Monthly Archives: July 2023

Last Embrace (1979)

Posted on July 25, 2023 | 1 comment

lastembrace

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Someone wants him dead.

Loosely based on the novel ‘The 13th Man’ by Murray Teigh Bloom the story centers around Harry (Roy Scheider) a government agent who has a nervous breakdown after his wife gets killed during a shootout while he was on a secret mission. After spending time in a sanitarium he gets out to realize that his agency no longer has any assignments for him and he fears they may want him dead while trying to make it look like an accident. When he gets back to his apartment he finds that it’s been sublet to Ellie (Janet Margolin), a doctoral student at Princeton University. He tries to get her to move-out, but can’t and then starts to receive threatening notes in Hebrew and uses Ellie’s background in that language to help him decipher what they’re saying. Soon the two go on the run convinced that the same person after Harry may also now be targeting Ellie, but nothing is exactly as it seems.

Jonathan Demme, despite his immense talent and admirable film output, never received name recognition and for the greater part of his career failed to have a hit at the box office. In fact it wasn’t until the success of The Silence of the Lambs that he even became a sought after Hollywood commodity. Even then when most people think about that movie it’s Anthony Hopkins, or even Jodie Foster that comes to mind while Demme’s directorial efforts seem overlooked. In many of his interviews this was his biggest complaint and that no matter what he did he could never break-out of the bubble to have his name put over the title like with Spielberg, Scorssese, or Hitchcock. I could understand his frustration as his movies were step above your basic indie flick and while not perfect still had far more going for it than a usual B-picture and if anything this film should’ve been the one that got him noticed.

There’s been many Hitchcock imitations with a lot of them done by Brian Di Palma, but those seemed overdone while this one gets just the right balance. The on-location shooting is splendid with my favorite moments being at Princeton University bell tower and of course the climactic sequence at Niagara Falls. I’ve personally been to the falls, but found this movie made me feel closer and more immersed in it than in person especially with the sequences shot inside the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant and another done in the Cave of the Winds, which is what really makes the film stand-out. The music score by Miklos Rozsa, has the perfect blend of what would’ve been used by Bernard Herrman, which was Hitch’s main composer, which helps to make this seem like a movie Hitch himself could of very well done himself.

Scheider’s acting is good as he’s constantly cranky and irritable, which anyone going through his situation would be, so it was realistic and relatable, but I really hated the white suits that he wore. For one thing the guy was out of work and no longer a professional agent, so why he felt the need to dress-up all the time when he really wasn’t on the job anymore didn’t make much sense. Why they were all white was even more head-scratching. Outside of Pat Boone I don’t know of anyone who wears a white suit and it made him stand-out in all the wrong ways. If this guy is afraid that he’s being targeted then he should be dressing down so he could then blend-in, which in this movie he definitely wasn’t.

Margolin, best known for her work in the landmark indie flick David and Lisa, is good too especially with her dual personalities where she plays a nerdy student and her alluring, sexy vamp alter ego at other points. She though was not the original choice for the part as Demme wanted Lynn Lowry, who had been in his previous film Fighting Mad, but Scheider, who was dating Margolin at the time, preferred her and studio backed him on it forcing Demme to drop Lowry, but out of guilt he still paid her and allowed her to collect residuals despite her never appearing in any of it.

Spoiler Alert!

The plot is fast-moving and well crafted and keeps you guessing while also introducing a wide array of new twists without ever getting too confusing. The final twist though, in which we find that Ellie is the one after Harry and has been murdering other men as well in a revenge plot for what Harry’s and the other men’s grandfathers did to her grandmother who was gang raped by them at age 15. The idea was to tie the Ellie character to the Biblical avenger of Goel, which sounds cool, but ultimately an overreach. Had Ellie been raped directly by these men then I could see her going out of her way to seek rough justice, but doing it all for a grandmother she barely knew just didn’t seem all that believable. Also, how does this then ‘right the wrong’ by taking vengeance out on the grandchildren of the men who committed the actual crime? The grand kids had no control over what their grandparents did and weren’t even around when it happened, so how is any of this fair, or even make sense?

