Category Archives: 70’s Movies

End of the Game (1975)

Posted on May 8, 2024 | 1 comment

endofgame

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Unable to prove crime.

Richard Gastman (Robert Shaw) makes a bet with his young friend Hans (Martin Ritt) that he can commit a crime in front of him, but Hans will be unable to prove who did it. Later Hans’ girlfriend (Rita Calderoni) plunges to her death from off of a bridge. Hans is convinced Gastman did it, but just like he predicted he cannot prove it. 30 years pass and Hans is now a police commissioner with only a few months to live due to suffering from stomach cancer. His Lieutenant Schmied (Donald Sutherland) is found shot to death inside his police vehicle. He’d been assigned by Hans to keep tabs on Gastman as Hans was still intent on making him pay for what he did to his girlfriend, but he again can’t prove that Gastman killed Schmied though he’s certain that he did. Walter (Jon Voight) gets assigned to the case, but Hans can’t be completely honest with him about the case, so instead he sets Walter up to witness firsthand the brutality of Gastman for himself.

The story is based on the 1950 novel ‘The Judge and the Hangman’ by Frederich Durrenmatt who also wrote the screenplay and has a very amusing cameo as a man who plays chess against himself and always loses. The novel was first adapted into a broadcast for German television in 1957 and then again in 1961 for British TV, and then it got adapted for a third time for Italian television and then a fourth as a TV-movie for French broadcast before finally making it’s way to the big screen with this version, which so far has been the last adaptation to date.

The film was directed by Academy Award winning actor Maximillian Schell who was unable to get along with either of his leading actors with Shaw accusing him of being a ‘clockwatcher’ and ‘pocket Hitler’ while Voight described him as being humorless and overly demanding. The film is well directed for the most part, but an unusual reliance on humor almost kills it. The story itself is certainly not meant to be funny, but Schell implements comedic moments particularly in the first half when they’re not needed and almost a distraction. This is particularly evident during Schmied’s funeral and earlier when Schmied’s body is found and another cop drives the corpse to the hospital with Donald Sutherland, in an unbilled bit, playing the dead man and his body twisting around in weird ways as the car goes down the curvy road, which is humorous, but unnecessary and doesn’t help propel the plot. Initially too the corpse is spotted by some pedestrians who stare at it through the car window and seem amused by it, which isn’t exactly a normal reaction people have when witnessing someone who has just died. Possibly this was meant to show the public’s distrust, or disdain for the police, but if that were the case it should’ve been explained and elaborated.

The casting is unusual as it features Ritt in the lead who’s better known as a director, but here ultimately shines and becomes the film’s only likable character though the way he behaves throughout still makes him seem sketchy like everyone else. Shaw, who complained that he never got paid the $50,000 that he was owed for doing this, is commanding as usual, but Voight who wears a shaggy bleached blonde look comes-off as creepy right away. Technically the viewer is expected to side with his character, at least upfront and consider him a ‘good guy’, but right away Voigt telegraphs it in a way that makes him seem ‘off’ and hence kind of ruins the stories eventual twists.

For those who like complex whodunits this might fit the bill. The plot certainly does constantly unravel in surprising ways and no one should be bored, but the characters are cold and unlikable. There’s no one to root for and therefore the viewer is not as keyed into the outcome as they would’ve had they been more emotionally invested. The editing is also quite choppy and there seems to be certain key elements that get left out, which most likely due to the fact that the original runtime was 106 minutes, but the DVD version, the only one publicly available at this time, runs a mere 92 minutes.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: September 21, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes (Director’s Cut) 1 Hour 33 Minutes (DVD Version)

Rated R

Director: Maximillian Schell

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 70's Movies, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Obscure Movies, Police Drama

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Footprints on the Moon (1975)

Posted on May 3, 2024 | Leave a comment

footprints5

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Tormented by a nightmare.

Alice (Florinda Bolkan) is tormented by a constant dream involving an old movie she saw when she was younger that dealt with a man being left on the moon to die. She awakens one morning to find that she’s slept for over 2-days and when she arrives at her job she learns that she’s been fired for not showing up and not calling-in. She gets back to her apartment and spots a postcard revealing a hotel, which she vaguely remembers being at. She decides to travel there, which is off the Turkish coast, and meets people who say they’ve seen her before, but while wearing a wig and going by a different name.

