Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969) – Burt Kennedy

James Garner is at his charming best in Support Your Local Sheriff! Jason (Garner) rides into a small gold rush town, which we see spring up through the opening credits after Prudy (Joan Hackett) and her father, Olly Perkins (Harry Morgan) discover gold partway through a funeral – and that should tell you all you…

Lone Wolf McQuade (1983) – Steve Carver

With a musical score by Francesco De Masi and an opening credits sequence that feels very much in line with a Sergio Leone western, expectations surrounding Lone Wolf McQuade on my initial viewing went up a little. Despite the fact that I know Chuck Norris isn’t a very good actor. Norris plays the titular McQuade,…

Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) – John Hough

I have this image of Eddie Albert driving every where in a Winnebago, and I guess it must have come from this film, and somehow got meshed with the image of the older man driving around in a similar RV in the Shazam/Isis hour. And despite the fact that Eddie Albert’s Jason does a lot…

Mission: Impossible (1967) – The Widow, and Trek

Season two of Mission: Impossible launched on 10 September, 1967, with The Widow written by Barney Slater. Viewers knew right away that something had changed, Dan Briggs (Steven Hill) was replaced without explanation by Peter Graves, taking command of the IMF team as Jim Phelps, and Martin Landau finds himself in the opening credits, right…

Moonlighting (1987) – A Trip to the Moon, and Come Back Little Shiksa

With the shark firmly behind them, Moonlighting Season Four got underway on 29 September, 1987 in A Trip to the Moon written by series creator Glenn Gordon Caron. David (Bruce Willis) and Maddie (Cybill Shepherd) have been together for four weeks, and both of them seem to have different opinions on what and where the…

Mary Poppins Returns (2018) – Rob Marshall

Opening tomorrow, Mary Poppins Returns is an old school, classic Walt Disney film in the magical sense of the words. Knowing that it has to take on one of the iconic characters from the Disney filmography, Mary Poppins Returns has a big umbrella to fill, not to mention those shoes! But the Emily Blunt led…

Space: 1999 (1976) – The Metamorph, and The Exiles

New uniforms, additions to the cast, and the unmentioned disappearance of other cast members propels Moonbase Alpha into its second season. The changes aren’t discussed, and we’re thrown into the new season with a brand new theme and opening credits which introduces new cast member Catherine Schell before her character is even introduced in the…

South Park: The Complete Fourth Season

Boy bands, a haphazard adaptation of Great Expectations that takes a really strange left turn, fat camps, racism, more religion, moving onto the fourth grade – which necessitates new opening credits, and of course some new characters that become just as central to the small mountain town as Stan, Kyle Cartman and Kenny. In a…

Back to the Future: Part III (1990) – Robert Zemeckis

My last stop in the Sci-Fi Chronicles book is the final trip with Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) in Back to the Future: Part III. From the film’s opening credits you know this will be a different adventure, the triumphant theme by Alan Silvestri gives way to a stirring romantic…

Spectre (2015) – Sam Mendes

  The new James Bond film opens today, with Daniel Craig’s fourth outing as Ian Fleming’s special agent, 007. And as an avid Bond fan, I had to be there. So what did I think? Gorgeous locations… check. Beautiful women… check (though Monica Bellucci is extremely under-used, as well as Naomi Harris’ Moneypenny). Style… check….