Category Archives: 70’s Movies

Made for Each Other (1971)

Posted on December 4, 2023 | Leave a comment

made

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Couple argues a lot.

Pandora (Renee Taylor) is an out-of-work actress still clinging to her dreams that she’ll one day become famous something she has hoped for since she was a child. Gig (Joseph Bologna) suffers from not being able to find a stable relationship and guilt-ridden over sending the last one into attempted suicide. Both Pandora and Gig attend a group therapy session and this is where they meet. Initially though things are rocky. Gig does not like Pandora’s stand-up act, something she’s been working on for years, and openly tells her it’s awful. They then break-up, but Pandora eventually returns telling him that he was right and she’s worked out the ‘kinks’ from her act, so it’s now improved. To celebrate Gig takes her to his parents (Paul Sorvino, Olympia Dukakis) for Thanksgiving. The parents though don’t approve of Pandora since she’s Jewish and they’re Catholic and they eventually drive her out of their apartment. Gig and Pandora continue to argue once they’re back in the car, but find, strangely, that no matter how the other one annoys them they still like each other’s company.

After the runaway success of Lovers and Other Strangers, which Bologna and Taylor wrote initially as a play, but then turned it into a movie, Hollywood studios were interested in them trying another script and gave them upfront money to do so. The first film had been based on their real-life experiences of dealing with all of their in-laws during their wedding, which occurred in 1965, and so they decided to base this one on their lives as well, namely what brought them together. Like with their first project the script is quite broad and focuses in on many different people including the parents of each character who have quite a bit of screentime, particularly Sorvino and Dukakis, and who are quite funny. The film also shows the leads when they were infants and many of their childhood experiences, which gets shot in black-and-white, that is also both insightful and amusing.

Unlike with most movies the scenes are quite extended and seemed better primed for a stageplay. The elusive Robert B. Bean gets credited as director, but he never did anything else, which seems a bit curious and there’s been rumors that he was just a pseudonym for Bologna who took over as the actual director. The long takes though are effective and enhance the comedy. The scene inside Gig’s parents house where the tension builds when they slowly realize that Pandora is ‘not their kind’ is quite good and not unlike what could happen in many families homes of that era who closely identified with their particularly religions and not privy to having their kids marry outside of it. Gig’s inability to appreciate Pandora’s stage act and his blunt assessment of it while at a late night cafe is comically on-targe too as any fledgling artist will tell you sometimes family members, friends, and even those really close to them won’t always connect with their artistic endeavors and regrettably become their biggest critics.

Sorvino scores as the abrasive no-nonsense father though ironically he was actually 5-years younger than Bologna who plays his son and for that reason his hair should’ve been made more gray. Dukakis is equally on-target as the super religious mother whose strong faith amounts to a lot of rituals and ends up inadvertently harming her child psychologically like when she catches him masturbating and informs him that if he continues his ‘little thing will fall off’. Helen Verbit as Pandora’s mother is equally amusing playing the over-protective type who wants so hard to shield her daughter from harsh reality that she tells her that her stage act is ‘brilliant’ when it really isn’t and that because she’s her mother that somehow makes her opinion ‘objective’.

The film’s one drawback is the yelling, which there is a lot of. Sometimes confrontational comedy can be quite amusing and this one works most of the way, but how much the viewer will enjoy is up to each individual. Bologna’s shouting is particularly loud and abrasive. It’s meant to funny and done only out of aggravation, but it does tend to get extended especially by the end. Had Taylor shouted back then it would’ve seemed like a ‘fair fight’, but having her run away and cry takes humor out of it and may ultimately ingrate on the audience. The intent is for there to be an offbeat charm, but not everyone may see it that way and thus this thing won’t be for all tastes.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: December 12, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 41 Minutes

Rated GP

Director: Robert B. Bean

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD-R (Fox Cinema Archives)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Obscure Movies, Offbeat, Romance

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Dirty Little Billy (1972)

Posted on November 29, 2023 | Leave a comment

dirty

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 9 out of 10

4-Word Review: From awkward to outlaw.

