Category Archives: 70’s Movies

Harold and Maude (1971)

Posted on March 6, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 9 out of 10

4-Word Review: Falling for older woman.

Harold (Bud Cort) is a young man still living at home with his mother (Vivian Pickles) who is an upper-class socialite that dominates Harold at every turn. Harold resents his mother’s control and thus stages fake suicides as a way to rebel. She in turn devises ways to ‘cure’ him of his death obsession by buying him a new car, which he turns into a mini hearse, setting him up on blind dates and even trying to get him recruited into the army. All of these ploys fail, and the real turnaround doesn’t occur until he meets Maude (Ruth Gordon) a kooky old lady with a carefree spirit. The two nonconformists form a strong bond and eventually a romance. When Harold announces that he plans to marry her it causes shock and disgust with all those who know him.

While this film has become a huge cult hit, there’s even a theater in Essen, Germany where it’s been shown, outside of a 10-week period during COVID, continuously since June 6, 1975, it was a box office flop when first released. Many prominent critics at the time panned it including Roger Ebert who gave it only 1 star out of 4. The two main reasons for this were the ultra-dark humor and offbeat storyline, which might’ve been a bit ahead of its time, but also some of it I suspect had to do with the editing. Director Hal Ashby, who was an editor before he ventured into directing, does a lot of long takes here, which is unusual for a comedy. Usually, humorous films consist of quick takes and a fast pace, but here the jokes particularly Harold’s suicide pranks are very drawn out to the point you don’t really see the joke happening until the payoff. While I loved this approach and consider to be the genius of both the movie and Ashby others especially in that time period could consider it off-putting and confusing as audiences are used to having their comedy spelled out for them and not to have to search for it.

The acting is splendid with the two leads nailing their characters perfectly. Cort was warned that if he took this role, he’d be type casted for ever after and it’s true his career flatlined, but with his slim physical build and unique face his choice of leading parts would’ve been limited anyways. Gordon on the other hand was in the midst of a career resurgence and her appearance here helped cement her for old lady roles for the next decade and a half.

While overshadowed it’s important not to forget the supporting cast, who are all fantastic as well. Vivian Pickles is great as Harold’s domineering mother. The argument could be made that she’s too much of a caricature and they would be right, but the scene where she answers Harold’s dating profile for him really had me laughing. Charles Tyner as the one-armed army recruiter who becomes shocked when Harold gets too enthusiastic about killing is good as is Eric Christmas who becomes physically repulsed when describing how sex might go between a young man and an old lady. Tom Skerrit billed as ‘M. Boorman’ in refence to Nazi war criminal Martin Boorman whom he once joked was probably ‘hiding out as a motorcycle cop’ is highly engaging as an exasperated policeman futility trying to write Maude a traffic ticket.

Spoiler Alert!

On the negative end, while minor, I did feel that Harold’s suicide pranks would be very hard if not impossible to pull off. The opening one which has him dangling from the ceiling with his feet clearly off the floor should’ve logically killed him. The scene where we see him through a window presumably setting himself on fire only to then immediately have him appear in the room is something he would not have been able to pull off alone and would’ve at the very least needed the help of someone else, but the film acts like he did it all on his own.

Maude’s car stealing doesn’t make sense either. She seemingly is able to simply hop into someone’s car and drive off with it like everyone just leaves their car doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition, which isn’t likely. If the explanation was that she was hotwiring them then this should’ve been shown, if even just briefly.

Maude’s suicide at the end was a mistake and I agree with critic Vincent Camby who complained that this made the movie seem ‘hypocritical’. She was a character that was so excited about life that it made no sense why she’d suddenly decide to end it. Some may say that she was haunted by memories of when she was in a concentration camp, but if that were the case then why didn’t she do it already at ag 50, 60, or 70? It also makes her seem selfish as she knew how Harold felt about her and killing herself was going to make him extremely upset and yet her response when he becomes horrified at the news that she’s taken some pills is quite detached like she never bothered to take his feelings into account. She was at the age where she could’ve fallen over dead at any moment from natural causes and the film should’ve ended with her dying that way instead.

My Rating: 9 out of 10

Released: December 20, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Hal Ashby

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, Pluto TV, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Cult, Offbeat, Romance

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Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (1971)

Posted on February 26, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Ahead of his time.

Based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Richard Farina the story follows Paps (Barry Primus) who attends college in the ’50’s but behaves more like someone out of the 60’s and finds it challenging dealing with the rigid mind set of the other students. He gets into a relationship with Kristin (Linda De Coff) but it ends in acrimony when he refuses to meet her parents whom he deems part of the WASP establishment. He eventually gets in with Heff (David Downing) and Jack (Susan Tyrrell) who dabble in drugs and convince him to travel down to Cuba just as the Cuban revolution gets underway, which leads to tragic results.