The film’s chief asset is the directing by Luigi Bazzone, who had a brief 10-year career where he did 5 films and then inexplicably retired when he was only 46 and never to do another film after this one, which is a shame as he had many more years ahead of him and could’ve helmed a slew of interesting movies in the process. This one definitely relies on a good visual touch. The opening bit done on the moon has certainly a tacky quality, but is also captivating. It doesn’t exactly look authentic, but captured in a way that gives it a dream-like feel and makes it gripping. The island setting that Alice goes to, shot in Phaselis, has such a unique topography that it gives the whole thing a very outer worldly appeal and helps enhance the bizarre story elements.

Bolkan’s presence though does not help. She wears a perpetual scowl, outside of one moment when she smiles to greet a child, that makes her unappealing and hard to sympathize with. She also lost too much weight, reportedly 11 pounds by her own admission, making her look scrawny and like she could tip over with the slightest breeze. She already had a thin frame, so for her to lose anymore, makes her anorexic and not sexy particularly when she goes nude during a shower scene.

Her character is ghost-like and transparent. Some may say this is due to the twist, but for the viewer to get wrapped-up into the character’s quandary they need to see her as a multi-dimensional person. Instead we get someone with no apparent connections to the world around her. Having her go through the plot with some other friend beside her, which she could’ve fed-off of emotionally whenever she got upset, or confused would’ve helped tremendously. Trying to care about a person who’s not fleshed-out doesn’t work and I went through most of it feeling ambivalent about the protagonist’s fate.

Nicoletta Elmi, who plays a young girl that Alice meets while on the island, has far more appeal especially with her striking red hair and clear blue eye, and thus her scenes allow for some intrigue though her conversations with Alice seem to just be repeating themselves. Klaus Kinski is only on hand for a little while and never interacts with anyone making it seem like he’s in some other movie with no connection to this one. In fact his moments could’ve been cut, he only gets shown sporadically anyways, and the movie would not have been hurt by it.

The plot, which was based loosely on the novel ‘Las Huellas’ by Mario Fenelli, doesn’t have enough going on to hold the viewer’s attention. This is yet another example where had it been shortened it would’ve worked perfectly as an episode for the “Twilight Zone’, but here it labors along. It gives out a lot of tantalizing clues at the beginning, but the second act goes nowhere with not enough twists. The concept becomes highly strained with a character that doesn’t interact enough and the few conversations she has are bland and don’t allow the story to progress. The ‘surprise ending’ doesn’t make-up for the lulls and only leads to more questions than answers.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: February 1, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Luigi Bazzoni

Studio: Cineriz

Available: DVD-R, Amazon Video, Screambox

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Posted in 70's Movies, Foreign Films, Italian Films, Moody/Stylish, Movies Based on Novels, Mystery, Obscure Movies

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The Frisco Kid (1979)

Posted on April 25, 2024 | Leave a comment

friscokid

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Rabbi travels across America.

Avram (Gene Wilder) is a Polish rabbi traveling across the U.S. from Philadelphia to the west coast where he plans to head a congregation in San Francisco. He has all of his money taken from him by three unscrupulous men (George Di Cenzo, William Smith, Ramon Bieri) who initially befriend him only to eventually leave him stranded in the middle of nowhere. Avram is then offered some help by a local Amish community and even gets a job for awhile as part of a crew laying down train tracks. He’s eventually earns enough to buy himself a horse, so he can continue his travels. It is then that he meets up with Tommy (Harrison Ford), who unbeknownst to Avram is a robber. When Tommy steals money from one of the banks in a town that they pass through both he and Avram must go on-the-run in an effort to avoid getting caught.

The script was originally written in 1971 under the title ‘No Knife’ in reference to Avram who traveled with no weapon of any kind for protection. Originally John Wayne was considered for the role of Tommy, who was interested, but the studio could not meet his fee requirements so along with his declining health, he bowed-out. Dick Richards, who won praise for helming another western The Culpepper Cattle Company, was originally tabbed to direct this one, but during the pre-production phase he left the project, so it was given to Robert Aldrich, who, as Roger Ebert explained in his review, treated it like a routine assignment and didn’t put in a lot of heart into it.

The  shoddy effects are noticeable and really hurts the production. The interiors have a stage play quality and all of the outdoor scenes look like they were shot on a studio backlot. Certain long shots show steel silos in the background, which wouldn’t have existed during the turn-of-the-century time period that the story takes place while other shots are clearly just a matted photograph edited in. For a western to be fully effective it has to have some grit and atmosphere and this film unfortunately has neither. The first hour works more like darkly humored comical vignettes and while they succeed at being slightly amusing aren’t really all that captivating.

