Category Archives: 70’s Movies

M*A*S*H (1970)

Posted on September 7, 2026 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Rebellious surgeons break rules.

In 1951 during the Korean War Frank Pierce (Donald Sutherland), who goes by the nickname Hawkeye, arrives at the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital as their new surgeon. He gets placed in a tent with Frank Burns (Robert Duvall), but the two don’t get along due to Frank’s religious zealotry, so he gets transferred to another tent. Hawkeye then gets placed with another new surgeon nicknamed Trapper John (Elliot Gould) and the two, with their irreverent sense of humor and non-conforming ways, immediately become best friends. Not only do they break most of the rules, but they also routinely play pranks on others with their biggest ones being on Frank who falls for Margaret (Sally Kellerman) who is a head nurse.

The film, which is based on the 1968 novel ‘MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors” by Richard Hooker, which in turn was based on his experiences as an Army doctor during the Korean War, gets largely overshadowed by the TV-Series, which ran for 11 seasons and has become a huge cult hit. In retrospect I actually like the movie better. Robert Altman’s direction where conversations and actions overlap helps to give the setting a realistic kinetic feel where nothing seems staged. While I could’ve done without his patent whistling I still liked the portrayal of the Hawkeye character better here. In the series Alan Alda played him as a very talkative, loud, and opinionated person that dominated every scene he was in while here the character is more like just one of the guys that occasionally pushes-the-envelope, but only because he, like everyone else there, is a victim of the bleak circumstances that they’re in. This also has a much better balance between the humor and drama. The show had a tendency to get preachy but the movie manages to make the occasional serious point, but still overall remains consistently funny.

On the negative side it’s highly anachronistic with the characters behaving too much like it’s the late 60’s instead of the early 50’s almost like they’re a bunch of stoned, ‘free love’ hippies who found a time machine and decided to go back 20 years. While the sexual escapades are amusing it does tend to get one dimensional. Everyone is portrayed as being a sex maniac with no inhibition or restraint. Having some not engage, either because they just weren’t that into it, or wanting to remain faithful to their spouses/ romantic partners back home, would’ve given it a better balance and certainly been more realistic for the period.

Having Hawkeye immediately mock Frank when he wants to pray seemed off too. Granted there were atheists and non-religious people back then, but they tended to be in-the-closet as religion was still the dominant cultural force. If Hawkeye and crew got annoyed later on when Frank attempted to let’s say ‘convert’ them then it would be understandable, but upfront I’d think he’d not be so aggressive with his disdain and might even politely play along a bit, especially since he had just arrived there and wouldn’t know who else he’d be offending with his off-handed comments.

It’s all very disappointing the way Frank gets written out halfway through. I really liked the way Duvall played the role. On the TV-series the Frank character was a benign snobby dimwit that was constantly the butt of all the jokes and couldn’t do much about it, but here Duvall plays the part with an aggressive, even menacing edge that would’ve made him a great nemesis that should’ve allowed him to stay all the way through. Also, it’s a bit ridiculous that he gets put into a strait jacket after he has a confrontation with Hawkeye. Many people can and do get into fights and are not immediately deemed ‘insane’ because of it. If anything, he should’ve been handcuffed along with Hawkeye since it was Hawkeye who goaded him into it.

The Hot Lips character is another disappointment. Initially I thought she was great as her haughty ways helped give the proceedings some conflict, but then halfway through she does a complete Jekyll and Hyde. Initially she hates the place and just about everyone in it, even becomes a victim to a cruel prank, but then later during the big football game she’s seen on the side lines as a cheerleader aggressively rooting for them to win the game when logically you’d think she would be pulling for the other team.

Apparently, the movie’s logic is that since it gets revealed that she’s been having sex with Duke, played by Tom Skerrit, that this then ‘changed’ her. She’s now ‘liberated’ and no longer frigid/uptight, but it’s too drastic a switch that only further adds to the film’s overblown concept that sex can somehow ‘solve everything’.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: January 25, 1970

Runtime: 1 Hour 56 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert Altman

Studio: 20th Century Fox

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

 

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Buddy Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity

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Rancho Deluxe (1975)

Posted on August 28, 2026 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Modern day cattle rustlers.

Jack and Cecil (Jeff Bridges, Sam Waterston) are two drifters who don’t work an actual job and instead rustle cattle and use the meat that they take from that to help pay for the basic things that they need. John (Clifton James) is the ranch owner who’s tired of seeing his cattle routinely mutilated and determined to find those who are responsible. Curt and Burt (Harry Dean Stanton, Richard Bright) are his ranch hands who John puts in charge to find the culprits, but they end up being of no effect despite them knowing that Jack and Cecil are behind it. After his prize bull gets kidnapped and he’s forced to pay a large ransom to get him back, he hires Henry (Slim Pickens) a legendary detective in cattle rustling to finally solve the case, but Henry proves, at least initially, to be just as inept and oblivious about the crimes as everyone else, which further frustrates John.