While the novel did have some humor this film has none, which really hurts it. The expectation would be for a lot of irreverence but shockingly that doesn’t come and instead it’s talky that drones on and doesn’t lead anywhere. The opening bit has some comedy as Paps comes onto and makes out with his attractive young new landlord, played by Marian Clarke, but even that flubs because it brings out the sexually carefree culture of the late 60’s, but since this is supposed to be the 50’s it’s out of place and doesn’t help to establish the staid setting that our main character is supposedly feels imprisoned by.

Farina, who sadly died in 1966 just 2 days after his book got published, had far more interesting experiences in real life attending Cornell University during the late 50’s where he befriended fellow classmate Thomas Pynchon and got suspended for getting involved in student protests, but nothing like that gets shown here. At one point Kristin accuses Paps, during one of their spats, that he does nothing but sit around and waste away and that’s the absolute truth. He’s not actively propelling the action and seems like he’s dropping out of his own movie. I was expecting more lively confrontations between he and the other students, but outside of a few snarky comments this never comes to any adequate fruition. The scenic, tranquil landscape, filmed on location in Meadville, Pennsylvania, is the film’s only asset, but otherwise it stagnates badly.

There are a couple of good moments. One involves actor James Noble playing a priest who is duped into coming to Paps room in order to ‘cure’ him of his ‘deadly illness’, which is funny particularly Noble’s tiny pocketbook of candles and crosses that he brings out in order to perform the ‘last rites’. The painting of an ape that scares Paps while he has a drug trip has some diverting camera work though would’ve been better had the ape come to life though with the special effects capabilities of that era it would’ve been difficult. De Coff, who did just one more movie after this before retiring from the business to become an ordained minister, is really refreshing especially her appealing face, which is attractive but without the glossy Hollywood look.

It’s interesting seeing young stars before they were famous including Raul Julia, John P. Ryan, Susan Tyrrell, Zack Norman as a drug dealer, Nicholas Hammond who later became famous for playing Spiderman, and pop music composer/singer Paul Jabara. Bruce Davidson also gets featured in a small bit, but I was surprised he wasn’t made the star since he had a prominent role in Last Summer, which was released before this one was produced, and looked more age appropriate since he was in his 20’s while Primus was already 32. Either way the script doesn’t bring out these co-star’s talents effectively and their presence doesn’t lift the film out of its otherwise deadening pace.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: September 15, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Jeffrey Young

Studio: Paramount

Available: Amazon Video, YouTube

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, College Life, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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Klute (1971)

Posted on February 16, 2026 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Detective falls for prostitute.

John Klute (Donald Sutherland) is a private detective who is hired by Peter Cable (Charles Cioffi) to investigate the disappearance of a CEO named Gruneman (Robert Milli). The only clue is an obscene letter found in Gruneman’s office that he wrote to a prostitute named Bree (Jane Fonda). When Klute initially tries to question her, she refuses to help, so he rents an apartment in her building, which allows him to bug her phone. Eventually the two become friendly and even form a bit of a relationship, but Bree is only able to offer a few clues mainly that one of the johns she saw two years ago who used Gruneman’s name beat her up, but when he shows her a picture of the real Gruneman she says he wasn’t the one. This forces Klute along with Bree’s help to try and track down the other prostitute’s that had seen the same john, but their efforts prove mostly futile even as the unidentified killer continues to stalk Bree and appears ready to close in.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell from a script, which was written by two brothers, if it’s going to make for a good movie, or not. This is clearly a great example for how it’s approached directorially can make all the difference. In other hands this could’ve been a blah programmer, but director Alan J. Pakula, along with cinematographer Godon Willis, adds so many stylized touches that it grabs you in from the very beginning and never let’s go. The evocative lighting is particularly impressive as is the editing and Michael Small’s soundtrack who wisely keeps the music subtle using only the light touches of a xylophone to help accentuate the suspense. What’s most amazing though is Bree’s apartment, which was completely constructed on a soundstage, complete with working toilet, but you’d never know it as it has an authentic cluttered, live-in look and realistic outside light and sound ambience coming in from the window making it one of the most believable set designs I’ve ever seen. Even if you’re not into the mystery just watching it for its production values along would be mesmerizing enough.

The acting adds yet another excellent dimension with Sutherland, wearing a boyish looking bowel haircut, disappearing in his role by giving a nuance performance that allows for Bree to get most of the attention. Fonda, who won the Oscar for her work here, is genuinely riveting and she adds a lot to the proceedings that wasn’t in the original script. One great example of this is when Bree listens to a tape recording of another prostitute getting violently attacked. It was written in that her character should respond with a look of fear, but instead Fonda impulsively broke out in tears, which helped to make her more likable when you can visibly see her empathy and emotions towards her peers. The wide mood swings that her character shows seemed quite authentic for that type of person. The romance angle works better than in most movies, as here it comes off more incrementally and not just all of sudden and it’s his unselfish actions that earns her love, but realistically due to their contrasting lifestyles never comes to a full, permanent fruition.

