Van Movies: On the Air Live With Captain Midnight, 1979.

As we near the end of our journey through van movies, we find ourselves with a delightful gem about sticking it to the man starring a guy who had a minor role in 1973’s Gator Bait, a woman who was once in a KFC commercial, one of the guys from Spartacus, and Jim Ladd, a DJ, as himself. The director(s) seem to be a husband-and-wife team who also made the aforementioned Gator Bait and by my incredible intuition (aka reading their last names) I am guessing that our lead, Captain Midnight, is their son. Nepotism at it’s finest! Though the film was released in ’79 the copyright states it was from 1977 which tracks with the liberal use of the song Cat Scratch Fever by the Nuge-Dude. I managed to find a poster that claimed this would be the “Youth film of 1978” which suggests this film went through several delays in the release process. This film was a bit of a pain in the ass to get a hold of. Lots of these types of films I have on DVD compilations of public domain films or a lot of time they’re just sitting on youtube for free. This one’s up on youtube but without an audio track thanks to copyright strikes. That’s fine, I’ll just buy a copy – except that no-one (that I know of) is producing a copy so I eventually found what I’m pretty sure is a home-burned copy and ordered that. It is perhaps appropriate that a film about pirate radio will be watched on a bootleged DVD.

Before I say anything else, I would like to say that this poster sucks. True, it isn’t the boring modern disney-marvel poster that everything looks like nowadays but it’s still crap. I can’t tell what’s going on in the central area. It looks like she’s holding him from behind but he’s holding someone’s leg up. The anatomy isn’t adding up. There’s all sorts of shit going on in the borders which looks pretty interesting – roller coasters, parachuting, bands, busty ladies, vans, and it’s all dominated by this ugly beacon of un-focused marketing. No-one wants to see whatever these 2 (3?) people are trying to do. We want to see the ladies and the van. It doesn’t help that the action bubble around Nuge and Rod Stewart is so friggen huge – half of that space isn’t being used. And let’s look at the one below it with the film’s tagline – what’s with the straight line going across the top? The design on this is a complete mess.

While off to a rocky start with that poster, the film is encouraging in it’s beginning giving us some a 2 minute origin story of Captain Midnight – a janitor becomes a DJ when the real DJ goes to take a leak. How hard was that? It seems every 2 years we get a new superhero movie that needs an hour to get Batman or Spider-Man’s origin dealt with – stop it, we already know all of their origins. Just jump into the damn movie. That’s what this does. I need money to pay for my van, I’m going to broadcast out of the van. And what a van this is! I believe it’s a 1974 Dodge Custom Tradesman and it’s been outfitted to include a bed empty cargo space for Captain Midnight to make out with chicks he picks up with off the streets, obviously, a custom broadcasting system, leather seats, some interior artwork, hood scoop, and a spoiler. Befitting the Captain Midnight title, the van is jet-black with some silver pinstripes which looks good but the biggest problem is that it kind of blends in to the background a lot considering many scenes were filmed at night. This issue creeps up again during a scene in which Captain Midnight gives live reporting for a drag race but you can barely see any of the cars. Maybe it’s the video quality but somehow I doubt that.

The conflict is structured well – Captain Midnight is battling with school truancy and the FCC. His mother is fighting the school thinking that her son’s a-ok. The other radio station is supporting Captain Midnight because it’s the seventies and you’re still allowed to stick it to the man. There’s several different factions, all with their own motivations. It’s surprising for a van film. The family fighting the counselor ends up being one of the film’s highlights. Remember the Simpsons episode where they go to Dr Marvin Monroe’s? It’s similar to that. The father hates the idea of going to a “shrink” and is constantly talking about beating his son, the brother is flirting with the counselor, the wife is trying to make the family seem normal, and Captain Midnight is completely disinterested. They end up driving her to prescription medication. It’s pretty damn funny. You’d normally dislike the main character for lying to his mother but he plays her music requests even when it would risk him getting caught by the FCC. That’s a good son.

While an entertaining movie, there are definitely some issues – he has a waterbed but doesn’t put in his van, he says he’s going to play some Zeppelin while the soundtrack is clearly playing something else, there’s no barfights or diners. The scenes are night are a real bummer with how they obscure the vehicles.On the flip side, we get a lot of cool gizmos that the nerd friend makes to relay the radio signal, track the FCC stooge, and other similar devices, we get a live band, we get a movie in which you can still make fun of the obese, we get a 17 year old with no training do a solo skydive into an amusement park, and perhaps something that was foreshadowed earlier, we get a clever “I am Spartacus” moment at the end. It’s flawed but I was happy. One Thumb Up Seal of Approval. Would have been better with some breasts and a fight.

PS the last ten minutes of this DVD is some sort of news story or documentary about a lady that rescues dogs and gets prisoners to help? I don’t know. It’s like ten minutes long and I didn’t really watch it. Weird.