Monthly Archives: March 2014

Mr. North (1988)

Posted on March 31, 2014 | Leave a comment

mr north 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: He has static electricity.

Theophilus North (Anthony Edwards) is a young man who arrives in the town of Newport Rhode Island in the 1920’s. He has little money or connections, but soon attracts attention with his ability to give off small electrical shocks to anyone he touches. Rumors abound that he can heal sick people with this power and everyone wants to meet him, but the town Dr. (David Warner) is not as impressed and accuses him of practicing medicine without a license and a court battle ensues.

The North character is quite likable. He is self-assured, but never obnoxious or overbearing and is sensitive to everyone he meets and always seems to have wise advice to give no matter what their ailment or problem. However, he starts to get to be a little ‘too good’ and it borders on being annoying. It would have been nice to have seen him with at least one flaw or transgression simply to prove that he was human. His electrical charge ability isn’t all that impressive and the way people become so in awe of it is overblown and dumb.

He also helps the Mr. Bosworth (Robert Mitchum) character who has a bladder control issue by giving him pills, which is nothing more than peppermint, but assures him it will ‘cure’ his ailment. Eventually it does suggesting that incontinence is a psychological problem, which is ridiculous as it is almost always a medical one and makes this an insult to anyone who suffers from it.

The tone is pleasing and the recreation of the period is satisfactory, but the pacing is off. Nothing at all happens during the first hour and only slightly gains traction during the end. The scene where North gets chased by a mob of people looking for him to cure them is amusing, but seems to shift this otherwise whimsical fable-like tale into an all-out farce.

The supporting cast is fun. Eccentric actress Tammy Grimes is good as Mitchum’s spoiled adult daughter who tries to make things as difficult for North as she can. Harry Dean Stanton puts on an very effective Limey accent and Lauren Bacall is interesting in a rare sympathetic role. David Warner is terrific as always as the heavy and it should have been played up even more.

The film is directed by Danny Huston who is the son of the legendary John Huston who also co-wrote the screenplay and his sister Angelica appears very briefly. Unfortunately the film is too predisposed at being one of those ‘feel-good’ movies and in the process becomes formulaic and one-dimensional. The final result is a slick, but slow moving production that is empty and forgettable.

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My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: July 22, 1988

Runtime: 1Hour 33Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Danny Huston

Studio: The Samuel Goldwym Company

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Court Drama, Movies Based on Novels

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The Tiger Makes Out (1967)

Posted on March 30, 2014 | Leave a comment

tiger makes out 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Mailman kidnaps suburban housewife.

Ben Harris (Eli Wallach) is a middle-aged mailman living in a crummy, rundown basement apartment. He is bitter and angry at the world around him, which he feels is filled with a lot of vapid followers to a rigid and dehumanizing system. When his upstairs neighbor puts a hole in his roof and both his landlord and the housing authority refuse to do anything about it he decides to kidnap a young beautiful women as a form of insurrection. Instead he mistakenly nabs middle-aged housewife Gloria (Anne Jackson) who has similar issues and the two slowly form a budding friendship.

The screenplay is written by Murray Schisgal and is based on his one-act, two-character off-Broadway play ‘The Tiger’. The film is filled with a lot of diverting, offbeat humor some of which works and some of it doesn’t. I liked the part where Gloria’s neighbor Leo (John Harkins) gets his entire family on their knees to pull out crabgrass from their otherwise ‘perfect’ lawn and we eventually see them tear the entire lawn to bits from a bird’s-eye view and in fast-motion. Wallach’s confrontation with Sudie Bond inside the housing authority office is also amusing, but his attempts at kidnapping a woman come off too much like Wiley E. Coyote trying to get the roadrunner and turn the film into an ill-advised live action cartoon.

Director Arthur Hiller does a fabulous job of disguising the fact that this was originally a play. The editing is quick and the locales varied particularly at the beginning. The pace has a kinetic late 60’s feel, which gives it a certain time capsule quality. However the choice of music, which includes a studio group singing the film’s theme, is quite sterile.

Wallach gives a flawless performance and Jackson is also good. The two have been married since 1948 making them Hollywood’s longest lasting couple. Unfortunately the scenes of the two of them inside the apartment are rather stagnant and the one-time that the film gets boring.