Charles Cioffi is also really good, but surprisingly never got enough credit. What impressed me was how ordinary he looked where he doesn’t stand out at all and could easily be a typical businessman seen anywhere. In most movies someone with a strange, or scary appearance gets cast as the bad guy, but in real life most killers blend in, like this one, and that’s why they’re able to get away with their crimes for as long as they do. I also liked how when he’s stalking Bree there’s a brief look of sadness in his eyes, like there’s a part of him that feels bad for what he’s about to do, which helps to make his character multi-dimensional. My only quibble is I wish we had seen a bit of his private life. Most likely a high corporate type like him would’ve been married and with a family and seeing him playing around with his kids, even briefly, would’ve made his dark side, when it finally comes about, all the more shocking, but still believable as I think there’s plenty of ‘happily’ married family men out there that could still harbor dark fantasies.

The supporting cast has some interesting moments too, which includes Roy Scheider in a rare turn as an antagonist, which he does well in, and Dorothy Tristan in a small, but pivotal part, as a drug tripping hooker. You can also spot Veronic Hamel, as an auditioning ad model, and Jean Stapleton, as a ditzy secretary, playing in minor roles before they became famous.

Spoiler Alert!

My only complaints with the story come mainly during Bree’s therapy sessions. The sessions themselves, especially the performance by Vivian Nathan as the psychiatrist, were well handled and one of the more realistic interpretations of a therapy session put on a film, but Bree’s ‘confessions’ didn’t totally jive. She says she feels ‘most in control’ when she’s doing tricks, but I’d presume it would be the other way. She packs no gun, so what’s to protect her if a guy gets rough? The idea that Cable would’ve been the only client that would have ever gotten violent with her seemed a stretch. Granted she’s a ‘high class’ call girl, but that still wouldn’t make her completely immune from having to deal with the occasional sickie. Rich guys can be dangerous too and sometimes even more so.

Hard to imagine that she couldn’t describe what the violent john who attacked her looked like especially since that was apparently a rare experience, so I’d think that would make him stand out even more so. His face would be so etched on her mind that she’d easily be able to tell Klute his appearance versus here where he just gets somehow forgotten in her mind along with all the rest.  The scene where she meets up with another client and he implies that he has a unusual turn-on that he’d like to play out and whispers it in her ear, but then when the sex does get shown, under the covers, it comes off as quite vanilla and I failed to see where the ‘kink’ was.

I also felt it was a mistake to reveal who the killer was during the second act and having it remain a mystery to the very end would’ve been creepier. The way it gets resolved, where the detectives are able to connect the same typographical error in the obscene notes to other correspondence that Cable had sent to Gruneman, seemed too easy. I just don’t think Cable would’ve been dumb enough not to have spotted that mistake himself before sending out. A better way would’ve had Bree unable to remember the killer’s identity due to him knocking her unconscious during their violent meeting and then struggle through therapy to bring those repressed memories back, which she would’ve eventually been able to do at the end.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: June 23, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 54 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Alan J. Pakula

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Blu-ray (The Criterion Collection), Tubi, YouTube

 

 

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Academy Award Winners for Best Actress, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Mystery, Thrillers/Suspense

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Casey’s Shadow (1978)

Posted on January 27, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

My Rating: Boy raises a racehorse.

Based on the short story ‘Ruidoso’ by John McPhee the plot centers around Lloyd (Walter Matthau) a single parent raising three sons. The youngest, Casey (Michael Hershewe), decides to raise a colt whose mother has died. At first, they’re not sure the colt will make it, but eventually he grows into being a racehorse that gets named Casey’s Shadow. Lloyd, who’s been looked upon as a loser for many years, feels this is his one chance to make money and thus enters the horse into the All-American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico despite the fact that the horse has been recently injured and running him could endanger his life.

Upfront the film seems similar to many other young boy with horse movies to the extent you wonder why even bother to make this one though it does manage to have some memorable moments. The biggest one being the birth of the colt that gets captured in graphic, vivid style that one will find either a beauty of nature, or grotesque. I also liked the scene involving the horses being put into their stalls before the race and how some of them were difficult to maneuver and even resisted. The shot of the dirty dinner dishes inside a grimy bathtub filled with yellowish water is an image you won’t get out of your mind as well as the horse that gets poisoned to death and keels over in dramatic fashioned making it appear very real and not sure how they could train a horse to do that, but it’s quite effective.

On the casting end I wasn’t convinced this was the best career choice for Matthau as his character is too similar to the one he played in The Bad News Bears where he was a down-and-out guy with little ambition who suddenly finds his competitive edge. In that film his transition was fun, but here it’s strained and not nearly as engaging. It also seemed a mistake to make him the protagonist as it’s the boy that spends the most time with the horse, so he essentially should’ve been the main hero.

