Short Takes: ‘Murder by Phone’ (1982) ★★ ½

The days before caller I.D. were
indeed terrifying.

While there have been plenty of thrillers and horror movies built around scary phone calls (Sorry, Wrong Number; When a Stranger Calls; Scream) and a few where the phone is a conduit to an evil force (976-Evil and The Ring-with-a-wireless-plan One Missed Call), to my knowledge the Canadian-made Murder by Phone (a.k.a. Bells) is the only movie to feature, well, murders by phone. And there may be a reason why there have been no other killer phone movies afterwards: Phones just aren’t all that scary, especially when potential victims can simply hang up.

Despite a silly concept, director and co-writer Michael Anderson (Around the World in 80 Days, Logan’s Run, Orca) managed to turn out an engaging-in-spite-of-itself thriller. Helping sell the story is the late Richard Chamberlain at peak fuckability (it’s bearded Richard Chamberlain, which is the best Richard Chamberlain), who stars as a college science teacher/environmental activist Nat Bridger. While attending a conference in Toronto Bridger investigates the death of one of his former students at the request of her father. The former student’s death was ruled a heart attack, but Bridger and the girl’s father aren’t buying it since she was only 19. We know from the movie’s opening scene that what killed her was her answering a ringing pay phone [link for younger readers] that then emitted a high-pitched whine that, apparently, immobilized her while she bled from her nose and eyes before shooting a blast of electricity directly into her ear, sending her flying across a subway platform and onto a nearby escalator.

Several more people die this way, with some of the kills being unintentionally hilarious, like when an executive is sent flying through an upper floor window of an office high rise, still seated in his desk chair. Bridger pieces together that the calls are being perpetrated by a person who has somehow devised a way to send high-voltage blasts through the telephone lines (just go with it), but phone company execs stonewall him when he goes to them with his concerns, turning Murder by Phone into an awkward conspiracy thriller. Bridger’s trip to the phone company isn’t for naught, however. While there he meets R.T. (Sarah Botsford), an artist creating a mural in the lobby of the phone company’s headquarters, who assists him in his investigation as well as becoming his love interest.

I first learned about this movie when the Glorious Trash blog reviewed Phone Call, Jon Messmann’s novelization of this movie’s script published a full year before the movie was filmed in 1980, and three years before its release in the U.S. Glorious Trash described the book as “sluggish” and “more deadening than thrilling,” before launching into a tirade about Bridger being written as a hardcore environmentalist <sigh>. Even dismissing the right-wing complaints, the book sounds like a chore to read. The movie, though, is well-paced and entertaining. Chamberlain and Botsford, besides being easy on the eyes, keep things grounded by playing it straight, while supporting actors John Houseman, as Bridger’s pompous mentor, and Gary Reineke, as a skeptical police lieutenant, give more outsized performances befitting a B-movie. Anderson’s stylish direction also helps, even wringing (or is that ringing?) some genuine tension from the goofy premise.

Though I’d be among the first to buy this movie if Vinegar Syndrome ever got ahold of it for a Blu-ray release (hint, hint), I’d also be the first to admit that it doesn’t fully work. The movie’s story would’ve been easier to buy had there been a supernatural/paranormal cause behind killer phones. No matter how much science-y sounding dialog the movie throws at us, it just can’t convince us someone could kill via landline. Even more far-fetched: Bridger, who has a Ph.D., allowing people to address him Mister Bridger without once correcting them. I call bullshit.

Bizarre (and Kinda' Hot) Love Triangle

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Short Takes: ‘In the Eye of the Hurricane’ (1971) ★★★

Ruth (Analía Gadé), a wealthy, well-put-together blonde with a fondness for beige fashions and Kent cigarettes, leaves her husband Michel (Tony Kendall) for Paul (Jean Sorel). It appears to be an amicable separation. Michel tries to persuade Ruth to stay—or at least stay long enough for a farewell fuck—but then politely steps aside when Paul arrives to take Ruth away to “the villa.” The lovers’ first few days at the seaside mansion are blissful, though Ruth (and the audience) doesn’t know what to make of the sudden appearance of Paul’s gigolo friend Roland (Maurizio Bonuglia), but she quickly warms up to him always hanging around the movie’s periphery. Less so Danielle (Rosanna Yanni), the sexually ambiguous redhead who’s rented the house next door.