There are also some great supporting performances including Rae Allen as a paranoid woman who thinks every man is a potential stalker and Charles Nelson Reilly as a goofy college registrar. The film also marks the film debuts of Dustin Hoffman and Mariclare Costello as his jilted girlfriend, Bob Dishy as an exasperated husband and John P. Ryan as an escort to a female impersonator. You can also spot a young Joe Santo inside the housing authority office and Frances Sternhagen as a passenger on a bus as well as Barbara Colby who in 1975 ended up getting murdered in mysterious and yet unsolved circumstances.

The one error that I noticed in the film is the gaping hole in Ben’s apartment ceiling somehow gets strangely taken care of and is nonexistent when he comes back to the place with his victim. I realize this movie borders on the bizarre and quirky to begin with, but I still felt there needed to be some explanation for that and none is given.

tiger makes out 2

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: August 18, 1967

Runtime: 1Hour 34Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Arthur Hiller

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: None at this time.

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Posted in 60's Movies, Kidnapping Movies, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Obscure Movies, Quirky

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Hail (1973)

Posted on March 28, 2014 | 3 comments

hail 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: The President goes nuts.

The President of the United States (Dan Resin) is going insane and it has become painfully obvious to all those around him. He wants to suspend congress and elections and has created concentration camps where hippies and other ‘liberal subversives’ are taken and he even drowns mice in buckets of water for relaxation. His staff decides it is up to them to take him out before he puts the country at risk. They hold a gumball lottery and whoever picks the gumball that has the number one on it will be chosen to carry out the assassination. The oldest member of the group who is 90 gets it, but when he chokes on the gumball while chewing it before putting in his dentures it is then up to the Secretary of Health (Richard B. Shull), but the President has spies that have infiltrated the group and is fully aware of what they are trying to do and has a secret plan of his own.

This film is satire the way it should be. It makes fun of both sides and manages to get more hits than misses. It was made in an age before political correctness and wasn’t afraid of who it might offend and thus throws it all out there in a creatively reckless and experimental fashion making it enjoyable all the way through. The pace is breezy and a terrific time capsule to a bygone era.

There are some unique scenes here that you won’t see anywhere else. Some of the highlights include a 4-man ‘hand band’ where a group of men get together to play ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas’ for an audience by cupping their hands together. The scene where the President’s army attacks and beats hippies at a commune that is done in slow motion and to the tune of ‘Amazing Grace’ by Judy Collins is effective and the twist ending involving a wooden leg isn’t bad either.

Director Fred Levinson shows great potential. The variety of camera angles, stylish editing and knowing humor are all first-rate and should have been the start of a great career. Unfortunately the rumor is that Richard Nixon didn’t like the film and considered it a personal insult and used his connections to put pressure on the studios not to distribute it, which eventually led to it falling into complete obscurity. The only other thing that Levinson did afterwards was directing the famous Hertz commercials that featured O.J. Simspson sprinting through an airport terminal, which is a real shame and waste.

Gary Sandy, who later became famous for playing Andy Travis in the classic TV-series ‘WKRP in Cincinnati’ is highly engaging as a radical hippie leader who disguises himself as an army general. Brandon Maggart is also amusing as a nervous National Guard Sergeant.

The only weak link is Resin as the President. He is probably best known for playing the Tidy Bowl man in some TV-commercials during the 70’s. Here his performance is sterile and one-note. Shull and Dick O’Neill come off as much more interesting simply because they are far better actors.

The film is dated, but in a fun way. It brings back to life the chaotic atmosphere of the era and makes you feel like you are being thrown into the middle of it. The film is extremely rare and hard-to-find, but worth a look if you can locate it.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Alternate Title: Hail to the Chief

Released: July 27, 1973

Runtime: 1Hour 25Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Fred Levinson

Studio: Cine Globe

Available: None at this time.

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Posted in 70's Movies, Low Budget, Obscure Movies, Satire

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Zabriskie Point (1970)

Posted on March 26, 2014 | 3 comments

zabriskie point 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Blow up the house.

Two young adults, a product of the turbulent sixties and from opposite ends of the social spectrum, meet and fall-in-love. Daria (Daria Halpern) is an anthropology student while Mark (Mark Frechette) is a dropout who’s wanted by the police. Together they try to endure the hypocrisies and materialism of a capitalistic society.