Loosely based on the life of Billy the Kid the film centers on a young Billy Bonney (Michael J. Pollard) who moves to Kansas with his mother (Dran Hamilton) and her new husband Henry (Willard Sage). Billy and Henry don’t get along as Henry feels Billy is lazy and doesn’t help out enough with the farm chores. When Henry informs Billy one night that he needs to leave and never come back Billy does just that by hopping onto the nearest train that’s traveling back east only to at the last minute hop off of it and into a nearby small town where he encounters Goldie (Richard Evans) and his girlfriend Berle (Lee Purcell) who run a small gang of outlaws and are holed-up inside a bar run by Jawbone (Josip Elic). Initially Goldie and Billy are incompatible, but eventually Berle softens towards him and even allows him to go to bed with her. When Billy comes to their rescue when they have a confrontation with another gang he’s eventually welcomed into the group and ultimately becomes its new leader.

By the early 70’s the revisionist western, which portrayed the west in a less ideal way focused more on the realism and merged the good and evil theme so that it became less clear who the hero and bad guy were, became all the rage. Films like The Wild Bunch and McCabe and Mrs. Miller were critical darlings and set the standard for all westerns that followed. This film I considered to be one of the best and yet has strangely been overlooked and isn’t even in Wikipeadia’s list of revisionist westerns from that period, which is a real shame as this masterpiece deserves from more attention and if anything should be at the top of the list and figured prominently.

What’s even more baffling is that it was directed by Stan Dragoti a man that started out in commercial photography and had no aspirations for film directing until finally, at the age of 40, getting the offer to direct this one. The film is so highly stylized and has such a strong a precise artistic vision that I would liken this directorial debut to those of Richard Linklater, Quentin Tarantino, or Jim Jarmusch who burst into the film scene with a distinct style that took audiences and critics by storm while ultimately continuing each of their follow-up projects with the same unique approach and theme, but with Dragoti, who was married to supermodel Cheryl Tiegs, that was not the case. The films he did after this were all lightweight comedies that had a generic look and no resemblance to this one. How someone with no background in movies could helm something as flawless as this is hard to answer, but in the music world you have obscure bands who manage to make it big with one song and they end up being called one-hit-wonders and I guess in Dragoti’s case that’s what this movie was to him and his career.

The acting is masterful as well especially Pollard whose career was quite up-and-down. While he had been appearing in TV productions from as early as the late 50’s it wasn’t until his breakout role in Bonnie and Clyde that he came to the attention of audiences and studio heads alike. Trying to subsequently cast him in a film where he’d be the right leading man though was no easy task. The first attempt was Little Faus and Big Halsey, which did not do well at the box office and rumors of him fighting with his co-star Robert Redford didn’t help things. This role though, where his moody presence is put to perfect use, was a terrific fit and despite already being in his early 30’s his boyish face still gave off the late adolescence look that was needed. Lee Purcell is also fantastic in a sort of plain-Jane role where she wears no make-up, but still looks striking and her knife fight with another woman, played by Rosary Nix, is one of the movie’s top moments.

Overall, outside of the gritty visuals that have an almost poetic quality, what I liked most was how the characters didn’t seem locked into their time period like so many other historical type films. Too many other movies trying to recreate past eras end up having people who seem antiquated and not relatable while this bunch, particularly Billy and the outlaws came-off like people who could’ve easily fit-in with the hippies of the 60’s, or anyone that was living outside the system. They were simply looking for purpose and finding it by lashing out at a society that didn’t seem to want them, which in many cases is the common thread of most criminals of today as well.

My Rating: 9 out of 10

Released: October 25, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 33 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Stan Dragoti

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 70's Movies, Moody/Stylish, Revisionist Western

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Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977)

Posted on November 24, 2023 | Leave a comment

looking

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: School teacher sleeps around.

Theresa (Diane Keaton) is a young school teacher trying to get over the break-up with Martin (Alan Feinstein) a married college professor of whom she’d been in a relationship with for several years. Tired of living with her parents (Priscilla Pointer, Richard Kiley) and her domineering father she decides to get a studio apartment near the club scene. She picks-up Tony (Richard Gere) at a bar one night and takes him home. His volatile, drug induced behavior scares her at first, but eventually she enjoys his unpredictable ways. When he disappears for long periods she begins bringing more strangers home finding the one-night-stands to be a liberating change from her repressive catholic upbringing, but the more she partakes in this edgy lifestyle the more danger she puts herself in.

The film is based on the Judith Rossner novel of the same name, which itself is based on the true story of Roseann Quinn. Quinn was a school teacher living in New York City who had a propensity of bringing home men she’d meet from a bar that was across the street from her studio apartment. On the evening of January 1st, 1973 she invited John Wayne Wilson, a man she met at the bar, back to her place for intended sex, but instead it resulted in murder when he was unable to achieve an erection and he felt she was making fun of him.

Rossner read about the incident in a newspaper and became intrigued with the case and intended to write about it for an upcoming article in Esquire magazine, but the editor feared legal action since it was based on an actual case and reneged on the assignment, so Rossner turned it into a novel using fictional names for the real-life people. It got published in 1975 to rave reviews and instantly became a best seller, which caught the attention of writer/director Richard Brooks who had turned other true crime stories into hits such as In Cold Blood and felt he could do the same with this. In fact the film did quite well as it raked in $22.5 million and was the top movie in the country on its opening weekend.

While Rossner openly detested the film version I felt it does a great job of exposing the bleak, lonely existence of the 70’s single’s scene and how sexual liberation can end up being just as much of a trap, if not more, as monogamy. The dim, dark lighting, particularly inside Theresa’s apartment brings out the grim existence, and twisted personalities, of its characters nicely. The viewer feels as caught up in the depressing, aimless world as the protagonist and its the vividness of the 70’s young adult, city culture that makes this an excellent film to see simply to understand the motivations of the people who lived it. While on paper reading about someone that was a school teacher for deaf students during the day turning into a reckless, sexually promiscuous lady by night may seem shocking and hard to fathom, the film seamlessly fills-in-the-blanks to the extent  that you fully grasp, from her stifling family and religious upbringing as well as her painful break-up and insecure body image, to what drove her to it and thus cultivates a very revealing character study.

Keaton, Kiley and Tuesday Weld, who plays Theresa’s older sister who experiments with the wild lifestyle herself, are all stand-outs, but the film also has some great performances from actors who at the time were unknowns. Gere is especially good, quite possibly one of the best acting jobs of his career, as the creepy, but still strangely endearing Tony. LeVar Burton has very few lines, but still makes an impression with his pouty facial expressions as the older brother to one of Theresa’s deaf students. Tom Berenger though turns out to being the ultimate scene stealer as the psychotic who’s so on edge with his personal demons that he lashes violently out over the smallest of provocations.

Spoiler Alert!

While the film is known mainly for its notorious ending, which still packs a bit of a punch, its effect is muted by director Brooks unwisely telegraphing it ahead of time. Virtually the whole movie is done from Theresa’s point-of-view and yet at the very end it cheats it by having a scene between Gary and his gay lover giving the viewer an unnecessary warning about his mental state, which wasn’t needed. For one thing in the real-life incident the assailant was a married man and not gay, so adding in the gay subtext and using it to explain his psychosis could be considered homophobic and armchair psychology. It also hurts the shock value as the audience knows what’s coming versus having them as surprised as Theresa when he suddenly lashes out unexpectedly, which would’ve made for a more emotionally impactful, gripping finish.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: October 19, 1977

Runtime: 2 Hours 16 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Richard Brooks

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Christmas Movies, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in Chicago, Movies with Nudity

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The Big Bus (1976)

Posted on November 18, 2023 | Leave a comment

bigbus1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Bomb planted on bus.

Cyclops is the new revolutionary designed double-decker bus that because it’s powered by nuclear fuel will allow it to travel non-stop between New York and Denver. Just before it’s set to make its maiden voyage a bomb goes off within the facility it’s been housed in, which seriously injures the bus’s designer Professor Baxter (Harold Gould). The vehicle itself remains unscathed, so the Professor’s daughter, Kitty (Stockard Channing), takes control of the project and hires a new driver named Dan (Joseph Bologna) whom she had a relationship with in the past. Dan though is still fighting-off the stigma of having crashed another bus into the mountains, and after being stranded for many days ended up reverting to cannibalism by eating all the rest of the passengers. The trip faces further obstacles when unscrupulous billionaire Iron Lung (Joes Ferrer), who resides inside a iron lung due to having polio as a child, orders his henchmen Alex (Stuart Margolin) to plant a bomb on the bus, so that it will be destroyed and prevent nuclear fuel from overtaking gasoline of which he owns much stock. Will Dan be able to overcome both his past and personal problems to both find and prevent the bomb from going off, or will this become yet another disaster on his already checkered past?

While Airplane! is widely thought-of as being the original parody of 70’s disaster flicks it’s really this one that came out a full 4 years earlier that deserves the credit. While it didn’t do well at the box office, which essentially pushed it off into obscurity it still upon second look has a lot of funny moments and deserves much more attention than it has gotten.  Not every gag works and some do fizzle, but the script by writing team Fred Freeman and Lawrence J. Cohen has far more hits than misses. Some of the best bits are the indoor swimming pool on the bus as well as the bowling alley and disco and the radiation suit to put on in times of emergency including the reaction of the passengers when it gets hung down from the ceiling compartment during the flight instructions. The attempt to treat the bus like it’s a metaphor for an airplane, which was the mode of transportation used in most disaster flicks, is quite funny especially the scene where crews in a small town try to halt the bus, or essentially ‘force it to land’ by spraying the main street with foam in order to slow the vehicle down.

The acting is in top form with many familiar faces from both television and the big screen. Stockard was probably my favorite she pretty much plays her part straight, but still manages to be quite amusing especially during the segment when she gets stuck inside a room that fills up with soda, which she stated in later interviews she almost drowned in.  Richard Mulligan and Sally Kellerman are equally amusing as a soon-to-be-divorced couple who share a rather unusual love-hate relationship. Larry Hagman as a dubious doctor, Ned Beatty as a moody technician and Murphy Dunne as a caustic pianist all help to top-it-off. Even Bologna, whose normally brash persona doesn’t make him a likely hero, scores comedic points though John Beck as his co-driver with a tendency to pass-out the second he gets nervous steals away most of the scenes they share.

Spoiler Alert!

The actual disaster, where the bus precariously balances over a cliff, is nicely photographed in a way that makes it seem real with some good stunt work, but I was disappointed that this ends up being the only real exciting moment. I didn’t like either that at the very end, just before the final credits begin to roll, the bus splits apart, which creates screams from the passengers. This was the type of movie where despite their oddball nature I had grown kind of fond of the daffy bunch and wanted to see them arrive safely, which with the ending here doesn’t occur. Instead the viewer is left (no pun intended) hanging, which is a giant cop-out. Just about every disaster flick made offers a conclusion where we see if the people ultimately make it out alive, or not and doing it the way they do here makes the viewer feel like they’ve seen only half a movie, which could explain why this did poorly at the box office.

