There are a few decades in film history that have been as screwed nuts as the 1980s, but to really understand the decade and its movies, it's going to take a couple of someone's who were there for it the first time around. Drew McQueenie and Scott Weinberg are ready to review every major film of the decade, one month at a time. The look at what worked then, what endoers now, and how it felt to be there when it all went down. Turn back to calendar with us. It's the 80s all over. The Laundies raptured to the number one spot from Dolly Parton's 9-5, Anchorman Walter Cronkite

said goodbye to America. RCA launched their much-type RCA Select Division video disc system, and Ronald Reagan started to settle into his role as president. Then on March 30th, the day before the Oscars, Ronald Reagan was shot in the chest by John Hinckley outside the Washington, Hilton Hotel, and that is nothing compared to the weird and wild assortment of movies to were also in theaters in March of 1981.

Hi everybody, I'm Drew McQueenie and welcome to 80's all over. This is the March 1981 episode. I'm joined as always by Scott Weinberg, my co-host. Hi, it's me Scott. We're going to get started quickly today. We've got a fairly dense list. Some of these movies are barely worth discussion though. This is what we're going to encounter with some of months is they're gonna be loaded. But man, there's some weird filler that just kind of pads out the theatrical run for some of these things. But first, real quick. We pulled a couple of boners this time. I did it last time by not giving the name of the book Hellraisers, then in the correction I refer to them all as British actors. That is obviously not correct. Richard Harris was Irish, Peter was British Irish, Richard Burton was Welsh and Oliver Reed was the one Englishman on that list. So there we go, we've got them credited properly. Also it was Albert Finney in murder Murder on the Ardenk Express. Peter Eustonoff played the character Hercule Perot in Death on the Nile. And finally, Richard Petty's last victory was at the 84 Daytona 500 evidently. So I had that wrong as well. Let's get moving and see what mistakes I can make this week. It took a while to track this one down. I finally ended up buying a DVD of it. And boy boy I am not happy to be stuck with all night long Gene Heckman I don't understand my son I don't understand my wife Together they do it all all night long. Are you expecting anyone? I'd find them morning. As you and I talked about over the last several weeks, certain movies kind of just vanish. And a lot of times it's because it's not a hit and it doesn't have a star. But then you come across a weird movie like All Night Long, which made a decent amount of money. stars Jean Hackman and Barbara Streisand and Dennis Quaid, this movie shouldn't be obscure like the day the clown cried. It shouldn't be that hard to find. Well, there's a reason for that. This is one of those movies where the behind-the-scenes story was such an apocalyptic nightmare that the film itself really never stood a chance because the studio released it hated it it by the time they finally put it out. This was a screenplay by W.D. Richter who a lot of us probably know best for adventures of Buck Rubanzi. But it was kind of a hot script at the time and there were a number of stars that wanted to be in it. Jean-Claude Tremont, who was a French television director, had signed to make the film, it was his first American movie,

and his wife was the power agent,

Sue Manger's, who represented Barbara Streisand. When they started making this film, they actually started with a different co-star for Gene Hackman, who we're gonna talk about later in this episode, because of a role she played in a great movie called Cutters Way. But this actress, she wasn't a movie star, and Sumeiger started pressuring her husband

to replace the lead actress with Barbara

because they needed a bigger start

and she wanted her husband's first film to have a big movie star. By doing that, not only did she break the movie but she ruined that relationship. She ended up never representing Barbara again and they basically never spoke because the movie was a disaster when it finally came out. Yeah, it's about an executive who gets demoted to running an all night pharmacy who realizes that his son is having an affair with a married woman. And then he tries to stop the relationship and then he falls for the married woman who was also his son's cousin. Then it basically becomes another one of those middle age crazy serial type. Oh, isn't it hilarious that a man is going through a midlife crisis? And if it wasn't for the likable performances by Hackman and Streisand and young Dennis Quaid, this would be one of the worst films we've covered yet. It's. Well, and the worst part about it is like you can tell that what they want is they want the world of the grocery store to be kind of chaotic and hilarious place with all these eccentric weirdos that come in every night. Man, it is phony from the very beginning. Like there is nothing real about the people that come into the store. They're all sitcom actors doing sitcom stick. It's a bummer. It really is. And there's a weird scene in the middle of the movie where there's a body builder woman who tries to rob the store and then they like beat her up and throw her to a cooler and a crazy ugly slapstick sequence in a movie that's like, wait, what did I just sit on my remote and turn on a different movie? Well, and the craziest thing, this was the most money anybody had ever made to be in a film, the money that they paid Barbara Streisand. That's mind-boggling to me that this was ever that move. And it really does say a lot about the way the business has changed.

