Eddie Murphy made “The Haunted Mansion” (2003) and Steve Guttenberg made this movie six years before: both films are based on rides at Disneyland, but Murphy’s opened in theaters and Guttenberg’s opened on your TV. And yet this is the better movie. Both celebrate family values, but Tower of Terror is more touching.
The film begins at the Hollywood Tower Hotel, 12 floors of luxury right in front of the HOLLYWOOD sign. On Halloween, 1939, in the Tip-Top Club on 12, the joint is jumping’ with good jazz, celebs galore, and happy dancing. At the same time the main elevator is carrying five passengers to the Club for the party to celebrate Little Sally Shine, the fabulous child star. The five are: Sally herself (Lindsay Ridgeway), her nanny Emmeline Partridge (Wendy Worthington), Carolyn Crosson (Melora Hardin), the young singer about to get what ought to be her first big break using her new stage name Claire Poulet, her boyfriend Gilbert London (Alastair Duncan), and the elevator operator Dewey Todd (John Franklin). A storm has been brewing and the elevator stalls on 11 and then is hit by lightning. Instead of being killed, the five disappear. And Sally becomes a Hollywood legend.
Sixty years later Buzzy Crocker (Steve Guttenberg), a newsman once well regarded, but due to hubris now disgraced and forgotten, still thinks he can make a comeback. He just needs one big story. He depends on his sister Patricia Petterson (Lela Ivey) and his niece Anna Petterson (Kirsten Dunst) for support, but simply does not in any way match their care and generosity because he is always running after that story. He keeps in touch with Jill Perry (Nia Peeples) at his old paper, but she is pretty disdainful of his attempts to get back on top, and rightly so; his ideas are not that good. Then Buzzy meets an elderly woman, Abigail Gregory (Amzie Strickland), who knows some stuff about the tragedy at the hotel that night because her family lived there and she saw Sally a lot, including that Halloween evening. We see young Abigail (Shira Roth) spying on Sally and Miss Partridge. Abigail tells Buzzy that the nanny, Miss Partridge, was a witch and used her magic on Halloween to get rid of Sally, a spoiled brat if there ever was one. Neither she nor the other three people were supposed to be affected. As Buzzy hangs around the hotel to pursue the story he meets Chris “Q” Todd (Michael McShane), who is the caretaker for the shuttered hotel and also is the grandson of Dewy Todd. “Q” is afraid of ghosts, so never enters the hotel, but is happy to tell Buzzy that Dewey’s father was the owner, and if the place can ever open again, he, “Q”, will be the owner: “Cha-ching!”
As Halloween approaches and the chance to save the five with witchcraft seems pretty good (spells can be undone by the “contrary” spell), Buzzy is torn by an offer from Jill to work the story for the wire services, and ends up choosing the selfish path again.
Melora Hardin gets a chance to sing, as she did in Disney’s “The Rocketeer” and later in the series “Wedding Band”.
We feel sure that values will win, and all will be well, but the way in which this happens reflects very well on the writer-director, D.J. MacHale, a name I will now be looking for. And yes, the movie has its scary moments, but in a Disney, safe-for-ten-year-olds way.
Categories
- A (59)
- ABC (1)
- B (83)
- C (54)
- Captions By Dummies (50)
- Christmas (20)
- Comment (15)
- D (43)
- Documentary (6)
- E (49)
- F (36)
- Film Grammar (15)
- G (50)
- George thinks he's a lyricist (2)
- H (48)
- Hitchcock (36)
- I (31)
- J (15)
- K (7)
- L (46)
- M (104)
- Miniseries (29)
- Movie Quotes (8)
- Movies (1,067)
- N (23)
- NBC (1)
- Notice (7)
- O, (15)
- P (47)
- PBS Drama (8)
- Q (2)
- R (41)
- S (127)
- Scrooge (5)
- Sherlock Holmes (158)
- Short Subjects (5)
- Stage Play (2)
- T (57)
- Tips (3)
- TV (390)
- TV Quotes (71)
- U (4)
- Uncategorized (46)
- UNCLE (22)
- V (13)
- W (48)
- W&W (2)
- X (1)
- Y (6)
- Z (1)
Archives
- December 2019 (7)
- November 2019 (32)
- October 2019 (32)
- September 2019 (30)
- August 2019 (32)
- July 2019 (31)
- June 2019 (33)
- May 2019 (32)
- April 2019 (30)
- March 2019 (39)
- February 2019 (27)
- January 2019 (31)
- December 2018 (29)
- November 2018 (35)
- October 2018 (37)
- September 2018 (35)
- August 2018 (40)
- July 2018 (30)
- June 2018 (25)
- May 2018 (33)
- April 2018 (44)
- March 2018 (36)
- February 2018 (33)
- January 2018 (29)
- December 2017 (27)
- November 2017 (25)
- October 2017 (22)
- September 2017 (22)
- August 2017 (17)
- July 2017 (24)
- June 2017 (14)
- May 2017 (11)
- April 2017 (19)
- March 2017 (24)
- February 2017 (30)
- January 2017 (22)
- December 2016 (28)
- November 2016 (21)
- October 2016 (20)
- September 2016 (18)
- August 2016 (22)
- July 2016 (19)
- June 2016 (28)
- May 2016 (20)
- April 2016 (22)
- March 2016 (14)
- February 2016 (15)
- January 2016 (22)
- December 2015 (21)
- November 2015 (10)
- October 2015 (14)
- September 2015 (13)
- August 2015 (16)
- July 2015 (13)
- June 2015 (12)
- May 2015 (12)
- April 2015 (11)
- March 2015 (17)
- February 2015 (8)
- January 2015 (10)
- December 2014 (10)
- November 2014 (15)
- October 2014 (10)
- August 2014 (4)
- July 2014 (3)
- June 2014 (10)
- May 2014 (9)
- April 2014 (5)
- March 2014 (3)
- February 2014 (14)
- January 2014 (13)
- December 2013 (2)
- October 2013 (2)
- August 2013 (1)
- July 2013 (2)
Meta