This was the first screenplay written by the prolific and irreverent writher Thomas McGuane, his second script 92 in the Shade, was also shot in 1974 during the fall of that year while this one was done in the spring and early summer. McGuance directed the other one himself while Frank Perry helmed this one and having an established Hollywood director behind the chair makes all the difference here particularly the cinematography by William A. Fraker that captures the majestic, mountains landscape of the big sky country, which was done on location in Livingston, Montanna becoming the first of many movies that would be shot there.

Like with McGuane’s other works it’s his offbeat, wry humor that keeps it entertaining and helps it stand out. There’re some truly original comical moments that had never been done before or since making this film even after being around 50 years still come off as fresh and inventive. Some of the best moments are when Bridges and Stanton play a game of Pong while having a discussion, which was apparently something they both did of lot of during breaks in shooting, so Perry decided to work it into the story. The shot of the bull inside a hotel is funny too though there’s no explanation for how they were able to get him in there without being detected, which could’ve heightened the comedy had it been shown. There’s also the scene where Bridges and Waterston have a sex orgy with their girlfriends and then the next morning get caught while still naked in bed by the girl’s elderly relatives, which I consider the best moment in the movie.

The dialogue has a wonderfully quirky quality working off non sequiturs and weird tangents like when out-of-the-blue Waterston asks Bridges if he believes in the tooth fairy, or when John’s wife, played by Elizabeth Ashley, asks him if he regrets selling their beauty parlor business while he busily frets about tracking down the rustlers. The best though is when Slim Pickens goes off on a rant involving a dream, he had as a slave in ancient Egypt while John tries giving him the latest updates on the case.

The characters and their goofy contradictions help compliment the absurdity. Bridges and Waterston are especially fun, some may even say this is a precursor to the character he played in The Big Lebowski, as a happy-go-lucky drifter with no direction in life, which they equate as being ‘free’. Even after they get put into the prison, they still have the same carefree mentality proving that state-of-mind is everything. James is also quite fun as the cantankerous rancher who’s always quite confident despite being wrong on everything. Stanton and Bright good too as dimwits who think they’re in on the game only to end up getting played badly. I also enjoyed Patti D’Arbanville who plays Bridges girlfriend Betty. She shows a very wild side with her sexual nature and drug use, but in reality, she’s most likely going to be spending the rest of her life in this small inconsequential town and working the same mundane job we see her doing at the beginning. Having her provocatively dance around while getting drunk and just before she partakes in the orgy is in a lot of ways her final act of rebellion before the clutches of the conventional life, whose claws I suspect she senses are already on her horizon, fully traps her in.

Unlike other movies the residents of this small town aren’t portrayed as being sheltered or cut-off but instead shown as being just as jaded as any urbanite if even more so. It also examines how the ways of the old world have been completely taken over by the attitudes and mores of the modern era where even the rural folk, at least the younger ones like the two sisters, compete to see whose ‘hipper’ and more with the times while wanting to avoid any association of the bygone era of their elders.

My only two complaints are the interior segments done inside John’s ranch home as the rooms came off as cramped and echoey. John was supposedly a rich man, so I wanted to see a house that exuded this with high cathedral ceilings and gaudy decor. Also, having Bridges and Waterston able to retrieve the $50,000 ransom money after kidnapping John’s bull, was too easy. I don’t feel John, or anybody else for that matter, would be willing to let go of their money quite so graciously especially to a couple of crooks. He should’ve either gotten the police involved to set a trap or done it himself by lying in wait at a careful distance with binoculars and waiting to see who comes to retrieve the briefcase full of money and then chasing them down when he spots them, which doesn’t occur, but logically should’ve.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: March 14, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Frank Perry

Studio: United Artists

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

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Buddy Movies, Cult, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity, Quirky

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Alex in Wonderland (1970)

Posted on August 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Director ponders next project.

Alex (D0nald Sutherland) is stuck in the classic struggle many young artists in Hollywood find. His first film that he directed was a big success both commercially and critically, so now he must carefully decide what to for his next project while trying to avoid the dreaded ‘sophomore jinx’. He aspires to do something that analyzes the political struggles of the time, but his agent and studio heads want him to avoid all that and just do something that will be a box office hit. While he longs director something that has impact and ‘makes a statement’ he still fears it not being a hit and thus crippling his career before its barely begun. He also must consider his wife (Ellen Burstyn) and family. He wants to move them into a bigger house in a better neighborhood, but to do so he must choose a project that is profitable. Can he manage to thread-the-needle by creating something that is both artistic and uncompromised, but still commercially appealing?

After the success of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice director Paul Mazursky found himself not knowing what movie that he should do next. Finding himself caught between doing something with mass appeal, but also artistic he finally decided on the ‘clever’ idea of making a movie about a director going through the same type of dilemma. On some level it does have it moments. I liked the segment showing a full-scale Vietnam-like war happening right in the streets of downtown Hollywood, which is surprisingly well mounted and both funny and vivid. The meeting that Alex has with a producer, played by Mazursky, is excellent too. Love how Mazursky uses flattery to try and ‘woo’ Alex into doing the type of project that he wants and tries to impress him with his expensive paintings hanging about to show him how he ‘must know what he’s doing in order to afford such stuff’ and how Alex dryly declines from getting committed to anything. Both men leave still on ‘friendly’ terms, but it’s clear that animosity runs underneath which for me is probably the most on target thing in the whole movie and something that should’ve been explored more instead of just dropped.

