(Episode: “Treasure of the Temple” —Last time! Really!)
Synopsis: An Australian-sounding adventurer tries to stop Team Quest from exploring an ancient jungle temple the looter has his sights on, even going so far as to subjugate the natives. This show not being called Guy Who Would Almost Certainly Be Played By Tim Roth In The Movie Version, though, he does not prevail. Additionally, nature tries its damnedest to murder Race Bannon.
Tip 24. I can guarantee this one is actual good advice.
Even if you know the terrain, even if your escape is nearly a foregone conclusion…
Watch out for spiders.
According to Dr. Quest, this is from “a cave spider…deadly poisonous!” A few minutes on the internet strongly suggest that the eminent scientist is fibbing again, probably because he shot the darned thing.
And for those of you wondering what became of our villain…crocodiles, that’s what.
‘Nuff said.
And if that wasn’t enough of a happy ending, Benton Quest learns to modulate his voice. Aww.
Next time: The Hardy Boys teach you how to observe in the handbook’s darkest chapter yet.
Next time on TQfM!: We’ll be tagging along for “Calcutta Adventure.”
(Proofreader-brained side note: Do you know how hard it is not to put commas in that title every time I write it? Very hard.)
Why Finally?: Once I saw the first movie, there was no way I’d stay away from this one—especially once I found out Pam Grier was the heroine. And I’m a sucker for movie voodoo, even though I know it is to the real religion what exorcism movies and End of Days are to Catholicism.
The Premise: When the head of a voodoo-inclined family dies, two people are candidates for succession: the dying woman chooses her apprentice, Lisa (Grier), instead of her own flesh and blood, and the spurned Willis retaliates by acquiring Blacula’s (weirdly huge) bones and raising him from the dead. Willis is clearly pretty good at spells, but not good at calculating his own life expectancy after he raises a vampire.
Blacula, as Mamuwalde, uses Willis’s big old house as his HQ and infiltrates the surrounding community, meeting Lisa and her (partner? Romantic relationships never seem clearly defined in these movies) Justin. Justin collects African art, including artifacts from Mamuwalde’s past, and the vampire soon begins to see Lisa and her powers as a way to cure his bloodsucking habit and end his torment.
Remember when I complained about ‘Salem’s Lot and how you couldn’t have vampires multiplying at such a rate plausibly? Scream Blacula Scream is actually a bit of a field experiment in this regard: by the end of the movie, most of the secondary characters have been vamped, and there’s a shot of plywood coffin after plywood coffin in Willis’s basement by the end of the film. Just look at this!
The Verdict: Even playing on my pet vampiric peeve, though, the movie is great: the beginning harks back wonderfully to all the times the original Dracula has been raised again from movie to movie, and William Marshall brings his awesome performance to a film with a better budget—Blacula’s even had a cape upgrade! As in the first movie, there’s a genuine struggle to redeem himself that most movie vampires only experience if there’s a love interest in the, er, wings. Absolutely worth watching.
Might go well with: Love At First Bite, Taste the Blood of Dracula, étouffée.
Recently, on the strength of the news of Alan Rickman’s death, I attempted something I hadn’t done for years and started watching Truly Madly Deeply. I used to own it, but that was a few broken relationships and one or two deaths ago, so this time I had to stop after 25 minutes because my nose was completely blocked and the tears were starting to soak my shirt collar.
Most of the time, I know better.
I dislike saying it, because it makes me feel shallow, but I hate depressing movies. Part of this is just the way I’m made, I suspect, and the other part is the perception that a lot of these tearjerkers are “women’s movies”—or worse, “date movies”—and so people think I will enjoy them. I vividly remember watching some complete painfests with my high-school sweetheart as a result of this idea: I’d pick comedies (Splitting Heirs was bad, but not so bad I cried about it), and he’d pick things like Steel Magnolias and the Stella Dallas remake with Bette Middler. By the time I realized he was watching the big-screen equivalent of Lifetime movies for my sake, we’d already broken up, and I’ve made sure to be clearer about my preferences since then.
That said, there are a few things I like even though they cause me to wail like the very cranky baby Mom assures me I was. Some highlights:
“They’re Tearing Down Tim Riley’s Bar,” an episode of Night Gallery about a man whose life is unraveling between his wife’s sudden death and the machinations of a business rival.
