Thursday, November 2, 2023

Today's Jumping Off Point: "Terraces"

It's funny how wallowing in Tinseltown garbage like a swamp rat can lead one from a certain glorious piece of cinema debris right into a lesser hunk of junk. For example, while researching my recent post on The Lonely Lady (1983), I was looking into one of the stars from that and came upon a really obscure TV-movie with some intriguing aspects.  I just had to hunt it down and see it for myself, having - literally - no clue on earth that it had ever existed until now. I love projects that are so very bad that they reach full circle and emerge as good. This, I'm afraid, was mostly just plain bad... I give you the 90-minute (with commercials) telefilm Terraces (1977), which was possibly intended as the pilot for a series. Thank whatever gods you worship that such a thing never came to pass. 

Written and directed by one Lila Garrett, Terraces concerns the lives of several tenants in a Marina Del Rey high-rise, all on the eighth floor. Having begun her writing career with cartoons such as Krazy Kat and Snuffy Smith and Barney Google, Garrett later graduated to sitcoms with episodes of Petticoat Junction, Get Smart and Love, American Style. She also penned a dozen installments of Bewitched and created the show Baby...I'm Back!, which starred Demond Wilson. Her most prestigious work took place with a run of ABC Afternoon Playbreak specials, scoring her 3 Emmys and a further nomination.

In a familiar TV trope, we join a newcomer to the fray, played by Kit McDonough. Mother-dominated schoolteacher McDonough is optimistic, but awkward, and is tentatively striking out on her own.

She isn't exactly alone, however. She was alerted to the vacant apartment by friends of hers, a married professional couple played by Bill Gerber and Eliza Garrett.

Meanwhile, up on floor eight, is an elderly couple portrayed by Arny Freeman and Jane Dulo. (Do any of you KNOW these performers?!? WTF??)

At last we're granted a familiar face in the form of Lloyd Bochner, accompanied by (the unknown!) James Phipps. Phipps lives on eight, too, but Bochner is merely visiting.

Having said goodbye to Phipps, Bochner is headed to his car when a woman spies him and offers a startled expression. It's (another known personality) Miss Lola Albright, his wife.

McDonough rides the elevator up to 8 with Phipps and they become fast friends, of course.

All the residents at this place are chummy with one another, pop into each other's apartments, have dinner together, etc... Maybe that's the way in was in '77, but I truly doubt it would be quite the same way now!

At the tenants meeting, we are introduced to another resident (and familiar face!), Miss Julie Newmar, all in bronze fur. The owner is trying to eliminate the building's doorman, but the residents decide to band together and demand that he remain.

McDonough is certainly industrious... This is the SAME DAY she moved in and she's got the entire place decorated, attended the meeting and has made dinner plans for a man she's invited over!

Public defender Gerber and movie publicity writer Garrett don't seem to be on the same page anymore. Somehow they just aren't connecting the way they used to and tend to either ignore one another or bicker.

Freeman, a recently-retired haberdasher, takes his dog for a walk and comes upon his old store, now under new ownership.

He's perfectly appalled to see the sort of items now featured in the store windows.  Apparently, the store now caters to a less traditional crowd, i.e. - the gays!

While we're on that subject, I hadn't yet spelled it out, but you probably already knew. Fledgling actor Phipps is gay and he's having an affair with married doctor Bochner. (It's Chinese take-out night, so Phipps has on his kimono?)

Sweet, but unsettled, Phipps has been around the block more times than The Good Humor Man, but this is Bochner's first trip down the Yellow Brick Road. He says that Phipps has made him happy for the first time in 25 years.

However, Bochner also remains in disbelief as to what he's doing and how it all happened. Pleasing as the relationship has been, he's not certain he can commit to it.

Meanwhile, Bochner's wife Albright is down in the lobby quizzing the doorman as to which apartment her husband has been frequenting. She claims that he's been there to see a patient and wants to know which apartment "she" lives in!

The doorman (Ralph Manza) demonstrates why the tenants keep him around as he brushes off her inquiries with nary a shred of information being revealed to her.