The rest of the film is not as engaging and meanders badly until it seems like there’s no pace to it at all. I loved how Mazursky casts his own daughter, Meg, as Sutherland’s kid, she looks just like her real-life dad, and how precocious she is, but her conversations with Sutherland seem endless and don’t help propel the story along and come off almost like someone’s home movie where the camera is turned on and whatever happens happens without any direction at all. The cameos appearances by Federic Fellini and Jeanne Moreau fall flat. In Fellini’s case he seems almost put-off and annoyed and spouts his lines like he just wants to get it over with. With Moreau Sutherland spots her while shopping like anyone can just bump into a legendary French actress while doing everyday activities and then the two break out into song, which is as tacky as it sounds. Not sure if this was meant to be a fantasy segment, or not, but it doesn’t work either way. Viewers of today will be turned-off by Alex’s friend Andre (Andre Philippe) who casually brags about sleeping with 16-year-old girls, which our protagonist almost seems to find amusing. Back in the wild 70’s this sort of thing might’ve been considered by the jaded set as ‘wink-wink’ but now is completely unacceptable.

Burstyn is as usual quite good but having the two argue about what house to buy, or what to purchase at the grocery store is quite generic and not compelling at all. On one hand I guess you could say it’s nice to see that Hollywood couples can have the same type of problems and squabbles as anyone else, but the movie needs something more to it. The attempts to mix the dramatic with the surreal doesn’t work and makes the film quite jarring. Had it been edited down and better structured then maybe, but it’s too wide open to the point that it gives the term cinema verité a bad name.

The most disappointing thing is that it doesn’t delve into the movie business enough. A viewer comes into a movie hoping to experience something that they can’t in real life, or at least appreciate some new viewpoint, but here it never gets going. It stays stalled the whole way with Alex unsure of what to do next. This should’ve ended after act one. In act two he could’ve gone through the process of casting and writing his next project and then in act three went ahead and began filming it. The quarrels and issues he has with his family could’ve been trimmed and intercut between the rest, so we still would’ve gotten a taste of his personal life, but not so much that it would get draggy while also giving us a good idea of how making a movie works from start to finish. Had it gone this route it might’ve been special, but because it doesn’t it ultimately becomes dull and pointless like a movie in desperate search of a script.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: December 17, 1970

Runtime: 1 Hour 51 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Paul Mazursky

Studio: MGM

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

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Quirky, Surreal/Fantasy

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The Cheap Detective (1978)

Posted on August 6, 2026 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Private eye doesn’t tip.

Lou (Peter Falk) is a struggling private eye who finds himself being questioned by the police over the death of his former partner whose wife (Marsha Mason) he was having an affair with. While he tries to avoid them he comes into contact with his true love Marlene (Louise Fletcher) whom he broke up with years earlier. She wants him to help retrieve some stolen paperwork and a passport that would allow her new husband (Lorenzo Lamas) to leave the country. Along the way he also becomes embroiled in an effort to retrieve a lost treasure that entails gems shaped like eggs.

After the unexpected success of Murder by Death three years earlier writer Neil Simon was motivated to take another stab at detective/mystery satire. This one though, while still making a profit, which came mainly from the opening weekend until word-of-mouth caused it to plummet, didn’t fare as well. While the first film used a variety of comic elements this one stays focused on the dialogue. Some of it is funny as Simon has always been known to have a knack for the one-liners, but it misses out on a lot of potential humor that could’ve propelled it to a higher comic level. Some examples is when Mason’s character talks about getting her black dress at an all-night mourning widow’s shop or receiving her insurance payout just an hour after her husband died, which all would’ve been much funnier had we seen this played out instead of just discussed. The opening visual bit where we see gunshot victims dead, but still standing with small holes in their forehead is both campy and imaginative and there should’ve been more of that throughout verses having it revert to talking heads the rest of the way making it seem almost like it’s a filmed stage play.

While the sets look authentic to the period, they’re also too similar making it seem almost like they stay in the same room the whole time. Lou’s apartment in particular doesn’t look like a genuine bachelor pad as he’s shown having a replica portrait of the Mona Lisa hanging on his wall, but what kind of single man, who’s portrayed as being quite crass and uncultured, would ever want something like that for a decoration? Since he’s constantly complaining about lack of sex and loneliness, I would think having a scantily clad pinup model adoring his place would’ve been better reflective of the character.

The acting by the male cast is a letdown. Falk is the one exception. I initially thought it was type casting as he was more famous for playing another detective named Columbo and I thought watching this would just remind me of that one, but he’s such a talented performer that he manages to make this character quite distinct to the extent that you never see any connection. John Houseman though, playing a fat person named Blubber, is wasted and the oversized suit that he wears, in order to make him seem more ‘blubbery’  does nothing but make his head seem like it’s getting swallowed up. Dom DeLuise is also a detriment playing someone obnoxious and not all that useful to the story. I was also very surprised why Phil Silvers, who was just as well known as the rest, was given such a tiny role where he’s seen just briefly at the end as a cab driver and given only one line to say. Granted he had suffered a stroke earlier in the decade, but he was in several movies and TV-shows after this, so it seemed like he should’ve been given a bigger role and would’ve been able to handle it.