A better way to have ended it was to have Ellie portrayed as being a crazy kook going after these men due to a belief in some conspiracy theory only for the viewer to finally realize that she was an actual rape victim and Scheider, who we thought was this good guy, was instead the villain. Since she was raped at 15 her features could’ve changed, which would thus explain why Scheider didn’t recognize her initially. With a movie so compelled to have one twist after the other, this would’ve been the ultimate jaw-dropper. It’s just a shame they hadn’t chosen this route as the film, as slick as it is most of the way, leaves the viewer with an empty feeling after it’s over.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: May 4, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 42 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Jonathan Demme

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Tubi

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Posted in 70's Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Mystery, Rape/Revenge, Thrillers/Suspense

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Flashpoint (1984)

Posted on July 22, 2023 | 2 comments

flashpoint

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Digging up hidden money.

Bobby (Kris Kristofferson) and Ernie (Treat Williams) are border patrol agents who stumble upon a jeep buried in the sand. Once Bobby digs it up he finds a skeleton in the driver’s seat, a scoped rifle, and $800,000 inside a rusted toolbox. Both of them are unhappy in their jobs and Bobby thinks this would be the perfect time to skip town with the loot, but Ernie thinks it’s stolen money and needs to be investigated. Since the bills are all marked with the dates of 1962 and 1963 they presume this is around the time when the bank robbery, which is where they think the deceased driver got the money from, occurred, but upon an old newspaper research at their local library they can find no such robbery happening in the amount that they recovered. Soon they face more problems when a federal man named Carson (Kurtwood Smith) takes over the agency they work at and exerts extreme control over everything they do. Bobby feels Carson is somehow aware of the money they found and knows more about the driver’s identity than he lets on. While Bobby and Ernie hide the money they find Carson and his team of secret agents hot on their path as he sends them on dangerous missions in an attempt to kill them, so they won’t let on to anyone else about what they’ve found.

This is another example where an intriguing story idea, based on the novel of the same name by George LaFountaine, almost gets ruined by lackluster direction. The mystery is interesting enough to keep you invested but there are definite lulls and cheesy side stories that seem to be challenging the viewer to turn it off before it’s over. This was also another case where the setting is supposedly Texas, which gets mentioned quite a bit, and yet it was all filmed in and around Tucson, Arizona, which is a travesty especially since the deserts of Arizona and Texas have noticeably different characteristics. I also felt that if you’re going to have a story based in the desert you should then have the time period during the summer, instead of the winter like here, where the scorching heat could be used as an added element.

Kristofferson isn’t particularly well cast here in a part that was originally intended for Paul Newman. His laid-back style of acting isn’t riveting enough though I’ll give him props for the scene where he gets shot and must crawl several yards in the dirt with one arm that he can’t move due to it being paralyzed by the bullet, which looks quite arduous to do though he does it effectively and realistically. Williams is by far the superior actor and his distinct personality where he’s the idealist, plays-off well from Kristofferson’s more jaded mindset. You even get a full view of Treat’s bare ass, which comes near the beginning and while nobody necessarily asked for it and wasn’t needed to propel the plot some may enjoy it and as male asses go it’s not too shabby.

Rip Torn, whose hair is dyed gray, does well in support where his strong Texas drawl works nicely in the supposedly Texas setting. While he’s only seen sporadically during the first two acts, to the point where I started to wonder why he even bothered to take the role as it seemed miniscule and pointless, he does come on strong during the finale. Kurtwood Smith though is dull, which isn’t exactly his fault as the part is written too much like caricature, and every successful movie needs an interesting and memorable villain, which this one clearly isn’t.

While the action is fleeting it does have one good stunt, which features Treat trying to prevent a plane, which they think holds drugs, from taking-off by reaching in through the window of the cockpit and forcing the pilot to land it. It had me holding by breath, but it got ridiculous when the plane crashes and explodes, but Treat gets saved when he supposedly jumps off and into a lake, but you don’t see this occur and the other men all presume he went down with the plane only to have Treat jump out of the water intact, but if he had dived into the pool then the water would’ve had a ripple effect from where he went in instead of it being calm and placid like it is.

Spoiler Alert!

The twist at the end in where the money and driver of the jeep are connected to the assassination of John F. Kennedy is cool though it leaves more questions than answers. Of course that might’ve been the intention, but still I feel this is a good enough story idea that it should be revisited with a better director and hopefully one day someone talented will decide to remake it in a way that’s more intriguing than what we get here.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: August 31, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 33 Minutes

Rated R

Director: William Tannen

Studio: TriStar Pictures

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Movies Based on Conspiracy Theories, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Obscure Movies, Thrillers/Suspense

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The Savage is Loose (1974)

Posted on July 19, 2023 | 1 comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Shipwrecked family becomes incestuous.