Writer/Director Michelangelo Antonioni’s camerawork is one-of-a-kind and if you see this film for one reason then see it for this. Everything gets captured in intricate, focused detail and the shots of the desert landscape are breathtaking. The scenes where Mark flirts with Daria while piloting his airplane while she is still on the ground is genuinely cool.

The sprawling, modernistic mansion in the middle of the barren landscape is visually imaginative. Seeing it get blown up is a bit depressing, but when it gets done 10 different times from 10 different angles then it becomes a unique cinematic experience. The exploding refrigerator and flying food, which is done in slow motion, as well as the ten or so different couples who make love on the desert floor at the same time is equally arresting.

Having the two leads played by amateurs with little or no acting experience ends up working well. There is a very natural and honest quality to their delivery that most professional actors in their quest to put on a ‘performance’ wouldn’t be able to convey. Rod Taylor on the other hand is wasted in a small and uninteresting role as is character actor Paul Fix.

This film was unfairly overlooked and criticized upon its initial release, but now deserves a fresh look. Having a scathing take on American society done by a foreigner isn’t quite fair, but his comments on capitalism are good nonetheless. The story itself is quite thin, but when it is as visually intoxicating and emotionally kinetic as this then who cares.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: February 9, 1970

Runtime: 1Hour 50Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni

Studio: MGM

Available: VHS, DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Moody/Stylish, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity, Romance

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The First Deadly Sin (1980)

Posted on March 24, 2014 | 2 comments

the first deadly sin

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Aging cop tracks killer.

Based on the best-selling novel by Lawrence Sanders the story centers around Edward Delaney (Frank Sinatra) a cop only weeks away from retiring who becomes obsessed with tracking down a serial killer who hits people on the back of their heads with a sharp edge hammer as they are walking down the street. The problem is he has only a few clues to go on and his wife Barbara (Faye Dunaway) is in the hospital suffering from a mysterious illness that causes him additional stress and strain.

The film takes a refreshingly different approach to police work than what you will usually find in most Hollywood cop pictures. Instead of emphasizing exciting car chases and thrilling shoot-outs it instead analyzes the meticulous and often times tedious work that goes into following up every little lead while working inside a rigid system and under superiors that aren’t always supportive.  For the most part this is done quite well and at times it is even enlightening, but the whole first half is spent with Delaney trying to figure out what type of weapon was used in the killing even though we the viewer know what it is since we are shown the actual murder at the very beginning thus making the first hour seem quite derivative.

Having the film cut back and forth between scenes of Delaney and the killer doesn’t work. The psycho is played by David Dukes probably best known for playing the man who tries to rape Edith Bunker in a classic episode of ‘All in the Family’. He is a good actor, but scenes showing him alone are clichéd and at times even unintentionally funny. Director Brian G. Hutton should’ve cut them out completely as having the viewer come to realize who it is along with Delaney would have deepened the mystery angle and made it overall more intriguing.

The scenes with the sick wife don’t work either. For one thing we never find out what the mysterious illness is, which is highly frustrating and annoying. It also doesn’t make the plot or character any more interesting. Dunaway is a superior actress and she makes the most of the role’s limitations, but I felt an actress who was more Sinatra’s age would have made it more realistic instead of casting a woman who was 27 years younger.

I have always enjoyed Sinatra in his detective roles, but the character here isn’t as caustic as in some of his older films. For the most part he is pretty benign and even kind of boring. Joe Spinnell though makes the most of his bit part as an overzealous doorman who believes in rigidly following the rules and taking great pride in his doorman duties, but quickly willing to bend them the minute he is given some bribe money.

The final showdown between Delaney and the killer is quite unusual and much more low-key than you might expect. I enjoyed the twist that comes with it, but it lacks a strong impact and the film would have been better served had it had just a little more action.

This movie is also famous as being Bruce Willis’s film debut. He can be seen at the 1Hour 34Minute mark coming into a bar as Delaney walks out. He has a cap over his head and covering his eyes, but you can clearly see just by looking at his mouth that it is him.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: October 3, 1980

Runtime: 1Hour 52Minutes

Rated R

Director: Brian G. Hutton

Studio: Filmways Production

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Police Drama, Thrillers/Suspense

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The Public Eye (1972)

Posted on March 21, 2014 | 2 comments

the public eye 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: He follows her around.

