Night Patrol

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Film: D

 

 

Before all the film production got send to Canada too often, bored Hollywood actors would get together and do very bad feature films.  It is almost its own cycle, but this often happened, maybe because the disaster film cycle died down.  Jackie Kong’s Night Patrol (1984) is one of those films, a perpetually unfunny film about all the lost persons on the streets of… Hollywood.

 

This one brings together Linda Blair (poor Linda), a then less-known Andrew Dice Clay, Paul Paulsen, Pat Morita, Billy Barty and ex-Gong Show figures The Unknown Comic and Jaye P. Morgan, who was banished by creator/host Chuck Barris after what he saw as one breast-flashing incident too many.  Her loss killed the show.

 

This manages to go on for 85 minutes and it never, ever adds up to anything but an extremely unfulfilled wish to be another Airplane!  People watch films like this to see how bad they were and that they even exist.  That is a heck of a reason to qualify as a curio, so only see Night Patrol if it is imperative to see how not to do a comedy.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is not bad, but nothing spectacular.  It is flatly lit and dully shot, but the print is in fair shape, including unexcitingly consistent color.  It still shows its age enough.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is just good enough to hear the terrible dialogue and the only extra is a trailer.  This DVD is basic in all kinds of ways.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo