Tammy and the Bachelor (1957) – It’s not technically a musical — there’s only one musical number which comes out of nowhere and is integrated into the narrative — but it shares the same arbitrary and stylized storytelling aesthetic. 25-year-old Debbie Reynolds plays 17-year-old Tammy, raised on a houseboat in the Louisiana swamps by her moonshining preacher grandfather; a pre-humorous Leslie Nielsen plays Peter (no mention of the character’s age, but Nielsen was 31), the Southern gentleman she falls in love with when his boat breaks up on the river and he get rescued. She follows him like a lovesick puppy back to the plantation estate he calls home, now fallen on hard times and banking only on memories of past glory.
There’s plenty of “fish out of water” humor, but the focus is really how Tammy’s social innocence causes everyone to Learn Something About Themselves, with Peter finally acting out the lyrics to Survivor’s “The Search is Over” in the last ten minutes.
Not really memorable, but mostly harmless unless you’re allergic to any whiff of Teh Patriarchy.
Code of Silence (1985) – One of The Chuck’s greatest movies. He’s a Chicago cop trying to keep two rival drug gangs from erupting into open warfare and using a dead kingpin’s daughter as a bargaining chip; in between kicking drug dealers, he’s also dealing with an old cop on his squad who accidentally murdered a kid and is trying to cover it up. (That’s the “code of silence” of the title, even though it’s more of a subplot.)
The only thing wrong with this movie is the HOLY COW STUPID POLICE ROBOT THAT CAN FIRE LIVE AMMO AND ROCKET GRENADES.
The Werewolf and the Yeti (aka La Maldición de la Bestia, aka Night of the Howling Beast) (1975) – The second movie starring Paul Naschy as werewolf Waldemar Daninsky (i.e., a completely unrelated character from every other werewolf character he plays who just happens to be named Waldemar Daninsky); in this one, Daninsky joins an expedition to Tibet to find a previous expedition which was looking for the Yeti (and, according to the pre-credits scene, unfortunately found one). But Daninsky gets lost in mountains that look EXACTLY LIKE the Himalayas and NOTHING LIKE winter mountains in Spain, then falls in with a couple of witches in a cave who aren’t just witches, they’re bitey-bitey werewolves. Always something to watch for in a werewolf movie: How they manage to stop the plot cold for four weeks so they can get to the second three-day period in which the werewolf gets hairy.
Abandoned movies:
The Vanishing (1988) – I know, it’s a modern classic of suspense and stuff… but when I realized that we were going to be spending an awful lot of time with the unremarkable suburban family man who also like kidnapping and torturing women, I bailed.
Norman (2019) – The opening of this low-key time travel drama was quirky and creative. As it proceeded I realized that the “quirky” bits were pointless and ill thought out; enjoyed the movie less and less, and when I hit the hour mark, I couldn’t imagine forcing myself to watch the remaining 42 minutes.
I love “Code of Silence.” Fun movie, good cast (and watch for director Andrew Davis’s recurring use of actors like Henry Silva, Joseph Kosala, Ronnie Barron, and Ralph Foody in subsequent movies such as “Above the Law” and “Under Siege”!). Ahead of its time with the police-accountability subplot. I like the robot but since it’s kind of ridiculous, I wish they’d gone further with it and really used its schlockiness to the fullest extent. Instead all we get is the demo scene (with a pre-stardom John Mahoney!) and then Chuck Norris crouching behind it as he infiltrates the warehouse where the bad guys are.