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The A-Team: A Nice Place to Visit (1983)
Nice place to visit : small bend in the road....
As an A Team fan, this has to be one of my favorite early pieces. It does not follow the pure A Team formula but is written from a concept. Dealing with the loss of friend. There is less running around shooting and racing cars, twirling jeeps or ducking Lynch (although this is there to some degree.)
Joannna Kerns plays well as the widow of a fallen war buddy. Her loss is palpably believable but being a pro she keeps it from going over the top. There are flashbacks with voice-over done by each team member of their friend (good idea but very shortchanged by time constraints) However week the flashbacks, the voice overs added a small sense of nostalgia for time past.
It showed that the show could work and be written from a single concept without falling to pure formula. Yes, the villains are pretty standard A Team bad guys. There is Harold the gas attendant -- pure cliché. right down to his high pitched giggle> reminded me of Gabby Hayes
What I also saw in this piece was that this was one of the few shows except for the pilot or even Range Rider where Amy Allen gets to show what her role could have been. Not here is Amy the cardboard cutout shuttled in and out of scenes (without explanation) a with few lines and little to do but look to at the camera and give an expression.
The show starts with what looks like reused scenes from another episode, a car chase, but then cuts to van. Amy instead of being in the back as smiling backdrop is pretty well front and center (considering how little she has been given to do since the pilot.) She is again feisty, strong willed, edgy and not going take nonsense or put up with the guys fooling around. She makes herself part of the group as she dresses down BA by reminding him a very strong tone that eating a parking ticket in front of the cop (not shown just talked about) definitively falls under the category of starting trouble. She harangues HM about comparing tickets to food and generally comments they not best not look for trouble or trouble would find them. The team laughs a bit at her, but her character stands up to the argument and wont be put down. She acts as referee grabbing the Face and HM to keep them apart and without words her expression is simple "smarten up". A bit "mother hen" she tells them once they reach the town ...no trouble guys....no trouble...
In the diner Amy sticks a fork in the hand of one of the main bad guys (Deke Watkins played suitably nasty by Don Stroud) when he gets pushy. She gets to open a lot of dialog in this show and expresses her characters opinions of disgust at the situation where they are called the villains by the restaurant owner and told to leave. Near the end she actually uses weapons to shoot at people firing a rifle, shooting a fire extinguisher into the eyes of Harald "Gabby Hayes" the giggling gas attendant and throwing coffee at Deke.
Her whole tenure is almost angry as in "stay out of trouble guys" or you will be in jail. The point being that she is given more room and is very capable of making her stuff believable.
Okay. So this is the one of rare early regular episodes where the writers and directors got a good mix with role of Amy and the team. All that was rumored about her feeling left out does not seem to be the case here with her play in Nice Place to Visit.
Director Mcveety proved they could take the A Team build it around a concept and still keep it "ATeam".
It is a bit slower paced but maintains the humor, and A Team essentials (ie fight-scenes etc ) without having Mr T build tanks from garbage cans or letting HM wander of aimlessly with endless soliloquies from Moby Dick.
In summary this essential A TEAM with a slightly different approach that works even with some holes in the plot and really long intro. I don't think this idea was ever tried again.
The end is interesting. Rather than have Hannibal hanging off a chopper skid laughing, it cuts and holds on a shot of the grave of their friend with Murdochs voice-over "Ray had many friends" suggesting a gentle homage to Vietnam vets who were often shunned and hated because of their involvement in a very unpopular conflict.
ts
The A-Team (1983)
character chemistry A TEAM general comment
I absolutely agree with a previous comment that the internal chemistry between the characters AND their great interactions made this show great fun to watch. It was a "cartoonish satire" with real people lots of bullets that did not take it self too seriously until mid third season or so. I was a big fan.
Rumblings on several recent boards talk (again) of a movie. They are a laugh as they all about guessing the choices to play the roles from the Rock as T (noone could replace T (he was an original entity) to Mel Gibson or George Clooney as Hannibal and Jim Carrey or Will Farrell as Murdoch or Brad Pitt as Face.
(These people don't seem to get it that it was not only the characters and their interpretations but the period in which A-Team ran that made it work. The Lennon shooting the attempt on Reagan -- viewers enjoyed and accepted the absurdity of the show because of the time and sensibility of what was going on around them.)
That rant being being made it might be nice to bring the gang back except for the death of George Peppard. Supposedly Stephen Cannell is again screening scripts. One rumor has it, that the original cast will play some role. Sounds like when they tried to do a show about show remaking a show of Bewitched (directed by the super Nora Ephron) and it was absolute garbage.