Wilder is excellent and probably the sole reason to see it, but I was more surprised by the presence of Ford who had just came-off starring in the landmark Star Wars, but here accepts second billing and isn’t even seen until 22-minutes in. I was more baffled by the motivations of his character and didn’t understand why he’d take-on the mission of helping Avram, a virtual stranger, through the perilous journey. This was a man who was quite self-sufficient and excellent with a gun and easily getting away with robbing people, so befriending a rabbi was just going to hold him back. A backstory was needed showing why he might seek-out a partner, even an awkward one like Avram. Possible  showing Tommy being a part of a larger gang who kick him out of the group and thus in a desperate need for companionship he befriends Avram, or maybe Avram gets Tommy out of some sort of jam and thus Tommy decides to help the rabbi on his travels in an effort to show his gratitude, but just having Tommy show up out of nowhere and become Avram’s instant buddy doesn’t really work. I would’ve liked to have seen a wider relationship arch too where Tommy would take much longer to warm-up to and understand Avram’s unique personality than he does.

Spoiler Alert!

The scene where Avram befriends an Indian Chief, played by Val Bisoglio, and teaches the Indian tribe how to do a Jewish dance is fun and the climactic duel between Wilder and Smith merits a few point as well. The scene though where Avram shoots a man gets botched. He had never used a gun before, so I would’ve expected him to miss his target especially since he was nervous and his hands shaking. The fact that he’s able to shoot the guy right through his heart the very first time he’s ever pulled a trigger is beating astronomical odds and not the least bit believable.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: July 13, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 59 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Robert Aldrich

Studio: Warner Brothers

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

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

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Absolution (1978)

Posted on April 17, 2024 | 1 comment

absolution

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Pranking a strict priest.

Father Goddard (Richard Burton) is the head of an English Boy’s School and uses his influence to control those who attend and is unflinching on his policies. Goddard constantly displays a cold and detached demeanor particularly with Arthur (Dai Bradley) a handicapped student that the Father doesn’t seem to care for. Benjie (Dominic Guard) on the other-hand is the teacher’s pet and routinely shown favorable treatment. Benjie though grows to resent the Father’s stern ways when he’s told he can no longer visit with Blakely (Billy Connolly) a motorcycle riding vagabond who has set-up an encampment just outside of the school grounds. Benjie decides to play a prank on the Father after hearing the lecture about the seal of confession, which a priest cannot break even if what he’s told is about a murder, so during confession Benjie tells Goddard that he’s murdered Blakely. Goddard initially doesn’t believe him, which sets off a myriad of twists that soon sends Goddard’s life, career and even his sanity spiraling out-of-control.

After the success of The Wicker Man, Anthony Schaffer was commissioned by director Anthony Page to write another script that could be made into a movie and Schaffer decided to choose one that had initially been meant as a stageplay, but had never been produced. However, once Schaffer had completed his adaptation Page was unable to find a studio willing to fund it and he was ultimately forced to use his own money and Burton agreeing to slash his normal fee in order to get it made.

The lack of a budget is sorely evident at the start featuring a grainy print with faded color and what initially seems like misplaced banjo music that would be considered more appropriate for a film set in the American south instead of England. Having it shot on-location at Ellesmere Collage helps as many of the local pupils played the students here and the film gives-off a realistic atmosphere about what a boys school would be like with all of the kids looking age appropriate for their grade level and not like, as with other teen school movies, older actors in their 20’s trying to come-off as if they were still adolescents.

Billy Connelly, in his film debut, is terrific and it’s fun seeing Bradley, who was better known for his starring role in Kes. Burton though is the standout as his jet setting persona that he had at the time with Elizabeth Taylor gets completely erased and he fully sinks into his role of a steely-eyed, cantankerous man who rules with a rigid, iron-fist and whose simple presence wields terror in the boys as he walks-by and to some extent the viewer too. It’s a commanding performance that helps the movie stand-out.

Spoiler Alert!

The story though, while intriguing, doesn’t fully work. It becomes obvious that Goddard is being tricked by the boys, but you feel no empathy for his quandary. He has spent so much time up until then being a jerk that you end up siding with the boys, at least initially, which seriously hurts the tension as normally in a thriller/mystery such as this you’re supposed to side with the protagonist and want to emotionally see them get out of their predicament. Here though you like his mental breakdown and not as invested in finding out the resolution beyond it. The final explanation, dealing with the Arthur character supposedly disguising his voice to sound like Benje’s is too much of a stretch and ultimately hurts the credibility.

