MURRAY LANGSTON UNKNOWN TRILOGY INCLUDING 'NIGHT PATROL'

Title: NIGHT PATROL Year: 1984 Camp Value: ***

Murray Langston is not a hack comedian. Well actually, he is, deliberately... but when he appeared on stage for THE GONG SHOW, he was really a sack comedian: covering his face with a generic paper bag with poked holes for eyes and one for the mouth: And thus all those corny jokes became funnier, and with a skinny body nervously meandering around the stage, a cult star was born...

And eventually, finally unmasked, it was time for a motion picture... despite the fact that low-rent director Jackie Kong's NIGHT PATROL (written by Langston and GONG SHOW co-star Jaye P. Morgan) plays out like exactly what it has become: a straight-to-video train-wreck that only appears on cable stations well past midnight...

Artwork from NIGHT PATROL

Wherein the funniest scene occurs halfway through, in what's (beyond the wannabe AIRPLANE ala POLICE SQUAD style of perpetual slapdash gags/visual one-liners) a police procedural parody and a chance for The Unknown Comic to showcase both his actual self and his bag-headed live act...

And after Langston's young/naive beat cop Melvin and experienced (yet hapless) womanizing veteran Pat Paulsen's Kent are paired, they eat at an all-night diner, exchanging some worthwhile banter... 

Pat Paulsen and Murray Langston bond in NIGHT PATROL

Or maybe these are merely a few lucky jokes that (beyond a barrage of downright embarrassing star-cameos from Pat Morita as a rape victim to Billy Barty's flatulent-driven sergeant to Jack Riley playing a shrink) actually land: like when Paulsen asks the price for coffee and the price for a refill (the refill being free), and orders the refill first...

As their likable Oscar & Felix chemistry actually kinda works alongside Langston's slow-building relationship with pretty cop Linda Blair (who he'd costar in the more mainstream and humorous UP YOUR ALLEY) and a murder mystery/wrong-man subplot involving The Unknown Comic: it's just too bad so much throwaway junk/filler often makes even these sporadic positive elements basically an ultimately unwatchable late-night viewing experience. 

Linda Blair in NIGHT PATROL

Linda Blair in UP YOUR ALLEY Year: 1989 Rating: ***1/2

Only a few years after Murray Langston's UP YOUR ALLEY, Mel Brooks made LIFE STINKS about a billionaire who pretends to be homeless to win a bet, meeting a neurotic homeless lady while getting to know other destitute characters that become endearing and teach him about humanity...

Yet Langston's straight-to-video romantic comedy is a whole lot better, with his NIGHT PATROL co-star Linda Blair pretends to be homeless for an article while Langston, finally without the Unknown Comic persona that him famous in THE GONG SHOW and sustained in PATROL, is the hopeless man of her dreams...

Linda Blair and Murray Langston in UP YOUR ALLEY

An ex screen-writer who spends most of his time mentoring Bob Zany (one of many standup comedian pals of Murray) as an overweight mama's boy, while there are murders being committed, providing a two-tier story-line...

Actually three since the inevitable romance of Blair and Langston builds throughout a cozy friendship that serves 90-minutes that provides more genuine laughs and less social-conscious preaching than the Brooks vehicle, having bombed while this neglected gem, the second in The Unknown Trilogy ending with WISHFUL THINKING, is sadly just forgotten.

Michelle Johnson in WISHFUL THINKING Year: 1990 Rating: ***

By 1990, after two films, Murray Langston was comfortable enough without the bag over his head that had made him The Unknown Comic on THE GONG SHOW...

In NIGHT PATROL he played a cop and the mysterious comic both, and in UP YOUR ALLEY he was completely unmasked as a bum who romances PATROL co-star Linda Blair, making WISHFUL THINKING the final of the Unknown Trilogy, and the only without the EXORCIST starlet...

Michelle Johnson in WISHFUL THINKING

In her place is BLAME IT ON RIO model-turned-model-like-actress Michelle Johnson, who, like Keenan Wynn on an episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, plays a lonely writer who gets powers to write something down and it instantly comes true...

In this case it's the love of the tall and gorgeous Johnson, who Langston, a visual hybrid of DYNASTY star Ted Shackelford and grungy/bearded joke-teller George Carlin, would never land in a million years, hence the fantasy element...

Melissa Shear in WISHFUL THINKING

The way he's able to land the girl and all the writte wishes... provided the magic notebook by gypsy Billy Barty... is creative and fun... but as the first-time director, the overall flow of the story doesn't keep up with all the attempted one-liners, as Langston's comic style is to tell a lot of them in a short period of time...

Returning are Langston's usual troupe including a beautiful (final courtroom scene scene-stealing) Melissa Shear and standup pals Johnny Dark and Ruth Buzzi... but it's Murray's even-keeled chemistry with Michelle Johnson that makes this male fantasy believable... at least enough to pass what's a breezy 90-minute straight-to-video doozy.

Murray Langston and Billy Barty in WISHFUL THINKING

Billy Barty in NIGHT PATROL

Linda Blair and Pat Paulsen in NIGHT PATROL

Linda Blair in NIGHT PATROL

Billy Barty in NIGHT PATROL

Jack Riley in NIGHT PATROL

Jaye P. Morgan in NIGHT PATROL

Murray Langston in NIGHT PATROL

Murray Langston in NIGHT PATROL

Andrew Dice Clay and Jaye P. Morgan in NIGHT PATROL

Murray Langston in NIGHT PATROL

From NIGHT PATROL

From NIGHT PATROL

Linda Blair in NIGHT PATROL

Linda Blair in NIGHT PATROL with Pat Paulsen

Murray Langston in NIGHT PATROL

Lori Sutton in NIGHT PATROL

Murray Langston and Jaye P. Morgan in NIGHT PATROL

Linda Blair in NIGHT PATROL with Murray Langston

Linda Blair in NIGHT PATROL

Murray Langston, Jack Riley and Pat Paulsen in NIGHT PATROL

Billy Barty, Linda Blair and Pat Paulsen in NIGHT PATROL

Patrie Allen and Pat Paulsen in NIGHT PATROL with Murray Langston

Patrie Allen and Pat Paulsen in NIGHT PATROL

Pat Paulsen in NIGHT PATROL with Lou Mulford, Donnie Downing and David E. Harshbarger

Pat Paulsen in NIGHT PATROL with Pat Morita and Murray Langston

Murray Langston and Pat Paulsen in NIGHT PATROL

Murray Langston and Jaye P. Morgan in NIGHT PATROL