While I liked how the three sons aren’t afraid to question their father’s judgement and many times seem to be the mature ones I felt there were too many of them. The two oldest ones lacked any distinction and could’ve easily been combined to just one person. The youngest, Casey, came off like some Italian kid from Brooklyn, especially with his long hair, and I didn’t for a second believe these were boys raised in Cajun country particularly since they made no attempt to convey an accent authentic to the region, which makes it feel like they’re miscast.

The supporting cast is interesting, but underused. Alexis Smith has an icy appeal, but it never comes to full fruition. Would’ve liked more of a confrontation between her and Matthau. Murray Hamilton is always good playing a conniving, amoral character, but his presence is intermittent and doesn’t ultimately do much to propel the story. Robert Webber fares best. He’s known mainly for playing sniveling types, but here falls into the rugged western persona surprisingly well. The only beef with him, and it’s not his fault, is that he gets beaten up by Matthau in what looks to be a pretty decent pummeling, but then later it shows him fully recovered. To make it realistic he should’ve been seen with bandages, crutches, or cuts.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: March 17, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 57 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Martin Ritt

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

 

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Short Stories, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies that take place in the South, Sports Movies

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The Sunshine Boys (1975)

Posted on January 2, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Comedians try to reunite.

Wily Clark (Walter Matthau) is an aging comedian from the vaudeville era who’s now in his 80’s and finding it hard to find work. His nephew Ben (Richard Benjamin) acts as his agent but signing Wily to acting gigs proves challenging due to Wily’s disagreeable manner. Al Lewis (George Burns) worked with Wily when the two where in their prime and known as The Sunshine Boys. ABC wants to reunite the two for a TV special, but Wily resists insisting that he can’t work with Al again due to petty grievances. Ben though gets the two together in Wily’s apartment for a rehearsal of their old skits, but fighting immediately breaks out. They then pair up again for the TV special under the condition that neither has to talk to the other outside of the skit, but when Wily falls over with a heart attack things take a serious turn. Will Al be able to reconcile with Wily before it’s too late?

This is another hit Neil Simon play that hasn’t aged well. At the time it was best known for having George Burns, who hadn’t been in a movie in 36 years, and his subsequent Academy Award win for Best Supporting Actor, which he received at age 80 that was a record for oldest recipient until broken 14 years later by Jessica Tandy. My main gripe though is more with characters. Matthau is alright, though he was only 55 when he did the part, but still looked adequately old, but the person he plays is unlikable. Supposedly he wants acting gigs but makes little effort to get to the auditions on time, or memorize his lines while expecting his stressed-out nephew, whom he belittles and berates constantly, to do all the legwork. It’s really hard to feel sorry for someone who doesn’t put in the effort and he’s rude and boorish at every turn. The movie tries to play this off as just being a part of old age, but it really isn’t. The guy has a huge attitude problem for any stage in life, and it becomes a big turn off. The viewer could’ve sided with him more, or at least little, had he been trying his best and just coming up short and would’ve created a far more interesting dramatic arc had his only option back into the business would be pairing with Al and the internal efforts he’d have to go through to get along with him to make it work versus having his nephew desperately do all the attempted repairing, which isn’t as interesting.

The reasons for their feud are inane and hinges on minor issues like Al apparently ‘spitting on’ Wily whenever he says a word that starts with ‘T’ or poking him in the chest during a moment in their skit, but you’d think if they had been doing this routine for 43 years that Wily would’ve brought up these grievances already. Al seemed quite reasonable, so why does Wily feel the need to stew about it and not just call it to his attention? The story would’ve been stronger had there been a true gripe to get mad at, like Al stealing away Wily’s wife or girlfriend, or signing some big movie deal without Wily’s knowledge that made Al a star while Wily got left behind. All of these things would make anyone upset and create a better dramedy on how the two would be able to reconcile, but these other ‘issues’ that Wily has are just too insipid even for a silly comedy.

Spoiler Alert!

The film also lacks an adequate payoff. There’s this big build up for this TV special, but then it never gets past the rehearsal phase. It climaxes with Wily lying in bed in his cluttered apartment treating his nurse, played by Rosetta LeNoire, just as shabbily as he does everyone else and having learned nothing. I was surprised to by all of these get-well cards and telegrams supposedly by his fans and other celebrities. Would’ve been more profound if Wily received no well wishes and thus gotten him to realize that he was truly forgotten and this would then force him to reassess his selfish nature and commit to treating people better, which unfortunately doesn’t occur, and the character learns nothing.

