Dangeous Comedy

 

 

 

 

 

Believe it or not, before his recent surge as supervillain Vulture in Spiderman: Homecoming, before his Academy Award nominated  role in Birdman or the Unexpected Virtue oif Ignorance, before his performance as Batman/Bruce Wayne in two Tim Burton helmed Batman movies, even before one his most profound dramatic roles as an addict in Clean and Sober (you've never heard of that one, I bet), Michael Keaton was a bonafide comedy actor.  

He started out as a stand-up comedian and sometimes actor until his breakthrough role as Henry "The Fonz" Winkler's foil in Night Shift.  Later appearing in Mr. Mom, Gung Ho, The Dream Team  and of course his bravura performance as the title character in Beetlejuice.

 

In between all of those was a send-up of gangster movies titled Johnny Dangerously.  I mentioned in my previous post, Bad Movies Rule that I had been searching Spotify for the title song to this movie, "This Is The Life" (by Weird Al Yankovic) and came across the Bad Movies Rule podcast.  One of the movies they spotlighted over the run of the podcast (still ongoing, by the way) was Johnny Dangerously, and I said I intended to start spotlighting some of the movies they covered.  

I saw this one in the theater when it first came out.  (I have about 10-15 years on those podcasters, so I was in my early 20's and thus got to see it first run.)  Keaton, for me, was one of the comedy stars I used to line up to see when new movies came out.  As with his contemporary, Robin Williams, Keaton graduated from a strictly comedic star into more dramatic roles, but I personally liked his comedy movies better.  Maybe Keaton wasn't as entirely unhinged as Williams (the aforementioned Beetlejuice being an exception) but he was still great as a comedic actor.  (Not to downplay the serious roles... I just like comedy better.)

 

The movie was directed by Amy Heckerling, the woman who also brought us Fast Times at Ridgemont High,  Cluless and two of the 3 Look Who's Talking movies (as director, she also produced the third one but wasn't director).

Johnny Dangerously (1984):

It;s 1935.  We know that because after the credits roll,  a little blurb at the bottom of the screen says "1935"  (which is promptly plowed off the screen by an oncoming car, just so you don't get the idea that this movie might be a serious drama...)

 

Johnny Kelly (Michael Keaton) runs a pet shop.  While he is busy feeding the dogs and cats, a young  kid enters the shop and trues to shoplift a puppy, but is caught,  Johnny begins to tell the kid about his life of crime all of which got it's start when Johnny, in need of a quick $50 to help his ailing mother (Maureen Stapleton), aids the Jocko Dundee (Peter Boyle) mob in raiding the casino of a rival Roman Moronie (Richard Dimitri).

Dimitri, as Moronie is one of the highlights of the movie. He mangles the English language at every turn (but only the curse words, thus managing to keep what would have potentially R rated movie safely in the PG-13 realm. Note: it's not entirely free of language of that kind, be forewarned.)

Examples:
"You ice-hole!"

"You lousy cork-soakers!"

"You fargin sneaky bastige!"

(any translation of that to harsher words is on your own time.)

Johnny manages to stay straight and narrow through his teenage years, but another need for money for his mother sends him to the Jocko Dundee mob full time.  He becomes the most charismatic and non-violent gangster to ever walk the face of the Earth.  Of course, everybody loves him.  And everybody, except his mother and his brother Tommy (Griffin Dunne) (who must be the most non-obersvant two people on the face of the planet) knows that Johnny Kelly, local nightclub owner and Johnny Dangerously, gangster are one and the same. 

For the first part of the movie there is just Johnny and his pals having fun making Maronie's life hell as well as doing some typically gang-related stuff like running illegal gambling (and obviously, since this is supposed to be during Prohibition, dealing in alcohol, although they never really state that the alcohol in the movie is illegal.)

Into the mix comes a new gang member, a boyhood chum, Danny Vermin (Joe Piscopo).  Danny gets some of the best lines in the movie.  

"You shouldn't hang me on a hook, Johnny.  My father hung me on a hook once.  Once!"

"You shouldn't grab me, Johnny.  My mother grabbed me once.  Once!"

"You shouldn't kick me in the balls.  My grandmother kicked me in the balls once... uhhng."

 

 

 

 

And my absolute favorite.  When he parks in a handicapped spot (Handicapped spot?  In the 30's?  OK...) a cohort tells him he is parked in one.

 

"I am handicapped.  I'm psychotic."