The females fare better especially Fletcher and Mason as well as Ann Margaret who plays a seductive woman, a type of role she’s typically known for, but having her break into a different accent mid scene is fun. I did though feel that Stockard Channing should’ve had more to do. She was treated almost like someone who wasn’t established even though she already starred in her own movie, the underrated gem Sweet Revenge, and thus could’ve been given more of a comic outlet here. I also didn’t buy into her character being so blase about the parade of women that come out of Lou’s apartment as she had openly stated she was into him sexually, so I think she would’ve been jealous and even upset at the other women she saw with him and not amused like here.

The film also suffers from a lack of hipness and much of this could be blamed on virtually the entire cast being well over 40 and filled with has-beens, with the exception of Channing who at 34 was the only up-and-comer. Having a couple of people in their 20’s could’ve helped give it a more youthful appeal and not made it seem so stale.

Spoiler Alert!

There’s also an error that occurs near the end where Falk is shown at gunpoint backed against a window. There’s then a cutaway revealing someone pointing another gun through the open window, but then it cuts back to a long shot where we can’t see the gun making it seem like it’s behind Falk’s body, so then when it goes off it should have hit him instead of Sid Caesar who was sitting in front of Falk. In either case if the gun was indeed behind Falk, but high enough above his body, so that the bullet would hit Caesar then it should’ve been visible in the longshot and no need for the cutaway.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: June 23, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 32 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Neil Simon

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, Tubi, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Mystery, Parody

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Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Posted on July 21, 2026 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 10 out of 10

4-Word Review: Meetup at Devil’s Tower.

Roy (Richard Dreyfuss) works of a utility company in central Indiana and gets assigned in the middle of the night to investigate power outages that are occurring in the area. While he stops his vehicle to read a map a huge spaceship flies over him causing him to get a bad skin burn on the side of his face. After the encounter he becomes obsessed at recreating a distinct mountain landscape inside his home using any material necessary including digging up the dirt and plants from his outdoor garden and bringing them inside, which causes his wife Ronnie (Teri Garr) to leave him along with their three kids. Jillian (Melinda Dillon) is having a similar issue. She’s a single mother residing in a country home with her young son Barry (Cary Guffey) who gets swept up into the spaceship when it goes over her house. Since losing her son she too becomes obsessed with creating the same type of mountain landscape. Eventually Roy and her meet by chance and when they realize they both have the same vision in common and connect it to Devil’s Tower they set out to Wyoming to get there unbeknownst that the government has already become aware that the aliens intend to land there and have come up with a ploy to keep the public away by pretending that the area has become contaminated with a dangerous gas leak.

The film is a remake of sorts of Steven Spielberg’s first movie that he did called Firelight, which he directed in 1964 when he was only 17. While the storyline was similar that one was shot on a budget of $500 while this one was given almost $20 million and that made all the difference, but what really stands out is how, unlike most sci-fi films up to that time, it’s more about the people and their reactions to the ‘invasion’ or ‘visit’ than the space creatures. Some of the best moments deal simply with the local people congregating on a hilltop next to the highway in the middle of the night playing cards while waiting for the saucer to come. Another great segment is when the government officials become excited when they figure out what the coordinates that the aliens have sent to them mean and then roll out this giant globe to figure where on the planet the location is.

My favorite scenes deal with Roy’s home life, which is so realistic that it’s almost like it could’ve been somebodies home movies. I loved how the children, though still quite young, have essentially ‘taken over’ the house with toys and chaos all over. The parents have become so used to the kids shenanigans that when the one boy takes his younger sister’s doll and begins smashing it to pieces the mom and dad don’t bother to pay much attention to it even as it happens right in front of them, which is what I believe happens with most parents they essentially start to tune out the kids and the noise to the extent they no longer notice what their own kids are doing that others from the outside immediately would.

The casting is on target most of the way. Initially Dreyfuss was deemed too young for the dad role as he was only 29 at the time, but the segment where he becomes disillusioned at the children not wanting to see Pinocchio, which he had enjoyed growing up, brings out the universal generational disconnect that can befall most parents and thus almost immediately cements him as being middle-aged in the viewer’s mind.

I did feel that Garr’s and Dillion’s roles should’ve been reversed. Dillion’s character I never really got into. She’s got too much of a serious look about her and comes off as cold. Some may argue she was traumatized at losing her son, but I just didn’t really feel her pain. Garr is much better at playing vulnerable types and therefore should’ve been the single parent and Roy’s ultimate love interest while Dillion’s acting style would’ve been better suited for the distant and impatient wife.

Roy and Jillian’s quest to get to Devil’s Tower and fight through all the elements that try to stop them is compelling especially when done with John William’s pounding score, but there did seem to be a few logic loopholes. For instance, there’s no explanation where he got the car, as his wife drove off with the kids in their station wagon, and as his car keeps crashing through all the barriers there should’ve been a lot more front-end damage. Having the aliens message the exact coordinates of where Devil’s Tower is begs a lot of questions too. How would aliens know what English numbers mean and if they’re smart enough to learn that then why not learn the language too and speak to the humans with English words and not even bother with the musical note ditty?