That at the time she might earn that money for this kind of film, these days that would never happen. It would never be like some middleing Romantic comedy would break the record for the most money ever paid to an actor. And Barbara Stri-Sand is so wrong for this on every level that you had to wonder what she was thinking. she had to have felt

like she was in the right person for this

they're both wildly miscaste

the hackman can be romantic and can be funny strisoned uh... maybe not the most versatile actor in the world but certainly a good good actor they both do a fine job and and the rest of the film is just aimless all right well let's move on to the next one then and And I think you got this intro. What is this one? Oh boy, I am introducing an atrocious film starring the loveboats, Lauren Toos, and the amazing Jennifer Jason Lee. It is a forgotten slash or called eyes of a stranger. This is a terrible, terrible movie. You know what bothers me most about this? We've talked about the idea that rape is frequently used simply as an excuse to include nudity in a movie in exploitation films. And it's a really gross way to kind of reverse engineer nudity into your film. I'm not a fan of that to begin with. But this movie is totally led in except in the moments where the rape scenes are happening. And it feels like the director woke up for those scenes, which bothers me more because there is something really unpleasant and leering and hands-on and gross about the rape scenes in this film. And there's way too many of them. It really does double back to show you a long sequence for every one of the murders. Yeah. Part of that, I think, is that, okay, in 1981, social reactions to the issue of rape weren't the same as they are now. It's one of those issues that if you're gonna include it, you should be sensitive about the way you include it, even if it's in a scary movie, or even especially if it's in a mainstream horror film. And this is a horrible film. It's written by one of the gentlemen who worked on the first few Friday the 13th movies named Ron Curse. It's an uncredited writer on the first Friday. At the time I thought critics were way out of line when they would call slasher movies misogynistic and base and low. The problems that Jean Siskel, for example, had with Friday the 13th, I could see it if you had a problem with them in a film like this. It's strange because the movie is structured like a mystery.

There's this mystery that it's built around where the younger sister went through some trauma when she was younger and it left her deaf and mute, but she's not really deaf and mute. She just doesn't talk or. Right. It's like psychosamatically induced and then and she's got everything. She's deaf. She's blind. She's mute. is truly insane is that in the final sequence of the movie, he sexually assaults her vision

back into working. Yeah, forget the fact that it's just a very dull inept lazy movie It's morally bankrupt and this is coming from somebody who I will defend most of the horror films from the 1980s I was a stranger. Fuck it. It's garbage. Drew. What do you got next? I It is for me to believe and I really, I have trouble fathoming this. That at one point, Ellie Gould was the number one box office draw in the world. He also was like sexiest man in America. I know, I know it's mind-boggling to me because we look at Ellie at Gould now. I can't believe that that was the 70s like pinnacle of desirable film guy, guy, but he was there was a there was several years which is year burnt Reynolds and Elliott all Everyone here is crazy everyone else is cracking up in dirty tricks the comedy that cast off into total insanity dirty tricks starring Elliott this I can find anywhere to watch for this podcast seeing this on cable, and it's funny that the only version of this

I could find anywhere to watch for this podcast, it's on YouTube and it's cut up into pieces. And it's all from a taping from when it was on HBO. So it's got all the HBO previews before it. It's got the HBO opening, and then it's the HBO cut of the movie. Watching it again, I remember this thing being on Inccessantly I remember that it was one of those films that seemed to play always and man

I cannot figure what anybody would have gotten out of this thing. It is a student finds this letter that may or may not be from George Washington and steals it and then is killed for it, but he's reached out to a college professor played by Ellie Gould to verify whether it's real or not. And he gets pulled into the wacky business. Alright, and this is a broad comedy too. So the part about how the college student gets murdered, keep that in mind. What a weird cast, Kate Jackson, in rich little and it's not funny at all. It is not funny in attitude. It's not funny in plot. It's not funny in sequences. I really expected there'd be something that I would be able to hang on to over the course this thing and there's just not. Even for hardcore ghoul fans. I don't think there's anything here.

He's sleep- I really expected there'd be something that I would be able to hang on to over the course of this thing. And there's just not, even for hardcore gold fans.

I don't think there's anything here.

He's sleepwalking.

And this is from that era where he was very good at sleepwalking.

It just feels like he had like four months free.

And this happened to be available in those four months.

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