In 1902 John (George C. Scott) and his wife Maida (Trish Van Devere) take their infant son David (Lee H. Montgomery) on a sea cruise. Unfortunately the ship hits some rocks and sinks killing all those onboard except for the young family who manage to swim ashore to a deserted island. They make a home for themselves and slowly begin to age. By the time David reaches adolescence (now played by John David Carson) he begins to have sexual urges especially as he watches his father make love to his mother late at night. As his sexual feelings grow stronger he begins to lust after his own mother and compete with his father for her affections.

Unusual production that was directed by Scott and financed mostly with his own money. After the disaster of The Day of the Dolphin you’d think he’d have learned his lesson and gone with a script with a more mainstream storyline, but instead he dove into something that was sure to offend many and then proved incredulous when it didn’t score well with either the critics, or the box office. Despite starting the decade with an Academy Award win his career, especially after two financial duds back-to-back, began to peter-out after this one and he was really never able to regain his star status, or get offered top parts afterwards.

The film runs hot-and-cold. The opening is a bit cheesy as it features only a painting of a ship hitting some rocks and sinking, most likely the budget was too small to recreate an actual shipwreck, which surprisingly, despite the compromise, kind of works especially with the sound effects of the people screaming particularly the young child. It’s once they get on land that the action really begins to sink. The huts that they build, which we never actually see them make, but can only presume, look too well crafted, when factored in all the utensils, eating bowls, table, chairs, and even bamboo blinds, to have been built by two people with limited resources. It’s also hard to understand, with the front end of the ship still always in view, why they didn’t bother to create a raft, since their carpentry skills are clearly quite superior, in order to leave the island and find help. They eventually do, with relative ease but only after coming up with the idea 18 years later, but why the hell did it take them that long to eventually consider it?

The characters are quite dull and don’t have much to say and it would’ve helped had there been a fourth survivor on the island with them to allow for some diverse dramatic perspective, or even for some much needed comic relief. Montgomery plays the young David quite well, but Carson is terrible as the older version and fails to effectively convey the intense inner frustrations of his character and his acting delivery is robotic. Van Devere is okay as an actress, but her character fails to age. The father and certainly the son do have their appearances change, as you’d expect during almost two decades, but the mother remains youthful and glowing. Maybe this was done to keep her looking ‘desirable’ to the two men, but in reality she should’ve taken on gray hair and wrinkles especially after having to deal with all the stress and hardships of being stranded for some many years.

The incest theme is not handled in any type of interesting way. Instead of being this shocking twist that we’re not expecting it gets telegraphed right from the start and even ponderously talked about amongst all three of the characters until the viewer is totally expecting it to happen and to a degree even waiting for it. It’s confusing too why the son only has his eyes set on the mother. If his quandary is really just trying to release this strong sexual urges and having hardly anyone around to do it with then why doesn’t he try having sex with some of the animals that inhabit the island, or even the old man? Why not have sex, or at least attempt to, with all three at different times? Again, the movie wants to force the viewer out of their comfort zone by exposing the animalistic urges people can have, which in civilization will be repressed, but out in the wild it won’t. With that in mind then why not go ‘all-in’ and explore all the various types of perversions besides just the mother-son one?

Spoiler Alert!

While it remains strangely captivating, despite lots of lulls and slow spots, the ending doesn’t get played-up enough to make it worth it. I commend the idea, showing the mother deep kiss the grown son, but since they’re going for shock value why not show them from a bird’s eye view on the sand, naked and humping? Movies succeed by having unforgettable images and that would’ve been one hard to get out of most viewers heads. Having the father view them going at it was a bit ridiculous as he had been tied-up just moments earlier and trapped by a fast moving fire and no chance for escape, so how he was able to survive it is not clear and doesn’t make much sense.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: October 30, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 54 Minutes

Rated R

Director: George C. Scott

Studio: Campbell Devon Films

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Movies with a rural setting, Sex

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Runners (1983)

Posted on July 17, 2023 | Leave a comment

runners

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Searching for teen daughter.

