Century.

The stories themselves are well-told and for the most part capture the spirit of the novels. They even did a good job adapting my least favorite novel of those featured here, The Little Sister. The biggest fault with the adaptation was an over-reliance on expository narration. Narration would be something you’d expect with hard-boiled detective stories, and in most productions, it works just fine. The problem is that each adaptation was fit into a very rigged hour and a half time slot. This worked fine for most of the novels, but for others, it didn’t. The Long Goodbye requires a lot of tough adaptation decisions as to what to include, what to exclude, and what needs to be condensed. The BBC chose instead to not decide and use expository narration a lot. Throughout The Long Goodbye, it felt like a third of the runtime was Marlowe expositing scenes that occurred off-air that probably should have been on-air. The result is an adaptation that feels a bit lifeless. This was also a problem, to an extent, with the adaptation of Farewell, My Lovely.

I think the other four stories are well done, and Farewell, My Lovely is still pretty good, but the adaptation of The Long Goodbye is disappointing despite the story being considered one of Chandler’s best.

The release includes a nice bonus, a 1958 interview of Raymond Chandler by James Bond creator Ian Flemming. The interview is really much more of a conversation between two friends who are both some of the most popular writers of thrillers in the 20th Century. It’s nice to hear it as if you’re a fly on the wall in the room.

Overall, if you’re a fan of Raymond Chandler and Philp Marlowe, this is worth checking out. Despite a lackluster treatment of The Long Goodbye, this is still a good value, particularly if you use an Audible Credit to purchase it.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5

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EP3824: Tales of the Texas Rangers: Joy Ride

Jace investigates the murder of a liquor store owner.

Original Air Date: May 27, 1951

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EP3823: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Beauregard Matter

John Lund

Johnny goes to the midwest to cut a deal with a thief who stole a jewel from a wealthy small-town family.

Original Air Date: January 26, 1954

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EP3822: Philo Vance: The Combination Murder Case

A murder occurs after a woman who runs an illegal gambling joint breaks her engagement.

Original Air Date: June 14, 1949

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EP3821: Dangerous Assignment: Smash Alien Smuggling Racket

Steve travels to Lisbon to stop a refugee smuggling racket after a friend was killed attempting the same mission.

Original Air Date: August 13, 1949

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EP3820: Mr. Chameleon: The Broken Promise Murder Case

Karl Swenson

 

A man is murdered after he claims that his engagement to the woman who funded his education was a joke.

Original Air Date: September 27, 1950

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