 

This being a typical movie of course there is a love interest.  A new singer shows up at the Dundee nightclub, Lil Sheridan (Marilu Henner). Things don't start out swimmingly for Johnny as his typical charm doesn't cut the mustard with Lil.  But of course, you know instinctively that that's going to change over the course of the film.

 

 

 

Things come to a head when Johnny's brother becomes the District Attorney (after Johnny has used his illegal activities money to put Tommy through law school, instead of joining a law firm that Johnny specifically sought out for him to join after graduation. Tommy intends to bring down the biggest crime organization of the city, Johnny Dangerously's mob. (Johnny became leader after Jocko decided to retire.) Of course, as stated before Tommy doesn't know that his brother and Johnny Dangerously are one and the same.

 

 

A plot hole shows up about this time.  Danny and Johnny were known to each other as kids, but it comes as a surprise, supposedly, when Danny "discovers" that Johnny Dangerously is Johnny Kelly, brother of the D.A. Tommy. (Shouldn't he have already known if they grew up together?  I mean even if they weren't exactly friends?)

My cohorts at Bad Movies Rule think the whole movie goes downhill in the last 1/3 of the movie, but I like it all the way through.  And that is mostly due to Joe Piscopo.  Even though Keaton is the star, ostensibly, Piscopo makes this movie rock.  It's too bad his career didn't really take off.  Most of his post Johnny Dangerously roles have been as bit players in TV shows. He did a couple of films (one of which may show up on this blog later, Dead Heat, in which he starred with Treat williams in a cop/zombie comedy).

Not that Keaton is not entirely without merit in this film.  He did better in Beetlejuice, and was really good in Night Shift, but I just think Piscopo outshines him here.

Well, that's all this time from the back seat of the Plymouth.  drive-safely, folks.  

Quiggy

 

Bad Movies Rule

 Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to get motivated.  I need the occasional inspiration to make a commitment work.  and sometimes the best inspiration just comes from out of nowhere.

I was playing around on Spotify, looking for songs from movies I like when I happened to search for a song "This Is The life", the opening song by Weird Al Yankovic to the movie "Johnny Dangerously",  (Guess what?  There's another movie I never got around to reviewing on here.)

Anyway, along with that song I saw a link to a podcast called "Bad Movies Rule"

The podcast, apparently the inspiration of a few friends, is a weekly jaw session between a few guys (and occasionally a girl or two) about what are essentially movies that a consensus of critics and/or the public consider "bad".  The gang of reviewers on the podcast, for the most part, usually disagree with the status hence the name "Bad Movies RULE"

There is, as near as I can tell, only one consistent, week after week, host, a guy named James Hauser. So I won't disrespect anyone by forgetting to name them, I'll just leave it with his name as being the leader, but all of them are good in their own right. The pic above is from their website.  Typically only 3-5 of them appear on each episode.

The list of movies they have done so far (up to #108 as of this writing) is also a list of movies that I thoroughly enjoy and some of which have made this blog.  The reason I have restarted this blog now is because these guys have inspired me to go back and review those ones that I like that have not made this blog yet, as well as some of the ones they reviewed that I am now watching for the first time.  Only a few of them have I never even heard of before.  They are all familiar names, whether you have actually seen them or not.

There are several things I really like about the podcast.  One of the frequent questions that come up at the end of the review is "Would Arnold Schwarzenegger have made this a better movie?"  (Spoiler Alert: The answer is usually "yes...") They also have an award session at the end.  One of the awards they give out is what they call the Will Patton award for best acting in a non- central role.  (It was named after the actor Will Patton who has been a secondary character in some 100+ movies and TV shows). Another award is the "Trash Can Full of Dirt" award (given to the worst actor in the movie, and a reference to a comment made about an actor in one of the movies they reviewed early in the series.)

In retrospect, after having listened to about half of the shows oeuvre, I have to say that I agree with most of the ultimate reviews (one exception being how they treated one of my favorite movies, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension).  But all in all, these guys are a blast to listen to.  Expect a smattering of those movies they reviewed to crop up over the next few  months.

Thanks, James and the rest of the gang for motivating me.

Quiggy

T-shirt to inspire

 

3 of them I've already reviewed.

Plan 9 From Outer Space

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman 

and

Reptilicus 

But I hope to get the blog started in overdrive this year to make up for last year. So I have plans to locate these and others.  But it was cool finding this shirt on Amazon.

 

Quiggy

The Creature (re)Generation

 

So, I was browsing old drive-in ads on Pinterest and found this in an archive.

