HK and Cult Film News's Fan Box

Sunday, November 16, 2025

EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle



Originally posted on 9/20/2018

 

I have to agree with the Medveds that EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC (Scream Factory, 1977) is one of the dumbest horror films ever made.  And yet that's what makes it so watchable--the fact that it's so incredibly, entertainingly dumb.

It's also one of the worst-ever sequels to a classic film.  The nightmarish original from director William Friedkin (THE FRENCH CONNECTION, TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., THE BOYS IN THE BAND) was considered by many upon release as the most terrifying film of all time.  Even a lot of first-time viewers nowadays tend to agree.  But for its hapless follow-up, reactions are largely negative.

Linda Blair is back as "Regan", this time several years older than the little girl we first met.  Still suffering the after-effects of her previous ordeal, Regan is undergoing unorthodox treatments from super-shrink Louise Fletcher which are intended to isolate and solve her "mental" problems.  This involves a flashing mutual-hypnosis machine called a "synchonizer", which connects their minds and adds a sort of sci-fi element to the story.


Meanwhile, there's a new priest in town--the great Richard Burton as Father Lamont, a troubled holy man ordered by the Cardinal (Paul Henried) to investigate what happened to Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow) leading up to his strange death.  This eventually leads him to Regan, and then to Africa for an encounter with mysterious locust expert James Earl Jones.

What follows is a strange mishmash of conventional horror, sci-fi, African mysticism, and leftovers from the original story that alternates between either dull and meandering, and just plain fascinating as an ill-conceived screen artifact.

At times it feels sort of like one of those soupy 70s-era Dino De Laurentiis or Carlo Ponti productions.  (The overcooked score by Ennio Morricone doesn't help.) Hard to believe it was directed by John Boorman, the same man who gave us DELIVERANCE and EXCALIBUR but has none of William Friedkin's knack for pulling off this kind of horror.


To be fair, Friedkin had much better material to work with.  The weak script was rewritten multiple times, with tepid echoes from the first movie interlaced with such elements as locust attacks (an odd parallel to the evil invading our world) which can only be repelled by that rare someone with a special spiritual power.

This figures very importantly in the wildly bizarre finale as locusts descend on Regan's crumbling old Washington, D.C. townhouse like something out of an Irwin Allen disaster flick (sort of a cross between EARTHQUAKE and THE SWARM), while Father Lamont wrestles furiously in bed with Regan's evilly seductive doppelganger.

As for me, the sequel's undisputed highlight is the infamous tap-dancing scene.  Few examples of unintended hilarity are as sublimely funny as seeing Regan, stricken by the old evil spirit again during a school talent show, valiantly struggling to finish her tap-dancing routine (top hat, tails, cane--the whole works) to the tune of "Lullaby of Broadway" as her body is wracked with violent spasms.


Linda's fans will naturally enjoy seeing her again as an older Regan.  Unfortunately, this was made during that awkward teen phase when Linda wasn't all that convincing in anything beyond the likes of ROLLER BOOGIE or SAVAGE STREETS.  Her chirpy demeanor and weak line delivery constantly work against Boorman's attempts to build realistic tension.

Louise Fletcher (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, DEAD KIDS) and Richard Burton (THE KLANSMAN, THE WILD GEESE) both do what they can with the tepid material. Burton, one of film's greatest actors when given the chance, is especially watchable even though the last act mostly requires him to wander around in a trance.  Kitty Winn returns from the first film as Sharon.  Ned Beatty and a very young Dana Plato are also on hand.

The 2-disc Blu-ray from Scream Factory contains both the original 118-minute cut and the 102-minute reedited version, which was released after the film failed to meet audience expectations first time around.  Both are 2k scans from the original film elements.  Image and sound quality are very good.  English subtitles are available.


Each disc contains ample bonus material, including three commentary tracks (one with director John Boorman) and a revealing interview with Linda Blair.  Also included are trailers and still galleries, plus a reversible cover insert.

EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC is a somewhat exhilarating experience at times--not because it's good, but because it's so flamboyantly bad.  Once you've seen the full version, you'll want to watch the edited cut just to see what they did in the way of damage control.  Either way, it's one of 70s cinema's most interesting failures.


