Sunday Showcase March 26, 1978

This week I'm looking through the March 26, 1978 Sunday Showcase. The cover promotes the 50th anniversary of CBS special which aired that Sunday night with so many stars featured an identity key was added to the Ask Showcase section. I've included the opening segment which has an amazing amount of star power. I much preferred ABC during this era, but as I was a TV junkie this is still very cool. I highly recommend you watch all 13:43 minutes as the nostalgia overload is great.

Sound Seventy has a few spring concerts right around the corner. You could check out Jackson Browne at Municipal Auditorium on Monday night March 27, 1978. Randy Newman had finally crossed over to the pop scene with his song "Short People" and he was coming to the War Memorial Auditorium on April 12th. 

That is....if there was anything left of the War Memorial after the April 7th concert which features Van Halen, Ronnie Montrose, and Journey! Journey toured all the time during the 70's and early 80's truly earning their fame and this tour was their first headlining one and and going to feature new lead singer Steve Perry. Ronnie Montrose was playing strictly instrumentals since Sammy Hagar had left the band. But the big story was Van Halen on their very first opening tour!!! This predated their opening spot for Black Sabbath, but the story is much the same. They were incendiary live. Here is a great article about those days: Van Halen & Journey: Sharing Stage, Rivalry In 1978. If you got to see Van Halen on this date please leave a comment. I would love to hear how amazing it must have been.

Of course, if hard rock was not your thing you could head down to M.T.S.U. and check out John Denver. I know where I'd have rather been. 

Van Halen later in 1978 when they were opening for Black Sabbath

methinks the Beatles influenced this one

Rock and roll wasn't the only thing on tap as Vandy's Rites of Spring festival was bringing in a couple of heavyweights to play. I would have enjoyed hanging out on Alumni Lawn on April 15th for sure.

As those of you who read these posts know, David Bowie played Nashville often (half a dozen times) during the 1970's. This April 13th Isolar II Tour date was going to be the last time he played Nashville. My friend the X Man was at this show and I do believe it changed his life. There is a bootleg of this show out there which is pretty darn cool. I'm sharing a YouTube clip of it below, but it may not last long. It is quite good audio wise.

Bowie live in Nashville April 13, 1978

I know what I was watching on Sunday March 26, 1978. I was nuts about The Wizard Of Oz when I was young and I looked forward to seeing it once a year on CBS. This aired right before the gala CBS: On The Air 50th anniversary special that night.

Looking ahead to later in the week there is a local show that I would love to see again. The Tennessee Story airs on Channel 8 with its last installment. I don't know how many of these were made, but they were required viewing for us Mitchell-Neilson Elementary 5th graders. I still vividly remember one which featured Fall Creek Falls. I had never been to see the waterfall and the show featured just the sound of it before showing it. I was mesmerized by it. I have been to it many times over the years since seeing it on The Tennessee Story.

Later on in the week The Bob Newhart Show would air its finale. The show was a bit over my head, but I later watched it in reruns and loved it. The theme song is one of my favorites. 

Finally we check out the Top 10 Records in Nashville for the past week. The Bee Gees are strong with 2 singles in the top ten, perhaps 3 if you count younger brother Andy's "Love Is Thicker Than Water" which was co-written by Barry Gibb who would become the only person in history to write 4 consecutive number one songs as the number one Billboard tunes went like this: "Stayin' Alive", "Love Is Thicker Than Water", "Night Fever", and then Yvonne Elliman's performance of "If I Can't Have You." Rod Stewart's "Hot Legs" is a great rocking boogie tune. I do not care much for Clapton's country boogie "Lay Down Sally" though. 

heaven's angel devil's daughter

I'm glowing in the dark I give you warning

you're making me a physical wreck

That does it for this week. Come back next week to see for another one.

Weekend Tunes

I don't know if everybody is working these days and I doubt there's much going on this weekend, but we can still remember those days when things were normal and know in our hearts that things will be that way again. So here's a spate of weekend songs starting with the Friday anthem to beat all Friday anthems; Loverboy's "Working For The Weekend" with a goofy 2 and a half minutes or so of dialogue and an explanation of the Get Lucky album cover.

you want to be in the show c'mon baby let's go

ok alright here it comes...do something constructive with your time

we got our Metallica t-shirts we got a little tiny baby mustache

it's going to be a rock and roll weekend

don't forget the Nuge...dudes

if you don't run you rust

think I'll pack it in and buy a pick-up

I done took all I could take

Film Flashback March 27, 1979

Dateline: March 27, 1979. 