Shaffer stated in interviews that this was not meant to be an anti-Catholic movie, but I feel he said this in order not to alienate potential viewers as it’s clearly written by someone who grow-up in the church and had many problems with it. Father Goddard is more a caricature meant to represent Catholicism as a whole and how the religion with its very rigid rules ends up trapping those who follow it with a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you don’t scenarios leaving its followers in a perpetual state of guilt and paranoia. This becomes quite evident at the end where the Father feels unable to break his seal of confession for fear of divine wrath, but also fears it for the murder he committed and his thoughts of suicide that would equally lead him to hell, per the teachings, making him more a victim of the religion than of the boys, which I feel was the whole point.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: December 8, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Anthony Page

Studio: Bulldog Productions

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Adolescence/High School, British Movies, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Stageplays, Spiritual Movies

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Believe in Me (1971)

Posted on April 12, 2024 | Leave a comment

believe

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Couple addicted to drugs.

Remy (Michael Sarrazin) is a medical student at a New York hospital, who finds himself increasingly addicted to speed and other drugs available to him through his job. Pamela (Jacqueline Bisset) is the beautiful new girlfriend he meets through his friend and fellow intern Alan (Jon Cypher) who’s also Pamela’s brother. The two hit-it-off and soon move into together, but the romance doesn’t last when Pamela becomes aware of Remy’s addiction. He convinces her that he can handle it and even gets her to try some of it despite her reluctance. This then leads to her becoming hooked as well and their lives quickly spiral out-of-control as they both lose their jobs, their money, and ultimately their dignity.

The early 70’s was  a peak era for drug culture movies with most getting a bad rap from the critics, which included this one. Certainly it does start out cringey with a sappy love song sung by Low Rawls that not only gets played over the opening credits, but also about 30-minutes in, which practically kills the whole thing with its heavy-handed melody and lyrics. The title is not so great either as it seems to imply a totally different type of movie like have someone sticking with another person through thick-and-thin, which really doesn’t happen here and in fact its the complete opposite.  ‘Speed is of the Essence’, which was the working title as well as the title of the New York Magazine article by Gail Sheehy of which the film was based was far more apt and should’ve been kept.

However, what I did like are that the characters aren’t teen agers, or a part of the counter-culture movement, which is where all the other drug movies from that period had. The blame in those films was always the same too: peer pressure and bad influences, but here that all gets reversed. Remy and Pamela are well educated and with Remy’s background is well aware of the dangers of drugs and essentially ‘knows better’ and yet becomes a victim to them anyway. Because he’s at such a high standing initially and not just played-off as being some naive kid, makes his downfall and that of his equally smart girlfriend all the more stark and gripping.

The performances are good too. Sarrazin and Bisset met while filming The Sweet Ride, that started a 6 year relationship and this was the one project that they did together. Sarrazin has been blamed as being too transparent an actor who’s instantly forgettable and melts into the backdrop. While I’ve usually found his acting credible he does have a tendency to be passive and lacking an imposing presence, but here he’s genuinely cranky and snarly. Even has some moments of anger, which is why the movie mostly works because the character is believable. There’s good support by Alan Garfield as his dealer who gets the final brutal revenge on Remy when he can’t pay up as well a Cypher whose advice to his sister when she’s down-and-out and asking for money is shockingly harsh.

Spoiler Alert!

The film has a few strong moments particularly when it focuses on the couple’s teenage friend Matthew (Kurt Dodenhoff) who also becomes hooked and goes through a scary mental and physical decline, but the ending lacks punch. It has Remy sitting outside his apartment saying he’s ‘lost his key’ (not sure if this was meant as a code word for them being evicted, but probably should’ve been). Pamela then leaves him there while she walks to a clinic in order to get sober, which for me was too wide-open. For one thing there’s no guarantee that Pamela would’ve been able to cleanly kick-the-habit as many people enter into drug recovery suffer many relapses. Leaving Remy alone doesn’t offer any finality. Either he dies from his addiction, or finds a way out, but we needed an answer one way, or another like seeing his lifeless body lying in the gutter, which would’ve given the film the brutal final image that it needed. The movie does give an honest assessment of the situation most of the way, so why cop-out at the end and become vague? The viewer had invested enough time with this that they should’ve been given a more complete and concrete character arch.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: December 8, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 26 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Stuart Hagmann

Studio: MGM

DVD-R (dvdlady.com)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Short Stories, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with a Hospital setting, Obscure Movies

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The Double McGuffin (1979)

Posted on April 7, 2024 | Leave a comment

double

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Briefcase full of money.

