Morganalee

This movie has a strong cast, headed by one of my favorite actors. After some needless frontal nudity and lurid scenes from the drug underworld, the film gets to the crash sequence that put the bodies into the theater seats. But that is the high point of this story. Afterward, the plot meanders around, detailing the seamy excesses of its main character and doing little else, until it reaches its highly unrealistic, highly unsatisfying climax. I thoroughly disliked Denzel Washington's character, which shows, I guess, what a good job he did, since I like the actor himself very much. But his skill isn't enough to redeem this dud of a story. Halfway through the climactic scene, I realized what was coming, and I felt very much ripped off, as though I'd been treated to a preachy and inferior remake of "Days of Wine and Roses." Gratuitous nudity, f-words, and grungy bathroom scenes notwithstanding, it's still at bottom just a corny endorsement of Alcoholics Anonymous. I cannot recommend this movie.

"Pa Hack's Brood" recycles some of the favorite themes of "Gunsmoke" writers of the early 1960s that were aired in the preceding two seasons: grown men cowed into submission by their fathers ("The Boys," "Harpe's Blood," and others) and shiftless folk who think the easy path to land and riches is to kidnap the unsuspecting prospect and force the person into marriage ("Root Down," "Phoebe Strunk," "Marry Me"). This episode combines the two plots with only so-so results. The final scene of the episode rings false (I was minded of the old line that the person would be likely to last as long as a cockroach in a hen house) and a significant element of the plot is left dangling. Still, I found the episode worthwhile because I was able to see George Lindsey, familiar to most watchers of old television as Goober in the "Andy Griffith Show," in a dramatic role. He's under-appreciated in such roles. To see him in a really chilling role, about as unlike Goober as one could imagine, catch him in the "Alfred Hitchcock Hour"'s "Bed of Roses."