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Tag Archives: ABC Movie of the Week

The Curator of Schlock #282: Bad Ronald

19 Friday Jul 2019

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Horror, The Curator of Schlock

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

ABC Movie of the Week, Bad Ronald, Dabney Coleman, Jason Robards, Kim Hunter, Scott Jacoby

The Curator of Schlock #282 by Jeff Shuster

Bad Ronald

Would you be interested in watching a movie called Good Ronald?

Whatever happened to Dabney Coleman? I remember that as a kid, whenever you’d watch a movie with Dabney Coleman in it, you’d be in for an okay time. He was in Wargames, Cloak and Dagger, and Max Dugan Returns. Oh wait. Jason Robards was in Max Dugan Returns. Could you imagine a movie that starred both Dabney Coleman and Jason Robards? Talk about World’s Finest! Who would get top billing I wonder?

Time for another ABC Movie of the Week.

Ronald1

Tonight’s ABC Movie of the Week is 1974’s Bad Ronald from director Buzz Kulik. It’s about a boy named Ronald (Scott Jacoby) who is bad. Everyone in town knows this. Just look at him. The guy looks like a super nerd, and I’m not trying to say that all super nerds are serial killers, but the facts speak for themselves. Ronald is a teenager who lives at home with his strange mother (Kim Hunter). He plans on going to medical school after high school so he can operate on her one day. That’s bizarre.

Ronald2

Anyway, it’s Ronald’s birthday. After chocolate cake (Ronald’s favorite), he leaves to go to pool party that he wasn’t invited to so he can ask out Laurie, the hot girl in his class who is clearly out of his league. She rejects his offer of going out to a double feature at the local cinema. The other teenagers splash water on him as he leaves. No one likes you, Ronald. Just stay at home with your mother. In fact, your mother did warn you that “You shouldn’t waste your time with someone who doesn’t care.”

When leaving the party, he runs into Laurie’s kid sister, Carol, and by runs into her, I mean he runs into her, knocking her off her bike. Carol taunts Ronald, but he takes the barb like he should, but then Carol talks trash about Ronald’s mother and he snaps. He lifts Carol up with crazy strength and throws her. Carol’s head hits a cinderblock, and she dies. Ronald runs home to tell his mother about what he did. He then informs her that he buried Carol’s body in a shallow grave. Ronald’s mother doesn’t know what do. If only they had gone to the police after the girl had died, Ronald could have explained it was only an accident. But since he buried the body, that will cement his guilt in the eyes of the law. What to do? What to do?

Ronald3

Ronald’s mother has the bright idea of walling up the downstairs bathroom and hiding Ronald in there until until the heat dies down. She’ll feed him through a secret compartment in the pantry. Ronald will, of course, have to keep up with his studies and his daily exercises, but in a couple of months, they’ll be able to leave town. When the police finally do come poking around, Ronald’s mother tells them that he’s run away. The police search his bedroom and find Ronald’s jacket in his closet. His jacket has a piece of cloth torn from it and wouldn’t you know it, it matches the piece of cloth they found at the scene of the crime. Mom should have burned the jacket. Honestly.

Ronald’s mother finally decides to get that surgery she’s needed. She leaves Ronald with some powdered milk and tells him it should only be about a week. Then she dies on the operating table. The house is sold to Mr. Woods (Dabney Coleman) and his family. Mr. Woods has three teenage daughters. Ronald spies on them through peepholes he’s hidden around the house. He also sneaks out at night to drink their milk and eat their hardboiled eggs.

Ronald4

Did I mention that Ronald is having trouble telling fantasy from reality? He’s been hard at work on a Sword & Sorcery novel while being cooped up in that bathroom. I think he imagines one of the blonde daughters as the fairy princess and himself the fairy prince.

I’ll leave what comes next for you to witness yourself, but if you think Ronald is getting a fairy tale ending, you don’t know much about 1970s TV movies.


Jeffrey Shuster 3

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #281: Go Ask Alice

12 Friday Jul 2019

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

ABC Movie of the Week, Andy Griffith, Go Ask Alice, William Shatner

The Curator of Schlock #281 by Jeff Shuster

Go Ask Alice

More like Go Ask Alice and She’ll Get You High!

We’re on Week 2 of ABC Movie of the Week Month! Are you excited? Yes, you are. Why? Because tonight’s movie is 1973’s Go Ask Alice from director John Korty and stars none other than TV’s William Shatner, star of T.J. Hooker, Boston Legal, and Shit My Dad Says! But you know him as Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, you super nerd. And you now reflect on all those times in high school when you got your head dunked in the toilet for knowing Captain Kirk’s middle name or that you knew for a fact that the Starship Enterprise has only one bathroom. You ask yourself if being a Star Trek fan was worth it as the grungy 70s TV movie unfolds before your eyes.

Alice1

There’s a disclaimer before the movie begins, stating that the movie is based on the actual diary of a fifteen-year-old girl, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. The first thing you see is a fifteen-year-old blonde girl named Alice (Jamie Smith-Jackson) buying a diary and then discussing sex hormones with her mom, and you’re getting angry because there is no William Shatner.

You were promised William Shatner!

Then they play that disgusting Jefferson Airplane song “Go Ask Alice” over the credits and you know the movie will be filled with drugged-out hippies! But then you see in the credits that this movie of the week has a special guest star, TV’s Andy Griffith, and you are reassured that all is right in the world.

JAMIE SMITH JACKSON

Alice doesn’t start out as a drugged-out hippie. On the first day at her new school, she’s lonely until she meets a nice girl named Beth (Mimi Saffian), who tells Alice about a recurring nightmare she has about being abandoned in the synagogue on her wedding days when her fiancé discovers she isn’t a virgin. You feel that Beth is a good friend for Alice and that she’ll keep Alice on the straight and narrow.

But then Beth goes away for the summer.

Alice goes to a party where she’s force fed some uppers and downers by some burnouts, and now Alice is a druggie.

Booooooooo!

And still no William Shatner.

Until you do see William Shatner and you can’t believe your eyes. He plays Alice’s dad, an English literature professor at a major university. But he looks middle-aged, his hair is brown, and he’s sporting a mustache. And you know all is not right with the world because William Shatner can’t sport a mustache to save his life. And you wonder what happed to the man who four years prior had been seducing green women and striking fear into the heart of the Klingon Empire.

Alice3

Just when you think Alice can’t sink any lower, her boyfriend gets her to start hawking pills to some 1st Graders.

1stGraders!

And then she finds out her boyfriend has been cheating on her and she runs away. You feel awful for Alice, hoping that Andy Griffith will be able to save her, but you know Alice is doomed. You find out the movie is based on the actual diary of a young girl who was addicted to drugs and then died. But then you learn of the controversy surrounding the book, about how the author may have made it up. Does it matter? Of course!

Alice4

Because you just watched 74 minutes of melodrama interspersed with William Shatner sporting one of the worst mustaches you’ve ever seen.


Jeffrey Shuster 3

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

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