This film, which is based on the Peter Schaffer play, deals with Charles (Michael Jayston) an uptight British accountant who thinks that his wife Belinda (Mia Farrow) is having an affair. He hires Julian (Topol) a goofy private detective to follow her around and see where she is going and what she is doing everyday while he is at work. Unfortunately for Charles Julian starts to fall in love with Belinda as he is following her and she in him, which only further complicates matters since she was initially not seeing anyone and all those trips that Charles thought were so suspicious were simply innocent excursions.

The biggest problem with this film is that it is too lightweight probably more so than even other lightweight films. Nothing really happens. Julian just follows Belinda around much to her amusement, but the two don’t share any dialogue nor ever consummate their pseudo-relationship. The film simply spends long drawn out sequences showing the two following each other throughout the streets of London and occasionally giggling at their ‘little game’ and that is about it. You keep waiting for that second act to kick in, but it never does, which after 95 minutes starts to make the whole thing almost pointless.

Topol is miscast in the lead and ends up being the film’s weakest link when he should have been the strongest. He was fresh off his award winning performance in Fiddler on the Roof and this movie was supposed to make him into a leading man, but the attempts at turning him into a variation of Inspector Clouseau fail badly. His bright white suit that he wears looks garish and ridiculous especially for an undercover spy. Watching him constantly stuffing his face with food starts to get obnoxious and his buffoonery becomes more annoying than engaging.

Farrow is appealing and her natural child-like fragility is perfect for the part. The scene where she states to the shock of an upper-crust crowd at a formal dinner party that rapists should be punished by having their ‘thing’ cut off publicly is amusingly edging and the film would have been better had it gone a little more in this route.

Jayston is the one that comes off best. He plays the proper British gentlemen with all his staid mannerisms perfectly. What I really like though about him is the fact that he does love Belinda, but just doesn’t know how to show it effectively.

This was an odd project for legendary director Sir Carol Reed whose final film this was. The story doesn’t allow for much visuals although the way Reed captures London both from aerial shots as well as the downtown streets that Belinda visits is excellent. The movie almost seems to work as a tour guide of London, which in some ways is the best thing that can be said about the film.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Alternate Title: Follow Me

Released: July 18, 1972

Runtime: 1Hour 35Minutes

Rated G

Director: Carol Reed

Studio: Universal

Available: Netflix streaming

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Posted in 70's Movies, British Movies, Comedy, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Stageplays, Obscure Movies, Romance

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They Might Be Giants (1971)

Posted on March 19, 2014 | 1 comment

they might be giants

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: He thinks he’s Holmes.

After the death of his wife Justin Playfair (George C. Scott) starts to think he is Sherlock Holmes and begins playing the part by smoking a pipe, wearing a deerstalker cap and playing a violin. His brother Blevins (Lester Rawlins) feels he needs to be institutionalized and hires a psychiatrist named Dr. Watson (Joanne Woodward) to analyze him. Watson finds Justin’s fantasy role-playing to be intriguing and reluctantly begins following him around on his fanciful jaunts to find clues from the evil Professor Moriarty and eventually the two begin a quirky romance.

The film, based on a play written by James Goldman, starts out with some potential. The musical score by John Barry has an interesting ominous quality to it. The idea of pitting the practical minded Dr. against the fanciful Playfair is initially engaging. Watching Woodward getting more and more exacerbated by Scott’s constant whims of fancy and refusal to ever to see reality is funny and lightly satirical. The film though drops off terribly when Watson loses all judgment and falls in love with the man despite the knowledge that he is clearly mentally ill. Watching the two frolic through New York City searching for meaningless clues to a mystery that doesn’t really exist makes the film pointless as well as losing all tension, momentum and plot. Having her fall in love with him at the very end might have worked, but having this otherwise sensible and intelligent woman get sucked into Playfair’s fantasy world so quickly is jarring and unbelievable. What is worse is that initially Playfair seems to be working on a real case and there is even a scene where he gets shot at, but then this side-story is frustratingly dropped without any explanation or conclusion.

Scott is in top form and this is an interesting follow-up to his Patton role that he did just before this. Woodward though steals it. She has never done much comedy in her career, but proves to be quite adept to it here. One of the funniest scenes has her trying feebly to cook a meal for Playfair in her cramped apartment despite having no skill at it.