But there are more unwelcome developments threatening Ruth’s happiness than a layabout stud with a pencil ’stache or a shapely switch-hitter, such as narrowly avoiding a deadly crash when her brakes give out while speeding along a narrow highway, and almost asphyxiating when her scuba tank runs out of air during a diving expedition. Both incidents are dismissed as coincidental malfunctions, but Ruth is sure that someone is trying to kill...Paul. It’s only later that she realizes she’s the one who’s In the Eye of the Hurricane (a.k.a. El ojo del huracán).

Even the poster art for In the Eye of the Hurricane
and Paranoia complement each other.

This Spanish-Italian co-production had been on my watchlist for a while, and so it was a pleasant surprise when it popped up on Tubi, under the title The Fox with the Velvet Tail. It’s more a Eurotrash thriller than giallo, which is fine by me. If you liked Umberto Lenzi’s 1969 thriller Paranoia (a.k.a. Orgasmo)—and I count it among my favorites—then you should enjoy In the Eye of the Hurricane. In fact, Paranoia and Hurricane would make a great double feature, as both movies share a lot of similarities: beautiful rich women living in secluded villas, lovers with suspect motives, semi-explicit sex scenes, and bratty bisexual babes.

But as much as Paranoia and Hurricane complement each other, they are not equal. Paranoia is better, but Hurricane is classier. Not only does Hurricane director José María Forqué present his leading lady in a more glamorous light, he also injects his movie with a lot of visual style, such as a dizzying make-out scene between Sorel, hanging upside down from a tree branch, and a topless Gadé (too bad about the shitty day-for-night scenes). The version of Hurricane streaming on Tubi is English dubbed, which makes it difficult to accurately judge the acting, though fortunately none of the actors on screen have their performances sabotaged by awful voice actors. Forqué’s script, co-written with Rafael Azcona and Mario di Nardo, is deceptively simple—too simple, I initially thought, until the final denouement that surprised me with its cleverness. The point of Roland’s presence is never really explained, though the final seconds before the end credits spark plenty of speculation. At the risk of a minor spoiler, I’ll just say Ruth should have fun with him (Roland is cute, in a smarmy sort of way) but maybe keep a gun handy. Roland’s up to something.

Michel’s (Tony Kendall) inability to properly tie a tie may not be what
drove Ruth (Analia Gadé) to leave him, but I’m sure it was a factor.

Short Takes: ‘The Love Machine’ (1971) ★★

There’s a reason The Love Machine
doesn't share the same cult status as
Valley of the Dolls.

Twentieth Century Fox’s adaptation of Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls was lambasted by critics upon its 1967 release, but that didn’t stop audiences from recognizing its awesomeness and turning it into a huge hit. So, it was inevitable Susann’s follow-up bestselling novel, The Love Machine, would also be adapted for the big screen, by Columbia Pictures this time out.

This time, instead of dolls it’s dick that drives characters to ruin, specifically the one attached to its main character Robin Stone (John Phillip Law). Stone is a New York City newscaster/manwhore, who moistens the panties of Judith Austin (Dyan Cannon), the much younger wife of IBC network head Gregory Austin (Robert Ryan). Judith, pussy aquiver, urges her oblivious hubby to make Robin IBC’s new anchorman. It’s not long before Robin is named head of the network’s news division, and Judith shows up expecting to be thanked hard and often. Robin is happy to oblige, especially now that his model girlfriend/doormat Amanda (Jodi Wexler) is out of the way, having killed herself after Robin dumped her. Judith, however, won’t disappear so easily.

The Judith and Robin business is mostly confined to the movie’s second half. The first half focuses more on Robin treating Amanda like shit, even hitting her when she tries to leave his apartment early in the morning because she must get ready for a photo shoot, and butting heads with IBC’s programming head, Danton Miller (Jackie Cooper). There’s also an underdeveloped subplot about a hack comic, Christie Lane (Shecky Greene), who hosts a schlocky-but-successful variety show on IBC, getting involved with Amanda briefly before entering a transactional relationship with IBC’s publicist/“celebrity fucker” Ethel Evans (Maureen Arthur). Flitting about the movie’s periphery is openly gay fashion photographer and Robin’s best friend Jerry Nelson (David Hemmings), who holds out hope he can get his hands on the love machine one day.