Upstairs, McDonough has given up on her dinner guest and is curled up on the sofa.

Late by close to four hours (!), her pal Tim Thomerson finally shows up with a preposterous excuse. But she lets him in anyway...

Looks like she may have found her Mr. Goodbar.

She asks what he thinks of her new apartment (which he's barely bothered to notice. He was interested in other things, apparently!)

Failing at getting him to give much comment on her new digs, she then asks if he will spend the night with her on her first night there. Needless to say, he isn't down with that.

No, dear. You might have a brass bed, but you are no Maggie the Cat!

Next door, The Bickersons are still at it. By now they will pick on one another about basically anything.

Even Freeman and Dulo are far from blissful. He's railing about what's become of his store while lavishing attention on his pooch. She can barely stand the dog and is tired of listening to her husband bellyache about a store he no longer owns. Also, they're son doesn't seem to want much to do with them, so they're left to their own devices.

Bochner finally heads home, without the ability to let Phipps know when they might see each other again. Answering machines were not exactly prevalent in '77, so Phipps is always worried about missing Doc's call.

One morning on his balcony, we finally get a proper moment with Newmar who, apart from a brief blip early on, is absent for the first 27 minutes of this 70-minute movie. Here, she's showing off her Catwoman-like agility over a game of backgammon.

As Phipps' bestie, Newmar is fully invested in his relationship drama. For her own part, she too is seeing a married man. He's almost all she ever talks about and seems to be installed at the complex solely for his convenience.

'Course nothing is private in this place... Dulo is peering through the latticework while they chat, "watering McDonough's plants."

Gerber and Garrett continue to squabble. He thinks her work as a publicist is puerile while she lashes out at how little honor there is in bailing out pickpockets.

Down the hall, pesky Albright has wrangled her way upstairs and has ascertained that her husband's squeeze lives in apartment 8B. As she rings the doorbell of Phipp's apartment, he is otherwise engaged while Newmar is performing contortionistic calisthenics on the living room floor, as one does...

When Newmar answers, Albright is amazed to see her competition in the tall, shapely, buxom form of this Amazon.

Since Newmar has no clue who Albright is, she doesn't quite understand the situation... at first.

Next, Phipps comes to the door and Albright insists that she needs to see the person who LIVES in 8B.

Phipps (who only has slightly less makeup on than Albright) has to inform his visitor that this is his apartment.

"You're shitting me, right??"

Meanwhile, Freeman just keeps tormenting himself over the direction his old business has taken.

And in truth it's not likely that many of his old customers would still be shopping here. ("It's the latest thing for the office these days...")

Finally, he darts in and tells the new owner that his merchandise is filth... FILTH!

That evening, a disturbed Bochner comes to see Phipps and is ready to break off their liaison after finding out that his wife knows. 

As the night wears on (and the movie wears on), Newmar begins to worry about her buddy Phipps...

Gerber begins to wonder if he's been married to the wrong girl....

Freeman lets his temper get the best of him and he pays dearly for it...

...and one person may be contemplating jumping off a 8th floor balcony!

Perhaps this really was a one-shot and not a pilot. For there's not a lot left to tell us about these people (and I, for one, didn't want to know any more!) It's not so much that the script is bad. It's average - and even scores points for not mistreating its gay characters. But it's the acting! For any project, but especially an ensemble, casting is everything. These people aren't skillful enough in most cases to make us invested in them and they don't gel. And too many of them BRAY their lines as if they are un-miked community theatre actors performing in a barn. It turns grating very swiftly. And we're nearly always aware that they are acting thanks to their "look how I performed this" sort of readings. The version I watched is available here in just a so-so print. I understand that it periodically shows up on Amazon Prime and Hulu in far more clear renditions. Oh, and the ghastly music for this movie sounds just like something you'd hear in the elevator on the way up to the 8th floor!