DISC ONE (118 Minute Cut Of The Film):

NEW 2K Scan From Original Film Elements
NEW Audio Commentary With Director John Boorman
NEW Audio Commentary With Project Consultant Scott Bosco
NEW What Does She Remember? – An Interview With Actress Linda Blair
NEW Interview With Editor Tom Priestley

DISC TWO (102 Minute Cut Of The Film):

NEW 2K Scan From Original Film Elements
NEW Audio Commentary With Mike White Of The Projection Booth Blog
Original Teaser Trailer
Original Theatrical Trailer
Still Galleries Including Rare Color And B&W Stills, Behind-The-Scenes, Deleted Scene Photos, Posters, And Lobby Cards

Buy it from Shout Factory




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Saturday, November 15, 2025

DRAGNET: COLLECTOR'S EDITION -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle




 Originally posted on 10/16/18

 

I've heard several people over the years say that they liked, or even loved, the 1987 feature comedy adaptation of the classic TV cop series "Dragnet" starring Dan Ackroyd and Tom Hanks. To those people I would recommend Shout! Factory's new Blu-ray release DRAGNET: COLLECTOR'S EDITION, which features a new 4K HD scan and an assortment of bonus features.

The film certainly is lively and full of blustery comedic action that people not all that familiar with the TV show can enjoy without a lot of bothersome comparisons to it.

Basically it's the story of a very straight-laced, by-the-book cop (Dan Ackroyd as Sgt. Joe Friday) and his flighty, fun-loving, all-rules-barred new partner "Pep" Streebek (Tom Hanks) having to work together--while constantly getting on each other's nerves--to stop a growing organization of deranged criminals bent on citywide chaos.


For these viewers the film offers a wealth of one-liners and raucous situations as Friday and Streebek must overcome their "odd couple" differences and eventually develop a grudging mutual respect.  The investigation into the crime group known as "P.A.G.A.N." (People Against Goodness And Normalcy) also yields wild car chases, lots of stunts, gorgeous babes, some romantic schmaltz, and a constant barrage of generic action-movie stuff to keep us occupied.

That said, as a longtime devoted fan of the actual TV series (both in its 1950s and 1960s incarnations), I find the movie as a whole to be consistently problematic.  (That's the first time I've ever used that word!)

As a parody of the series, the movie is surprisingly unsimilar to it despite the usual references to "just the facts, ma'am" and other tropes ("This is the city...I work here, I carry a badge", "The story you are about to see is true", etc.) and Friday's unyielding adherence to the rules and loyalty to strict civil order in general.


Ackroyd is actually playing the original Joe Friday's nephew, but his character is meant to be a carbon copy of his late uncle.  It's troubling, then, that he is so far off base in capturing Jack Webb's intonations and body language, instead doing a sort of generic stiff-backed type with clipped speech and no sense of humor.

The more human and even, at times, casual aspects of Webb's portrayal are lost in Ackroyd's robotic interpretation. It often seems as though he's doing more of a take-off on Robert Stack's Elliot Ness from "The Untouchables" than Webb's more haggard, world-weary cop.  And while the old Joe might occasionally hit a bad guy with a long, rapid-fire verbal scolding, this one tends to speechify every other time he opens his mouth.  

As for Hanks, still at the age where he looked like a big, goofy kid, he plays a new character whose main trait is a childlike disregard for propriety and is designed simply to clash with Joe Friday's dogged conservatism in comic ways.  Mostly it works, although the two are at such odds that we miss the teamwork and comradery of Friday and his loyal partners Frank Smith (Ben Alexander) and Bill Gannon (Harry Morgan) from the TV series.


Speaking of Morgan, he plays the same character as before, now promoted to captain.  His devotion to his late partner doesn't carry over to the nephew, hence Captain Gannon spends much of the film bellowing at Friday and threatening to take away his badge (which he eventually does at the insistence of shrewish police commissioner Elizabeth Ashley).

The plot itself is a convoluted affair that bears little resemblance to the usual "Dragnet" investigations.  Friday's traditional "just the facts, ma'am" questioning of a civilian witness is represented by an unfunny exchange in which venerable comic actress Kathleen Freeman must portray a grotesquely foul-mouthed old lady who even has Streebek shaking his head along with Friday.