A  good way to have prevented this would’ve been to chop up the beginning, which has a lot of unnecessary back-story. The bombing of the facility wasn’t needed as all of the calamity should’ve been saved for the bus ride itself. Dan’s visit to a bar in which the patrons harass him about his notorious past gets cheesy, particularly the cartoonish barroom brawl. This should’ve been cut- out too. The rumors of Dan’s supposed cannibalism could’ve been brought up at the press conference announcing the bus’s initial trip and seeing Dan’s uncomfortable response would’ve been enough to make the audience realize he had personal demons to overcome. The rest of the time could then be spent on the various problems that the bus runs into as it travels on road, which would’ve allowed for more excitement versus having the disaster portion seem like a side-story to the barrage of jokes that don’t always work.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: July 23, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 28 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: William Frawley

Studio: Paramount

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Disaster Flicks, Parody, Road Movies

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Rage (1972)

Posted on November 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

rage

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Nerve gas kills son.

Living just outside of Rawlins, Wyoming is rancher Paul Logan (George C. Scott) and his 12-year-old son Chris (Nicholas Beauvy). Since the death of his mother a year earlier the two have shared a special bonding and routinely do many things together as Paul works to guide Chris from being a child to a man. One night they decide to go camping on the outer stretches of their property. While Paul sleeps in a tent his son stays outside in a sleeping bag, but by morning he’s unresponsive and bleeding from the nose. Paul takes his child to a nearby hospital where the doctors aren’t sure what’s caused the condition, but keep him under observation. Behind-the-scenes it’s revealed that Chris has become a unintended victim of a botched military operation from a nearby base where nerve gas was accidentally released to the public. Paul soon comes down with the effects of the exposure as well, but before he dies he intends to get to the bottom of what happened and bring street justice to all those who were behind it.

The film, which was the first theatrical feature that Scott directed, is a handled in an unusual way. Most movies that deal with government cover-ups/conspiracies usually keep it a mystery of who’s behind it. Both the victim and the viewer have no idea what’s going on behind-the-scenes and are left with trying to guess who may be responsible and only at the very end do things get revealed, but in some movies even then many questions remain left open. Here it gets shown right away who’s causing the crisis and why as there are many long, drawn-out meetings between the government agents who almost painstakingly detail of what went wrong and how they’re going to cover it up. In fact there’s more scenes, especially in the first half, with the military brass and their co-horts than with Scott making it almost seem like he’s just a side character.

Spelling everything out may seem like a bad idea as part of what creates the suspense in these types of stories is the unknown. Yet it still held moderate interest though the scenes are overly talky, at least the first two acts. It’s also not explained what happens to Dr. Caldwell (Richard Basehart). He initially goes along with the government agenda to keep things quiet, but eventually changes his mind and decides to tell Paul the truth, but then he’s confronted with the agents who bring him into a hospital room and close the door, but it’s never shown what they do with him. He’s reappears at the very end, but no explanation for where he was in-between, or how the government managed to make him ‘disappear’ for awhile. For a movie that seemed intent to explain everything I felt this was one area that needed to be better played out.

Spoiler Alert!

Where the film goes really off-the-beam is when Paul exacts his revenge, which has him killing many indiscriminate people. Some of it turns quite savage particularly when he blows up a police car and the cops jump out screaming in pain as the hot flames rise off their bodies. At one point he even shoots-up a cat who tries to come to the aid of its owner, which has to be some sort of cinematic first. Normally other movies with this type never have the hero kill anyone and will usually just hold people that they come upon, like cops or security guards, hostage by tying them up. Here though he blasts them away without pause. Some critics have said this was a mistake as the protagonist loses his likability factor with the viewer, but in some ways if you’re really going to try take on something as big as the government then ultimately things will get ugly especially if the person is willing to go ‘all-in’ making it in a nihilistic way quite realistic.

