1) I can't stand the songs (shame on Steve Allen for them. Irwin must have owed Steve a favor, as they aren't even passable for a NON-Disney musical).
2) The sets are just..."weird" (grass looks like a Putt Putt green...and a lot of set pieces look like they were retrieved from "Willy Wonka" 3) Natalie Gregory is a good Alice. Even though they played on the "cute factor" too much and she always has a look of "AWE...I am acting alongside Sally Struthers" in every scene.
BUT... WOW! What a cast! Try making this film today? And it is "Titanic Money" to produce. For sheer cast and set design alone.
But this was pure "Irwin Allen" here.
Some stars are billed and (literally) on screen for 1 minute. If you thought the cameos in George Stevens' "The Greatest Story Ever Told" were akin to "The Crucifixion On the Hollywood Squares/Match Game Hour"...then you GOTTA see this.
When ANN JILLIAN and BEAU BRIDGES (both at the HEIGHT of their careers) are "downbilled" to Jayne Meadows (30 years past her stardom)...then you know you got a CAST.
Irwin even seems to have "families of the stars" in this. (Like ALL the SAVALAS family. 2/3rds the BRIDGES family...the "All In the Family" FAMILY is represented (Sally Struthers, Sherman Hemsley, George Savalas, Sammy Davis Jr, all appeared on All In The Family) and of course "Irwin Allen's Road Company Family...including his wife Sheila, and his favorite "stuntman" Ernie "I fell from the ceiling/floor into the skylight in The Poseidon Adventure" Ernie Orsatti, to costumer Paul Zastupnevich, and all of his other extras that turned up in everything he did from "Land of the Giants to Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, etc"... This production is like a cavalcade of 50s and 60s and 70s that either "once worked with Irwin" or ALWAYS worked with Irwin, even if the script was a dud (see: Red Buttons and Pat Morita in When Time Ran Out, etc).
I kept waiting for OJ to show up and save Alice's car... or Maureen McGovern to sing a song or Leslie Nielsen to appear in a dramatic role. Oh well...those 3 I guess "Irwin couldn't get". But the REST of "The By-then Game Show Circuit of yesterday's stars" he did.
Wow.
Ya gotta see it to believe it.
It is weird and wonderful.
Pure Irwin Allen.
2) The sets are just..."weird" (grass looks like a Putt Putt green...and a lot of set pieces look like they were retrieved from "Willy Wonka" 3) Natalie Gregory is a good Alice. Even though they played on the "cute factor" too much and she always has a look of "AWE...I am acting alongside Sally Struthers" in every scene.
BUT... WOW! What a cast! Try making this film today? And it is "Titanic Money" to produce. For sheer cast and set design alone.
But this was pure "Irwin Allen" here.
Some stars are billed and (literally) on screen for 1 minute. If you thought the cameos in George Stevens' "The Greatest Story Ever Told" were akin to "The Crucifixion On the Hollywood Squares/Match Game Hour"...then you GOTTA see this.
When ANN JILLIAN and BEAU BRIDGES (both at the HEIGHT of their careers) are "downbilled" to Jayne Meadows (30 years past her stardom)...then you know you got a CAST.
Irwin even seems to have "families of the stars" in this. (Like ALL the SAVALAS family. 2/3rds the BRIDGES family...the "All In the Family" FAMILY is represented (Sally Struthers, Sherman Hemsley, George Savalas, Sammy Davis Jr, all appeared on All In The Family) and of course "Irwin Allen's Road Company Family...including his wife Sheila, and his favorite "stuntman" Ernie "I fell from the ceiling/floor into the skylight in The Poseidon Adventure" Ernie Orsatti, to costumer Paul Zastupnevich, and all of his other extras that turned up in everything he did from "Land of the Giants to Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, etc"... This production is like a cavalcade of 50s and 60s and 70s that either "once worked with Irwin" or ALWAYS worked with Irwin, even if the script was a dud (see: Red Buttons and Pat Morita in When Time Ran Out, etc).
I kept waiting for OJ to show up and save Alice's car... or Maureen McGovern to sing a song or Leslie Nielsen to appear in a dramatic role. Oh well...those 3 I guess "Irwin couldn't get". But the REST of "The By-then Game Show Circuit of yesterday's stars" he did.
Wow.
Ya gotta see it to believe it.
It is weird and wonderful.
Pure Irwin Allen.