darkstrangers

I saw this film when I was a teen. I went back several times to see it in the theater because this film facinated me. It is a real "how-to" on pocket picking. I learned so much from this film and was entertained in the process. Later, when I was traveling alone, I managed to thwart at least four attempts to pick my pocket or just scam me because I was aware of the way these guys operate. James Coburn is great as usual. This character was perfect for him. This film is a lot of fun to watch. Grab some popcorn, the story is engaging, interesting, and exciting. And maybe even heart-tugging.

Smart kid builds time machine, suddenly becomes stupid and can't think of any effective way to use it to make the world better.

Winning the lottery for only 1.8 million? Going to a concert that you missed? Really? Are you sure YOU built this time machine? Really tired of these teen "coming of age" stories using science fiction as an excuse to get laid by high school girls.

Honesty, Randall and the gang used their time traveling map more effectively than these kids.

The only reason I'm giving it 4 stars instead of none is because Jonny Weston and Allen Evangelista seem to be reasonably good actors. Everyone else was adequate.

A marvelous little show with a cliffhanger-like episodic style. When I was young, the old time cliffhangers were long gone, but Danger Island brought back an exciting way to keep kids glued to the tube, anxiously awaiting the conclusion as to weather Link was going to fall off that cliff, or get eaten by a shark, or be killed by the pirates. (But, what the filmmakers didn't know was that we kids didn't care a lick about Link, we only cared about Chongo.)

Stranded on an island, hunted by nasty modern-day pirates, Prof. Irwin Hayden (played by Frank Aletter), his daughter Leslie (Ronnie Troup), and her boyfriend Link (Jan-Michael Vincent, yes, really) run into two mysterious men, Morgan (Rockne Tarkington), and Chongo (Kim Kahana) who also seem to be hiding from the pirates. They band together for survival.

Chongo spoke gibberish most of the time, leading one to believe that he was a bit addle brained. But when danger was near, the call would go out, like a magic spell "UH OH, CHONGO!" and Chongo became an unstoppable, lean, mean, fighting machine. It was just fun to watch.

The bad guy was a classic nasty with idiot henchmen to deal with and god-knows-what he wanted with the prof & his daughter. The "episdoes" were about 8-10 minutes long and after about 26 episodes the good guys turn the tables on the pirates, leaving them stranded while Chongo and company finally escape the island. Ha ha!

Having closure was a new and satisfying feeling in itself, as no other TV show ever really finished their story before being canceled. But this particular show was filmed like a movie and was fed to us in little bite-size pieces, so that explains the difference, I guess.

What made this a great show, and one that I remember with great fondness, is that the acting, stunts, cinematography, and story line were all done with extreme professionalism. It was a pleasure to watch and I think any kid today would love to see it.