Dabney Coleman plays softcore sex magazine magnate Jerry Caesar, giving the film an excuse to be fully stocked with bikini babes, and Jack O'Halloran, the big, dumb member of the evil Kryptonian trio in SUPERMAN II, plays a big, dumb P.A.G.A.N. henchman who menaces the good guys.


Alexandra Paul is the button-cute Connie, a kidnapped virgin meant as a sacrifice in the bad guys' big pagan ritual but is rescued by the good guys and eventually develops romantic feelings for fellow virgin Friday. (Again, Jack Webb's Friday was a low-key sort of guy but he was never portrayed as either nerdy or virginal.)  The most surprising bit of casting is Christopher Plummer as a pious TV evangelist who may have a darker side.

But as I said before, all of these misgivings stem from my affection for the TV show and desire to see a more faithful parody of it.  As for everyone else, this "Dragnet" spoof may be a perfectly adequate and perhaps even gutbusting comedy romp.  If so, DRAGNET: COLLECTOR'S EDITION should prove an ideal way to enjoy it. 

Special Features:
NEW "A Quiet Evening in the Company of Connie Swail": An Interview With Co-Star Alexandra Paul
NEW Audio Commentary with Pop Culture Historian Russell Dyball
"Just the Facts!": A Promotional Look at Dragnet with Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks
Original Theatrical Trailers & Promos
Photo Gallery 


Buy it from Shout! Factory



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Friday, November 14, 2025

ERNIE KOVACS: THE CENTENNIAL EDITION -- DVD Review by Porfle




Originally posted on 11/20/18

 

While he was always known as one of the great technical innovators of early television, one thing Shout! Factory's 9-disc DVD set ERNIE KOVACS: THE CENTENNIAL EDITION really brings home for me is the fact that it was just plain fun to hang out with the guy for awhile.

Early TV viewers had plenty of opportunity to do so, since Ernie had a number of different shows throughout the 50s and early 60s, several of which are sampled in this collection. 

Whether live via kinescope or recorded on early videotape, these shows glow with Ernie's childlike and often giddily enthusiastic attitude as he delights in spending time with us, entertaining with jokes, informal patter, bits of business, and, most of all, mindboggling bursts of surreal humor done on the fly with a shoestring budget.


The earliest examples of this are from a live morning series that resembles a "Howdy Doody"-type kids' show for grown-ups, the studio barely containing Ernie as he demolishes the fourth wall (as well as the other three) and shows us the cameras, the hallway outside the studio door, and every other aspect of TV production through which he can romp and play with us as his "peanut gallery."

Much of this helps lay the groundwork for just about every other television comedy show to follow.  His influence is unmistakable on, for example, "The Soupy Sales Show", "Pee Wee's Playhouse", comedy segments with talk show hosts such as Johnny Carson, Conan O'Brien, and David Letterman, "The Uncle Floyd Show", and even "Saturday Night Live" and "Monty Python's Flying Circus." 

All are touched in some way by Kovacs' groundbreaking and imaginative style even when they don't consciously realize it.  When Ernie goes up into the audience to interact with the people, or jokes around with his gregarious bandmembers and audibly guffawing crew, we're seeing the inspirations of practically every TV comic and talk show host to come.


Later shows would continue to serve as experiments for Ernie's innovative use of the television medium and, as in "Kovacs On the Corner", a delightful parody of the medium itself.  A "Mad Magazine" brand of satire (pre-dating "Mad Magazine") infuses much of his comedy and its witty jabs at commercials, movies, and other aspects of popular culture at the time.

Even when he hosts a game show, as in the episodes of "Take a Good Look" seen here, he can't help making it the most confusing and obtuse game show ever created.  Later network specials take advantage of video to present extended, intricately-conceived comedy pieces that boggle the mind while showing off Ernie's sweetly cockeyed sense of humor at every twist and turn.

Sight (and sound gags) abound.  He passes a statue of "The Thinker" and notices it humming to itself. He demonstrates how to adjust the horizontal and vertical dials (remember those?) on your TV by using his contorted facial expressions as a guide.  He interacts with his friend Howard, the world's strongest ant, who drives a tiny minature car and plays tiny miniature golf. 