The ending though is what really hurts it as Paul dies while the government agents callously watch on and then flown away via helicopter to some undisclosed location. I know 70’s movies were notorious for their unhappy endings, but this one piles-on that notion a bit too much. Outside of blowing up the research center, which could easily get rebuilt, Paul’s actions made no difference. The viewer likes to see their hero have more of an effect on things and to end it like this makes it overly defeating. Had we gotten to know the Paul character better and there had been more of a backstory then maybe his final rage at the system would have had more of a dramatic effect, but as it gets presented here on an emotional scale it’s unsatisfying.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: November 22, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 39 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: George C. Scott

Studio: Warner Brothers

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Conspiracy Theories, Movies with a Hospital setting, Thrillers/Suspense

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The Garden of Delights (1970)

Posted on November 5, 2023 | Leave a comment

garden2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: He’s unable to speak.

Antonio (Jose Luis Lopez Vazquez) is a wealthy owner of a construction business that he took over from his father (Francisco Pierra) years earlier. Unfortunately just as he’s ready to reap his profits he gets into a car accident, which confines him to wheel chair and unable to speak, or write, or even remember anything. His greedy family becomes determined to get him his memory back even if it means drastic shock therapy as Antonio holds all the business secrets including the combination to the safe and the Swiss bank accounts. The family’s brazen attempts seem to be working though not enough to get him to speak, but while this is going on, inside Antonio’s head, he begins experiencing surreal events that seem almost real and are both fascinating and frightening.

The film’s director Carlos Saura started out his career in the 50’s as a director of documentaries and shorts, which eventually lead to him getting the offer to direct his first feature length film in 1966 with The Hunt, a film about three middle-aged male friends who go on a rabbit hunt that starts out pleasant enough, but ends in brutal violence for all three. That film won him many accolades and gave him the opportunity to direct this one, which plays out more as a metaphor. His home country of Spain was at the time under the authoritarian rule of Francisco Franco who did not allow for free speech and often punished those who spoke out against him. To get around this Saura uses many allegories to convey his anger at the oppressive government, but in a way that didn’t make it obvious enough for him to be arrested.

The main character of Antonio is meant to be a metaphor of the Spanish people with his mute condition being similar to their inability to speak out against their country’s leader. Unfortunately many of today’s viewers aren’t going to get this either because they haven’t bothered to study up about it, or just don’t care. Because of this many viewers will miss the symbolism and leave at the end, if they managed to stay with that long, shaking their heads. Since few people of today were around when it occurred and most Americans don’t have a good grasp of Spainish history it will all be unrelatable for most.

The lead role is well played and Vasquez has a very expressive face, which helps add nuance to a character that otherwise has no other way of expressing himself. I did find it frustrating that we don’t learn much about him. The scenes where he looks around his empty warehouse that he once ran does convey the quandary of someone who once felt powerful, but now only a shell of what he once was. The viewer though is unable to completely identify with him as not enough of his backstory is given. We do eventually during the third act see him in a flashback moment where he speaks with his father and aggressively takes over the company, we also eventually witness the car accident that put him into this condition as it had only been referred to before as ‘an accident’ with no details given, but I felt both of these things should’ve been shown and introduced a lot earlier.

Spoiler Alert!

Pierra as the father gives a thoroughly delightful performance and some of the surreal moments including Antonio’s vision of being pushed into his backyard pond and the recreation of a religious ceremony being two of the best. Yet there are other moments that miss the mark including having a live pig brought into the home and then trapping Antonio inside a room with it in order to jog his memory from a painful past event, but his confrontation with the animal is never shown, which is a letdown. The family members are confusing as it’s never clear whether they have bad intent, or are just acting the way they are due to being put in a desperate situation. The ending in which all the characters become bound to a wheelchair and unable to speak just like Antonio was trying to show how all of the Spanish citizens where being oppressed beyond just him, but emotionally it isn’t compelling and a potentially good story and character study get lost with Saura’s obsession to put political symbolism first and foremost.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: November 5, 1970

Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes

Rated GP

Director: Carlos Saura

Studio: Video Mercury Films

Available: DVD-R (dvdlady.com)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Foreign Films, Obscure Movies, Surreal/Fantasy

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The Baby (1973)

Posted on October 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

baby1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Family harbors man-baby.

