Texas Lightning

There's nothing funnier (or perhaps sadder) than watching a grade D movie containing a once-famous actor who is only in it because they have come way, way down on their luck. Such is the opportunity afforded while watching Maureen McCormick (a.k.a. `Marcia' from `the Brady Bunch') doing her thing in `Texas Lightning.'

At one point in the film, Mcormick's character (a tarty, chain-smoking barmaid named `Fay') delivers the line `they don't pay me to be stupid,' which literally led me to yell back at the tube `oh, they most CERTAINLY do' (anyone who goes from a starring role in a network TV hit to this sort of grade D trash is definitely guilty of selling out).

Poorly written, directed, filmed and edited, laughing at McCormick's pathetic attempt at serious acting (including a rape scene which is so poorly done that it comes across as tasteless comedy) is just about the only entertaining thing to do while watching this boring, slow-moving `coming of age' story. None of the other principal characters in the film (who are all fat, ugly or just plain messed up) warrant any mention.

But wait - there's even more in this excursion into the realm of truly high camp: the bad performances and tiring storyline are enhanced by some of the worst production values and editing you'll EVER see. Seriously. This thing truly looks like it was shot for less than $100. The `sets' consist solely of residential dumps in drab neighborhoods, a tired roadhouse, a tacky motel and desert backwaters, and the editing feels like it was done by a drunken chimp with a machete.

And just when you think it can't get any worse, the film ends with McCormick performing a musical number, in a truly laughable preview of what would eventually become her last `career,' that of grade Z country singer.

Maureen McCormick from "The Brady Bunch" is actually a pretty good actress (I recall seeing her on TV's "The Streets Of San Francisco" in '74 or '75 convincingly playing a prostitute), and I see why she took on this low-budget project, but, alas, it is a film constructed by filmmakers who have little idea how to construct a film. Maureen plays a honkytonk waitress who befriends a backwards young man in town on a hunting trip with his "macho" dad and the dad's sniggering pals; peppy McCormick takes the kid back to her room to make out (I think) but the other guys burst in and try to rape her (from what I could see through the production murk, 'rape' would be difficult for these lousy Lotharios). I think Maureen took this acting job because it's a sympathetic part and she gets to sing and play her guitar. She probably had no idea how it was going to turn out. How did it turn out? It's so bad that when I searched the credits for a director--it wasn't to see who he was but if the movie even had one.

A common strategy for a life in film is to trust certain artists, and few confound the spirit like Orson Welles. His best work was done late in life and much of that either we never will see or see corrupted. So we have to go spelunking through all sorts of abandoned shafts, and the most frustrating of these is following Gary Graver around.

He's a nitwit, but he was Orson's nitwit, and he did make one rather interesting porn film.

Now this is a goofy one: written by someone else, featuring no one at all who seemed to know much about what they were doing, and a story about the same. It appears that the result was so bad that the sponsor send Graver back to reshoot as he wished. So we come to this to see Orson imposed on Graver imposed on a disaster of a film about men imposing themselves on another.

Its something of a terrific game to sort out which was original and which replaced. In other words, which Graver was told to do and which he chose to do, remembering that everything he knew about film was from Welles. Its not worth it at all unless you are prepared for a great hunt and you know what the master was thinking toward the end.

Shooting for fun, shooting by Texas nitwits.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

This movie is baaaaaaaaaaaaad. It is also inadvertently hilarious at times. I mean, Marcia from the Brady Bunch has a part in it, so how good can it be? The video box for this flick says this film is the "warm, funny story of a boy growing up." Actually, it's the story of a wuss with an overbearing dad who wants "to make a man" out of his loser son. The son meets Marcia from the Brady Bunch at a bar when he's out on a hunting trip with his dad and his dad's two friends. Marcia and the son go to a hotel for some lovin' and then the dad's friends bust in, throw the son out and force themselves on Marcia. The next day the son begins to go psycho. He gets so angry at one of his dad's friends the director does a hysterical slow motion shot of the son throwing a plate of food in the face of one of his dad's friends. I guess the director thought it would be a more impressive shot that way. You get the idea...rent this if you like really bad, bad, BAD movies. Later gator.

Hillbilly trash from the early 1980s that should have been thrown out the truck windows along with all the beers cans and newspapers the characters toss while heading to their hunting destination. What was that? The characters are repeatedly shown throwing piles of trash out the windows - was that just part of what being a Good Ole Boy was about? Littering enough to make up for all the non-littering sissies with full mouths of teeth? There is a wet t shirt boob dunking contest that occurs in a roadhouse while a drunken brawl spills across the room and out into the parking lot. The coverage goes back and forth between these two things happening. They're about as exciting as they sound. Peter Jason is really annoying as the perfectly cast loud and annoying life of the party dirtbag, who is an optometrist during the work week. Cameron Mitchell gets beat in an arm wrestling contest by somebody who looks like Bocephus. Marcia Brady is the roadhouse bartender. The roadhouse scene goes on for a long time. Peter Jason is more and more annoying. Their friend whose dentures break in the sink at the beginning of the movie, he's annoyingly lousy through out the movie as well. Maureen McCormick questions "who knows what's good?" when told smoking is bad for her. The answer certainly isn't this moronically lousy excuse for a... father son comedy? Coming of age comedy? Buddy dramedy? Oh yeah, there's a rape scene, too. Classic Good Ole Boys.