The Love Machine is no Valley of the Dolls, though it offers some campy fun here and there. Dyan Cannon is miscast (an older actress like Lola Albright or Eleanor Parker would’ve been a better fit even if they had less marquee value), her portrayal of Judith rendering her less a calculating ballbreaker than a bratty high schooler, but at least Cannon understood the assignment. Same goes for Hemmings, whose performance is one of the more entertaining ones in the movie, stereotypical though it may be. Unfortunately, John Phillip Law mistook his character’s name as a character trait, acting like a stone and robbing the movie of much of its entertainment value. He’s attractive, yes, but totally unbelievable as a “love machine.” (BTW, “the love machine” of the title is primarily referring to television itself, though that point gets lost when the movie focuses more on Robin’s compulsive need to fuck as many women as possible.)

Director Jack Haley, Jr., does the movie no favors by simultaneously mimicking Valley (cheesy fashion advertisements, an author cameo, plus two Dionne Warwick songs) while also including some self-aware camp, such as having the Hallelujah Chorus play as Danton Miller exits Gregory Austin’s office, relieved he was not summoned there to be fired. And don’t expect its R-rating to up the ante. Though you get some fleeting glimpses of bare tits and ass (including Law’s) and a couple of f-bombs (but way more f-slurs, especially in the movie’s homophobic last act), they do little to amp up the sleaze. In the end, the movie adaptation of The Love Machine never establishes itself as anything more than a cheap imitation. All that said, it’s still more enjoyable than the turgid 1975 adaptation of Susann’s third novel, Once is Not Enough.

Double Takes: ‘Minx’ (2022-2023) ★★★ ½ / ‘Spread’ (2024) ★★

Minx, a show about a magazine that
features pictures of penises, ended up
being cancelled by dicks—twice.

Feminists and pornography have long had a contentious relationship, especially during porn’s “Golden Age” of the 1970s and ’80s, so wouldn’t it be funny if a staunch feminist found herself working in the very industry she abhors?

If we’re talking about the recent series Minx, the answer is a resounding yes. In this twice-cancelled series, idealistic Vassar grad Joyce Prigger (well-played by the wonderfully named Ophelia Lovibond) thinks readers of the early 1970s would be eager to read her feminist magazine, The Matriarchy Awakens. Unfortunately for her, the publishers she pitches it to aren’t—except one, Doug Renetti (Jake Johnson, also excellent), who runs Bottom Dollar Publishing, producer of skin mags with titles like Lusty Lesbos, Giant Juggs and Feet Feet Feet. He just wants a few changes, in writing style (“When I read it, I feel like a fucking teacher is yelling at me.”) and, most importantly, incorporating photos of naked men. Joyce balks, but her older sister Shelly (Lennon Parham) convinces her to take advantage of the opportunity, reminding her that it’s unrealistic to expect everything she wants. And so, The Matriarchy Awakens gets watered down into a cross between Ms. Magazine Lite and Playgirl: Minx.

Despite having plenty of lube, the Bottom Dollar office/studio is not a well-oiled machine, the operation only loosely supervised by Doug, with his assistant (and sometimes girlfriend) Tina (Idara Victor) frequently stepping in to reign in the chaos. Joyce learns her staff is comprised mostly of Bambi (Jessica Lowe), a nude model now working as “centerfold coordinator” (“I made it up. Doesn’t it sound fancy?”), and Richie (Oscar Montoya), the company’s make-up artist and sole gay male employee, as Minx’s photographer (“[N]one of the other guys want to shoot wieners,” Bambi explains).