Homer (Greg Hodges) is walking outside one day behind the boarding school that he attends where he comes upon a briefcase that’s full of a lot of money. He then runs to tell his friends, Specks (Dion Pride), Billy Ray (Jeff Nicholson), and Foster (Vincent Spano) about it, but when they return to the spot where Homer hide it it’s gone. They then see a man named Sharif Firat (Ernest Borgnine) walking about town carrying it. They track him to a nearby hotel where he’s staying and bug his room to find out that he has hired three gunmen (Lyle Alzado, Ed ‘Too Tall’ Jones, Rod Browning) to carry-out an assassination. The boys though don’t tell the local sheriff (George Kennedy) because they’ve played some practical jokes on him in the past and fear now he won’t believe them, so they go about investigating the case on their own with the help of Jody (Lisa Whelchel) who is a student journalist and good at taking pictures with a camera as well as Arthur (Michael Gerard) who’s an uptight nerdy kid, but a whiz with computers.

After the success of Benji, a film that Joe Camp not only directed, but also wrote, produced and distributed, made over $30 million from a paltry initial budget of $450,000 he became motivated to further direct more movies for a family audience. This one though is definitely intended for adolescences and may even shock some viewers with a few of the scenes as it’s not exactly as family-friendly as Camp’s other films. One of the biggest jaw-droppers is that it features nudity, or in this case a glimpse of Elke Sommar’s breasts that occurs right at the beginning. There’s also some shots of the boys bare behinds when they go skinny dipping as well as scenes inside their dorm rooms where they are seen reading Playboy and drinking, or at least harboring, Coors Beer despite being underaged. They also swear though nothing worse than ‘hell’, which are all things that kids at that age would most likely do, or partake in, but some parents may still not be pleased and fear that it might be a ‘bad influence’ for the real young kids to see.

The four leads, which consists of country singer Charley Pride’s son, are an odd looking bunch mainly because three of them look like they’re senior high school age hanging around with this small kid named Homer who could easily pass-off as being a fourth grader. Seemed hard to believe that he’d be housed in the same room as these older guys and worse yet be playing on the same football team as he’d most likely be injured badly and better suited for the Pee-Wee division. His acting though is more dynamic than the rest, including Spano who may have become the most famous of the bunch, but here doesn’t really have much to do, so that may have been the reason he got cast despite his puny size. I also really enjoyed Whelchel, who later became famous for playing the snotty Blair on the TV-show ‘The Facts of Life’. who is engaging and looking quite young, like about 13 though at the time of filming she was actually hitting 15. Gerard as the pensive and androgynist Arthur has a few fun moments too.

The twists are entertaining for awhile though having the briefcase constantly appearing and disappearing gets tiring. Initially it’s kind of creepy and intriguing, but the segment where the boys open it to find a severed hand and they run a few feet away in fright and then go back to have it no longer there makes it seem like it’s almost magical and not realistic. Homer’s ability to unlock anything simply by using a pocket knife gadget gets played-up too much. It’s okay when he uses it to open the briefcase though you’d think something used to hold a lot of money would have a much more sophisticated lock in place, but when he’s able to continue to pick any lock in virtually any door he wants is a bit much to the point you start to wonder why does anyone even bother putting locks on doors if any kid with a small knife can easily pick-it.

Spoiler Alert!

The film’s biggest downfall though is that not enough happens. The lack of action, especially for a film aimed at the younger set, is appalling. There’s only one chase, done on foot when Borgnine tries to catch-up with two of the boys, who you’d think could easily outrun him since he was 60 at the time and out-of-shape and also in broad daylight with plenty of pedestrians on the street who could’ve easily called-out for help, which makes this moment not very tense at all. The climactic sequence really fizzles as the shooters are apprehended inside their hotel room before the assassination even is attempted, which should’ve gotten played-out more. The concept had plenty of potential, but with so little that actually happens it’s quickly forgettable and hardly worth the effort to seek-out.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: June 8, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Joe Camp

Studio: Mulberry Square Productions

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Spy/Espionage

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One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing (1975)

Posted on March 27, 2024 | Leave a comment

one2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Nannies to the rescue.

Lord Southmere (Derek Nimmo) is on the run from Chinese spies lead by Hnup Wan (Peter Ustinov) after he gets his hands on a microdot that carries top secret information. After escaping the clutches of an assassin disguised as a chauffeur he runs into a nearby building, which happens to be the Natural History Museum. It is there that he hides the microdot in the skeleton of a dinosaur that’s on display. He then bumps into Hattie (Helen Hayes) who used to his nanny and is taking a tour at the museum with other nannies. Southmere tells Hattie about the microfilm inside the dinosaur just before he faints and is captured by the Chinese. Hattie then takes it upon herself, along with her nanny friends Emily (Joan Sims) and Susan (Natasha Pyne) to retrieve the important hidden document and take it to the proper authorities.