This was a pretty unusual and rather daring role for Bochner and he handled it well. His veteran professionalism held his scenes together. Like many of the performers found in this project, he was later a (two-time) guest on one of my all-time favorite series, The Golden Girls

Dulo certainly enjoyed a successful career as a comical character actress, popping up in most sitcoms of the 1960s from Leave It to Beaver to The Joey Bishop Show to Get Smart and I Dream of Jeannie. She also had a recurring part on McHale's Navy. The 1970s were a fertile period, too, with Room 222, All in the Family, Welcome Back, Kotter and a recurring part on Medical Center. But here, she is just way too big too often. Doubtlessly chosen by the director due to having worked together on prior sitcoms, she needed to have been reined in a bit. Her last acting role was in a season 7 ep of The Golden Girls. She failed to survive heart surgery in 1994 and died at the age of 76. 

Freeman had begun working on TV in the early-1950s. He balanced shows like Man Against Crime and Captain Video and His Video Rangers with small roles in movies such as Phffft! (1954) and One Touch of Venus (1955.) At home in either comedy or drama as amusing ethnic types, he remained active into the early-1980s, appearing on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Barnaby Jones and Barney Miller. He passed away of undisclosed causes in 1986 at age 76.

Garrett is interesting for a couple of reasons. For one thing, she was the daughter of the writer/director...! So getting a plum part in a project like this was easy as can be. All she'd done prior was a small role in a low-budget movie and portrayed a receptionist on All in the Family! She next appeared twice on mom's show Baby...I'm Back! To her credit, she did build upon this and establish a working career as an actress. The year after Terraces, she won a role in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978.)

Furthermore, since 1992 she's been the wife of actor Eric Roberts. (She is now Eliza Roberts.) Though there were some hard times along the way due to his substance abuse issues, they've stuck it out and often appear blissfully happy together when out on the town for industry events.

I thought it was interesting that Roberts would fall for a gal who had a reasonable resemblance to his at-times-estranged sister Julia Roberts! 

Gerber had a very brief on-screen career. Cast as one of Lee Grant's costars on the controversially short-lived sitcom Fay, he only did this and one other TV-movie before falling off the radar, though he made a semi-return as a bit player in the late-1990s/early-2000s.

This was a huge step for McDonough, who'd only done bits on TV (principally playing a lot of peripheral roles on Happy Days) before this. She continued to pop up on many 1970s sitcoms, winning a recurring part on the brief show Teacher's Only, which starred Lynn Redgrave. I can't say I was fond of listening to her in Terraces, but I could see that in small roles she would likely be comedically effective. In that vein, she worked many years, even showing up in movies like I am Sam (2001) and on recent shows like Modern Family.

The vivacious Newmar danced in 1950s Hollywood musicals like Call Me Madam, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Band Wagon (all 1953) until standing out in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954.) A Broadway turn in Li'l Abner led to a role in the 1959 screen version. By 1964, she was costarring on My Living Doll (not a terribly happy experience for her) followed by iconic and legendary appearances on Batman. For many, she will always be Catwoman. Here, she was mostly a punchline rather than a character, though she's usually worth watching, regardless. Always busy, even in schlock well beneath her, she worked up into the 2000s and is thankfully still with us today at age 90. 

Presumably there are folks who will find Phipps appealing, but he was almost the antithesis of my own type. A dancer, he was very trim and slight with a row of piano keys for teeth in order to smile at the audiences. By accident or design, he ticked most of the stereotypical boxes for playing a homosexual at that time, though, as I say, in general the script is sympathetic. This is the only role of note on-screen that he ever had, with only bits on shows such as Charlie's Angels and Dallas dotting his resume.

Albright was a lovely model and showgirl in movies of the late-1940s, eventually graduating to leading lady roles in the 1950s. It was her part on TV's Peter Gunn, though, that gained her the most fame. She played the title character's sultry, singing girlfriend. She was once Emmy-nominated for it, but lost to Barbara Hale of Perry Mason. Weary of sweet, bland, window-dressing parts, she leapt at the chance to play a cougar in A Cold Wind in August (1961), followed by unusual parts in Joy House (1964) and Lord Love a Duck (1966.) After Terraces, she only made a handful of guest roles, retiring in 1984. She lived to be 92 when she died in 2017 of complications from an earlier fall.