And I thought, what better way to get a new year's start on trying to get back into this blog.  Both movies have been given the MST3K treatment, so I knew going in that both were pretty shoddy and potentially laughable.  

 

Both movies are a product of the  60's and brought to the US under the auspices of American International, the giant of the drive-in movie world.  Both movies are also originally produced in foreign markets.  The Green Slime came to us from Japan and Reptilicus came to us from Denmark proving that low-budget schlock is not strictly an American product.

 

As far as The Green Slime is concerned it's a co-production with AIP and Toei studios in Japan, but as near as I could tell there isn't one single Japanese actor or actress in the entire production. (Unless thos green slime creatures are really Japanese people in the costumes. At least the Danish produced Reptilicus is handled by an all-Danish cast (none of whom you will recognize (unless you are a devotee of Danish and West German cinema,

 

Both are definitely the kinds of movies that I originally started this blog to bring to light, low-budget drive-in fare that exemplifies some of the main tropes of 50's and 60's drive-in cinema; sub-par acting, ridiculous dialogue and cardboard characters that have no depth.  But both are entertaining in their own right if you like that sort of thing.

The Green Slime (1968):

 

"Is it something in your head?

Will you believe it when you're dead?

GREEN SLIME!" 

(lyrics from the theme to The Green Slime)

The opening song is an indication of what we are in for.  Sounding (to me) kind of like the psychedelic rock that was prominent at the time, it is pretty catchy, but the lyrics are just plain weird.  I was reminded of Iron Butterfly, myself.

 

This movie starts out with a theme similar to later big budget movies you are familiar with (Armageddon and Deep Impact, both from 1998).  Early on one of the characters on a space station, the Gamma 3, mutters somewhat reluctantly, that "Nothing ever happens around here."

Of course, you know from experience that that's when something exciting does happen. Because the next line is another character who says "I'm getting a lot of interference...".  Which of course is is when the $^:+ hits the fan.

The team on the space station has discovered an asteroid which as somehow veered of course of it's standard trajectory and his headed on a collision course with, you guessed it, Earth.  And it's going to cause a butt load of damage if it hits.

The commander of the space station, Commander Vince Elliott (Richard Jaeckel) relays the information back to Earth and his superior decides the situation warrants him calling out from retirement an officer, Commander Jack Rankin (Robert Horton) to go up and take over the reins on a mission to destroy the asteroid.

 

 

Vince

Jack

 

 

 

 

 

 

Warning, Will Robinson! Danger! It seems that Rankin and Elliott are not the best of friends, and the problem mainly stems from the fact that Elliott stole Rankin's girl away from him.  And Dr. Lisa Benson (Luciana Paluzzi) just happens to be on the space station with Elliott.

 

Lisa

(BTW, if she looks familiar, her most famous role, for me anyway, was as one of the Bond girls in Thunderball.)

The egregious subplot of a love triangle is only one of the more ridiculous parts of this movie.  What happens when the crew lands on the asteroid to blow up the thing constitutes what makes up the bulk of this movie.  It seems there is some kind of green slime buried under the rock where they plant the explosives.  And one small loogie sized bit of it gets on one of the crewmen's clothes and is brought on board the space station.

The green slime stuff as the ability to regenerate itself at an alarming rate and eventually becomes a one-eyed tentacled creature that rampages over the space station.  And it's regenerative powers means that every time it is hit and a piece of it comes off, that piece regenerates into another creature.  (Which explains why the movie poster says "The Green Slime ARE coming" not is coming.)

 

GREEN SLIME!

 

The conflict between Rankin and Elliott escalates as each has ideas as to how the invader should be addressed.  And of course there is the ubiquitous scientist on board< Dr. Hans Halverson (Ted Gunther) who advocates keeping one alive so it can be studied.  Just think what it could mean to science and posterity to understand such a creature (that could multiply itself and cover the Earth in just a few days) ...how can we pass up that?

Eventually of course the slime creatures overwhelm the entire space station and the inevitable must happen.  "What's the inevitable?" you ask?

Why, of course, the conflict between Elliott and Rankin over whether the space station should just be destroyed so the creatures can't do any havoc on terra firma.  And he-man heroes that they are, only one can win that battle...