The film is based on the 1970 novel of the same name written by David Eliades and Robert Forrest Webb, but with many changes. The book took place in the 70’s in New York City while in the movie the setting is 1920’s London. The book was also intended for an adult audience and had sex and violence in it, which got taken out for the movie, which angered the authors, who later disowned the film, as they felt the plot got too ‘dummied-down and sanitized’ in an effort to appease children viewers.

The movie really has only two amusing moments. One is where the group of nannies get on the tall skeleton of the dinosaur to search for the microfilm, which from simply a visual perspective is goofy to see and most likely will elicit a few chuckles. The second is when Hayes and company steal the dinosaur on the back of a steam lorry and the spies give chase throughout the streets of foggy London, which offers some moments of humorous reaction shots from bystanders. Otherwise there isn’t much else going for it. The opening bit that supposedly takes place in China clearly has an outdoor backdrop that is a painting and looks tacky like it was done by filmmakers that really didn’t have much heart in the material and didn’t care how cheap it came-off looking. The interior lighting is dark and dingy and having the whole plot revolve around the extreme coincidence of the protagonist bumping into his childhood nanny at the most opportune time is a bit much.

The film’s main controversy, at least by today’s standards, is Ustinov’s portrayal of a Chinese spy. To his credit he at least puts more energy into it than he did as Charlie Chan in the 80’s film Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen, where he seemed noticeably uncomfortable and just phoning-it-in. Yet even here nothing his character says or does is funny. The humor is intended to come from the broad caricature, which along with his sing-song sounding delivery quickly becomes tiring. Clive Revill, another white European, also gets into the Asian get-up as Quon Ustinov’s chief rival, but he proves to be just as bland. Why they needed to be Chinese at all is hard to answer as they could’ve easily been Russian, or German and might’ve been better had they taken that route.

Hayes for her part is engaging. Most people think of her as just being this sweet old lady of which she’s the perfect caricature, but here she gives her character a feisty side. I enjoyed seeing her strut, which is far funnier than anything Ustinov does and without even hardly trying. Her ordering the other nannies around like they’re on a big-time mission and her interactions with Natasha Pyne, who plays her polar opposite as this naive and fun-loving youth who approaches the whole thing as some cool diversion, are the only things that help keep it mildly watchable.

The twist ending may make it worth it to some, but overall it’s a second-rate Disney effort that’s so poorly shot and dated. I can’t imagine any kids today could get into it. It seems like the only fans of the film were simply kids back in the 70’s who saw it then and now enjoy watching again simply for nostalgic reasons, but everyone else won’t be missing much if they decide to skip it.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: July 9, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes

Rated G

Director: Robert Stevenson

Studio: Buena Vista

Available: DVD (Region 2), Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Farce, Movies Based on Novels, Movies for the Whole Family, Obscure Movies, Spy/Espionage

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The American Success Company (1979)

Posted on March 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

americansuccess

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Taking on different personality.

Harry (Jeff Bridges) is a highly passive man that gets routinely dominated by both his boss (Ned Beatty) and wife (Belinda Bauer), who also happens to be his boss’ daughter. Determined to change his ways he decides to emulate the personality of a local tough-guy, who always seems to get his way and most importantly get the women. He works with a local prostitute (Bianca Jagger) to improve his bedroom skills and then finally ‘introduces’ himself to both his wife and boss. Surprisingly the ‘new Harry’ works to perfection as his domineering father-in-law learns to back-off and no longer humiliates him. His wife too likes the change, but he plays the part so well she refuses to believe it’s the same person. When he tries to go back to his old self she rejects him wanting only to be with the tough guy who she insists must be a totally different person and she can only be happy if she’s with him and no one else.

Back in 1978 while filming Winter Kills, which also starred Bridges and Bauer, the funding for the project, which was through AVCO Embassy Pictures, was pulled leaving the shooting of the film only half completed. Director William Richert then decided to do this film in-between, using much of the same cast, in order to bring in the extra money he needed to complete the other one. The script was written in 1974 by Larry Cohen who intended it to be a vehicle of Peter Sellers, but at the time Sellers was in a career lull having starred in a lot of box office duds, so investors didn’t want to take a chance on it and Cohen was eventually forced to sell the script, which remained in turn-over until Richert finally decided to take it on. While the film failed to turn a profit and was barely released, Cohen often stated that the changes Richert did to the script helped ‘ruin’ it, he was still able to make enough through the selling of the distribution rights to resume the shooting of Winter Kills and get it completed.