Spoiler Alert!

The climactic finish, while still impressive especially with the giant spaceship landing, is a bit of a letdown. The biggest problem are the aliens themselves, which were obvious stop-action Claymation and comes off as tacky and unconvincing. There’s also the issue of this group of people, seems to be around 15, who agree to go off with the aliens in their ship and back to their home planet, but why would anyone want to do that?

How would they know they weren’t going into a hostile environment where humans wouldn’t be accepted, or treating unfairly? Wouldn’t they miss their friends and family here since there would be no guarantee they’d ever come back? Showing other people who had ‘disappeared’ years earlier and were now returned to the earth having not aged might’ve been enough to put the other people’s mind at ease, but still for me it would be taken too much of a risk and I don’t think there would be that many people like it gets shown here who would volunteer to do without question or pause.

The same goes for Roy who is seen entering the ship, but he has family here and if he’s any type of loving father he would never want to leave them. Some may argue that his wife left with the kids, so he was essentially ‘abandoned’, but he could fight for joint custody making the ‘abandonment’ angle null. To make more sense Roy should’ve been portrayed like the protagonist in Liquid Sky, as a loner with no connections or friends and thus leaving this planet wouldn’t have been any great loss.

My Rating: 10 out of 10

Released: November 16, 1977

Runtime: 2 Hours 17 Minutes (Director’s Cut)

Rated PG

Director: Steven Spielberg

Studio: Columbia Pictures

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Classic, Movies Based on Conspiracy Theories, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies with a rural setting, Sci-Fi

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The Front Page (1974)

Posted on June 29, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Reporters covering an execution.

In 1928 Chicago convicted killer Earl Williams (Austin Pendleton) is set to be put to death over the accidental shooting of a police officer. All the reporters from the press are there set to cover it as it happens except for Hildy (Jack Lemmon) who plans on getting married to Peggy (Susan Sarandon) and get out of the reporting business once and for all much to the chagrin of his tenacious editor Walter (Walter Matthau). Problems ensue when Earl escapes from his cell. All the other reporters take to the streets presuming he must be hiding somewhere in the city, but instead he breaks into the press room when only Hildy was there. Hildy soon realizes that Earl isn’t the cold-blooded killer that everyone has made him out to be and decides to jump back into being a reporter to cover the big scope just as his fiancée sits outside in a taxi waiting to take him away on a train to their honeymoon.

The film is based on the 1928 hit stage play of the same name that was remade into a movie twice before this one and then once after in 1988. While this one isn’t as poor as the 80’s version, which starred Burt Reynolds and Kathleen Turner, it isn’t as good as the first two. This version, which director Billy Wilder later admitted he wasn’t proud of, is rather slow and doesn’t manage to hit its stride until the second hour. I remember watching His Girl Friday, which was the second film version, and finding each and every scene and line of dialogue to be hilarious while here there’s only a sprinkle of occasional laughs. Part of the problem is that the older versions had a rapid fire pace, but in this movie, everything is slowed down and stagy and the blame could be put squarely on Wilders as he insisted all the words of dialogue needed to be heard clearly versus having overlapping conversations where one character would occasionally talk over or interrupt the other, which would’ve helped the scenes move along faster.

Lemmon is only funny when the characters he plays are in some sort of anxious bind and he responds to it in a nervous, hyper sort of way. Here though he’s way too relaxed. He walks into the scene like he’s not even a part of the cast. While everyone else is frantic to get an edge on the story he sits back like he’s more of an observer who really doesn’t have anything to do with the main plot, and the contrast is not humorous or interesting. It would’ve been better had he still wanted to cover the story, but his soon-to-be wife wouldn’t let him and thus there could’ve been a funny balancing act of him trying to keep her happy while still trying to do his job behind her back.

The film also suffers from the miscasting of Carol Burnett, who has later admitted to this being one of her weakest performances. The problem is that she’s too one dimensional coming off like some angry, emotional woman who has nothing funny to say. Had it been played by a younger woman with a physical appeal who could’ve elicited her lines in a softer way that would’ve made her seem less embittered. Switching the roles where Susan Sarandon played Molly who could’ve conveyed a less angry inflection while Burnett could’ve shined as the nagging fiancée, which she’s more adept at.

The rest of the supporting is the one thing that helps keep it afloat. Matthau again scores, but more for his body language like the scene where he gives Sarandon a knowing stare down when it finally hits her that deep down the man she wants to marry is really more in love with his job. David Wayne is amusing as an effeminate reporter who drinks his liquor with a straw and Vincent Gardenia steals every scene he’s in as a hyper nervous Sheriff though in the end it’s probably Austin Pendleton that I liked best if only for the moment where he smiles into the camera as his picture is being taken despite the fact that he’s only hours away from being executed.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: December 18, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 45 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Billy Wilder

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video. YouTube

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies that take place in Chicago, Remakes

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The Traveling Executioner (1970)

Posted on May 29, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Paid to execute criminals.