Albright likely filmed her scenes (all done on location at the complex) in one or two days, with just an array of polyester clothing changes. The wig she wore was in a style SO prevalent in the 1970s that I would just dread to see it on actress after actress...

Albright in her hey-day, gracing a record album cover.

Thomerson, better known as Tim Thomerson, went from the Army to performing stand-up comedy. Also, while helping to build sets and supply props, he moved into acting. Making his debut as a guest on Mannix, he started to win roles in movies like Car Wash (1976) and A Wedding (1978) while popping up on many TV shows. (Anthony Zerbe, who he met on that Mannix ep, suggested that he study with Stella Adler, which he did for four years.) He was a regular on the short-lived sci-fi show Quark and also The Associates. Unable to land a series that had staying power, he emerged as a 1980s action star in movies like Uncommon Valor (1983), Trancers (1984) and Iron Eagle (1986) among many others. Ever busy in both comedic and dramatic projects, he is another one of this cast who showed up on The Golden Girls. He played a baseball player who's taken up with Blanche (in a Bull Durham ripoff.) Thomerson, who last appeared in 2017, is 77 today.

By the way, most of you know that I just LOVE it when credits are done this way...! Rich, who played the new owner of Freeman's men's store, had begun as a child actor on Broadway. Attempts at a screen career as an adult were thwarted by the McCarthy era blacklist. But he began to appear on New York shows and in the 1970s emerged in movies set there like Serpico (1973) and The Gambler (1974.) From then on he was a busy character actor on TV and in movies like Frances (1982), Betsy's Wedding (1990) and Out to Sea (1997) among others. He guest-starred on The Golden Girls as a Russian dignitary on an episode where Rose have written to Gorbachev. Rich acted all the way up to 2014 and passed away in 2020 from Alzheimer's disease at age 94.

It would be nearly impossible to list the credits of Manza, who played the building's loyal doorman. The 5'5" character actor began in the mid-1950s with roles on Highway Patrol, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Dragnet. He also popped up in movies like The Enemy Below (1957) and That Touch of Mink (1962), his face perfect at expressing surprise, glee or a forlorn quality. Always busy, he appeared in little parts all over the TV and movie landscape. He was in multiple episodes of Soap, Barney Miller and Newhart. Manza was still actively working when he was felled by heart failure in 2000 at age 78. And, yes, he was on The Golden Girls, too! He played an old love of Sophia's, Augustine Bagatelli. 

Just to dot any "i"s and cross the "t"s before I depart, I wanted to take note of the available beefcake. Gerber is shirtless for some time.

But more to my liking was macho Thomerson, who I always found roughly sexy, even when he grew older. Now I have to press the down button and head back into my undersea cavern. Till next time!

::: BONUS PICS :::

Because of the added interest in Thomerson, I give you these latter-day shots from a "blink and you'll miss it" chest scene in 1994's Trancers 4. (I never blink! LOL)

Apart from his still-fine physique, I can't help but wonder what that lump is in the sheets....!

Sweet dreams.

18 comments:

  1. I don't know what impresses me the most, Poseidon-- your ability to find these obscure projects in the first place, or the way you're able to spin this pile of straw into comedy gold! Amazing job!


    It's rather surprising to see the subplot with a married man dabbling with another man at this point in time, much less to have someone as recognizable as Lloyd Bochner in the role. (I used to think of him as kind of "stodgy" until I saw the shots of him in bed with Pia Zadora, and now I actually find him strangely sexy.)

    And when you posted that irresistable series of cast credit shots, that "drop shadow" typeface and the fuzziness of the framecap (plus my need for new lenses) made me read his credit as "Lloyd Bochner as DR. CLOSET CASE"!!


    It's always great to see Julie Newmar in anything, and amazing to see how incredibly hot she still was in her 40s, when actresses start to get relegated to homey "wife and mother" roles!

    (Also, didja notice her character's name was "Chalane"-- and she was born "Julia Chalene Newmeyer"! Not only that, but "Chalene" was her fashion designer mom's professional name.)


