Obit watch: July 17, 2017.

It seems unfair to reduce Martin Landau to one thing. After all, he was great in “Ed Wood”. And he was excellent in a lot of other stuff:

Well, maybe not that.

But by 1981 the good parts had grown hard to find for both Mr. Landau and Ms. Bain; that year, in what he later acknowledged was a low point, they appeared in the TV movie “The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island.”

Well, maybe not that, either. But there’s one thing that stands out for me. Childhood nostalgia or whatever, let’s run that tape again.

I need to find that episode in my stack of “M:I” DVDs, if for no other reason than to figure out what the deal is with the cat. Plus: Darren McGavin!

I really wish I had more to say about George Romero, but I don’t. I’ve seen “Night of the Living Dead” and “Dawn of the Dead” and was just pretty much “meh” about both of them.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 17th, 2017 at 9:26 am and is filed under 1970s, Movies, Obits, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “Obit watch: July 17, 2017.”

  1. RoadRich says:
    July 17, 2017 at 12:33 pm

    Thanks for choosing that still of Martin Landau as Commander Koenig. As you said, he’s done a lot of great things, and for my brand of childhood nostalgia, that’s the character I think of first. And for some reason, I also think of his role in The Fall of The House of Usher. Partly… okay, MOSTLY because I like to sing out the title to the melody of some classical tune I cannot remember. I never watched M:I enough to realize Barbara Bain was also on it!
    I share your mixed feelings about George Romero. When I heard his name on the news I realized… here was a well-known film director from before the current decade, whose name I recognized, yet I’ve probably never seen his films.

  2. stainles says:
    July 18, 2017 at 6:42 am

    It’s weird to me: “M:I” is sort of on the fringes of my memory, but occupies a much larger place than I think it should.

    On the other hand, “Space:1999”, I think was on at a weird time and place in Houston when I was young. Lawrence may be able to correct me, but I have it in my mind for some reason that episodes of “1999” aired in that 6:30 – 7:00 PM slot between the nightly news and the start of prime time in the Central time zone. I can’t believe that’s right, since it looks like “!999” episodes were an hour (with commercials) but maybe they broke each episode into 24 minute chunks?

    Point being, I never caught the “1999” bug. Much like one of the reasons I never caught the “Star Trek” bug was that “Trek” aired on a Houston station we just flat out could not get in my part of town.