Since it’s revealed that Wily and Al will be spending the rest of their lives in the same actor’s retirement community it would’ve been nice to show them doing their skits in front of an audience of other seniors, but the film misses the mark here to. There’s no real finality or journey, just constant rhetorical bickering and a running joke dealing with Wily unable to unlock his apartment door from the inside “don’t push it, slide it”, which gets old fast.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: November 6, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 51 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Herbert Ross

Studio: MGM

Available: DVD-R (Warner Archive), Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Buddy Movies, Comedy, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies that take place in the Big Apple

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Plaza Suite (1971)

Posted on December 26, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: One room, different characters.

The entire movie takes place in one setting, New York’s historic Plaza Hotel, where three different couples rent out the same room at different times and the story examines what happens while they’re in it. The first segment involves Sam and Karen (Walter Matthau, Maureen Stapleton). Karen has checked into the room because that was where they spent their honeymoon 23 years earlier, but since then their marriage has soured and she hopes to rekindle the old flame but finds her husband’s resistance to it to be both challenging and troubling. The second story involves a famous Hollywood producer (also played by Matthau) checking into the room so he can have a quick fling with Muriel (Barbara Harris) a girl he dated before he was famous and who is now married with kids. The third and final act revolves around Roy and Norma (Walter Matthau, Lee Grant) and their efforts to get their daughter Mimsy (Jenny Sullivan) to come out of the bathroom, of which she has locked herself inside, and attend her wedding.

The film is based on the play of the same name that was written by Neil Simon who also wrote the screenplay. The play, which opened in 1968 at the Schubert theater before moving onto Broadway, had the same storylines, but was cast differently. In that one George C. Scott and Maureen Stapleton played the characters in all three segments, but director Arthur Hiller didn’t like that approach. Initially he wanted different actors for each story including having Peter Sellers and Barbra Streisand cast in the second, which would’ve been terrific, but when that fell through, he decided to have Matthau play in all three and then simply change around the female leads, but this approach doesn’t work as well. The film suffers badly from having everything done in the same room, which quickly becomes visually static, and the talky script is only occasionally amusing.

The first story features a strong performance by Stapleton, but having the husband eventually admit to having an affair with his secretary, has been done hundreds of times before. The segment lacks anything fresh and the viewer can almost immediately guess where it’s going right from the start making it both predictable and boring. Had it unfolded differently where the husband at least pretended there was a spark left in their marriage and only revealed his true nature through subtle layers then it might’ve had potential but having him be aloof and cranky at the start offers no surprises and makes things much too obvious.

The second segment shows its cards too soon as well. It’s clear that the producer will come onto any attractive woman he sees, so watching him attempt to exploit an old girlfriend and then become shocked when he finds her more intrigued with the celebrities that he knows instead of himself doesn’t offer much of a payoff. Instead, he should’ve been portrayed as being burnt out with Tinsel Town and all of the plastic people he’s bedded and genuinely wanting to rekindle things with his past love whom he remembered as being down-to-earth and then having him shocked to learn that she had become just as superficial as the rest would’ve been funny.

The third act is by far the funniest particularly Matthau hamming up over his frustration at how much the wedding, and subsequent reception, is costing him. This is also the only segment to have some of the action take place outside of the room when in an attempt to get into the locked bathroom he goes out on the 7th story ledge, which is a bit nerve-wracking. However, there’s still some issues including the fact that Mimsy, the daughter, never says anything while locked inside the bathroom, which is unrealistic and off-putting. I didn’t like the point-of-view shots showing her sitting on the toilet through the door’s keyhole as this was unintentionally creepy as it insinuates that anybody could secretly peep at anyone else going to the bathroom and therefore putting a keyhole on a bathroom door would’ve been patently absurd. The parents are also not very likable, or caring as they seem to feel that their daughter is somehow ‘obligated’ to get married and it’s ‘too late to backout’ when it really isn’t. Forcing someone to get hitched and acting like it’s some sort of ‘life duty’ is very old fashioned making the segment quite dated even for its time period.

Some of the exterior shots were cool including the opening bit where Stapleton is shown walking down a busy New York street towards the hotel where the pedestrians are not extras, but instead regular people unaware that they were a part of a movie. The bird’s eye shot showing cars going along the Brooklyn Bridge and its ability to focus in on the one being driven by Harris is impressive and quite possibly, at least on a visual scale, one of the best moments in the film. Even these segments though have some logic loopholes as it shows the character from the segment that has just ended walking outside the hotel while the new character walks in making it seem like the new guest goes into the room the second the former one leaves it, which wouldn’t make sense as a maid would’ve had to go in there in-between to clean it.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: May 12, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 54 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Arthur Hiller

Studio: Paramount Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, PlutoTV, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with a Hotel setting

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Whiffs (1975)

Posted on December 20, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Robbing with laughing gas.