    I instantly said, "Well, no question whose kid Eliza Garrett is," but was surprised to see she continued to work and that she's married to Eric Roberts!


    And for me personally, the icing on the cake was the framecaps of Tim Thomerson in an early beefcake role. He was one of those actors (like Donnelly Rhodes) who quickly morphed into a hot, rugged silver-haired stud and became most visible after that. So these shirtless shots at around age 31 are a real treat! (And if you do an upcoming profile on hot "mature" hunks, please try to include some more shots of him!)



    As always, another fantastic job, Poseidon! Thanks for all you do! Love to all and be safe and well, everyone!

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  2. Yeah, have to agree about Tim Thomerson. A Bad Boy in the stuff I remember him from. And Hot! Hot! Hot!

    The rest, besides those legs of Newmar, I don't recognize at all. But it does sound like a proto-type for "Knots Landing" type soap opera.

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  3. The name of the actress was JANE Dulo, not June. Not angry, but letting ya know. She also played on "the Andy Griffith Show", the episode about three women convicts, alongside Reta Shaw and Jean Carson. I wish that whoever owns these TV movies would put them out of DVD, I would gladly buy them.

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  4. hsc, thank you so much! Algae eaters find all sorts of things at the bottom of the water... HA HA! This was definitely an early example of a gay relationship (and the word gay was used, too!), though not the first, of course. The period is fascinating because the early '70s through the early '80s saw gay liberation and a wider amount of acceptance. Then AIDS brought on such a black period for a long, long time, with fear and discrimination and lord knows what else. (My own peak years as a young man, thankyouverymuch...) HILARIOUS about Dr. Closet Case! I'm glad you cleared up Julie Newmar's name in the show, etc... I saw that her middle name was Chalene and that her character was Chalane, but didn't get why the difference in spelling was made. Nice tribute to her mom! I'm going to add one or two more pics of Thomerson (latter day) because he struck a chord with some of you all! Thanks again.

    Forever1267, the first season of "Knots Landing" was good, but not in its groove right away. I agree with you, but this would just have been dire if it continued with this blend of people. The "acting" has to be seen and heard to be believed. It's like a drama performed in the manner of those "live before a studio audience" sitcoms in which the performers over-project everything.

    SkippyDevereaux, sorry about that. I only used her first name once and was looking at the aforementioned blurry credit titles in that funky font. Just misread it and then didn't catch it later while looking her up. It's fixed now. And I echo the thing about TV movies. As I said in the post, though, at least this one has been seeing some airplay on some of the streaming services, and looking better than it does here! Thanks.

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  5. Jesus, Poseidon - Those shots of Tim Thomerson in bed. With a gun.

    I'll be in my bunk.

    A.

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  6. What a curiosity, and what a cast! And yes - the great Lola Albright is wearing the hardest of hard front wigs here. Watching old 1970s TV, I suspect Ida Lupino and Jo Van Fleet shared the same auburn bouffant wig between them.

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  7. Mercy! You have been doing some dumpster diving lately! This is another one that aired when I was in college (one of those child prodigies you read about in People magazine) so I was busy studying - or something.
    I often wonder about the actors in these things. Do they really think they’re creating something worthwhile, or are they just holding their noses and cashing a check? A mix of both, I suppose.
    It was about this time we started seeing more movies and shows that had true homosexual characters, not just as comic relief. What other shows can we think of?
    Thomerson’s hotness does indeed overcome that hair from the Peter Tork collection.

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  8. Thanks for adding the hot "bonus shots" of Tim Thomerson, Poseidon! "Ask and ye shall receive," I guess! LOL!

    One of the reasons I find Thomerson so hot-- other than I really get into guys who are sexy AND funny-- is that I had a close friend back in college (ironically, we met in 1977, when this aired) who looked just like he does in TERRACES, with dark hair, though he was about ten years younger than Thomerson.