He even puts on bad puppet shows such as "The Kapusta Kid In Outer Space" and helps his pet turtle cure its hiccups by feeding it sips of water.  Whatever tickles his childlike fancy at the time, he indulges in for our enjoyment. 

Ernie's characters are a joy, especially (my favorite) the endearingly prissy poet Percy Dovetonsils, whose poems boast such titles as "Ode to Stanley's Pussycat."  His hardluck character Eugene stars in Ernie's famous all-silent special, which consists of nothing but sight gags with sound effects and, of course, his own inimitable comedy style.  This one really uses the television medium with its tilted sets, weird optical illusions, and disorienting indulgence in undiluted surrealism. 

The supporting players are headed by Ernie's adorable and talented wife Edie Adams, who has her own stock characters as well as an operatic voice perfectly suited for the occasional serious musical segment (Kovacs loved music and often showcased it).  Edie is particularly adorable whether playing a dowdy housewife, vamping as Zsa Zsa Gabor, or doing a stunningly kittenish send-up of Marilyn Monroe as she shows off her knack for impressions.

My favorite moment is a bizarre sketch about a white-haired old conductor (Ernie) recording a commercial jingle with an orchestra and three difficult singers.  These include Edie Adams, Casey Adams (aka Max Showalter, one of my favorite actors), and, displaying a keen sense of off-the-wall comedy, Louis Jordan as an odd fellow whose pants lengths keep changing.  It's one of the most belly-laugh segments in the set if your mind's off-kilter enough to appreciate it.


The 9 discs in this set from Shout! Factory feature the following:

* Episodes From His Local And National Morning Shows
* Episodes From His NBC Prime-Time Show
* Kovacs On Music
* Five ABC TV Specials
* The Color Version of His Legendary Silent Show, "Eugene"
* His Award-Winning Commercials For Dutch Masters Cigars
* Short Films, Tributes, Rarities
* 18 Bonus Sketches Featuring Many Of His Most Beloved Characters
* 3 Complete Episodes Of His Offbeat Game Show Take A Good Look
* "A Pony For Chris" – His Rare TV Pilot For Medicine Man Co-Starring Buster Keaton
* The Lively Arts Featuring The Only Existing Filmed Solo Interview With Ernie Kovacs
* 2011 American Cinematheque Panel



The generous bonus menus include:

1987 ATAS Hall Of Fame Induction
Remembering Ernie With George Schlatter And Jolene Brand
"Baseball Film"
Making Of "Baseball Film"
"The Mysterious Knockwurst"
Andy McKay 8mm Home Movies
Percy Dovetonsils: "Ode To Stanley’s Pussycat"
Martin Krutch, Public Eye
Rock Mississippi In "Fingers Under Weskit"
Howard, The World's Strongest Ant
J. Burlington Gearshift
"Superclod" Test
"Take A Good Look" Clues
"Take A Good Look" Sales Film
"Silents Please"
"Our Man In Havana" Behind-The-Scenes Footage
Dutch Masters Commercials
Trailer For "Operation Mad Ball" – "It Happened To Ernie"
Muriel Cigars Commercials Featuring Edie Adams
Interview: Algernon Gerard, Archaeologist
Howard, The World's Strongest Ant: A Hot Date
Strangely Believe It: Writers To Blame
The Kapusta Kid In Outer Space Meets Olivia Scilloscope
Charlie Clod In Brazil
Ernie's Opening Monologue
Miklos Molnar's Glue
Percy Dovetonsils: "Ode To Electricity"
Interview: The World At Your Doorstep
Irving Wong: Tin Pan Alley Songwriter
Percy Dovetonsils : "Ode To A Housefly”
Introducing Coloratura Mimi Cosnowski
Howard, The World's Strongest Ant: Howard's Campground
Skodney Silsky, Hollywood Reporter
Ernie's Opening Monologue
Surprise Audience Member
Audio Lost
Matzoh Hepplewhite
Interview With Ernie Kovacs On The Lively Arts
"A Pony For Chris" – Pilot For Series Medicine Man
Ernie Kovacs Panel Discussion (August 27, 2011) At The American Cinematheque In Hollywood, CA
Home Movies: Golf With Edie And Ernie
Original Theatrical Trailers: "Wake Me When It's Over" And "Five Golden Hours"


Having only seen a smattering of his work in past years, I eagerly delved into ERNIE KOVACS: THE CENTENNIAL EDITION and binge-watched these delightful shows to my heart's content.  There's a wealth of wild comedy here, but even in its simplest moments, it's nice just to hang out with Ernie and listen to him chat as he puffs away on his ever-present cigar.  For a short, wonderful time before his tragic death, he was a fearless pioneer of television comedy and seemed to love every minute of it.