Tom (James Fox) is a suburban father who watches his teen daughter Rachel (Kate Hardie) ride off to school on her bike one day only for her to never come home. The police find her abandoned bike, but no signs of her, making it seem like she was snatched by someone driving in a car that was passing by. As the years go by Tom becomes even more fixated on finding her despite the lack of clues. His marriage begins to crack as his wife (Eileen O’Brien) feels it’s time to move on and that Tom needs to just ‘let it go’ though he refuses. He eventually moves out and into the city of London where he becomes determined to use what few leads he has to track her down on his own. Along the way he meets Helen (Jane Asher) a mother searching for her missing son and the two get into a relationship even as the challenges of finding their missing kids becomes even more daunting. Then one day by complete shock Tom finally sees Rachel and manages to corner her to have a brief conversation, but Rachel clearly does not want to see him and runs away again, but Tom becomes relentless to bring her home even if it means doing it by force.

Originally meant as a TV-movie the film did ultimately spend some time in theaters though it never managed to catch-on and was soon buried by bigger hits of the day. The film though still stands out as being the first appearance onscreen, outside of a brief cameo in a religious documentary from 1976, of actor James Fox, who left the movie scene after doing Performance, which was filmed in 1968, where he suffered a nervous breakdown. He then joined the Billy Graham ministries, known as The Navigators in England, and became a missionary, but found that his interest in acting never left and decided to make a foray back into it after 14 years and unlike other stars who drop out of the business and try to make a comeback, Fox found enviable offerings and even lead roles in major productions making it seem like he was still a much sought after commodity who had never left. His performance here is masterful and he looks like he hadn’t even aged a day as he’s clearly the one entity that helps carry the film and keep it interesting and insightful throughout.

Storywise I felt the first hour worked best and in many ways is highly gripping. The way it gets played-out has a certain spooky quality and the mystery element wraps you in and keeps you intrigued. The dynamics between the husband and wife are realistic and the film deserves props for examining how these situations can wear on people in different ways and how the ongoing stress can eat away at even the best marriages. Fox creates a compelling character and the viewer feels as emotionally worn-out as he does as he partakes on a grim search that manages to only give never ending bleak results.

Unfortunately the second hour is where it falls apart. To a degree it’s nice seeing him finally get a breakthrough, but there’s no explanation for why she ran away. In fact the daughter is almost like a ghost who says little and displays a continuous pouty expression and not much else. She’s shown passing out some sort of religious pamphlets, but we’re never told exactly what this literature says. Her motivations are vague as she expresses unhappiness with her upbringing, but never explicitly states what exactly they are. Without understanding what makes her tick, or why any of this happened, it hurts the film and makes it seem, despite its keen direction, as half-baked and ultimately empty-headed.

Apparently there was a rash of teens running away from home in England during the early 80’s and this film was produced in an attempt to tackle the subject as a sort of ‘ripped-from-headlines’ TV-movie of the week, but the filmmakers never made any effort to interview the kids to find out why they left home and without that understanding the rest of it is pointless. Showing things from the parent’s perspective is great, but at some point we need the kids point-of-view too and without that it lacks insight.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: May 9, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 47 Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Charles Sturridge

Studio: Cinegate

Available: DVD-R 

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Posted in 80's Movies, British Movies, Drama, Foreign Films, Obscure Movies

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Who’ll Stop the Rain (1978)

Posted on July 15, 2023 | Leave a comment

wholl

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Drug deal gone bad.

John Converse (Michael Moriarity), a war correspondent working in Saigon, approaches his friend Ray (Nick Nolte), a merchant marine, about smuggling a large bag of heroin out of the country and into the US. Ray has dealt marijuana before, but never the hard stuff and is reluctant at first, but due to his friendship with John he eventually agrees. He is told to go to San Francisco where he’ll drop-off of the drugs for payment with John’s wife Marge (Tuesday Weld). Once he gets there though he realizes he’s been followed forcing both he and Marge to go on a dangerous trip to not only elude the bad guys, but also get rid of the incriminating evidence.