Though it’s tempting to dismiss the show as Diane and Sam Make a Porno Mag, Minx has more going for it than that. Joyce struggles to reconcile her feminist ideals (and intellectual snobbery) with the business of selling skin mags, reluctantly accepting she’s becoming the face of sex positive feminism. Doug is cool when controversy makes Minx a best seller, but its high profile also attracts the attention of a Phyllis Schlafly-type city commissioner (Amy Landecker), though what nearly finishes his company is a “Men’s Rights” protest that turns violent. Meanwhile, Richie begins to feel he’s betraying his own community photographing models for the female gaze when Minx owes part of its success to gay readers. And Shelly and her husband Lenny (Rich Sommer) decide to take full advantage of changing mores to spice up their sex life (i.e., they become swingers).

I wanted to watch Minx when it first premiered on HBO Max, but before I could get around to it the show, which had been renewed for a second season, was abruptly cancelled and yanked from the platform. Starz came to the rescue, only to cancel it as well. Then the series landed on Tubi, America’s dumping ground for discarded content. But the series was abandoned way too soon and fully deserved a third season. As it is, viewers will be left wanting to know if Minx will be wrestled away from Constance (Elizabeth Perkins, who became Stockard Channing when we weren’t looking), the wealthy businesswoman who gradually takes over the magazine in season two; if Bambi joins the People’s Temple; and if show runners will ever realize they could audition some ambitious porn stars to do guest spots as Minx centerfolds instead of relying so heavily on prosthetic dicks. Sadly, we’ll never know.

Spread is better than one might expect,
but it’s hardly worth your (or Harvey
 Keitel’s) time.

Staying on Tubi, we go from an unwanted sit-com set in the swinging ’70s to an unasked-for “Tubi Original” movie set in the present day. Spread is about a struggling young journalist, Ruby (Elizabeth Gillies), who out of desperation takes a temp job at the floundering skin magazine/Hustler riff, the titular Spread, only to become invested in saving the magazine from being shut down. (Her big solution: introducing the editorial staff to the existence of social media. In the 2020s.)

Speaking of taking jobs out of desperation, Spread is run by Frank, played by HARVEY KEITEL! Yes, regularly-cast-by-Martin Scorsese-and-Quentin Tarantino Harvey Keitel. In a Tubi Original. It’s not easy getting old in Hollywood…

In fairness, while Spread is no Taxi Driver or Pulp Fiction, it’s better than one would expect of a Tubi Original. Its production values are at the higher end of mid, and all actors give professional performances if not necessarily likable ones. As one might expect, Keitel gives the most nuanced performance, actually managing to pull at my diseased heartstrings, though the tear he brought to my eye might have more to do with my thinking of how sad it is that Harvey Keitel is accepting roles in Tubi Originals than the plight of his character. Gillies also gets a special shout-out, her performance reminiscent of a Mean Girls era (a.k.a. pre-trainwreck) Lindsay Lohan.

But while Spread is better made than expected, it fails as a comedy. Spread doesn’t set a high bar for itself, so I guess it’s not surprising it mines laughs from raunchy vocabulary words like analingus and from dildos (writer Buffy Charlet and/or director Ellie Kanner find the mere existence of sex toys hilarious). Those jokes are too obvious to pass up. Less forgivable is Spread reducing its characters to caricatures. Ruby describes herself as a feminist, though her commitment to the cause doesn’t go much deeper than putting a “Feminist as Fuck” sticker on her cubicle. What Ruby is, really, is an entitled white girl, appalled that she must take a job she feels is beneath her when she should be working at The Sophisticate, this movie’s fictional stand-in for Vanity Fair.

Yet Ruby is easier to warm up to than other characters, who are either assholes for the sake of being assholes, like editorial assistant Leslie (Bryan Craig), a gel-bombed douchebag who appears to have wandered in from giving nerds wedgies in a different movie, or simply goofy/weird, like Nelson (Blake Harrison), the socially awkward IT guy, and Prudence (Teri Polo), the flighty receptionist. Only David Allan Pearson as Hank, the too-old-for-this-shit editor of the Pussy Quest page, got a genuine laugh out of me.

Minx succeeds by focusing on its characters as they navigate the changing world of the early 1970s. Spread, on the other hand, has little to say, preferring to task its lead with re-organizing the office dildo closet because aren’t dildos funny? Unfortunately for Spread, not nearly enough.