Dudley (Elliot Gould) sacrifices his body to be a guinea pig for the army’s tests. All their latest warfare weapons get used on him first to see how effective they are. He feels he’s doing it to help his country and therefore doesn’t mind the toll that it takes, but as his health declines his superior officer Col. Lockyer (Eddie Albert) realizes that they’re going to have to find someone else to replace him. Dudley is offered a small monthly disability payment, which he feels won’t be enough to survive on. He tries to get other jobs to supplement his measly income but is unable to hold any of them down. He then meets a former fellow test subject Chops (Harry Guardino) at a bar and the two concoct a plan to rob banks using the nerve gas that Dudley has snuck out of the military facility. The scheme is, with the help of a crop-duster named Dusty (Godfrey Cambridge), to spray the gas onto the town’s population, which will disable the folks for certain amount of time and give the two a chance to take the money without any impediment. Trouble ensues when Lockyer catches on to what they’re doing and becomes determined to stop them by bringing in the military.

Screenwriter Malcolm Marmorstein, who wrote also wrote the script for S*P*Y*S, which came out a year before, learned from his mistakes from that one making this a slight improvement. The protagonist has a better arc and the plot is more concretely structured. The humor’s focus is improved as it takes some major potshots at the armed forces and it also manages to have a normal character, as in Dudley’s nurse girlfriend Scottie (Jennifer O’Neill) who is sensible and relatable to the viewer. It features a great performance by Guardino, who’s effective particularly as he riles in pain during one of the tests, but still manages somehow to continue his conversation with Gould. This is also not quite as silly as the other one as it ventures into some dark areas though at times it gets a bit difficult to keep laughing when you witness what terrible, painful things the army gets the two test subjects to agree to.

The main weakness comes in the form of the main character who’s likable enough, but not particularly relatable. I’ll give Gould credit for going against type and taking on a role that was way different from any of the ones he did before. Usually, he played caustic intellectuals who would routinely question and challenge authority, but here he’s a passive simp that does whatever he’s asked without argument, but this then becomes part of the problem. No sane person would agree to allow their bodies to go through such a battering even if it was for the ‘good of the country’ and thus it becomes confusing why Gould would put up with it for so long and the viewer is unable to connect emotionally with his quandary as much as they should.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending doesn’t pack much of a punch and becomes boring just as the tension should’ve been heightening. The idea that Gould decides to drug the whole town just to rob a bank didn’t make much sense as they could’ve easily just used it on the bank employees, which would’ve taken up much less time and effort and not attracted all the needless attention. It also comes off as disingenuous that Gould, who spends the majority of the film being a dope who can’t seem to think for himself, would then suddenly become so cunning as he quickly, on the spur of the moment, comes up with crafty ways to outfox those that are chasing them, but if he was so smart then why did he stupidly subject himself to being the army’s guinea pig for so long? He wasn’t even the one who came up with using the gas to rob the banks in the first place as that idea came from Guardino, so if the story were going to be consistent then Guardino should’ve been the one who continues to do the thinking while Gould would simply take the orders like he had through the first two acts.

Having Gould then jump off Dusty’s crop duster plane just as it’s taking the three men to the safety of Mexico, so he can instead have sex with O’Neil, as his impotency miraculously gets cured, isn’t a satisfying payoff. During the early part of the decade watching two people copulate onscreen in unusual places might’ve been deemed edgy and irreverent, but by this point it had been done too many times, making the moment here, no pun intended, anti-climactic. It would’ve worked better had the sex stuff been written out and O’Neill just been a part of the robbery versus having her disappear for long periods as she does here.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: October 15, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 32 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Ted Post

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Buddy Movies, Robbing Banks

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S*P*Y*S (1974)

Posted on December 18, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Targeted to be killed.

Bruland (Donald Sutherland) and Griff (Elliot Gould) are two CIA agents stationed in France who prove to be inept at every turn. When they accidentally kill a Russian gymnast defector (Michael Petrovitch) the head of the CIA Paris unit, Martinson (Joss Ackland), makes a deal with the soviets to have the two killed. This would then avoid a dangerous retaliation that could lead to a nuclear war. However, neither Bruland or Griff are made aware of this until they start getting attacked by people from all ends including the KGB, the CIA, the Chinese communists, and even a French terrorist group. In their pursuit to survive the two, who initially disliked the other, form an uneasy alliance.

The film’s original title was ‘Wet Stuff’, but the producers wanted a tie-in with M*A*S*H that had been hugely successful and also starred Gould and Sutherland, so they changed it to make it seem similar to that one, but the attempt failed and the movie became a huge bomb with the both audiences and critics alike. Viewers came in expecting the same irreverent humor, which this doesn’t have, so audiences left disappointed and the word of mouth quickly spread causing it to play in the theaters for only a short while. The irony though is that in countries that hadn’t seen M*A*S*H, like the Netherlands and Germany, it fared better because the expectations going in weren’t as high.