The film is based on the 1974 novel ‘Dog Soldiers’ by Robert Stone, who also co-wrote the screenplay. The theme of the novel was to examine the loss of optimism and youthful ideals of the 60’s and the beginning of the age of cynicism that came during the 70’s, which for that purpose the time period should’ve been 1970 as keeping it in the present day, in this case 1978, makes it seem a bit dated and losses the context of the message. The story itself though is still quite engrossing with some of the most disturbing scenes being the ones dealing with a young, affluent suburban couple (James Granna, Timothy Blake) going to a drug party of sorts that had Ray, Marge and Ray’s friend Eddie (Charles Haid) who give them illicit substance for the first time and their immediate hallucinogenic reaction I found both frightening and impactful.

The performances are uniformly excellent especially Nolte, who was not yet an established movie star and the producers wanting instead Kris Kristofferson for the role only to finally give-in after the persistent lobbying of director Karel Reisz. Tuesday Weld is also dynamic falling into the role of a drab, middle-aged housewife with ease and completely losing the young, sexy starlet appeal that she had previously. My favorite though was Moriarty, whose glazed over eyes and emotionless demeanor perfectly reflects the apathy and soullessness of his character.

On the downside I found the character’s motivations to be confusing particularly the way Marge, who did not know Ray before this, agrees to go with him as he tries to outrun the baddies, but how would know she could trust him, or that he wasn’t in on the scheme? When she dropped her child off with some friends that’s where I felt she should’ve also gone and going back into Ray’s car, instead of calling the police, or advising her friend to do so, seemed reckless and too trusting that this stranger had her best interests at heart. In the book Ray’s intentions are not quite as noble as he decides to bring Marge along more for insurance as he think’s he’s been double-crossed by John, but presumes with Marge along he can use her as a decoy, while in the film it’s because he’s genuinely concerned for her safety. Marge too is betrayed differently as she’s not aware of the drug deal in the film, but in the book she was and I felt these nuances should’ve been brought up in the movie and the fact that they aren’t makes it less realistic and losses the whole point of the story.

John’s relationship with Danskin and Smitty (Richard Masur, Ray Sharkey), the two henchmen to corrupt FBI agent Antheil (Anthony Zerbe) gets botched too. For one thing the make-up effects are too slight as John is put through a wide array of physical tortures by the two in an attempt to get him to tell them where the heroin is and yet after it’s all over the only sign of the struggle is a slight cut on his forehead when instead his entire face should’ve been severely bruised, bloodied, and swelling. Afterwards he becomes too palsy with them even reading a book in their presence and joking around though you’d think he’d remain frightened after what they put him through and never letting down his guard in their presence because he’d know their violent side. I also didn’t like how the two start out as nasty criminals, but by the end become clueless comic foils, which hurts both the tension and grim realism.

The film though does recover especially in the final act when Ray takes Marge to an isolated cabin in New Mexico to hide-out in and then are followed by the villains culminating in a unique showdown. The isolation of the place, which sits amongst the beautiful mountains of the region is both picturesque and tranquil, and is based off of author’s Ken Kesey’s home in California where he wired the nearby trees with lights and sound effects to enhance their LSD experiences, and thus this creates an interesting battle between Ray and the thugs as he uses these same props to disorient them and it helps the movie stand-out with its memorable conclusion.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: August 11, 1978

Runtime: 2 Hours 6 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Karel Reisz

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 70's Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies Based on Songs, Thrillers/Suspense

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Hawks (1988)

Posted on July 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

hawks1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Patients hit the road.

Decker (Anthony Edwards) is a former football player stricken with terminal cancer. He’s put in the hospital where his roommate is Bancroft (Timothy Dalton), who’s dying from the same disease. Bancroft though still wants to have some fun and convinces Decker to sneak out of the facility and go on a road trip to Denmark, so they can have one last fling with the prostitutes in the Red Light District. Decker is nervous at first, as he’d rather commit suicide to put himself out of his misery, but eventually decides to go along where they end up meeting two lonely ladies, Maureen (Camille Coduri) and Hazel (Janet McTeer) who’s also harboring a painful secret.

Based on a short story written by Barry Gibb of The Bee Gees the plot has, despite it’s grim theme, a playful quality and comes-off more like a quirky road movie. The scenery is nice especially when they get into Holland and have an extended scene amidst the picturesque windmills, which you can hear slowly rotating in the wind as they speak. There’s also a few funny moments with the best one coming right at the start where Decker takes a frightened SAAB car salesman (Geoffrey Palmer) on a test drive at reckless speeds and right to the edge of a cliff.