    Even though Rob was straight and a total stud with women, he was very affectionate and liked to sleep snuggled up to me in our briefs whenever we had overnight visits. He knew I was into guys and not only wasn't bothered by it, but actually enjoyed knowing that I thought about him when I jerked off and even asked me if he made me come really hard. (Yeah, he sure did.)

    So eventually-- shortly before his second marriage, with two kids from the first one-- during one of those overnight visits, Rob finally pulled down his straining tighty-whities, grabbed my hand and put it on his raging hard cock, and asked me to show him "what a man does to another man." Afterward, he said it was the most intense orgasm he'd ever had, but it would have to be a one-time experience-- because it would easily "permanently ruin sex with women" for him, and he didn't want that.

    About a year after that night, he married again and his second wife quickly decided she didn't want us to get together (gee, *wonder why?*), and we drifted apart. And a couple of years after that, I found my partner and we've been together ever since.


    I haven't seen Rob in close to 35 years, but the way he was aging, I imagine he'd still look like those "bonus" shots of silver-haired Tim Thomerson brandishing his weapon while under the sheets. (Only in my friend's case, I *know* what was making that "lump" under the sheets! An 8-inch Magnum, fully loaded, that nearly blew my head off!)

    Well, *I'm* sure going to have "Sweet dreams" tonight!


    You're fantastic, Poseidon! Love to all and be safe and well, everyone!

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  9. Hi Poseidon,

    Well, this sounds absolutely dreadful and because of that absolutely like it must be seen! The "stars" all seem very bland and forgettable, which apparently was proven to be the case. However, some of the supporting cast, Bochner, the Misses Albright and Newmar, will ease this along.... a bit!

    The nonjudgmental gay storyline in that period adds a bit of intrigue, but looking back on shows airing then if seems there was a brief window pre-AIDS where TV shows were dealing more realistically and openly than previously and sadly afterwards for quite some time. I recall a Starsky & Hutch (that most homoerotic of police partners!) episode where the pair investigated the murder of one of their fellow officers who was living what now would be termed on the downlow and it was all dealt with in a very straightforward, unsensationalistic way. The gay bar he frequented was neither some sleazy dump nor an unrealistic supper club, such as it morphed into a few years later in a Murder, She Wrote episode where Jessica’s niece’s husband was “forced” to work in a drag show and all the patrons and owners were straight!? Yeesh. The one in Starsky was just like any other bar, it just catered to a certain clientele.

    I do recognize Jane Dulo and have seen and enjoyed her in dozens of television episodes over the years but always in shortish parts. It goes to show that some character performers excel in making an impression in small doses like Miss Dulo but don’t necessarily have the needed charisma for more extended roles such as Thelma Ritter or Eve Arden possessed. Though from the sounds of this particular case much fault falls on the director’s lack of control.

    Lastly, even though it sounds like he’s playing a real tool in this I will look forward like many other commentors to Tim Thomerson appearance, he was dreamy in his youth and aged into a prime example of craggy hotness.

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  10. Poseidon I had to drop back in with an addendum because since I posted my comment I discovered that this was available on Amazon Prime in a remarkably good print for something of this age. Of course I had to drop everything and watch!! It was to put it kindly a mixed bag. The gay storyline was absolutely the movie's strongest element and Lola Albright was shamefully wasted. Most of the other pieces of the tale were weak though Julie Newmar (also underused) was fab and Tim Thomerson delivered the expected and most welcome beefcake. However Kit McDonough as Julie was noxious and off-putting. Glad I was able to catch up with it while you very accurate overview was still fresh in my mind. :-)

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  11. The synopsis reminded me of this:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_96_(TV_series)

    Perhaps it's an early iteration of what in 1980 would be a failed second attempt to recreate the Australian series here in the US.