The part right before the end of The Last Unicorn. The part right before the end of Young Sherlock Holmes. The part right before the end of The Secret of NIMH. Kids’ movies reserve the right to stomp on your heart, but will generally dust it off and return what’s left of it in the last ten minutes.
The end of Hellboy. That’s when I try to explain to anyone else watching that it’s one of the most romantic movies ever. Even though that should be self-evident.
Readers (if any), what about you? Tearjerkers? Nonstandard tearjerkers? Outright refusal? If anyone has a rousing defense of the Stella movie, I’d especially like to hear that.
Synopsis: An Australian-sounding adventurer tries to stop Team Quest from exploring an ancient jungle temple the looter has his sights on, even going so far as to subjugate the natives. This show not being called Guy Who Would Almost Certainly Be Played By Tim Roth In The Movie Version, though, he does not prevail. And in a sort of side feature, a series of animals attempt to eat Race Bannon.
Team Quest has been rescued from their captors by the non-slow-loud-English-speaking fellow they rescued earlier, but escape lies over treacherous waters.
Tip 23: Row, row, row your boat…and for heaven’s sake, try not to get involved in this kind of thing.
Race is pretty good against big animals. Maybe this is how he made his living before he joined the Special Forces?At any rate, this is definitely how he made his living after that.
Not an inflatable vest in sight. Shameful.
Next time: With any luck, I’ll be returning to the crypt with Scream Blacula Scream.
Next time on TQfM!: Believe it or not, the end of this episode. I blame those…vampire bats.
Why Found-Again? Because a lifelong fascination with CSI stuff had to start somewhere. It probably wasn’t here, but I’m not sure that matters. Just look at that adorable book.
Portrait of the detective handbook as a gentleman thief—probably the only gentleman thief we’ll see in here.
The Premise: In “The Safecracker’s Calling Card,” the Hardy clan—plus friend Chet— gets called in to assist a burglary investigation, which leads to our characters learning about modus operandi, profiling, and what sort of information is collected for a “Wanted” notice. It also, (un?)fortunately for impure modern readers, leads to a discussion of safecracking techniques.
My apologies if you already saw me post this on Twitter, but wouldn’t you?
As a story, this chapter was solid, even though the “whodunit” part is solved almost immediately thanks to Fenton Hardy’s enormous card catalogue of villains (and to one of the thieves leaving his jacket, complete with dry-cleaning tag, at the crime scene—honestly). Just like in “The Case of the Shabby Shoes,” our heroes do a lot of legwork, and there’s a suspenseful quest—culminating in a mini-manhunt during which we learn how to track a fugitive—to bring the thief to justice.
This chapter also manages to neatly work in all the skills from the previous stories: fingerprints are searched for, shoeprints are taken, and Chet even goes briefly “undercover” to confirm the residence of the bad guys. And although the techniques are, as ever, a little outdated and analog…
I love a good diagram–even when John Doe has the official hairdo of the Hardy Boys books.
…the story hints at a few things that will become important in the crime stories that have followed it: going through trash for clues, for example, and the rise of intellectual property theft (the safecracker steals proprietary jewelry designs as well as the usual cash and bonds). I recently read an article about another prescient Hardy Boys plot, and it’s interesting to see the trend stretches back to at least the 1970s.
So far, budding crime lords can take the following lessons from this book:
Don’t leave fingerprints. (This is clearly the most easily memorized. It’s been two chapters since our last meaningful fingerprint.)
No smoking foreign tobacco while you’re working.
Did you have more clothing when you went in there than you have now?
Is your way of working so familiar that, say, a private citizen friendly with the police would suspect you immediately upon seeing your handiwork?
Maybe buy new shoes with unmarked soles before every job.
Don’t use your brothers as accomplices if you can help it.
As for lessons for the good guys, I think Fenton’s been spending a little too much time around his kids.
The Verdict: Probably the best story so far, unless you’re the security guard who got blackjacked on the first page.
Synopsis: An Australian-sounding adventurer tries to stop Team Quest from exploring an ancient jungle temple the looter has his sights on, even going so far as to subjugate the natives. This show not being called Guy Who Would Almost Certainly Be Played By Tim Roth In The Movie Version, though, he does not prevail.
Tip 22: You’re stronger together.
When confrontation rears its head, cooperation shouldn’t be far behind.
The weird thing is, I also have boots like that.“This belongs in a museu—oh, who am I kidding?”
Even so, it’s always going to be a problem when you bring a priceless ceremonial artifact to a gunfight.
