The Tabasco Film Company of Havana, Cuba
Movies, am I right? They’re terrible, but usually worth sitting through if you cling to some aspect, like an actor, location, or plot device. If you can throw a MASH cast member or two into the mix, so much the better. Here are a few that might appeal. I said “might”!
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Paper Lion (1968)
Alan Alda plays the author George Plimpton, who briefly became a football player and wrote about it. The “real” athletes on his team aren’t too impressed with him, and he’s hazed as he tries to complete training. Lauren Hutton is his buddy/girlfriend, who takes photos and is very glamorous.
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With Six You Get Eggroll (1968)
Jamie Farr and William Christopher are in this, but briefly. However, they’re stereotypical hippies with love beads and the whole deal. Quality over quantity, they say. This was Doris Day’s last film, about a widow facing family problems as she’s about to remarry.
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The Cat from Outer Space (1978)
A live-action Disney movie. Totally fucking bonkers. A talking space cat thwarts the military men, commanded by Harry Morgan, who try to keep him from repairing his flying saucer. Also starring McLean Stevenson in a Walter Matthau-esque “slob best friend” role.
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The Mephisto Waltz (1971)
This is a horror film in the Rosemary’s Baby vein about… OK, let me try to get this out… a Satanist who transfers his soul into Alan Alda’s body. There is an evil dog and weird evil rich people. Slick, posh, sexy, but laughably bizarre, and also very disturbing. Watch it in the daylight hours.
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The Hot Touch (1981)
Wayne Rogers is a beefcake art forger who copies paintings with his shirt unbuttoned to the sternum and has to avoid being found out. Directed by Roger Vadim, best known for Barbarella. Light suspense, a smattering of violence, and some (but not enough) nakedness between Wayne and love interest Marie-France Pisier, a biologist/medical researcher.
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Better Off Dead (1985)
Now this is cinema. David Ogden Stiers delights, using his normal voice, as John Cusack’s dad in the surreal cult classic from writer/director Savage Steve Holland. Teens enact their rivalry on a ski slope, a paperboy creepily demands his two dollars, and David appears in an aardvark suit.