TECH SPECS
Discs 9
Run-time 22 hrs
Aspect Ratio 1.33:1
Color/Black & White
Language English
Region 1
Rating Various
Production Date Various
Closed-Captioned ? No
Subtitles None




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Thursday, November 13, 2025

STAR TREK -- Movie Review by Porfle


Originally posted on 5/19/09

 

As a self-described "Trekker" since "Star Trek: The Original Series" first warped into syndication, the prospect of this movie inspired in me feelings of both keen anticipation and dread. For years, many of us Trek fans have wanted a movie about the Starfleet Academy days of the original crew, but we wanted it to be true to the spirit of "Star Trek" while adhering to established canon.

Nowadays, however, such sentiments are likely to cause you to be labeled a "diehard Trek supergeek" and berated for being such a dour spoilsport nitpicking over details instead of sitting back and letting this flashy new thing carry you off on a wave of giddy delirium. Well, I don't mind being called a geek, but when other geeks call me a geek, then they need to shut up. In other words, you really can't point out the mote of dust in someone else's eye if you have an action figure stuck in yours.

Anyway, I went to see director J.J. Abrams' big, new, glittering, pulsating, eye-popping STAR TREK (2009) movie today, and I must say first of all that it is a grandly entertaining cherry-red fire engine of a space flick. Watching it is like getting up on Christmas morning and finding out that Santa Claus really went all out on your house because you were extra good that year. There's an endless parade of stunningly imaginative set design, amazing special effects, and some action setpieces that made me glad sci-fi movies were invented. The new USS Enterprise looks great on the outside, and the bright, snazzy interiors felt like home after I had some time to settle into them.


Best of all, there was actually a story buzzing around amidst all these cool state-of-the-art visuals. It involves an enormous Romulan warship that has elements of both (a scaled down) V'ger from STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE and the Romulan warship "The Scimitar" from STAR TREK: NEMESIS, and a vengeful Romulan commander named Nero (Eric Bana) who is reminiscent of the vengeful Khan from STAR TREK: THE WRATH OF KHAN and the vengeful Romulan commander Shinzon from STAR TREK: NEMESIS. (An aside: the widely-reviled NEMESIS is one of my favorite Trek movies. Shows you what I know.) So basically, Nero is really pissed-off, he hates Earth, he hates Vulcan, he has a practically invincible starship that can travel through time and destroy worlds, and he's coming to get us. Check.

Meanwhile, we get to see young Kirk and Spock in their formative years, with Kirk a rebellious orphan born in battle and raised in Iowa, and Spock the half-Vulcan, half-human misfit who's unsure which path to take in life and must suffer discriminatory taunts from his full-Vulcan peers. Spock chooses to enter Starfleet (partly to spite the smug Vulcan tight-asses who patronizingly deem him fit to attend the Vulcan Science Academy despite his "inadequacies") while Kirk stumbles into it like a bull in a china closet.

We see Kirk cheating his way through that fabled Kobiyashi Maru test, meeting Spock under less-than-friendly circumstances, hitting on Uhura, and being whisked into a frantic mission to rescue the planet Vulcan from oblivion even though he's been suspended from duty, thanks to an obliging Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy. Once aboard the Enterprise, of course, it isn't long before the young hot-shot proves himself Alpha Male #1 and is sitting in the captain's chair. But first, he must get forcibly ejected from the Enterprise in an escape pod, meet both Scotty and the original Leonard Nimoy version of Spock on an ice planet, get beamed back aboard the Enterprise during warp, and fight to the near-death against Spock to prove the emotion-prone Vulcan unfit for command.