My age: 12

City: Murfreesboro

State: Tennessee

Grade: 6th at Mitchell-Neilson Elementary

Teachers: Mrs. Pittenger home room and English, Mr. Price social studies, Mrs. Adkerson math, Mrs. Cantrell science, Coach Hedrick gym, Mrs. Kidd music. There was an art teacher too, but I forget her name. Mrs. Davis also taught English and we went to a roller skating party along with her class.

That's the setting for this week's Film Flashback. Martin Twin has a tearjerker drama and a Star Wars inspired (that sounds better than rip off, right) space caper.

Ice Castles stars Lynn-Holly Johnson and Robby Benson. Lynn-Holly Johnson plays a competitive figure skater who makes a comeback after an accident blinds her. Johnson was an actual ice skater who had toured as a member of the Ice Capades. I've seen bits of this one over the years, but don't recall ever seeing the whole movie. Female figure skating was very popular with the success of Peggy Fleming in 1968 and Dorothy Hamill in the 1976 Olympics. 

Starcrash is a bonkers space adventure starring former child evangelist Marjoe Gortner. David Hasselhof and Christopher Plummer are also in this ridiculous tale about fighting the evil Count Zarth Arn. The trailer should clue you in to the level of insanity present in this B movie. 

The Marbro Drive-In has a couple more B movies on offer. There's Groove Tube which must have inspired The Kentucky Fried Movie. It's a bunch of skits poking fun at television. Then there's the slightly raunchy Flesh Gordon which spoofs the original Flash Gordon serials. Emperor Wang of the planet Porno is going to unleash his devious Sex Ray on Earth which will turn us all into sex fiends. I've never seen it, but remember seeing the title when I was a teenager and I imagined it was really smutty. Judging by the trailer it's not as smutty as I thought and the special effects do look decent for a budget exploitation movie. 

The best offering of this week was over the Cinema One. The Ralph Bakshi directed The Lord of the Rings would play for two weeks at Cinema One. I think everyone is familiar with the tale of Frodo by now, but in the late Seventies being a fan of Tolkien meant you were probably weren't completely in the mainstream although The Silmarillion had been a pretty big bestseller. The librarian at Mitchell-Neilson recommended I read The Hobbit back in 3rd grade and I never looked back. 

Hope to see you again next week as we jump forward a year. 

The Crescent 1982

I am looking back at the movies that played the Loews Crescent and Crescent Theatre from November 12, 1967 until it closed for good in 1982. If you want more information just search for the Loews Crescent 1967 entry. We are now up to 1982 and as you can see the Loews part is long gone. The last Loews Crescent showing was the Bo Derek fiasco Tarzan The Ape Man during the week of August 23, 1981. From then on the lease reverted to the original owners of the Martin chain and the theatre became a second run house featuring kung fu and blaxploitation films which was pretty cool. The Crescent continued into August 1982. Ads are pulled from the Sunday Showcase section of the Tennessean. If the same ad was used you'll see multiple dates. If there's no trailer it's either because I couldn't find an original one, the trailer was used in a previous year's post, or the link is broke. Trailers are provided for historical survey purposes only. If you are offended by any of them please take that up with the creators of the films. Enjoy!

January 3, 1982

January 10, 1982

January 10, 1982

January 17, 1982

January 17, 1982

January 24, 1982

January 24, 1982

January 31, 1982

February 7, 1982

February 14, 1982

February 21, 1982

February 28, 1982

March 7, 1982

March 14, 1982

March 21, 1982

March 28, 1972

March 28, 1972

April 4, 1982

April 11, 1982

April 18, 1982

April 25, 1982

April 25, 1982

May 2, 1982

May 9, 1982

May 16, 1982

May 23, 1982

May 23, 1982

May 30, 1982

May 30, 1982

June 6, 1982

June 13, 1982

June 20, 1982

June 27, 1982

July 4, 1982

July 11, 1982

July 18, 1982

July 25, 1982

August 1, 1982

August 8, 1982

August 15, 1982

August 22, 1982

After Chinese Connection AKA Fists Of Fury finished playing the Crescent was closed for good. The building remained until it was sold off and later turned into a parking lot. The era of downtown movies was pretty much over in Nashville. It's been fun and also a lot of work bringing all of this to you during this month. The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic has turned this month into a crazy and weird one so hopefully these posts acted as a minor diversion for you. The blog will go back to normal now with just random posts most days other than the scheduled Friday Film Flashbacks and my Sunday Showcase reviews which I intend to keep doing at least though the end of this year. I am working on a comprehensive list of every film that played the Marbro Drive-In in Murfreesboro that should come out in July, but it will not have all of the film trailers these posts did. Stay healthy y'all.