On a comic level it’s not bad and even has its share of amusing bits. The way the defector gets killed, shot by a gun disguised as a camera, was clever and there’s also a unique car chase in which Gould takes over the steering wheel from the backseat while someone else puts their foot to the pedal. The initial rendezvous between Sutherland and his on-and-off girlfriend (Zouzou) has its moments too as he finds her in bed with another guy while a second one is in the bathroom forcing him to have to pee in the kitchen sink. Gould then, who thought she was ‘raping him with her eyes’ when they first met, takes over and gets into a threesome while the dejected Sutherland has to sleep on the couch.

On the negative end the characterizations are poor to the point of being nonexistent. Initially it comes-off like Gould and Sutherland are rivals, which could’ve been an interesting dynamic, but this gets smoothed over too quickly. Having the two bicker and compete would’ve been far more fun. There’s also no sense of urgency. While Sutherland does lose his spy job and forced to pretend to feign illness to get out of paying a restaurant bill it’s then later revealed that he did have the money, but this then ruins any possible tension. Had they been in a true desperate situation the viewer might’ve gotten more caught up in their dilemma, but as it is it’s just too playful. The villains are equally clownish and in fact become the center of the comedy by the final act, which takes place at a wedding, while the two leads sit back and watch making them benign observers in their own vehicle.

The film needed somebody that was normal and the viewer could identify with. Buffoons can be entertaining, but ultimately someone needs to anchor it and this movie has no one. I thought for a while that Zouzou would be that person, and she could’ve been good, but she and her terrorist pals end up trying to assassinate the two like everybody else, which adds too much to the already cluttered chaos. The satire also needed to be centered on something. For instance, with Airplane the humor was structured around famous disaster flicks from the 70’s and all the jokes had a knowing tie-in. Here though it’s all over the place. Yes, it pokes fun of spies, but that’s too easy, and having it connected to let’s say James Bond movies would’ve given it a clearer angle and slicker storyline.

Since it did have a modicum of success in certain countries it convinced screenwriter Malcolm Marmorstein to continue to pursue the formula as he was sure it was simply the botched marketing that had ruined this one, so he wrote another parody script, this time poking fun at the army, just a year later, which also starred Gould, and was called Whiffs, which will be reviewed next.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: June 28, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Irvin Kershner

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 70's Movies, Buddy Movies, Obscure Movies, Parody, Spy/Espionage

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The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)

Posted on December 13, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Zucker brother’s first movie.

In 1974 there was the release of The Groove Tube which had a format of comical skits, much like a variety show, that managed to be a big hit and thus ushered in several imitators causing a whole new genre to surface. Unfortunately, those copycats didn’t fare as well and many of them were downright lame. By 1977 the trend had died off and yet brothers David and Jerry Zucker along with their friend Jim Abrahams were motivated to make another one revolving around funny sketches that had gotten a good response from audiences during their improvisational shows done on stage. The studios though weren’t impressed citing the decline in box office receipts towards sketch movies and thus refused their request for financing. They were then able to get a verbal deal from a wealthy real estate developer who agreed to fund the project as long as they made a 10-minute short that he could use to shop around to attract other investors, but when he found out how much it would cost just to produce the short he pulled out forcing the Zuckers to put up their own money, which amounted to $35,000, to get the short made.

This though proved to be beneficial as it attracted the attention of a young up-and-coming filmmaker John Landis, who had just gotten done directing Schlock on a minuscule budget and felt he could do the same here. It also got shown to Kim Jorgenson a theater owner who found it so funny he got other owners to play it before the main feature, and this was enough to get them to pool their money into a $650,000 budget that when completed made a whopping $7.1 million at the box office. This then directly lead to them getting studio backing for their most well-known hit Airplane which was a script that they had written before doing this one but had been previously unable to get any backing for.

Like with most films made during the brief period when this genre was ‘hot’ the jokes and skits are hit-or-miss. The opening sequences dealing with a TV news show are the weakest. Watching a reporter pick his nose because he doesn’t realize that he’s on the air isn’t really all that outrageous when today YouTube has actual news bloopers showing essentially the same thing. Having an ape go berserk in the studio during a live broadcast was too obvious and telegraphs the punchline to the viewer right from the beginning and thus making the outcome quite predictable.

The parody of Bruce Lee movies entitled ‘A Fistful of Yen’ definitely has its share of amusing moments though it goes on a bit too long and the special effects look cheap. My favorite segments came after this one and take up most of the final 20-minutes. These include Hare Krishna monks going to the bar after a ‘hard day of work’ harassing people on the street. There’s also ‘The Courtroom’ skit that’s a parody of Perry Mason-style TV-shows from the 50’s. The Zinc Oxide bit involving a housewife, played by Nancy Steen, who’s forced to face the reality of what life would be like if all the items in her house that was made from Zinc Oxide suddenly disappeared.