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  12. Excellent post! I *tried* to watch "Terraces" once but could NOT finish it--for all the reasons you describe here! Bad script, poor acting, listless direction, etc. Love those made-for-TV movies of the 1970s for the most part, but this is just plain bad. I can't understand how such terrible actors ended up playing leading roles in a primetime movie! (Well, aside from the director's daughter, that is!) You'd think the network would've insisted on better, more well-known performers to portray the main characters? (The fact that many in the cast were hardly ever heard from again tells you how lame the casting was!) Even old pros like Lola Albright, Julie Newmar, and Lloyd Bochner, in supporting roles, couldn't save it! (And yes--Lola Albright should have SUED the hairdresser for saddling her with that cheap and unflattering wig!) As you say, the filmmakers do get some credit for the "gay storyline," but that can't redeem this tacky flick. Thanks for another great post!

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  13. A, ha ha ha! I'm glad those got your attention.

    bitter69uk, I am so loving the term "hard front wig!" I can't say enough about how little I admire those damned wigs...

    Dan, I feel like most of the performers thought they were exploring meaningful territory with their work. But the script (and a fair amount of the acting) wasn't up to snuff in terms of really putting something across. "The Peter Tork Collection!" LOL

    hsc, I do try! I don't "take requests" for subject matter because the ungodly time it takes to put a post together means that I have to really be interested myself as a rule, but if I can sprinkle a few tidbits in for people, I make an effort. ;-) That's, uh, quite a tale!!

    joel65913, we're on the same page! -- "this sounds absolutely dreadful and because of that absolutely like it must be seen!" -- No surprise there... I cannot recall if I ever saw that ep of "Starsky & Hutch." It sounds pretty well done. Tim Thomerson plays a callow user and a bit of a jerk, but he's unquestionably one of the more understated and realistic performers in it. He refuses to ham it up for "increased effect" and merely plays who he is supposed to be. Love "craggy hotness!" So glad you located it on Amazon Prime. I don't have that service, but I suspect quite a few readers do. Thanks for sharing! ( I could barely stand McDonough myself either!)

    Truelifetales, that was a FASCINATING bit of reading...! "Number 96" was a zenith on Australian TV and had a feature film version that was also a hit. But the real gobsmacker to me was discovering that it was remade for American TV where it appears to have TANKED. (The cast for that was also riddled with people who appeared on "The Golden Girls," too!) Never heard of it...!! Thanks for the info.

    Beef, I'm sorry that it was such a trial to (try to) get through. I agree with everything you say about it. I guess I just have a greater level of tolerance for utter garbage. Ha ha ha ha! You're talking with someone who had DVDs at home of "The French-Atlantic Affair," "The Night the Bridge Fell Down" and "Murder on Flight 502" among many others... Thanks and take care!

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  14. Tim Thomerson is right out of a dream daddy catalog. I know this movie, and watched it when it aired. I had 100% accuracy for stumbling on gay references and story lines. Right around this time it was mostly "Alexander The Other Side of Dawn" tawdry tales. This film showed unusual sensitivity, and great casting in Julie Newmar as the bff to the gay character. She is delicious looking here. Hard front wig is going into my vocabulary too. I remember thinking the title was sophisticated, lol to this 7th grader. I guess "Balconies" doesn't have the same ring to it. I'm loving your material lately!! And always

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  15. Gingerguy, I couldn't get Timmy out of my mind from that "Golden Girls" guest shot and ever since then I've been happy to see him in things. Since he wasn't billed at the top part of "Terraces" (his and some of the other photo credits were tacked onto the end) it made for a nice mid-show surprise. I'm screaming over "Balconies!" Terraces DO sound so much more elegant. Let's have drinks on the lanai sometime. Ha ha!! Be good.

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  16. Hey Poseidon! Fun fact - doorman Ralph Manza was Julie/Catwoman's henchman "Felix" in a 1966 episode of BATMAN!

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  17. Thanks, Mike! I can completely recall that now that you mention it. He had a distinctive face.

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  18. Bochner father of Hart, another beautiful man underused by H'wood., b4 working with Messing in a series he was Bisset's RS reporter ♥ interest in Rich & Famous, the other 1 being Mr. Olivia Newton-John Matt Lattanzi in (& out) of TIGHTY whities. Last film of George Cukor, was it Kael who accused him of projecting his gay fantasies onto his female characters? Regardless, 1 of the 1st times Bergen was allowed to play comedy & boy does she!

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