TV on Tape: Amazing Stories Movie Review
When NBC made an unprecedented commitment to Steven Spielberg in 1985 to develop an anthology series, they were no doubt hoping for a ratings bonanza of E.T.-like proportions. What they got was closer to 1941.
Though Spielberg is one of the most commercially successful filmmakers of all time, Amazing Stories was an amazing gamble. No anthology series had finished in Nielsen's top 25 since the original Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Yet NBC commissioned 44 shows, two season's worth, at a cost of up to $1 million each.
Television, of course, launched Spielberg's career. At the age of 21, he codirected a pilot episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery. The made-for-TV film Duel finally put him in the driver's seat. At the time, Spielberg said that the series would be his “elephant burial ground” for ideas that would not make it to the big screen. He also promised viewers “wonderment, fantasy, irony, and comedy” without the moralizing often associated with The Twilight Zone.
Not since Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre had a series attracted the talents of some of Hollywood's biggest players. In addition to Spielberg himself, episodes were directed by Clint Eastwood, Robert Zemeckis, Martin Scorsese, and Joe Dante. But Spielberg was no match for Angela Lansbury. Whereas Amazing Stories finished its first season in 35th place, Murder She Wrote finished in third. Amazing Stories was moved to Monday nights to be paired with Alf.
Amazing Stories is best appreciated on video, free from ratings pressure or the threat of channel surfing. The episodes that are available are a representative cross-section of the show at its whimsical, sentimental, and diabolical best.
“Book 1,” appropriately enough, is a good introduction to the series. It includes “The Mission,” which was directed by Spielberg and stars Kevin Costner and Kiefer Sutherland. This claustrophobic episode takes place mostly in a crippled World War II plane, in which an aspiring Disney cartoonist is trapped in gun turret next to the plane's locked wheels. Serling could have pulled this off in an hour. The companion episode is “The Wedding Ring,” directed by and starring Danny DeVito and his wife, Rhea Perlman, as a mild-mannered woman who goes homicidal when she puts on a cursed ring.
“Book 2” features “Go to the Head of the Class,” directed by Robert Zemeckis and featuring his Back to the Future star Christopher Lloyd at full froth as a maniacal teacher who menaces students Scott Coffey and Mary Stuart Masterson. Also on the program is the mean-spirited animated short, “Family Dog,” which was designed by Tim Burton and ultimately led to a failed weekly series that The Simpsons found time to make fun of.
“Book 4” contains three episodes, including the Scorsese-helmed “Mirror, Mirror,” which stars Sam Waterston as a horror film director haunted by his own creations.
1985-86/C VHS, LV MCA, FCT, MOV