On the whole there’s enough directorial touches to keep it engaging and Richert, who has a small role as one of the employees of the firm whose constant leering grin is great, clearly knows how to make it entertaining enough despite the story’s absurdities. The setting though of Munich, this was apparently one of the stipulations he had to agree to in order to get it made, is off-putting especially when the plot revolves around corporate America and is a satire on the American mindset. The heavy use of a white color makes the office interiors seem almost like a hospital and Ned Beatty, who was only 41 at the time, but with his hair dyed a tacky white color to come-off as an overbearing elderly man in his 70’s, doesn’t work at all. Since John Huston was also in Winter Kills and they were using the same cast from that one to do this one then he should’ve been cast in the part especially since he was really old and better at playing dominating characters.

Bridges is fun as he plays against his good-guy image. Some critics have considered him a bland actor whose characters are at times ‘too good to be true’, so having him turn around and be overly passive and downright wimpy who jumps in terror at his neighbor lady’s pet poodle is definitely amusing. However, the transition to the brazen alter ego is too quick and seamless. If he’s truly timid at heart then that trait should trickle through even when he’s pretending to be someone else, which doesn’t happen here, but should’ve. No explanation about how he gets this big colorful tattoo on his chest, which he wears while being the tough guy, nor how he’s able to remove so quickly when he goes back to being himself.

The biggest plus is Bauer, who started her career in Australia where she studied ballet and competed in beauty contests before coming to the US. Here she becomes the sole reason to watch the film as she’s not only gorgeous, but displays a delightful way of morphing from a spoiled rich girl persona, to demanding wife, and then back to submissive woman. Her accent helps enhance her character and plays off of Bridges well. The only issue is if she couldn’t stand her husband why did she marry him in the first place? This is a highly attractive women born into money, so there was no need to settle, so what was it about his original personality that she liked in order to get hitched? If she craved a more domineering man then why not go after that type of guy in the first place? The film fails to explain this crucial point and thus ultimately makes it shallow and empty-headed.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: September 28, 1979 (Test Screening)

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: William Richert

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Obscure Movies, Romance

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This Sweet Sickness (1977)

Posted on March 14, 2024 | Leave a comment

sweet2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Obsessed over childhood friend.

David (Gerard Depardieu) can’t seem to get over Lise (Dominique Laffin) who was a childhood friend of his. Now as adults Lise has married Gerard (Jacques Denis) and even had a child, but David keeps believing that she’s in-love with him and will eventually leave Gerard for him. On weekends he spends his time finishing up with a country house that he has bought, which he plans for he and Lise to live in. He repeatedly calls Lise and meets up with her in public in an effort to beg her to come back to him, but she resists while also advising him that he is mentally unwell and needs to see a psychiatrist. Meanwhile there’s also Juliette (Miou-Miou) who resides in David’s apartment building and has strong feelings for him. David is aware of her presence, but rebuffs her at every turn and yet Juliette persists. She secretly follows David to his country home and when she figures out what he’s doing the two have a confrontation.

While there’s been many movies involving stalkers and jilted ex-lovers that can’t seem to take ‘no’ for an answer this one was done when stalking was still considered an isolated phenomenon and thus there’s a lot of things that work against the modern-day formula, which is what makes it fascinating to watch. For one thing it’s not approached as a thriller, or even a horror, but instead a drama. David is not perceived as threatening, but mentally confused and needing help learning to move-on. Lise does not respond in a frightened way when he approaches, but more just annoyed.

The stalker is three-dimensional as well. One of the most intriguing moments is after Lise’s husband dies in a car accident and David convinces her to come to the country home to check-it-out. Initially she acts impressed with it and gives-off the perception that she might seriously consider moving-in, but David eyes her suspiciously, which is quite revealing. He’s spent the entire time convincing himself and others that she’s truly in-love with him, but now when she actually gives him what he wants he’s not sure he can believe her. This shows subconsciously that he’s aware she doesn’t have the feelings for him like he consciously wants to believe and he actually does know the reality of the situation, but the emotional side of him just doesn’t won’t accept it.

The addition of Miou-Miou  adds another fascinating element. It brings out how stalkers aren’t the way they are simply because they may be lonely and unable to find anyone else, which then supposedly forces them to become so fixated on one person since Miou-Miou is openly interested in him and just as attractive and yet David consistently rejects her. Her stalking on him becomes just as intrusive as David’s to Lise and in some ways just as creepy. The sex scene between her and Gerard, or at least an attempted sex moment, is quite interesting because just a few years earlier the two starred in another film called Going Places. There Gerard played the aggressor who rapes Miou-Miou here though she’s the aggressive while Gerard lays virtually frigid, which shows how brilliant these two actors are that they can play such opposite people so convincingly.

Spoiler Alert!