Better luck next time.
Next time: The Hardy Boys learn about safecracking and how to want a man—as in those pictures in the post office, I mean.
You didn’t think I’d leave you without folk music with St. Patrick’s day coming up, did you?
Of course you didn’t. Here’s one adapted from a William Allingham poem…
Get out your tissues for this one.
My favorite singalong song in this selection:
*goes down rabbit hole involving a YouTubed live performance of Robin Williamson covering “It’s All Over Now (Baby Blue)”* Sorry. Where was I?
!!!!!
That… was not technically Irish, but it was fantastic. Moving on!
This next one is quite special to me: years ago, the Future Ex-Husband and I went to a local restaurant for corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day. They’d hired bagpipers for the night, who went from dining area to dining area playing “The Orange and the Green” and a few other holiday standards; then they stopped. The pipers conferred for a few minutes… played “The Orange and the Green” again… stopped again… and then played this.
And we’ll end as we began—wondering why I’m playing the Irish Rovers and studiously ignoring “The Unicorn Song.”
Synopsis: An Australian-sounding adventurer tries to stop Team Quest from exploring an ancient jungle temple the looter has his sights on, even going so far as to subjugate the natives. This show not being called Guy Who Would Almost Certainly Be Played By Tim Roth In The Movie Version, though, he does not prevail.
Tip 21: Fortune favors…
No matter how many tips I give you campers on how to survive out here, there’s often no substitute…
“Hey, Hadji, why do you think they call it The Ledge of the Secret Room?”
…for pure dumb luck.
I have to admit, that’s a pretty neat jaguar statue near the middle.
Next time: Our Cynical Omelet will have a Musical Interlude for St. Patrick’s Day. I found something, um, incredible.
Why Found-Again? Because I was an inquisitive child literally surrounded by the kinds of evidence this chapter, “The Case of the Shabby Shoes,” talked about. If I could’ve talked my folks into the plaster, I might still have tractor-tire casts lying around.
Much like the story, the book is getting around a bit.
The Premise: The police—still frighteningly short-staffed—call on Fenton Hardy, his kids, and their friend Tony when thieves ambush an eccentric businessman and crack his skull.
Although it probably contains almost as much technical information as the previous story, “The Case of the Shabby Shoes” works much better as a story.
…with a couple of rhetorical exceptions.
There are a number of different locations involved, the Hardys interview witnesses, and there’s even a chase before the bad guys are brought to justice. It’s also not clear until the end whether the case will be murder, which effectively amps up the suspense. And along the way, we’re given a lot of practical tips for gathering different varieties of physical evidence—which is handy, because these miscreants leave all kinds of stuff behind:
The good old days when everyone didn’t learn from Law & Order about wiping their prints. Aww. (Pro tip: do not leave exotic cigarette butts at your crime scenes!)
The Verdict: Positive. This is the best mix of mystery and reference material the handbook has provided so far, and it even includes a diagram showing you how to make a plaster footprint cast. I’m also noticing that most of the villains in these tales are former convicted criminals, which makes this book unlike most mysteries I’ve read as an adult.
Next time: Let’s see if we can finally get Jonny Quest to that darned temple.
Back in the Blacula post, I noticed I’d referred to the movie as a “cultural artifact.” This seems to be my go-to term for movies made in the ’60s–’80s that have very specific period-appropriate styles: If It’s Tuesday This Must Be Belgium, Blacula, and Valley Girl are all cultural artifacts, for example, in their language and costume and general look.
Oddly, I don’t often find myself describing movies from before 1960 as “cultural artifacts,” even though the world I live in more closely resembles Dracula AD 1970 than The Third Man or His Girl Friday. In some cases, I suspect this is genre-related: a noir is a noir is a noir, and usually the only thing that changes is the level of gore/sex shown, the weapons used, and the quality of telephony.
So there’s a gap of thirty to forty years between what I think of as “period clothing” (flappers and earlier) and “cultural artifact” clothing (chest medallions, polyester miniskirts), even though there’s a big difference between Hildy Johnson’s suits in His Girl Friday and Donna Reed’s dresses on her titular show, to pick two examples out of the gap. Perhaps it’s because some of the ’60s-plus paraphernalia was in common use during my lifetime?
At any rate, the tl;dr here: I am far too young to think of Leave it To Beaver as some sort of aesthetic baseline, yet some part of me clearly does. Weird.
