The premise was bizarre: “We’re going to torture you to find out if this woman’s race is worth saving.”
Alien logic, eh?
My friends in college had a VHS tape that contained a trailer for a movie called “Doctor Detroit” starring Dan Ackroyd. We had neither seen it, heard of it, or even really even remember talking to anyone familiar with it. It was a mystery and no tape was ever in at any store, so we never got to see it.
Get this, my library network has the Blu-ray. Yes, it has a Blu-ray release and I have been watching it tonight.
Yeah, so not exactly the worst movie in the world, but there is a reason it flopped. It’s just kind of dumb and generic.
I remember seeing that on cable back in the day. Not a great movie, but interesting from a trivia point of view. It’s an early role for Fran Drescher, who Aykroyd’s character weds, and also the movie where Aykroyd met his real-life wife.
Yep, and Fran Drescher is about 25 when making this. This is the type of movie you think they would have handed Ackroyd after the success of Ghostbusters, but it is a year before Ghostbusters and a few months before Trading Places.
It just kind of entered and exit theaters real quickly.
I remember when it was being promoted on TV. It’s the movie where Aykroyd warns the bad guys that he’s a master of the deadly art of Kung Fu, or words to that effect, right?
IIRC, Siskel and Ebert panned it. Was it better than Neighbors?
I think Im the only person who liked Neighbors. I liked the ending. I also liked Continental Divide …so…
I thought Continental Divide was bleah, especially the ending. Ferchrissakes, either get on the goddamned train and bone her or stay off it and go home, ya mook! 
Siskel gave it 2 1/2 stars and Ebert, get this, gave it 3 out of 4 stars. Not hugely raving, but both thought it was OK. Ebert gave it “thumbs up” on his show.
Here is Roger’s review from 1983. I disagree with him. It’s a snoozefest, mainly.
That’s odd, my dad used to say he remembered the same song from a cartoon he only saw one time, and he could sing it too. Must have affected (infected?) a lot of moviegoers.
Years later, the clip with that song was used on Pee-wee’s Playhouse, so that solved the mystery.
I believe the song was one that was popular for a time in the 1930s, perhaps from the radio. This old cartoon used that song but altered it a little. I did once find the lyrics online, but that website has since disappeared and I can’t find it again. A clip was on Pee-wee’s Playhouse, huh? Bizarre.
I found the original (probably)!
A scratchy 78 by the Westerners. I don’t think they sing “1-2-3”, sounds more like “one tweet tweet”, which is how my dad sang it. Who can say what it means?
Be sure to listen to the end - you hear that line sung in a froggy voice, just like in the cartoon.
I was just thinking the other day, now that they’ve actually made History of the World, Part II, maybe the time is finally ripe for The Return of Mom.
No, please, no! Much like it did in its original release, Doctor Detroit left almost no impact on me.
When I was young, I very much wanted to see the movie-version of The Quatermass Experiment, [US title The Creeping Unknown] and wasn’t allowed to, on the grounds that it was ‘unsuitable’.
Many years later, I did catch it, and it was no better than ‘meeah’. The star, Brian Donlevy, his career by then on the slide due to alcoholism, was imposed on the production in an effort to sell it to the American market. Nigel Kneale, who wrote the BBC original series, hated his performance.
Was there an Allen Quatermain movie where Quatermain wears a metal sheet under his shirt and it serves as sort of a “spear proof” vest that he uses at least once in the movie to deflect a spear thrown at him?
I thought I saw it as a kid, but it might even been made for TV.
Damn if you didn’t. My dad was a major western fan, and liked cowboy music too. He must have heard this song I’m sure.