If GP was around I might be interested (altho somehow I suspect GP would not touch it.) I don't wish to watch Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, K. Reeves, Jim Carry, Steve Buscemi or any of the other choices, spoil the the great work Dirk Benedict Dwight Schultz and the rest did with the characters.
I also feel, the forgotten character of Amy Allen (by the far the best of the three sidekicks dropped in during the run) had the greatest potential. This potential but was given short shrift by the writers. There are many web sites of interviews with Melinda Culea explaining that she did everything to get the the writers to give here more to do than be a face with no part. Mr Cannell even admitted in one interview they were not clear on her role.
In pilot Melinda Culea played feisty, a fighter, wanting to get involved in everything including fights. She was a super counterpoint to the all boys gang from keeping them from fighting to providing background checks and other help the thru the paper etc.
I disagree with the comment Melinda was eye candy. Or, perhaps, the straitjacket that the writers put her in as the show went on made her seem that way. However as one poster notes, today it would be different. Someone like a Joss Whedon would know how how use her talent. (Just watch her in her 3 episodes of Family Ties 1984 and the strength of her comedic sense partnered against Michael J. Fox is hilarious.
Loved the scene with the cockroaches where she was given the main job of sewing listening buttons on cops jackets. The comeback to Face was "sewing buttons -- how wonderfully sexist". It was subtle but funny. However, this kind of thing was never developed.
Two of my favorite early episodes The Rabbit who ate Los Vegas and Jamestown where the show has one of it really serious tones. Hanibals makes a dark "acceptance of death to keep the edge" speech showed and Melinda clearly showed she had the ability to handle the scene. I wish they had kept her on as the role could given the stories wider range.
Any way. I have little interest in seeing Bruce Willis, Rock, Cloony or anyone else muck this up by trying recreate it esp. given the train wreck of rail cars that have come of TV to big film conversions. The reruns are fine up to the entrance of Robert Vaughn (who essentially did what Decker and Lynch never could do ) which was bring the A team down.
It was great for its time and its fun to drift back to that period and smile.
I recently read a web interview with Cannell stating the movie "IF" it came would not be much like the original. There would be far more "realistic" action, real shooting and more fast paced without the humor that the show ever had. Sounds like a different program from the one I knew. While I might agree with his idea it would not be the A TEAM as it was. More like a Mission Impossible or Oceans 2X whatever number they are up to now. No thanks
Pity the fool who plays with this. Leave it alone sucker.... And if HM could not take Billy or THerm he might never agree to do a reprise.
Tim S. Ottawa
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (2005)
Excellent film -- worth seeing
I grew up in the sixties with three brothers and a father much like the one in the film. I related to a lot of the film thru the characters, as well as the coloring, the backgrounds and the multilayer style of the story. It is smart, and manages to strike some balance between "pure camp fiction" and darker issues such as alcoholism.
Having lived thru some of the period and having lost both my parents in the last few years I related to a lot of films "realities" and movementweaving in and around the stuff of social class for women and men as it was then and to what it is now.
There are many "soda pop" films that try to pass as "memories of the fifties". This was stark and real about an amazing (not Ozzzie and Harriet) family. I felt a strong sense of nostalgia and it really made me feel and remember about what I had lived thru. Some critique this as horrible awful (the thoughtful comments) etc but I suspect they are the ones who didn't understand what the film was doing. Prize Winner does make you think by its story, subject nature and style of presentation. The fact there are no shootings or car chases probably lowered its rating for many who complain if there is not at least one car chase or blood letting.
I liked the asides with Moore doing the narration as the story went on. I felt the idea of her doing as opposed to an off screen narrator especially a voice different from the character would have been disjointing. Evelyn was telling the story. Her (JM's) narration was clean, easy to pick up and the right choice to make.
The character essence of Evelyn was a women with an exceptionally strong sense of self presence. She was someone who not going to let life stop her doing what she felt had to be done. She would push on no matter what. Her husband complained "your too nice." Yes Evelyn was nice but it was more than just nice and this was one of the layers of the story. Evelyn was someone who had to be "nice" not sweet or sugary but calm, optimistic and reasonable with determinism and the ability to want to move ahead given the life she had. In the scene with with smashed milk bottles, she coolly played her cuts down and this was one of may examples that showed her as a survivor.
Prize winner is a well worth seeing with superb performances by both leads. The cinematography especially in its use of color and light is technically and periodically excellent. The smart pacing keeps your interest from start to finish.
Tim S.