Ann (Anjanette Comer) is a social worker who, still tormented by the car accident that has left her husband severely brain damaged, decides to throw herself into her work by focusing on a bizarre case in which a mother (Ruth Roman) and her two daughters (Marianna Hill, Susanne Zenor) take care of a third sibling (David Mooney, but billed as David Manzy) that is a grown man, but permanently trapped in an infant state. As Ann meets with the family she becomes convinced that ‘the baby’ has potential for intellectual capacity and it’s only because of the abuse that he receives from his embittered mother, who harbors a grudge for men after her husband walked out on her and is now taking out that anger on her son, that is holding him back. She devises a plan to kidnap the son, so that she can take him out of that toxic environment in order to help him, but when she does the mother and her two daughters plot a violent revenge in order to take him back.

It took many years for screenwriter Abe Polsky to get his friend Ted Post, who appears onscreen during the party scene, to agree to film his script as he insisted that it was, in his words, ‘too negative’. His ambivalence for the material shows as visually it’s given the TV-movie treatment that lacks atmosphere, or a visually provocative approach the would help accentuate the darkly quirky elements of the story. While this has still attained a cult following it’s mainly because of the offbeat story and might’ve gotten more fans and attention had the direction been equally offbeat instead of so basic.

The acting on the other hand is a stand-out. Ruth Roman, a one time leading lady during Hollywood’s Golden Age, but by the 70’s was relegated to low budget horror, is terrific with her raspy voice and chain smoking making her like a snarly version of Suzanne Pleshette. The caustic confrontations between her and Comer, who initially seems like the angelic, law abiding one, helps accentuate their contrasting personalities. Comer of course is quite good too. She’s played many offbeat characters, but here comes-off as the noble, straight one and does so convincingly, which is detrimental for pulling off the stories plot point. Hill, as Roman’s twisted amoral daughter, is interesting as well though there was no need for two daughters as they both shared seemingly the same personality and could easily have been merged into one and since Hill gives her part a little better nuance she should’ve been cast while Zenor cut out completely.

Mooney as the man-child though is the scene stealer. He got into his part by observing special needs children and his infant mannerisms is on-target to the extent it’s creepy. Having him put into a crib though that he supposedly couldn’t get out despite being a grown man physically doesn’t really gel as even toddlers can ultimately figure out a way to get out of one. Putting him into a big cage that would sit in the middle of the ‘nursery’ would’ve been more sinister visually as well as realistic. The source of his infantile state, that he’s seemingly been abused by a cattle prod all these years to not grow up, or to even learn to talk, or walk, is equally ridiculous. Explaining that his condition was caused by being in a car accident when he was an actual baby, which then trapped him in that state forever due to brain damage would’ve been far more easier to swallow while also tying it in to Comer’s husband’s condition that eventually becomes a key element.

The scene with the young babysitter, played by Erin O’Reilly, didn’t make sense either. She’s portrayed as being just this average teen taking care of the baby like she would a real one for extra money, but there’s no way any teen would be comfortable changing the diaper of a grown man, as it’s still a man’s body no matter how he behaves, and not come away feeling sick and perverse. by doing it Thus the part should’ve been played by some kooky older woman, perhaps a friend or cousin to the mother, who was lonely and liked taking care of the ‘baby’ due to sharing the same man-hating instincts, or had a secret quirk where she enjoyed having a male in a subservient condition.

Spoiler Alert!

The third act had holes in it as well as Comer kidnaps the ‘baby’ and brings him home with her, but the mother and sisters don’t call the police to get him back. Supposedly this is because the mother is afraid the years of abuse, that Comer has become aware of, would come to light, but it would still be her word against theirs and I felt they should’ve responded more aggressively maybe even hiring a lawyer to take the case to court and then becoming impatient with the slow legal process and then finally deciding to take matters into their own hands, but just having them sit around the house for several days/weeks waiting to see what Comer does next doesn’t really jive.