Jonas (Stacy Keach) is a man who makes a living executing prisoners with his electric chair in the South near the turn of the century. He charges $100 per execution as he travels from prison to prison. On his latest stop he’s set to execute siblings Willy (Stefan Gierasch) and Gundred (Marianna Hill). While Wily’s goes smoothly he ends up falling for Gundred and coming up with a scheme where he’ll fake her execution, giving her just enough voltage to knock her out and make her seem dead, but then revive her later on with the help of Doc Prittle (Graham Jarvis) the prisoner doctor. However, this plan gets stymied when Doc demands payment upfront in order to be a part of the scheme forcing Jonas to come up with different ways to raise the funds including hiring the local prostitutes to ‘service’ the prisoners inside their cells for five minutes each at a set rate.

The story was the product of writing student Garrie Bateson who wrote the script for one of his screenwriting classes he was taking at USC and his teacher liked it so much he shopped it around to the studios before MGM decided to finance it. The idea is original and the first two acts work pretty well and at times has some delicious black humor, but by the third act it begins to falter and never fully recovers.

Keach’s performance was one of the things I did like. He’s always an excellent actor and here he helps humanize a character and even makes him engaging and likable particularly with the way he ‘counsels’ the prisoners as they’re being strapped down by telling them stories about the ‘Fields of Ambrosia’ and convincing them they’re not necessarily going to die, but instead being swept up into a another world that will be full of bliss and beauty. The on-location shooting, shot at the closed Kilby Prison in Montgomery, Alabama during the dead of winter, helps to accentuate the period flavor while also encompassing it with the brown, sparse landscape which works to bring out the dead theme of the story.

There’s good support from Hill, who speaks with a German accent, but she’s not in it enough.  For Keach to risk so much, his job and reputation, just to save her, a woman he hadn’t known just a few days before, simply because he suddenly got smitten with her, was rushed and unconvincing. Would’ve worked better had there been some underground element willing to pay him off if he faked her execution, which I feel would’ve been more believable.

Spoiler Alert!

I actually thought the scheme to fake her death was a cool idea and I was intrigued to see if he could pull it off, but unfortunately the plot becomes too preoccupied with the side story of Keach trying to make enough money to pay off the Doc to keep quiet about it. When one con doesn’t work, he tries another until you start to forget about the electric chair, which was in the shop getting repaired, altogether. The ‘friendly executioner’ was what made the movie unique, and everything needed to remain focused on that, not silly scenarios on how to bring in quick money.

The finale, which has Keach strapped to his own electric chair, and everything malfunctioning, which causes the entire prison building to blow up, has a nice surreal quality to it, but the message is unclear. This was intended to be a ‘satire’ on the death penalty, but it never makes much of a point if any. Also, having Keach go on a long rant about the ‘Fields of Ambrosia’ slows everything down. The ending needs quick edits in order to heighten the tension not having the camera glued to a talking head that drones on and on, which is why I feel the film failed at the box office as it didn’t maintain its momentum and lost sight of its offbeat premise.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: October 1, 1970

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Jack Smight

Studio: MGM

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Offbeat, Movies that take place in the South, Prison Flicks, Movies with Nudity

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Lifeguard (1976)

Posted on May 7, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Considering a career switch.

Rick (Sam Elliot) works as a lifeguard along a southern California beach. While the pay isn’t great, he does enjoy the laid-back nature of the job and meeting attractive young women, including those that aren’t quite 18 like Wendy (Kathleen Quinlan) who is only 17, but still eager to get with Rick. He meets Larry (Stephen Young) whom he knew when he was younger and who is now a successful car salesmen. Rick is being pressured by his father (George D. Wallace) to ‘get a real job’ and thus decides to go in for an interview at the dealership where Larry says they have an opening. Rick also attends his high school reunion and gets reaquanted with Cathy (Anne Archer) who he dated back in the day. She’s now divorced and interested in starting their relationship back up, but only if he can find a ‘respectable’ job that pays well as she owns a home in the burbs and wants to ‘keep up appearances’, which further pressures Rick to make a career switch, but the more he considers it the more he feels like he’d happier just staying where he’s at.

The marketing for this one, as evidenced by the film’s promotional poster seen above, tried to make it seem like this was going to be some mindless teen sex comedy, which it’s not, but the result didn’t attract the right type of audience and thus allowed it to fall under the radar and was little seen, which is a shame. In reality it’s an excellent drama that brings out many universals that just about everybody goes through at some point in their life. It also captures the day-to-day events in a vivid way showing the unglamorous side of lifeguarding where a lot of time is just spent sitting around bored, going after old men who expose themselves to ladies on the beach, or having to pry away perverts trying to sneak a peek of women on the toilets. When they do actually save someone in the water, as he does at one point, they’re rarely every thanked for it and it’s all just taken for granted even from the victims themselves. While I’ve never worked as a lifeguard, I have had customer facing jobs and have found the events depicted here as well as the people’s responses ring quite true.

I enjoyed the class reunion scenes as well that not only allows us to see an actual picture of Elliot when he was a teen, which he’s forced to tape to his name tag, but also the generic conversations one has while at these events. The best part though is how he lies about what he does to the attendees. Other movies and TV-shows have depicted high school reunions before but have always had the other characters be the one who fib, so it was refreshing to see the protagonist bend the truth because sometimes good people can lie and thus this helps with the realism.

