I'm back from my semi-vacation. Thanks to Scoopy Jr. for filling in while I was gone.

The All-American Boy

(1973)

"We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."

Dr. Bergen Evans, "The Natural History of Nonsense"

So many years ago that they are best counted in decades, I used to watch an obscure ABC television show called That's Life. The hook of this particular show was that it presented an original musical comedy each and every week. It was not a musical comedy review program, like Carol Burnett, but an actual plot-driven musical comedy, like Oklahoma or How to Succeed. In fact, it starred the guy who had been a smash on Broadway in How to Succeed, Robert Morse, and it even featured guest appearances from the giants of musical theater, like Liza Minnelli. Although it was probably best described as a singing sitcom, it was in some other respects more like a soap opera than a sitcom. For example, the characters' lives progressed and developed dramatically. The lead couple started as dating singles, got married, had a baby, and so forth.

The show didn't last long, perhaps because the potential audience just was too small, or maybe because there was just nowhere to go with the concept, or maybe because it's impossible to write an hour's worth of terrific songs week after week, or maybe because ABC made the rather inexplicable decision to slot the show at 10:00 PM on Tuesday night, with a lead-in from Police Story. I suppose the ABC suits thought a Broadway musical was appropriate counter-programming, since the other networks were airing 60 Minutes and the second half of the Movie of the Week. Whatever the reasons, the show didn't catch on. I only watched it once or twice myself, although it hung in there from September until May.

The point of this reminiscence in this particular context is that the female star of That's Life was E.J. Peaker, who was cute and really filled out a blouse nicely. You probably don't remember her because her post-1973 career consisted of a game show here, a "Love American Style" there, and an obscure movie every few years. After having disappeared for a while, she made a brief comeback in the early years of this century, with her biggest role having been an impersonation of Natalie Schafer (Mrs. Lovey Howell) in Surviving Gilligan's Island: The Incredibly True Story of the Longest Three Hour Tour in History. I always wondered what E.J. looked like naked, and had never realized that she did a fairly long nude scene in the film I'm supposed to be writing about here, The All-American Boy.

The All-American Boy is one of those personal, character-driven, idiosyncratic stories about working class alienation that were so popular from the late fifties until the early seventies. Think Picnic with a 1970s facelift. A small-town boy (Jon Voight) uses boxing and his good looks to manipulate his way out of small-town life. It is actually an arty drama disguised as a boxing movie, and was almost withheld from distribution altogether by studio bosses who doubted the commercial appeal of this self-consciously intellectual film with a contemptuous view of an America populated by Yabbos who have no genuine values and are incapable of real love. The film sat on the shelves for many months and was finally released in 1973 when Voight's star was shining brightly after Deliverance. It turned out that the studio chiefs had been right all along. The film basically did nothing in its theatrical run, and didn't even have much of an post-theatrical afterlife since it was way too serious for the drive-in market and was a few years early for VHS success. In fact, I don't even remember ever having previously read about this film in my life. If I ever knew it existed, I had long since forgotten it until today.

Although this film is not on DVD, if you're genuinely interested in it, you can pick up various legal digital downloads from amazon.com.

For our purposes today, the only important element is the nudity. Jon Voight did a long pubic view, a brief wiener shot, and a butt shot as he entered a shower. Although Voight was a major star, this film is so obscure that this youthful nude scene is nearly forgotten. And then there is E.J. Peaker. After all these years, after having forgotten all about her existence, I found myself looking at her fleshy breasts and buns some forty years after I found and lost the urge to see her naked. That's one of the glorious properties of the internet in general and our site in particular. We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us.

Film clip

The Good Humor Man

(2005)

Originally made for Showtime, The Good Humor Man is a drama set in the 70s in middle America. With his best friend, Mt. Rushmore, Nathan Stevens runs with a gang of juvenile delinquents and is kind of their leader. He also plays on the school hockey team, and hence is not totally a loser stoner. His group includes an older man who is on parole, and the two do not get along. He and his friends crash a wedding, and Mt. Rushmore ends up in a fight with a "jock" from the school clique. Meanwhile, Stevens and jockette Cameron Richardson find a mutual attraction. The wedding reception ends when the jock is hospitalized. He later dies. Nathan now has a moral quandary or two. Should he turn in his best friend to the police? Should he continue to get to know Richardson, who's in the rival group?

Cameron Richardson's character dared to date outside her social class. She saw something of value in the young man, and was instrumental in bringing it out, thus presenting a strong role model in a young woman, so the film can be considered chick-flick material, as reflected by the fact that women rate it 1.5 IMDb points higher than men. (Men score it 6.3; women 7.8. Remember that TV material tends to be rated higher than theatrical movies in general.)

The period details were perfect down to a disco sound track. I didn't have anything in common with either of the groups in this film, but did enjoy the two leads. Absent peer pressure, these two slightly rebellious kids did just fine, as is often the case.

This is a C.

It is only available from RLDVDs.com on an all-region PAL in English. Click on the image for details.

 

 

Private Parts

Today we visit Howard Stern's Private Parts.

Well, not literally. We mean the movie of that name.

 

Carol Alt with some nice leg.

Mary McCormack, playing Howard's wife, shows off her new bra.

Melanie Good with some T & A as she gets Howard in the bathtub.

 

Theresa Lynn, the orgasm girl, having phone sex on the radio with Howard.

And top it all off with porn star Jenna Jameson, baring it all in some on-the-air studio hi-jinx.

 

A Killer Within

Addison Terrill (C. Thomas Howell) is a high-powered Dallas lawyer who's married to a freaky wife (Sean Young) and in a rocky marriage that has to be enhanced by make-believe visits to his office. Pretty soon, the wife is dead, and a rapist Addison sent to prison is on parole and, apparently, on the hunt.

A Killer Within is pretty standard straight to video thriller material, only without enough sex and nudity.

 

Sean Young