The film also features well-known actors who volunteered their time with little pay and appear in brief cameos. These include Bill Bixby as a spokesperson for a send-up of aspirin commercials. There’s also Donald Sutherland who plays a klutzy waiter during a parody of disaster flicks, Tony Dow playing his most famous role of Wally from ‘Leave it to Beaver’ as a jury in the Courtroom and Henry Gibson, in what I found to be both the funniest and darkest skit, where he essentially plays himself in a mock add showing how parents (Reberta Kent, Christopher Hanks) can still keep their deceased son as a ‘a part of their family’ by bringing along his increasingly decomposed corpse with them wherever they go.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: August 10, 1977

Runtime: 1 Hour 23 Minutes

Rated R

Director: John Landis

Studio: United Film Distribution Company

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, Plex, Pluto TV, Roku, Tubi, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Crude Comedy, Low Budget, Martial Arts, Movies with Nudity, Parody

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The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (1976)

Posted on December 1, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: They dissect a cat.

Jonathan (Jonathan Kahn) is a 14-year-old who lives with his mother (Sarah Miles) and nanny Mrs. Palmer (Margo Cunningham) in a beachfront house along the sea after the death of his father three years earlier. Jonathan enjoys his friendship with a group of boys lead by Chief (Earl Rhodes), but his mother does not approve due to Chief’s anti-social sentiment forcing Jonathan to have to sneak out on the sly to see them. One day Jonathan finds a peep hole in his bedroom wall that allows him to see inside his mother’s bedroom, and he begins to peer in on her when she’s undressed, and this creates an unhealthy arousal. When his mother begins a relationship with a sailor named Jim (Kris Kristofferson) he becomes jealous and conveys as much to Chief who devises a sinister plan to ‘solve the problem’.

Lewis John Carlino had a highly respected career as a screenwriter garnering 4 Academy Award nominations for best screenplay, but his three forays as director weren’t as successful and all started out well but ended up just missing the mark. This one was no exception as many critics at the time felt the problem lay in adapting a novel, that was written by Yukio Mishima, which was set in Japan, and trying to convert it to English society. The cultures differences that make up the complex Japanese society that were so integral to the characters in the book gets completely lost in the translation leaving the viewer feeling cold, detached, and genuinely confused when it’s over.

The on-location shooting filmed in Dartmouth, Devon, England, is excellent and the one thing that helps the movie stand-out particularly the isolated hillside house that gives the atmosphere an almost surreal-like feel. There’s also a really creepy performance by Rhodes who nails it as a highly intellectualized kid who displays no moral compass and effectively comes-off as a very believable young sociopath. However, these moments gets coupled with some very disturbing ones dealing with animal cruelty which includes a very drawn-out scene involving the killing and dissecting of a cat as well as putting a firecracker in a seagull’s mouth and while no animal was actually harmed during the production it still left many audiences at the time upset and will very likely do the same with viewers today.

The film’s biggest flaw though is that it doesn’t interpret the character’s actions in any way that helps makes sense of their motivations and for the most part they’re all quite two-dimensional. Jonathan’s arousal at seeing his naked mother needs much better explaining. Most kids aren’t this way, so what is it about his psyche that causes him to enjoy it without any guilt or shame? The movie gives us no clue, nor does it explain how his father died and when you add in the boy’s weird behavior and you start to wonder if the Jonathan maybe had something to do with it, which would’ve opened an interesting subtext if even brought up subtlety, but the script fails to touch on it.

The book makes the reasons for the son’s actions clearer. For instance in the novel the boy losses respect for the sailor when he sees him jump into a water fountain, which he considers to be undignified and the movie really needed to have some similar moment as the kid, like in the book, is initially in awe of the man, but it’s never totally clear what creates the deadly shift. Also, when the son is caught peeping in at his mom the response by his mother in the book is different as she feels the boy should receive a severe punishment, but the sailor, in hopes of becoming ‘friends’ with the kid whom he’s now helping to raise, resists, but the film flubs this scene too by treating it almost like a forgettable throwaway moment that has no impact versus one that would’ve helped reveal the sailor in a more in depth way.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending, which should’ve been a shocker, falls flat as well. In the novel it’s made clear that the boys plan to drug and dissect the sailor just like they did with the cat and they even bring along the tools to do it, in the movie we only witness him drinking the spiked tea. The camera then zooms way out showing the boys at an extreme distance where it’s not obvious what they’re doing. To really make a memorable impression we should’ve seen the boys stab the sailor several times with their knives, which would’ve been far more startling. I felt too there needed to be a reaction from the mother. Does she find out what they did, or does his violent demise remain a mystery? How does her relationship with her son evolve, or devolve afterwards? These questions remain unanswered making the movie seem less like a story and more as a concept that’s never adequately fleshed out.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: April 5, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 45 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Lewis John Carlino

Studio: AVCO Embassy Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, Plex, Roku Channel, Tubi, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, British Movies, Drama, Foreign Films, Moody/Stylish, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity

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