It’s also great seeing young actors before they became stars including Parker Stevenson, who has a very dreamy surfer boy look playing a lifeguard in training who exudes an outer confidence only to have it instantly fragment the second he gets faced with a difficult situation. Kathleen Quinlan is also great as a teen who falls hard and instantly for Rick despite being underage.

The fact that Rick, who is 32, has sex with her while knowing she’s not yet at the age of consent may not go over well with today’s viewers, but my issue is more with her reaction when he decides to move on. Their ‘relationship’ consisted of nothing more than a quick fling inside of all places the guardhouse, so having her threaten to drown herself when he no longer wanted to see her made her come off as irrational and unstable. Some may argue that because of her young age she didn’t know the difference between love and infatuation and thus this caused her overreaction, but a much better twist would’ve had her become pregnant, which then would’ve put more pressure on Rick to take the sales job in order to support the child and thus helped heighten the drama even more.

Spoiler Alert!

I was disappointed though that we never see Rick actually work the sales job. He went to such efforts to get it, even showing up to the interview in a suit and tie, so why not at least try it out? He still could’ve decided to go back to being a lifeguard at the end like he does, but showing the negative side of being a salesman, even just briefly, could’ve helped give the film, which is a bit too leisurely paced, an added kick that it’s otherwise missing.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: July 23, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Daniel Petrie

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Amazon Video

 

 

 

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Movies with Nudity, Outdoors

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What’s Up Doc? (1972)

Posted on April 22, 2026 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 10 out of 10

4-Word Review: Four bag mix-up.

Judy (Barbra Streisand) is a college dropout who plays con games to get what she wants. She spots stuffy college professor Howard (Ryan O’Neal) in a hotel lobby and immediately sets her sights on getting with him romantically despite the fact that he’s already engaged to Eunice (Madeline Kahn) a very controlling, hyper proper woman. Things further escalate when both Judy’s and Howard’s overnight bags, which are similar, get mixed-up with two other bags at the hotel, one that has expensive jewelry and another with top secret government information.

The genesis for this project started with the novel ‘A Glimpse of Tiger’ by Herman Raucher that dealt with a conman named Luther (Elliot Gould), who is secretly from a rich family and only pretends to be poor and who takes in a teenage runaway named Janice (Kim Darby) whom he teaches on how to commit petty crimes. Elliot Gould, Streisand’s ex, bought the rights to the book and tried to turn it into a movie, but his unruly behavior, he later stated that he was only trying to ‘stay in character’, alienated everyone on the set and had the production shut down after only 4-days of shooting. In an effort to save the project Warner Brothers handed the reins over to Peter Bogdanovich who had been actively seeking something that he could do with Streisand. He decided to turn the conman into a female and then having the male being the square that she traps into her schemes. The rest of the tiger script he nixed as it had a very dark ending and instead converted if over to a screwball comedy similar to Bringing Up Baby, which was a film he had enjoyed growing up.

The result is, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest comedies every made. There are certainly a lot of funny movies out there, but very few hit their punch lines as consistently as this one. Even the best ones will have some misfired gags, or lulls, but here absolutely everything works. It comes together like a lyrical orchestra at a breakneck speed that never lets up.  Even the most minor characters here, some who may just have one brief scene, still get an amusing moment. It’s about as well crafted as you can get while still remaining fresh and hip at the same time.

Streisand is a major asset. Her critics have sometimes complained that she takes herself too seriously, so it’s nice having her in a comedic role where she’s being playfully ditzy and professing obscure facts in a fast cadence. Part of what makes the movie seem so with the times despite borrowing from an old comedy formula is having her character be the one that aggressively chases after the guy. Most if not all movies up to that point always had the female being the one waiting for the guy to notice her and never daring to make the first move. Here though it’s the lady who essentially takes charge and this coupled with her streetwise survival tactics was a nice way to usher in the feminist era and could even be considered ground-breaking.

O’Neal is perfectly cast. I have complained about his acting in my other reviews and even he stated himself in an interview with Piers Morgan that he felt he had only ‘modest talent’ and had just ‘gotten lucky’ for most of his career. Here though I would consider this his best role. The character fits into his real-life personality that tended to be subdued and matter of fact and this plays off well comically with Streisand’s hyper presence. He’s also, let’s face it, quite good looking, so it would make sense why he’s stand out in a crowd to Judy and why she immediately goes after him, which is the movie’s all-important inciting incident.

Madeline Kahn is brilliant in support and in many ways the funniest person in the movie. Why O’Neal would want to be engaged to someone who’s so incredibly uptight, bossy, controlling, and just all around unsexy is a legitimately good question, but with that said she’s still the perfect fiancée from hell that could never be topped. It’s fun too seeing Mabel Alberston in her final film appearance before she had to retire due to Alzheimer’s. She was best known for her TV roles where she played intrusive mother in-laws here though she plays against type as a rich socialite who’s even seen in segment wearing hot pants despite being at the advanced age of 70. Liam Dunn is excellent as well as an elderly judge who tries to make sense of all the chaos at the end. While he looked to be at least 75 he was actually, shockingly only 54.