The story was based on a novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith though there are a few key differences starting with the fact that the novel has the two in a previous, but brief relationship while in the movie they were just friends from childhood. In the book David works as a scientist and purchases the country home under an assumed identity. The Lise character is named Annabelle in the book and her husband Gerard dies after tracking David to the isolated home and getting into a fight with him where in the movie Gerard is killed when his car slides off an icy roadway. In the movie the house burns down when a drunken David knocks over a TV-set, but in the novel he simply sells it and buys a new one that’s closer to where Annabelle lives. The ending is a lot different too with the one in the movie, which takes place at a health spa, being far better and in fact it’s the most memorable moment as the scene is able to balance both an artistic and horrifying elements all at once.

Alternate Title: Tell Her That I Love Her

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: September 28, 1977

Runtime: 1 Hour 47 Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Claude Miller

Studio: Filmoblic

Available: DVD-R (dvdlady.com)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Foreign Films, French Films, Movies Based on Novels, Obscure Movies, Thrillers/Suspense

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Equus (1977)

Posted on March 7, 2024 | Leave a comment

equus1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Teen blinds six horses.

Martin (Richard Burton) is a disillusioned, middle-aged psychiatrist who gets tasked with finding out why a 17-year-old boy named Alan (Peter Firth) blinded six horses one night in a stable with a sickle. At first Alan is uncooperative during their sessions and will not speak to him and instead sings out commercial jingles repeatedly, so Martin must go to Alan’s parents (Colin Blakely, Joan Plowright) in an effort to find some answers. It is here that he learns the mother is highly religious and taught her son that ‘God sees all’ particularly when it comes to sexual transgressions. Alan though has replaced God with his obsession with horses and idolizes them instead where he essentially makes them his ‘deity’. Martin now must try to break the boy away from this fanaticism in an effort to make him ‘normal’, but realizes when he does that the kid will cease to have passion and become like Martin himself who no longer has any emotions for anything including his own wife whom he no longer shares intimate relations.

Director Sidney Lumet has always had a penchant for turning plays into a movies and with some of them he’s had great success like with 12 Angry Men, but some of his other efforts did not fare as well. This project was met initially with a lot of apprehension, but overall Lumet’s directorial flair adds a lot and cinematically it works for the most part. The effort to get away from the staginess of the story by having several scenes done outdoors, like Martin having a discussion with his friend played by Eileen Atkins, about the case while raking leaves I felt really worked. Again, with cinema you have to have the characters doing something during the dialogue even if it’s some sort of chore as there’s nothing more stagnant than talking heads in a movie. The opening sequence done over the credits is well done too as it features Martin dealing with hostile patients hitting home the point of how burnt-out with his career he is without having it told to us and the white color schemes accentuates the tone one is most likely to see in hospitals.

The controversy came with the portrayal of the horses. In the play there were performed by muscular men inside a horse costume, but for the movie Lumet decided they needed to use real animals. This is okay until it comes to the scene where they get blinded. The play version only intimates the violent act, but with the movie you actually see the sickle go right into the horses’ eyes, which is so realistically done I don’t know how they did it without hurting the animal. This was way before computer effects, so just be warned if you’re an animal lover these scenes may be too graphic to bare and could easily take some viewers out of the story to the extent they may not be able to get back into and might just turn it off altogether.

The casting is a bit problematic. Both Burton and Firth played the roles in the stage version, but by this point Firth was no longer looking like a 17-year-old, he was in fact already 23. I admire his bravery to ride a horse in the nude in one of the movie’s more memorable moments, but he still resembles adult features physically taking away the innocence of the character and the shock of how someone so young, i.e. a teen. could commit such a vicious act. Burton too looks too worn out having spent this period of his career battling alcoholism. Some may say that this fit his role, but his presence seems at times almost lifeless and like he’s just walking through his part. The segments where he speaks directly to the camera become long-winded, stagey and aren’t effective.

The story itself may not work for everyone. It was inspired by a true event, which occurred in 1954, that playwright Peter Shaffer heard about, but did not actually investigate. Instead he wanted to come up with his own hypothesis on how someone could do what this character does without learning the real reason that motivated the actual culprit. Some may find the teen’s motivation here to be interpretive and revealing while others will blow-it-off as pseudo psychology and not able to fully buy into. For example certain viewers will find the scene where the father catches the boy kneeling in front of a picture in his bedroom of a horse and ‘worshipping it’ while wearing a make-shift harness to be quite disturbing though with others this same segment may elicit a bad case of the giggles instead.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: October 14, 1977

Runtime: 2 Hour 17 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Sidney Lumet

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity

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