Devil Times Five (1974)

aka The Horrible House on the Hill

When a van transporting a group of criminally insane children crashes, the kids survive and wander off through the snow.  They head toward an isolated lodge in the distance where home owner Papa Do is hosting guests who are sure to provide plenty of unnecessary drama.  There's his untrustworthy wife Lovely who spends her time trying to seduce Ralph the mentally challenged caretaker as well as Rick, a former lover.  Next we have Papa Doc's daughter Julie and her boyfriend Rick, who spends his time fighting off Lovely's advances. He works for Papa Doc and often irritates him due to Ricks tendency to speak his mind and not get pushed around.  Employee Harvey is a milquetoast trying to work up the nerve to ask for a promotion, transfer, and raise.  Plus Harvey's drunk of a wife.

Into this unhealthy atmosphere come the children, who tell them our weekend vacationers about their car crash, but leave out the part about living in an asylum.  Julie and Rick start to think the kids are weird, but the others aren't the swiftest and don't notice anything peculiar about them.  Too bad because strange things start happening. The generator shuts off, the electricity goes out, and phone don't work. Oh it must be that slow witted caretaker. It couldn't possibly be the children who are killing off the adults in a series of events rigged to look like accidents.

Apparently there were issues behind the scenes and sections of the film had to be re-shot.  This would  explain why Leif usually has long dark blond locks, but sometimes ends up in a bad brown wig.  Also there are several scenes in which he takes the wig off to reveal short dark hair underneath.  In the context of the film, it makes no sense.

Leif's little sister Dawn Lyn played the youngest killer kid, and their mother played Lovely, the nymph wife of Papa Doc.  I hope the kids didn't attend a premiere or see the film when they were young since their mom has several topless scenes in it.

Leif Garret - killer kid with cool 70s hair....

...but sometimes a bad brown wig makes an appearance

Sorrell Booke later had the role of Boss Hogg
on The Dukes of Hazzard

Four of the five insane children in a promo
shot with the alternate title for the film

Randall and Hopkirk Deceased (1969)

aka My Partner the Ghost

This tv show from the late 1960s is about Randall and Hopkirk who are Private Detectives.  In the first episode, Hopkirk is killed in a hit and run due to a case Randall is working on.  He returns as a ghost who - as most ghosts do - wears all white.  Hopkirk won't rest until he solves his own murder and Randall is the only person who can see Hopkirk or hear him.

Ghosts must return to their graves before the morning light. When Hopkirk stays out past dawn to help Randall, he's locked out of his grave for one hundred years.  So the two become partners once again, along with Hopkirk's wife Jeanne who inherited half of the business and is the firms secretary. But Jeanne isn't aware that Marty is still around.

I loved this series when I was a teenager. It was syndicated as My Partner the Ghost.  It has some comedic overtones, and who wouldn't want a detective agency with a ghost partner?  They're really helpful in solving crimes since they can get all kinds of information the normal P.I. can't.

This show is similar to other late 1960s British shows such as The Avengers and UFO, both of which I enjoy.  It's definitely got a slower feel to it than current TV shows. I wonder if current teenagers would think of it the same way I think of movies from the 1940s and 1950s?  If you like 1960s detetective shows, you can't go wrong with this one.

Another reason I like old TV shows is seeing someone and thinking "That guy looks familiar" and then figuring out where I've seen him before. The beatnik hitchhiker in the first episode turns out to be Ronald Lacey, better known as  Major Arnold Toht, the Nazi villain in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

1969 - long haired Beatnik

1981 - Nazi