Anthony Harvey’s direction is okay. I liked the way he captures the downtown streets of Manhattan during the rain. However, the film’s most interesting segment takes place in an all-night grocery store where over a loudspeaker are announcements of great sales and deals despite the fact that there are no customers. Eventually a police chase takes place inside there, which ends up being genuinely amusing on a silly level.

The vague wide-open ending cements this as being a complete waste of time and makes the whole thing a big build up to nothing. I realize that this is intended to be whimsical, but even then there needs to be some grounding and this film has none.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: June 9, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 38Minutes

Rated G

Director: Anthony Harvey

Studio: Universal

Available: VHS, DVD, Netflix streaming

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Posted in 70's Movies, Campy Comedy, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Mystery, Romance, Surreal/Fantasy

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Zapped! (1982)

Posted on March 17, 2014 | Leave a comment

zapped

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Teen acquires telekinetic powers.

Barney (Scott Baio) is a high school nerd who spends more time in the science lab than socializing with friends. During one of his experiments he accidently acquires an ability to move things using telepathic powers. His powers impress fellow teen Bernadette (Felice Schachter) and the two fall in-love…and that’s about it.

One of the biggest problems of this horrible teen comedy is that there is no discernable plot. Yes, we have a teen acquiring some amazing powers, but the script does nothing with it. The tricks that he does are minimal and there is no real bad guy, tension, or even basic story just some broadly ‘comical’ scenarios instead. The premise reminded me of one of those old Disney movies with Kurt Russell playing college kid Dexter Riley who would somehow attain similarity extraordinary powers, but those movies at least had Cesar Romero as a fun bad guy and even on a subpar level were far funnier and more entertaining than this.

I think what really bugs me about this movie is that you have some nudity and crude jokes, which would clearly aim it for an older audience and yet the humor is incredibly kiddie-like stuff that could only amuse your basic 4-year-old and be lame to everybody else. The brief bits of nudity that you do see do not make sitting through this inane thing worth it. You also get treated to not one, but two sappy 70’s-style love songs that could easily make most people want to puke.

Baio has no screen presence or ability to carry a movie and it is easy to see why he went right back to doing TV-sitcoms after this. The way he politely puts up with his over-the-top intrusive parents (Roger Bowen, Marya Small) is pathetic. Most films of this type always portray the mom and dad as being ‘uptight’ and ‘out-of-it’, but this one plays it up too much until it becomes just plain dumb.

I will say that Heather Thomas is hot here. Really, really hot both with her clothes on and off and simply eyeing her in every scene that she is in helps in a minor way get through the stupidity. Sue Ann Langdon is attractive in the ‘milf’ category and she is the only one of the cast members to appear in the film’s 1990 direct-to-video sequel Zapped Again!.

The Exorcist parody and the Carrie prom-like disaster that occurs at the end is mildly amusing enough to give this embarrassment one point, but otherwise this film gives the already low-grade genre of 80’s teen comedies a bad name. In fact I would consider this to be the worst out of all of them.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: July 23, 1982

Runtime: 1Hour 38Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert J. Rosenthal

Studio: Embassy Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Crude Comedy, Farce, Movies with Nudity, Parody

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A Lovely Way to Die (1968)

Posted on March 16, 2014 | Leave a comment

a lovely way to die

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Cop protects sexy defendant.

Jim Schuyler (Kirk Douglas) is a tough guy cop who leaves his job after his superiors put pressure on him to change the brutal way he treats criminals, which he refuses to do. Tennessee Fredericks (Eli Wallach) a high profile defense lawyer hires Jim to protect his client Rena Westabrook (Sylva Koscina) who is on trial for conspiring with her lover (Kenneth Haigh) to murdering her rich husband. Jim takes a liking to Rena and the two soon begin a torrid affair while he tries desperately to prove that Rena is innocent even though everything points against her.

This film sat in complete obscurity for almost 4 decades having never gotten released on either VHS or DVD until Universal finally made it part of their Vault Series. Why it took so long to get out I don’t know why as it is on the most part pretty good. The mystery is intricate and entertaining and full of unusual twists. The woodsy New Jersey scenery isn’t bad and the large mansions where most of the action takes place are impressive. This film isn’t any different from any of the other myriad crime noir mysteries of that era, but it manages to be slick enough to keep it intriguing until the very end.

