Mary Versus the Movies Mary Jones

A black comedy about a sexually-repressed couple who fund their dream of opening a restaurant by posing as sex workers and robbing and murdering Los Angeles swingers. When a local thief worms his way into the scheme, everything goes haywire, jeopardizing their chance at the American Dream.
Starring Paul Bartel, Mary Waronov, Robert Beltran, Susan Saiger, Buck Henry, Ed Begley Jr., John Paragon, and Edie McClurg. Written by Paul Bartel and Richard Blackburn. Directed by Paul Bartel.

A mysterous boy is adopted by a couple and soon shows himself to be unnervingly perfect. Is he really a robot? Maybe even a secret military project? Yeah, of course he is, this is the 1980s. It's not great.
Starring Barret Oliver, Michael McKean, and Mary Beth Hurt. Written by David Ambrose, Allan Scott, and Jeffrey Ellis. Directed by John Heyman

We welcome back Alana Phelan to the show to talk about a Corey Feldman-Corey Haim fantasy with weirdo philosopher Jason Robards inhabiting Feldman's body as he tries to romance Meredith Salinger. It's a very weird movie loved by this weeks' guest.
Starring Corey Feldman, Corey Haim, Meredith Salinger, Jason Robards, Piper Laurie, and Harry Dean Stanton. Written by Marc Rocco, Daniel Jay Franklin, and D.E. Eisenberg. Directed by Marc Rocco.

Dan Ackroyd's misguided take on the copaganda classic Dragnet was a huge disappointment when Dennis saw it in theaters back in 1987. Does his opinion hold up? Or is the film even worse than he remembers? Should he have talked Mary out of covering this at all? But at least we finally get to cover a Tom Hanks movie for the show, right?
Starring Dan Ackroyd, Tom Hanks, Christopher Plummer, Dabney Coleman, Alexandra Paul, and Harry Morgan. Written by Dan Ackroyd, Alan Zweibel, and Tom Mankiewicz. Directed by Tom Mankiewicz.

We start the first of a two-part series examining the musical Camelot, the Broadway hit based on T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, which I recently re-read in preparation. For part one, we look at both the original cast recording from 1960, as well as two clips from the Ed Sullivan show, featuring Richard Burton as King Arthur and Julie Andrews as Guenevere. Unfortunately, this is all we could find of that particular version of the show. We were, however, able to find a 1981 stage revival starring Richard Harris and Meg Bussart and filmed for HBO. 
The 1981 production differs from the original production, streamlining some elements, cutting some characters, but largely is the same show. In both cases, the effort to condense a 700-page novel into a two and a half hour musical greatly simplifies some of the driving philosophy of the book—as much a meditation on politics and the rise of fascism as it is a consciously-anachronistic fantasy and elegy for a dying world (very much reading like Lord of the Rings meets A Connecticut Yankee). However, focusing on the love triangle and Arthur’s conundrum of balancing justice and mercy, might and right, makes for an effective musical, one which even influenced the popular culture conception of the then-current Kennedy administration.
In our next episode, we will examine the 1967 film production of the same musical.
 
1960 Broadway Original Cast Recording: Starring Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, Robert Goulet, David Hurst, Robert Coote, Roddy McDowall, and Robin Stewart.
1981 Revival: Starring Richard Harris, Meg Bussert, Richard Muenz, James valentine, Barrie Ingham, Richard Backus, and Thor Fields. Music by Frederick Loewe. Lyrics and Book by Alan Jay Lerner.
 
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We finish "Dennis versus the movies" with a very silly Canadian hair metal horror movie wherein Jon Mikl Thor battles a rubbery devil. It's the kind of goofy trash they used to show at 3 a.m. when we were a proper country.
Starring Jon Mikl Thor. Written by Jon Mikl Thor. Directed by John Fasano.