Texas Lightning

This is the WORST MADE film I EVER SAW!!!!!! My Jr. High Film class did a better job when WE wrote our own script and shot with an 8mm Camera and B&W FILM!!!

I couldn't understand why such a successful actor as Cameron Mitchell would be involved with such a poorly written, poorly produced, poorly directed, poorly shot, and poorly edited production (If you even DARE call it that...) until I saw that it was the first film that his son Channing was in. I'll bet the producer said that his son would get the part ONLY if his DAD would star in the film!!! You can tell that Cameron Mitchell was a REAL PRO as even with this piece of SH*T script and lack of directing, he did a fairly decent job, as Maureen McCormick did as well. Boy, she must have been WAY DOWN ON HER LUCK or been bamboozled into taking the part. You can see that she really tried to act the part well, but with the GOD AWFUL direction and shooting, what should have been her best dramatic scene (The Motel Room) turned into an unintended (at least by the director) hilarious comedy (This was the FIRST TIME I ever laughed at a RAPE SCENE...).

I even wonder if the director's credit was a phony name, as I can't believe that any director worth a damn would put their own name on this piece of CRAP (unless of course they were too stupid to realize that this film was actually that BAD)!!!

First of all, The opening sequence looks like it was shot either with very fast (ASA 1600) film or 8mm film at around ASA 800. It is SO GRAINY that you can't even make out most of the signs!!!

I would go on, but there is a 1000 word limit on what I can say here, and I would use that up just describing all the bad production in the first five minutes of the film.

I RECOMMEND this film for use in film classes as a PERFECT Example of how N O T to make a film!!!

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.

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.

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.

Marcia's hot in this one. She does her own version of the "bull ride" in a trailer that would've made the Bradys' proud. Barry Williams wishes he could have had a scene like this with her in the 70's. Hell, we all wish we could have had a scene like this back in the 70's. With all the recent Brady revival, they should re-release this cheesy classic.