If there was anything critical to say about the movie, and they’re very minor complaints, it would be the firemen who come in to put out the hotel fire, which was meant to resemble the bumbling keystone cops that I felt was pouring on the pratfall humor too much and not needed. There’s also the scene where FBI agent played by Phil Roth is able to get into a hotel room that wasn’t locked, but there’s no explanation for why a room that had been cleaned and not occupied would be open. There’s the same logic loophole for how Streisand gets into O’Neal’s room. The first time is because he accidentally leaves it open, but how she gets in there the second time when he’s away, is not made clear.

I also didn’t care for the title. It’s connected too much to Bugs Bunny cartoons and doesn’t come off as original. Yes, Judy does use this line when she first meets Howard inside the pharmacy and there is a snippet of a Warner Brother’s cartoon at the very end while they’re on a plane, but it really doesn’t have anything to do with the main story. A good title should clue the viewer into what the main plot is about. Even something as simple as ‘The Four Bags’ or ‘Howard and Judy’ would’ve been better.

My Rating: 10 out of 10

Released: March 9, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes

Rated G

Director: Peter Bogdanovich

Studio: Warner Brothers

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Farce, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies with a Hotel setting, Romance

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The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979)

Posted on April 10, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: U.S. Senator has affair.

Joe Tynan (Alan Alda) is a senator from New York who one day hopes to run for President. He meets with elderly Senator Birney (Melvyn Douglas) urging him to throw his support for a certain Supreme Court nominee that Tynan doesn’t particularly agree with but could help him politically. Tynan then meets with Karen (Meryl Streep) who has done research on the nominee and the two begin an affair. Meanwhile at home Tynan’s wife Ellie (Barbara Harris) is studying to be a therapist while raising their two kids (Blanche Baker, Chris Arnold) mostly alone due to the challenges of her husband’s career. While the two mostly get along there are sporadic differences mainly around Ellie’s openness about having gone through therapy, which Joe fears the general public isn’t open-minded about and could potentially ruin his political chances should he decide to run for high office especially after Ellie brings the matter up during an interview with a newspaper reporter (Marian Hailey).

While Alda has had a great acting career his foray as writer/director has been less than stellar. While his comedies have had some entertaining moments with his best one being The Four Seasons, they’ve always ended up having a shallow flair and seeming like they’re saying more than they really were. Unfortunately, this film, which was his first screenplay that took him over three years to write, is probably his worst. In fact, I wished he has turned this one into a comedy like his others as it might’ve worked in a satirical vein, but having to try and take this all seriously is where it really falls flat.

Alot of the problem is that it acts like that this is some sort of ‘trenchant, searing drama’ that’s enlightening us into the dark, compromising world of politics, but it shows stuff that most people know already. The wheeling-and-dealing is quite predictable as are the moral concessions that the protagonist makes in order to get ahead. Everything gets handled in a very mechanical way where the one-dimensional characters get thrown into dilemmas that are quite manufactured.

The affair between Alda and Streep is the most annoying as it pops-up without much build-up put in simply to work off the stereotype that most rich and powerful people cheat on their wives because they can and therefore this one must go through the paces, but it’s neither shocking or riveting. It’s also hard to care about the main character when he’s so easily swayed. Had Streep been more aggressive and Alda resisted some it might’ve helped, but having Alda jump between-the-sheets with her the first chance they’re alone makes him come-off like a total lout that you want to see fail. His marriage wasn’t all that bad either and seemed genuinely good outside of a little tiff, which can happen in even the best of them, and if that was enough to make him trash his vows then he was morally bankrupt from the beginning and wasn’t ‘seduced’ like the movie makes you want to think.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending, in which Ellie finds out about the other relationship, but this somehow ‘strengthens’ their marriage and makes their bond ‘even stronger’ is complete and utter schmaltzy hogwash. It would’ve been a far better payoff had Ellie gotten on stage and announced into the microphone to the crowd at his campaign rally about what a two-timing jerk he was and thus ruined his career, which I think most viewers would’ve liked to see and given this otherwise benign, trite thing a little edge, which it woefully lacks otherwise.

End of Spoiler Alert!

The performances are pretty good though the usually reliable Streep, who admitted in later interviews that she was on ‘automatic pilot’ while doing it due to the recent death of her fiancé John Cazale, isn’t as effective as she can be and I didn’t care for her southern accent. I did though really enjoy Blanche Baker, the daughter of actress Carroll Baker, who has some strong moments as Alda’s troubled daughter. Harris too is excellent, this marked her last major film role as she decided to enjoyed stage work better, who gives a compelling performance playing for a change a normal person instead of an eccentric, kooky one like she did in most of her other roles. She also ironically has an extended scene with her driving around in a station wagon, which looked quite similar to the station wagon that another character she played in The North Avenue Irregulars drove, which came out the same year as this one.

Rip Torn is also quite engaging where he cooks a spicy southern dish and then challenges the rest to eat it. Alda takes up the offer and is able to down the whole thing without heaving while Torn is forced to run to the bathroom. Would’ve been funnier though had it been Alda who was the one with the bad reaction, or both of them as it really didn’t make sense why Alda, who was not accustomed to that type of food, wouldn’t react to it in the same adverse way.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: August 17, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 47 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Alan Alda

Studio: Universal Studios

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

 

 

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