The acting is great with Dalton, who did this between his two stints as Bond and used his notoriety to get it made, which he felt wouldn’t have gotten financed otherwise, being standout and putting to great use his piercing blue eyes, which become even more prominent when he’s wearing his stocking cap. Edwards is also good though he looked wimpy to have ever played football. Some may try to argue that the sickness ate away his weight, but in reality this is the body type he’s always had and the producers should’ve, for the sake of authenticity, had him bulk-up before filming began.

What I didn’t like were the unexplained caveats, like where did these two terminally ill patients manage to get the money to pay for fancy hotels and chic restaurants? It seemed like they could buy anything they wanted, so if that were the case then why couldn’t they get themselves clothes so they didn’t have to run around everywhere wearing nothing but their bathrobes? The sex angle was ridiculous too especially for Decker, who’s so weak he had to be carted around in the wheelchair. If he could barely stand then how the hell is he going to get the energy for sex?

Initially I found Hazel and her clumsiness as annoying as Bancroft did, but like with him she eventually grew on me, but I didn’t think she needed to be introduced already in the first act before she even met the two men. She has a scene on a bridge all alone and I didn’t understand what she had to do with the story, only later during the second act when she appeared again did it make sense, but again her personal troubles could’ve waited to be explained when Bancroft and Decker heard about it. I actually enjoyed more Sheila Hancock, who plays Regina, an aging 50-something hooker they meet, who shows a good propensity at fixing things like TV’s and I wished she’d been the one they had befriended long term and the two younger ladies cut out altogether.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending is touching particularly the way the plastic red clown nose comes into play. The wedding in which Bancroft marries Hazel, who’s secretly pregnant by a man who disowns the child, is cute too though I didn’t understand how Bancroft, who had been losing his hair throughout, suddenly seemed to grow it all back as he walked down the aisle. If anything he should’ve been completely bald by that time and it would’ve been more realistic had he been shown that way.

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My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: August 5, 1988

Runtime: 1 Hour 47 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert Ellis Miller

Studio: Skouras Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD-R (dvdlady.com)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, British Movies, Buddy Movies, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Short Stories, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Road Movies

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Starting Over (1979)

Posted on July 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Can’t get over ex.

Phil (Burt Reynolds) gets a divorce from Jessica (Candice Bergen), a successful songwriter, when he finds out she’s been having an affair. He then moves to Boston where his brother Mickey (Charles Durning) and sister-in-law Marva (Frances Sternhagen) set him up with Marilyn (Jill Clayburgh) a nursery school teacher. They don’t initially hit-it-off, so he instead goes out with Marie (Mary Kay Place), but that doesn’t go over well either, so he again calls up Marilyn and this time she relents. Despite the usual ups-and-downs things between them begin to gel and soon they decide to move in together only to have Jessica reappear wanting to get back with Phil and Phil becoming torn as to what he should do.

Based on the novel of the same name by Dan Wakefield with a screenplay by James L. Brooks best known for producing the classic TV-show ‘Mary Tyler Moore Show’. Like with that show the story focuses heavily on the pitfalls of dating life with much of it on-target though it does have a serious out-of-touch quality that’s no longer in-tune with today’s generation. The big one is that they meet on their first date inside the women’s apartments, which because of safety concerns doesn’t happen much now and usually it’s always advised to meet in a public setting and not give out personal addresses until you really get to know the person better. There’s also a scene where Jessica, who wears a highly revealing outfit, meet in Marilyn’s apartment and have what we’re told is a civil three hour conversation though in this day and age it’s hard to believe two women, knowing that the other one is clearly after ‘their man’, could be that composed and most likely a fight would break-out and I’m kind of surprised knowing how emotional Marilyn was and wearing her insecurities on her sleeve, that one didn’t happen here.

On the flip side there’s some terrifically funny moments.  One is when Marilyn and Phil initially get off the bus together, before they’ve officially met, and she thinks he’s a stalker, which has a good true-to-life feel. Another great scene is when Phil and Marilyn briefly break-up and he goes to her school, where they’re having a dunk-a-teacher water party and he manages to hit the bullseye with the ball he’s throwing and she’s goes into the water repeatedly before eventually losing her cool and swearing. Phil’s anxiety attack inside a department store is memorable too as his Jessica’s call to Phil at his apartment while he’s serving Thanksgiving dinner to Marilyn and his guests, which creates quite the awkward moment. Phil’s first date with the aggressive Marie is a terrific bit too.