A final note: The Green Slime was a directorial effort by Kinji Fukasaku whose other efforts including being on of the directors of the Japanese sequences of Tora! Tora! Tora!, the classic American-Japanese extravaganza that depicted the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Reptilicus (1961):

Danish miners are drilling in Lapland for copper and discover something unique on the drill bit when it is pulled from the Earth.  Skin and blood!  They also discover a piece of a prehistoric reptile, a tail, which they naturally take to the local scientific institute.

The scientists decide that the best possible solution for their new find is to keep it frozen.Which they manage to do up until someone fails to keep an observation on the controls and the freezing unit fails.  And you know that's not good.

The tail begins rapidly regenerating until gradually the monster has regenerated itself into a complete prehistoric behemoth which the scientists have dubbed reptilicus.  And because it is all powerful (and it is needed to keep the plot going) it escapes.  

 

 

But before the action goes into full swing we are treated to a travelogue of modern day Denmark for some reason.  And briefly a musical number with a song called "Tivoli Nights" none of which has anything to do with the plot.

A lot of the action seems to be culled from clips of maneuvers culled from the archives of the Danish army as the try to get a line on Reptilicus.  But they are making a BIG mistake.  They keep trying to blow it up.  Until one of the scientists (a woman, who is apparently smarter than all the men put together) points out that if they blow it up it will scatter parts of Reptilicus all over the countryside, each with the potential of regenerating into another Reptilicus.

The dialogue and the acting are on par with some of the worst American made low budget flicks of the era.  It makes one wonder how any of these actors ever had a career beyond this.  But they did, albeit, as stated before, entirely in the Danish and west German cinema.

The script was written by Ib Melchior, who not only wrote the story that inspired one of my favorite films Death Race 2000, but was also the director of The Angry Red Planet and The Time Travelers, two films previously reviewed on this blog.

Reptilicus is pretty laughable.  I've read that he resembles a marionette from Howdy Doody, but my opinion is he looks kind of like a reject from Jim Henson's Muppets.  He spits green vomit which is dubbed acid slime by the characters although we never see it hit anything, and the movie never even shows the aftermath of what damage it has done, so we can only take the characters words for it that it does any kind of acid damage.  But it does knock over a few buildings.

 

It has wings, but we never see it fly.  One wonders why it evolved wings in the first place.  Maybe the producers intended to include a few sequences in which the creature battled the Danish Air Force but the Air Force declined to get itself involved in this schlock...

 

One can only thank God that the Danes only made one foray into this giant monster genre.  They were probably better at sticking with dramas like Babette's Feast.

Well folks, time to fire up the old Plymouth (which is still working even after the Covid panic).  Drive safely

Quiggy.

 

 

Is That a Banana in Your Pocket?

 

 

 

 

Come one, come all! See cardboard buildings demolished with a single swipe! Thrill to a gigantic ape doing an interpretive dance to the soundtrack! Look in awe at cheesy attempts at 3d effects from a film that isn't actually filmed in 3D!  Be astounded by the numbers of fleeing citizens that are able to pack the back end of a pickup or a bus!

 

 

 

 

 

A*P*E (1976)

In 1976 one pf the big blockbusters from Hollywood was Dino DeLaurentis' remake of the classic King Kong.  As per usual, there was production of cheesy low-budget knockoffs that attempted to cash in on the blockbuster, and this being no exception, a company in Korea tried to beat DeLaurentis to the punch.  Hence A*P*E.  

A*P*E had all the elements of King Kong (except production values, special effects, good name actors, etc.)  The biggest name on this film was actually Joanna de Verona (who later made her name as Joanna Kerns).  This was her first feature film (and apparently her last).  She must have been so devastated by the film that she transitioned to TV and for most of the rest of her career was only in TV productions.  Her big role was as the mom in the TV series Growing Pains.

A*P*E starts out whiz bang as the title character is already captured and being transported as the show pony (ape) for an attraction in a theme park.  The people on the boat transporting the ape are confident that the drugs used to keep the ape subdued will last for 5 0r 6 days.  (boy are they wrong.)

The ape escapes in the water and does battle with a large shark (a la Jaws) then goes ashore where he begins to demolish every cardboard building in site. The US Army, led by Col. Davis (Alex Nicol) originally doubts the rumors of a giant ape, then dismisses it as being some publicity stunt being done by a local film production company.

The film company is on hand with its current star Marilyn Baker (De Verona/Kerns).  Marilyn's lover, a reporter named Tom Rose (Rod Arrants) is on hand as a romantic interest and the resident hero.  

 

 

 

 

Eventually both the Americans and the Korean army are convinced that the ape is real and make attempts to try to capture it before it destroys the entire cardboard countryside.

