Riding with Death (1976)

Good concept, poorly executed.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Well, ratings of less than three stars are usually reserved for movies with obvious technical problems, like poor lighting or sound-sync issues. But really, it's superfluous to give this "movie," which is really just two (bad) episodes of a titanically idiotic television show (badly) spliced together, any rating at all.But you can have some fun with it. In fact, the more times you watch this movie with Mike and the Bots (episode 814, and one of their best), the more completely idiotic and unbelievable pieces you can pick out of the movie's paper-thin premise. Literally every single thing in this movie is done or happens for apparently no reason whatsoever. Characters behave as if they can see the camera and ham it up accordingly. The dialog is cliché after cliché. After repeated viewings, the idiocy becomes manifest and reaches a level of sublimity simply not found in ordinary stupid television. Really. It's almost difficult to believe that writers Leslie Stevens and Frank Telford thought their potential viewers could be so stupid.For instance, consider the scene in which Sam Casey (Ben Murphy) pulls into a garage to have his brakes checked. No, the brakes weren't acting up. He apparently just thought his brakes needed to be checked. The mechanic ostensibly checks his brakes, but as Casey drives away, we get a shot of a dangling brake line (and in the process are presented with a factual error involving the way that brakes work on a big rig, but whatever) and Carl the mechanic looking sinister. Apparently, he's a bad guy.But wait. We're supposed to believe that the evil Dr. Hale (idiotically riding in his chopper and very obviously following Casey the whole time) somehow knew that Casey was going to randomly stop at a random garage to randomly have his brakes checked, and somehow managed to plant a bad guy there in advance with instructions to surreptitiously cut the truck's brake line? There, you see, is the sublime stupidity. It boggles the mind.Also beware of insipid idiot cracker Jim Stafford, doing his best to make men everywhere ashamed of men's clothing in general. Ugh.Watch and enjoy, folks. Watch and enjoy.

This "film" is nothing more than two episodes of the short-lived (actually, that's an understatement, considering the show lasted only from Sept. 23-Oct. 28, 1976) NBC series, "Gemini Man," which was itself simply a re-warmed version of David McCallum's "The Invisible Man," also a failure from the same network earlier that year. In this program, Ben Murphy ("Being From Another Planet," "Alias Smith & Jones") plays "Sam Casey," an employee of Intersect (a government think-tank of some kind), who, because of an underwater explosion, and by using a special watch, has the power to become invisible -up to 15 minutes a day. This is based, very loosely, on something that H.G. (Homer Gump) Wells wrote-once. Murphy's co-workers include Katherine Crawford as "Dr. Abby Lawrence," who serves no useful purpose other than to get in the way (or observe the proceedings on a large TV screen), and his boss, "Leonard Driscoll (played by William Sylvester, "Devil Doll," "Gorgo," "2001: A Space Odyssey)," who is also obsessed with the "elusive" Robert Denby. First segment has an evil scientist (John Milford) trying to embezzle money for some reason by hiring the dimwitted Murphy to drive a semi full of explosive "tripaladene" (so named because it "triples vehicle mileage"), across the country.During this silliness, he (and, unfortunately, the audience, as well) meets up with one-time minor league pop and country star, Jim Stafford ("Spiders And Snakes," "My Girl Bill," "Wildwood Weed"), typecast perfectly as a braid-dead, redneck trucker named "Buffalo Bill. His introductory shouts of "Ah'm on t'hair! Ah'm on t'hair!" over his citizen's band radio bring back all of the horrible memories we thought had vanished with C.W. McCall, Cletus Maggard and all of the other idiots who populated the high point of the C.B. craze. Later on, Richard Dysart (a decent actor who starred in "L.A. Law," and "Being There") makes a cameo appearance, but it doesn't do any good, although the conclusion of that part, when Milford is taken away and Sylvester's hair looks like Bill Murray's at the end of "Kingpin," is drop-dead (unintentionally) hilarious. Part two features Murphy, posing as a pit crewman for the ever-annoying Stafford, who has miraculously become a stock car racer. Both work for Denby, who finally shows up in the form of Ed Nelson ("Teenage Caveman," "Night of the Blood Beast"), and is a villain who invents a radio that can blow things up, or something to that effect. This half is lamely tied to the first by Murphy saying to Sylvester, "I understand you grew a mustache while I was away," and proves, if nothing else, that stock car racing was just as boring in 1976 as it is today. Highlight comes as Stafford, attempting to perform during "Amatuer Night" at the Pit Stop Saloon, gets into a fight with a Robert Shaw look-a-like and a Margo Gortner clone. He later lets out an embarrassing series of whoops in a public restroom because he's allowed to drive a car that eventually explodes. While all of this takes place, Crawford is watching, unemotionally, on a big TV screen from Intersect headquarters. There is NO explanation for this, and no practical demonstration on HOW there can be cameras at the various locations, but thinking about this too much can be mind-boggling, so I'll leave it at that. The end has Stafford "singing" a "thank you for saving my life" song to Murphy, while Crawford continues to watch - this time in SLOW MOTION! This garbage should have been left in NBC's dumpster where it belonged, and only serves as an interesting episode for the smartly satirical cable program, "Mystery Science Theatre 3000."

Typical cheese of the 70's. Good for laughs. Overly smug Ben Murphy plays a secret agent named Sam Casey who works for "Intersect", which is housed in a redressed parking garage.(Apparently Intersect couldn't afford a better office building). He was apparently involved in an accident earlier in his career that caused him to turn invisible, but he was cured. However, he was left with the ability to turn back invisible whenever he wanted, by using a handy wristwatch outfitted for him by Intersect. This we learn via vague flashbacks which leave us with more questions than answers. witness Murphy's narration of the flashback: "...all I could say was, 'What the hell happened?'"The movie itself is not really a movie at all. It is actually two different episodes of the very short lived TV series "Gemini Man", which ran in or around 1976. It was probably spliced together because they were the only two episodes which also co-starred (I use the term 'starred' lightly) hillbilly music personality Jim Stafford.The two episodes were obviously unrelated other than that, and the poor editing doesn't help to cover up this fact. Watch & listen for the edits where they try to tie these two together, you'll have a hearty laugh. I actually wasted some time researching facts about the original TV series and found out that the second part (episode) of this movie never actually aired on TV. The show had already been canceled five or six weeks previous to its scheduled airdate. I guess the producer just couldn't bear to waste all that great footage of Jim Stafford yelping like a hyena in heat. One word of advice: Do yourself a favor and locate the episode of the classic TV show "Mystery Science Theater 3000" which features this movie. Then you can *really* enjoy Riding With Death. Its one of their funniest episodes ever. (With material like RWD, how could it not be hilarious?)

In order to tie the Jim Stafford plotline together, they had to explain the FIVE YEAR DIFFERENCE between episodes!Not only was Abby no longer with the show, but the Driscoll character had a thick mustache and was visibly older (as was Sam Casey).So they insert shots of Abby looking at Casey with an apparently omniscient monitor, but Sam congradulates Driscoll on growing a mustache -- after a month's time!Aaaarrrrgh.Why did they revolve the movie around Jim Stafford's character, who appears for about 5 minutes in the first episode--oops, I mean half of the movie? 5 minutes of Jim Stafford is enough for ANYONE.