The acting is top notch especially Clayburgh who creates the perfect composite of single women during the 70’s who desperately wants to get into a relationship, but many times allow her fears and anxieties to get in the way. Reynolds is excellent playing against type. Normally he’s a brash womanizer, but here he’s far more reserved and indecisive.  This is also the last movie where he didn’t have his patented mustache and I felt he looked way better and younger without it. Even Bergen, in a much smaller role, is memorable particularly with her off-key renditions of the songs her character has written.

Overall I consider this one of the best romantic movies made. I will admit a modern remake would give the story a more timely update, but the situations nicely reflect the dating conundrums that affect us all.  My only complaint would be with the Clayburgh character, who seemed too insecure to be able to get into a healthy relationship. Most guys would be scared off with her constant emotional outbursts and accusations and I didn’t see why Phil stuck with it. This is one instance, especially since Phil was pretty much a hunk, that I felt the woman he fell for should’ve been better looking, or at least equal to the Jessica character that he left. I just couldn’t understand exactly why, being that there were a lot of women who could easily get into him, he’d choose, or settle for, Marilyn over all the others. Had they had more in common then maybe, but she came-off like a woman who would eventually become a cat lady and too emotionally needy to be someone you could have a long term relationship with.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: October 5, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 45 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Alan J. Pakula

Studio: Paramount Pictures

Available: DVD-R, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Comedy, Movies Based on Novels, Romance

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Night Game (1989)

Posted on July 4, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Baseball score and murder.

Mike Seaver (Roy Scheider), a police detective, is put in charge of investigating a series of bizarre murders where women, some of them prostitutes, are murdered along the beaches of Galveston, Texas after each Houston Astros home game where pitcher Silvio Baretto achieves a victory. There are initially no suspects and it all seems to be a coincidence until Seaver ties the clues together and hones in on the killer while quarreling with Witty (Lane Smith) a state investigator brought in to help him with the case, but who has opposing ideas as to how to approach it.

The story is a strange mixture wanting to feed-off of the slasher films of the 80’s while also tying it to a sports themed flick, that was also popular during that decade, but manages to fail on both ends. The killings aren’t imaginative enough to attract a horror audience while the gore is much too graphic for those just looking for a slick thriller and thus both types of viewers will get put-off with this pretty quickly. Fans of sports movies won’t like it either as the baseballs scenes are brief and fleeting. While it’s kind of fun to see the Astros old color bar uniforms as well as watching actual game footage shot inside the old Astrodome, which at one time was coined ‘the 8th wonder of the world’ it hardly seems necessary especially since a TV-movie ‘Murder at the World Series’, which came out in 1977, had a very similar storyline that also included the Astros and Astrodome making this seem like a cheap, uninspired rip-off of that one.

The plot at least, while still dated especially on the technology end, takes a realistic approach to being a detective and how hard it is to find clues that can help piece the case together and lead to an actual suspect. Scheider, who was 57 at the time and looking it, manages to give it some energy and this was helped no less than by casting Richard Bradford as his nervous and pensive superior whose white hair and old school ways helps to offset Scheider’s wrinkles despite the fact that Scheider was in real-life 2 years older. The side stories though dealing with Smith coming in to butt heads with Roy doesn’t get played-up enough to be interesting and Scheider squabbling with his mother-in-law over a color TV that he got her drags the pacing down and hurts the tension of the mystery, which is where the sole focus of the script should’ve stayed.

Spoiler Alert!

What really ruins it though is the stupid ending. For one thing people in big cities, and Houston is the 4th largest one in the US, get murdered all the time, so having a cop able to somehow tie it to when a pitcher wins a game was too much of a stretch as technically there’s likely to be a murder happening somewhere whenever ANY pitcher wins a game and there needed to be more direct clues, like the killer sending cryptic notes to the police, or media, stating what his intentions were for it to realistically come together for the investigators.