 

 

Of course, since this movie is trying to cash in on the blockbuster, the ape eventually finds and falls in love with Marilyn and captures her.  Leaving Tom to try to rescue his enamorata as best he can.

About a third of the movie is watching the guy in the cheap ape suit do some kind of interpretive dance in the wilderness while being attacked by critics in helicopters who think his show ought to be shut down before it makes it through its first run.

 

 

Part of the fun in watching the film is looking for the zippers that show up occasionally in the ape suit.  Ed Wood would have been proud of how the production company made use of the films interminable scenes of found footage of Army maneuvers as scenes of the Army trying to move into position to capture/kill the ape.

 

There seems to be some rumor that the film was originally released in #D, but maybe it was originally intended that way but they ran out of money.  There are several scenes, especially towards the end, where things come at you on screen, Styrofoam  rocks flying at the screen and gun barrels pointed directly at the screen.

The best scene is probably the one many people have seen if they've seen anything from this movie, the ape shoots the finger at the helicopters trying to shut down his one ape dance show.

Well folks that's it for this time.  Drive safely. 

Quiggy

Joe Bob Briggs and Me

 Been a long time, folks.  This confounded crisis has taken the motivation out of me something fierce.  No, I haven't been sick, not even one day.  That might have given me the inspiration to watch a ton of movies and do reviews.  No, my problem was just an apathy for doing much of anything.  My apologies to those who have been waiting.  I plan to get going again in the next week or so on movies.  But for now I will tantalize you with a book review.

Joe Bob Briggs Goes to the Drive-In (1987) and Joe Bob Briggs Goes Back to the Drive-In (1990):

In 1982, a college friend of mine invited me to move in with him and help deliver The Dallas Times Herald to residents in a small north Texas town.  Delivering a paper a few hours a day was a nice way to earn a living back in those days.  Especially since I was entirely unmotivated to do much of any real strenuous work.

One of the benefits of delivering the paper was there was always an extra copy or two to take home.  I admit I wasn't much interested in the world at that time.  But I did enjoy reading the supplements about culture.  On Fridays the weekend section always had reviews of movies that were currently in release.  And one of the features was a section written by one of the writers, John Bloom.  He adopted a persona named Joe Bob Briggs to write about the drive-in movies of the day.

Drive-ins, in case you are a neophyte to the halcyon days of bygone years, were these monolithic venues that showed movies outdoors.   And the typical fare was not exactly Oscar material.  If you've seen some of my earlier work you know I have addressed some pretty outre movies (such as the one I wrote last year for my 5th anniversary post; Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman  and The Amazing Colossal Man).  

Drive-in movies were pretty much horror, sci-fi, and crime run rampant types of movies.  Joe Bob Briggs would review these movies, giving them a rating of 1 to 4 stars, depending on a number of elements that were present in the movies (naked breasts counts, the amount of blood that flowed, how much kung fu was used, car chases, dead body counts etc.)

The great thing about Joe Bob Briggs' column was also the insight he gave in his own private life.  None of the people were any more real than Joe Bob was (he was all in the mind of his creator, Bloom, after all.)  But the stories were funny in their own way.  You ought to know, however, that Joe Bob Briggs would probably never get in print in today's repressive PC society, however.  He even had his own run-ins with the "high sheriffs" (the editors) even in his own day.  Reading Joe Bob today is still a guilty thrill for those of us who can appreciate his wit, though.

Joe  Bob got into trouble finally with his un-PC attitude when he made some disparaging remarks and got canned at The Dallas Times Herald, but he just went underground.  He continued on as syndicated columnist for several years afterwards and even transitioned to film, hosting a midnight drive-in show on TV where they would air some of those same types of flicks on TNT.  

I used to have a letter that Joe Bob sent to me.  I wrote to him once back in 1983, and he responded with a personal letter. (For all I know it may have been a form letter he sent out to all his correspondents.  I can't remember, and I no longer have the letter; it got lost in all the moves I made over the years.)

Anyway, the two books listed above are a collection of his newspaper columns over the years that he wrote it.  You get some insight into various hangers-on in his world, including his women (Vida Stegall, Cherry Findlay, ) and his buddies (like Chubb Fricke and Rhett ).  Plus a review of a current movie in release that week that was of such quality that it could only been shown at drive-ins.  (Joe Bob called the normal fare "indoor bullstuff", ie your current Oscar eligible movies.)  Nothing at the drive-in would qualify for even being considered Oscar material.  That, of course, didn't deter Joe Bob.  He even created his own award, the Hubbies (a hubcap with the award engraved upon it) for such accomplishments as Best Breasts, Best Kung-Fu etc.