Just how much of this sticks to that pesky "Star Trek" canon that us diehard supergeeks are so nitpicky about becomes irrelevent as soon as the time travel factor enters the equation. Nimoy's "Spock Prime" is there to remind us that whatever happened between the moment the TV series first became a gleam in Gene Roddenberry's eye to the last time Patrick Stewart said "Make it so" is now part of a different timeline that has gone on its merry way into history. Thanks to the Romulan villain Nero and his temporal meddling, we now have a Star Trek universe in which most of the old characters are still there but in which anything can happen.

This rules out what many of us have wished for over the years--a retro-Trek origin story that accurately sets up the later adventures with a steadfast adherence to continuity--but maybe by this point it's not such a bad approach to take. I certainly don't like the idea of ignoring the old fans who have been loyal to Star Trek for all these decades and courting new ones who don't care about its history. Indeed, if it weren't for us the show would've died back in the late 60s and we wouldn't even be discussing it as a big-budget summer blockbuster here in the 21st century.

But after seeing this modern reboot, and being, frankly, dazzled by it, I must say that J.J. Abrams and company seem to have had the old fans well in mind every step of the way. There's an awful lot about this movie that can only be appreciated by viewers who are already familiar with the characters and their history. And seeing all the little details fall into place, even if the fit is a good deal different this time around, is a satisfying experience.


As a film, STAR TREK is killer entertainment that starts out with a bang and doesn't let up. The pre-titles sequence is awesome, with the USS Kelvin under the command of Captain George Kirk going up against Nero's ship in a hopelessly one-sided battle while his wife is in sickbay giving birth to their son James. Later, there's a thrilling parachute freefall involving Kirk and Sulu over the planet Vulcan which leads to aerial hand-to-hand combat atop a drilling platform suspended miles in the air. (In one of several nods to the original series, Sulu even gets to display his fencing prowess here.) The space battles which occur throughout the film are intense, action-packed, and beautifully rendered. And as in Spock's demise in WRATH OF KHAN and the destruction of the Enterprise in THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK, there are a couple of major death scenes here that are stunning and totally unexpected.

Perhaps the most important element in this film's success or failure is in the casting. Chris Pine captures the brash arrogance and boyish likability of James T. Kirk without doing a full-on Shatner impression, while Zachary Quinto seems to have been born to play the young Spock. Other actors--Zoe Saldana as Uhura, John Cho as Sulu, and Simon Pegg as Scotty--convey the essence of their characters while bearing little resemblance to their predecessors. As Pavel Chekov, Anton Yelchin manages to actually make me like the character for the first time ever, giving the proceedings a hefty dose of highly-effective comedy relief. Ben Cross and Winona Ryder aren't great as Spock's parents, but they're pretty good, and Bruce Greenwood makes a fine Captain Christopher Pike. Best of all, however, is Karl Urban as Leonard McCoy. He inhabits the role as though somehow possessed by the late DeForest Kelley, and it's a real pleasure to watch him forming an instant kinship with Kirk, developing his adversarial relationship with Spock, and saying things like "Dammit, I'm a doctor, not a physicist!" for the first time.

Somehow, though, I didn't find the film all that cathartic at the end. Maybe repeated viewings will change this, I don't know. It just didn't seem to do that "climax" and "denouement" thing as successfully as an adventure of this magnitude should, leaving me somewhat less than ecstatic after the fadeout. It could be that this hyperkinetic, visually intoxicating thrill ride lacked the kind of deep, emotional resonance that previous "Star Trek" movies have always had to one degree or another. Maybe these revamped characters and this rebooted universe are so new and unfamiliar that they aren't yet capable of making us feel the old magic. Maybe the emphasis on flash and sensation gives the whole enterprise a slightly superficial quality. Or, most likely, maybe we'll just have to wear this new pair of shoes for awhile before they start to feel as comfortable as the old ones.



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Wednesday, November 12, 2025

Did Superman Really Duck When An Empty Gun Was Thrown At Him? (video)



In "The Mind Machine" (S1/E8) bullets don't faze Superman.

But when the bad guy throws his gun...he ducks!

Later, though, in "Czar of the Underworld" (S1/E22), not only does he NOT duck...

...he even seems to enjoy it!

 

Originally posted on 7/13/18


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!





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