The man playing the murderer, Rex Linn, who is supposedly a former pitcher who got cut from the team and then ultimately loses his hand in an accident and has it replaced with a hook, looks more like an disheveled, beer bellied truck driver who never played a sports game in his life. His motivations, to kill someone whenever the pitcher, who replaced him on the rotation, wins a game, in order to steal media attention away from the new pitcher’s success, is poorly thought out. It would’ve made more sense had the disgruntled man gone after the pitcher directly by either threatening his life, or those of his family, or maybe even attempting to kill the general manager, or owner, since they were the ones directly responsible for cutting him instead of no-name hookers who usually don’t get a lot of news attention anyways when they’re killed and thus making the whole premise pretty vapid.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: September 15, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Peter Masterson

Studio: Epic Productions

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, Tubi

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Posted in 80's Movies, Movies that take place in Texas, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Police Drama, Slasher/Gore, Thrillers/Suspense

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How to Frame a Figg (1971)

Posted on July 2, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Tricking a dumb bookkeeper.

Hollis Fig (Don Knotts) is an inept bookkeeper working as an accountant at City Hall. The place is run by the Mayor (Edward Andrews), his staff, and the richest man in town who is also quite elderly, Charley Spaulding (Parker Fennelly). Together this bunch, unbeknownst to Figg, are skimming city funds. They decide though that they must cover their tracks by firing all of the other accountants and keeping only Figg who they deem as not smart enough to catch-on to what they’re doing. They also install a computer to do the bookkeeping and tell Figg it’s his job to maintain it, but nothing more. However, Figg and his friend Prentiss (Frank Walker) become suspicious when the computer readouts involving the city’s budget show that much of the money has gone missing. When Figg brings these findings to the mayor they divert his attention by hiring him a sexy secretary (Yvonne Craig) who will flirt so heavily with him that he’ll forget about everything else that’s going on, but this doesn’t sit well with Figg’s girlfriend Ema Letha (Elaine Joyce) who works across the street as a waitress.

This was the final movie produced from Knotts’ 6-picture deal that he signed with Universal in 1964 after he rose to fame in the ‘Andy Griffith’ TV-show. While none of the movies produced from that contract were very good this one has to be the weakest. The story is slow moving and lacks any action, or sight gags, which will bore most kids who are the intended audience. Visually it’s quite banal and looks like it could’ve easily been an episode for a TV-show with the biggest failing being that it was shot on a studio backlot, so the town is nothing more than propped up buildings. While it would’ve cost more shooting it in a real town it would also have given the production more of a distinct look, but at least it uses the same courthouse that was eventually also in Back to the Future.

Knotts is a funny guy, but he’s just playing the same Barney Fife caricature over and over and thus making everything that he does here quite predictable. Edward Andrews and Joy Flynn are both talented character actors, but together they end-up negating the other. In this instance Andrews totally dominates making Flynn’s efforts negligible and not worth appearing at all. Frank Welker, who later became a very famous voice artist including speaking for the Fred character in the ‘Scooby-Doo’ cartoons, makes for a strange buddy to Knotts since there was over a 20-year difference between the two and it shows. It would’ve been better if they were around the same age and Welker’s character not so painfully stupid as having two dimwits becomes tiring and monotonous.

I did however enjoy Yvonne Craig, best known for playing Batgirl on the ‘Batman’ TV-show, here she enlivens things as the vixen.  Parker Fennelly, who was 80 at the time, but looking more like 100, is very funny, and in many ways the best thing in the movie, as the crotchety, but still conniving codger, who violently slams down his cane when he gets angry and has everyone else at his beck-and-call.

Spoiler Alert!

Had the script not spelled everything out right at the start and instead had the viewer to see things completely from Figg’s perspective would’ve allowed for a few twists and surprises, but the way the plot gets presented here is quite routine. The ending, in which Figg and his new bride travel to Rio de Janeiro for their honeymoon and explicably bump into the Mayor and his staff who are hiding-out there is disappointing.  Do the bad guys ultimately escape justice, or does Figg figure a way to take them down? Or do they kill/kidnap Figg to keep him from talking? Either way none of this gets answered, which is a letdown. At least with the Disney films of that era everything would end with one big car chase, or ultimate showdown of some kind, which is what this film, as dull as it already was, sorely needed.

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My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: February 2, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 43 Minutes

Rated G

Director: Alan Rafkin

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Campy Comedy, Movies for the Whole Family

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