The opening credit sequence is a definite drawback as it shows freeze frames of scenes from the film and seems almost like an ad or movie preview that does not help the viewer get into the mood of the story. The music also gets overplayed to the point of being distracting and irritating. It also has too much of a playful tone to it that does not coincide with the dark, moody overtones of the plot or characters.

Douglas who was already in his 50’s at the time of filming looks too old for the part and his love scenes with Koscina look almost like a father and daughter, which comes off as creepy and unnatural. The part would have been better served had it been played by an actor that was at least 20 years younger, which would have made the romantic angle much more believable. Wallach’s attempts at a southern accent are futile, but his arguments and theatrics during the trial are still fun.

The film also offers a great chance to see young up-and-coming stars including Conrad Bain as the prosecuting attorney, Doris Roberts as a snoopy housekeeper and Ralph Waite as the star witness. There is also Philip Bosco and John P. Ryan as bad guys. Richard Castellano is a bartender and David Huddleston is one of his patrons. You can even spot the beautiful Ali MacGraw in her film debut at the very beginning.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: July 12, 1968

Runtime: 1Hour 43Minutes

Not Rated

Director: David Lowell Rich

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD (Universal Vault Series)

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Posted in 60's Movies, Court Drama, Mystery, Police Drama, Romance

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Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Posted on March 14, 2014 | 6 comments

invasion of the body snatchers 3

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Aliens create human clones.

Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland) is a public health inspector who finds that people around him are beginning to behave strangely. It starts with his friend Elizabeth (Brooke Adams) who insists her boyfriend Geoffrey (Art Hindle) has somehow ‘changed’. Soon other people are saying the same thing and they slowly realize that human clones are being created from alien pods while the people sleep. These clones look exactly like the people they have replaced, but are devoid of any emotion. Matthew and Elizabeth along with married couple Jack and Nancy (Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright) try to escape, but find themselves increasingly outnumbered in this creepy remake of the 1956 classic.

Talented director Philip Kaufman who has never gotten enough credit does a masterful job of weaving an updated version of the tale with more contemporary sensibilities. The balance between sci-fi, thriller and drama really works. The story is perfectly paced and the characters and situations remain believable throughout. Transferring the setting from a small town to San Francisco was inspired. Kaufman captures the sights, sounds and everyday ambience of the city better than just anybody who has done a film there and I really loved the shot of an early morning fog settling in on the top of the Transamerica Pyramid.

The special effects are fantastic. The opening sequence showing the alien spores raining down on the city and hitting onto plant and tree leaves where they form into flowers is very authentic looking and nicely captured. The coolest part though is watching the clones of the humans form out of the pods particularly the sequence showing Bennell’s clone coming to life while he sleeps. Seeing a dog with a human head is wild and Bennell’s destruction of a pod factory is also quite exciting. Denny Zeitlin’s electronic music score is distinctive, but not overplayed and effectively used at key moments although I did feel that there should have been some music played over the closing credits instead of just dead silence.

invasion of the body snatchers 2

Sutherland is good, but his 70’s style afro isn’t. The part where he tries in vain to warn various city officials of the impending invasion, but can make no headway is a perfect portrait of government bureaucracy and almost a horror movie in itself. Adams is beautiful and the way she can somehow make her eyeballs quiver has to be seen to be believed. Goldblum is fun as a brash struggling writer who never seems to know when to stop talking and has a conspiracy theory about everything. Cartwright plays a panicked woman better than anybody and Leonard Nimoy is solid in a sort of Spock-like role where the character believes everything must have a logical conclusion.

There are also some neat cameo appearances as well. Robert Duvall can be spotted at the beginning swinging on a swing. Kevin McCarthy who starred in the original steps into where he left off in the first one as a man running into traffic and warning motorists of the invasion. Don Siegal who directed the first film plays a cab driver and famous cinematographer Michael Chapman can be seen briefly as a janitor. Director Kaufman casts himself in a bit part as a man banging on the glass of a phone booth while Sutherland is making a call.

This movie is smart and stylish and in a lot of ways I liked it better than the original. The only real drawback is the fact that it becomes increasingly clear that these people aren’t going to escape and the drawn out chase sequence becomes more depressing and defeating than exciting.

invasion of the body snatchers 1

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: December 20, 1978

Runtime: 1Hour 55Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Philip Kaufman

Studio: United Artists

Available: VHS, DVD

6 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Moody/Stylish, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Remakes, Sci-Fi, Thrillers/Suspense

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