Both of these books are, sadly, out-of-print.  Amazon has copies going for hundreds of dollars each.  They are obviously collectors items.  I happen to have bought both when they were still within my budget (the list price for the first run).  And, no, before you ask, you can't borrow mine.  Although if you happen to be visiting I'm not so anal that I won't let you browse them... 

I appreciate the kinds of movies that were the steak and potatoes of Joe Bob and his regular readers. And when I finally get back to writing this blog I plan on getting back to the drive-in fare for which this blog was originally created.  In the meantime, haunt your local bookstores or more freedom minded libraries to see if you can find these gems.

Quiggy

Teenage Hormones in Hyperdrive

This is my entry in the Spooky Classic Movie Blogathon hosted by K N Winiarski Writes

"Holy crap, Little Joe!  Get  a grip!"

"My God!  Pa! What are you doing with that girl?"

"Jonathan, I think we need to talk...

(NOT quoted from Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven...)

Whether you were a fan of Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie or Highway to Heaven it's a sure bet you never saw Michael Landon get more than just a little out of sorts.  The crystal clean image we have today, for those of us who remember him, is that Michael was an inspirational character in his three notable television series.  One of his nicknames according to IMDb was "the Jesus of Malibu".  Let's face it, when those of us of a certain age think of family values as presented in Hollywood, most of us likely to picture Michael Landon.

So it probably will come as a shocking surprise that Landon got his big break in Hollywood as an angst ridden teenager in a low budget horror flick called I Was a Teenage Werewolf.   Or maybe it won't be a surprise... after all he was born on Halloween...  (I bet I caught you off guard there...  That's right.  If he were still with us, Michael would be celebrating his 84th birthday today.  OK, I didn't know it either until just now...)  But his start in Hollywood got kicked off in high gear when he was cast as the lead in that movie.

So many people got their start in the most unlikely of places (just check out some of the big names of today who had to start their careers in low budget soft core porn...)  Landon got his playing in what, in retrospect, may seem to be an odd character choice.  Certainly it would if he had played him after we had gotten used to the type of characters he played in later years.

 

 

 

 

So happy birthday to Michael in the hereafter.  This wasn't intended to be a birthday tribute, but it is now.

I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957):

Tony (Michael Landon) is a typical young lad.  Well typical except he seems to get into a lot of fights.  And he has a hair-trigger temper.  Pop a balloon behind him and you'll likely get your block knocked off for the effort.  But besides that he is a good kid at heart.

At least he is until the grownups decide he needs to do something about his temper.  And what do most of them suggest?  Therapy.  Good old Dr. Brandon (Whit Bissell) over at the local aircraft plant supposedly can do miracles with hypnotism (hypnotherapy).

But Tony is wary of hypnosis.  After all, when you are hypnotized, they can make you do things that you really don't want to do.  You know, like jump around like a bunny rabbit, or make a fool of yourself in front of others, or even, ye gods! like, buckle down and become a good student.

But shortly after wailing on  good friend for an innocent prank at a party, Tony decides to go and see the good doctor.  Except the "good" doctor is not so good as he seems.  He gets the idea to use Tony s a guinea pig for his new theory in trying to get man to regress to his more primitive instincts.

Using a secret serum, Dr. Brandon gives Tony some gentle subconscious suggestions that ultimately turns him into a werewolf.  Talk about baser primitive instincts!  And one of the things that really sets him off (aside of his temper) is seeing a girl work out in her gymnastics outfit.   That's a pretty base primitive instinct.

When Tony realizes what is happening to him, he goes back to Dr. Brandon to try to work things out, but Brandon dismisses his fears and puts him through the therapy session again.  By now the whole town is on the lookout for Tony.  Because they recognize the outfit the werewolf wears is the same as the one Tony wears.  (I guess no one else has ever seen anyone but Tony dressed in a letterman's  jacket and jeans...)

The man hunt is on for Tony after he kills a couple of people and the story is bound to not arrive at a happy ending.  But it does leave us with one lesson learned: man shouldn't interfere with the realm of God.  (Not to mention don't trust a psychiatrist who has his own personal laboratory in the back room). 

 

That's it from the back seat.  Drive home safely folks.

 

Quiggy