The ultimately twist though I did like and took me by surprise. I’m usually able to guess where movies are going and can get it right most of the time, but this one is novel and for that gets high marks despite its other issues.

baby2

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: March 4, 1973

Runtime: 1 Hour 24 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Ted Post

Studio: Scotia International

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cult, Horror, Kidnapping Movies

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Who can Kill a Child? (1976)

Posted on October 26, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Children kill the adults.

Tom (Lewis Fiander) and Evelyn (Prunella Ransome), who is pregnant, travel to an island off the coast of Spain in order to find some peace and quiet while on vacation. Once they arrive they find the place conspicuously devoid of any adults with many of the shops and bars looking like they’ve been abandoned. The only people around are children who behave strangely and will not talk to Tom, or Evelyn even when spoken to directly. They then come upon an adult survivor named Padre (Antonio Iranzo) who describes to them how the night before the children suddenly went crazy and began killing all the adults on the island without any provocation. Can Tom and Evelyn escape, or will they become yet another victim?

While there’s been other movies detailing children, or even groups of kids, who murder the adults around them this one is considered the granddaddy of all of them and, though not ever verified, the possible inspiration to Stephen King’s Children of the Corn. The film’s creepiness comes not so much with scares, as there’s very little of that, but more through its quiet atmosphere and isolation that grows increasingly more ominous as it goes. Violence-wise it’s scarce with only the minimum of gore though the sequence done over the opening credits, which has grisly real-life footage of victims of the Holocaust as well as both the Korean and Vietnam Wars is not for the squeamish and may be too explicit and grim for some to sit through.

The script was written in only a matter of 4 short days and it shows with character motivations that aren’t particularly well thought out. For instance I didn’t understand why Tom wouldn’t tell Evelyn about what he saw, in regards to the child beating up and eventually killing an old man, and wanted to somehow play down and even lie about what was going on. This is a pregnant woman who has a right to know about the dangers lurking about. Shielding her from the horrifying realities isn’t going to help her be alert and put up her defenses and if anything just make her more vulnerable to be taken advantage of by the kids. What kind of husband lies to his wife about such urgent matters? Does he think because she’s female she won’t be ‘strong enough’ to handle the truth? If so it makes him sexist and not particularly likable because of it.

Tom also is too slow to respond to things. Even after witnessing first hand the children’s atrocities he doesn’t immediately try to arm himself, get off the island, or board him and his wife off in some sort of safe room with a fortified door. Instead they remain pretty much out in the open in an abandoned hotel with both the entrances and exits wide open for anyone to come into. At one point he even gives his wife a sedative and tells her to take a nap inside one of the hotel rooms while leaving the door open as he goes downstairs to speak to the male survivor, but how does he know a kid won’t sneak into the room while he’s gone?

It’s strange too how the children kill a Dutch woman and even strip off her clothes, but when Tom walks in they all scurry away. If they’ve already killed a vast number of adults why would they fear Tom when he comes in and instead not just attack him too? For that matter why does Tom feel so emboldened to walk in on these kids to begin with? He’s seen what terrible things they can do, so why does he risk exposing himself to them? These clearly aren’t normal kids, so he should remain at a safe distance and view what they’re doing from a hiding spot.

While there’s creepy moments and imagery it all mainly comes during the third act and some more scares and action earlier could’ve helped. The special effects aren’t too great either with the shot of the bloodied old man, whose supposedly just been killed, clearly still breathing as his chest heaves up and down, though Tom carries him away like he’s now nothing more than a corpse. Having Padre describe the violent attacks of the children onto the adults from the previous night was disappointing as this should’ve been played out visually, even if through flashback, as it would be much scarier to see this instead of just being told about it.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending has its fair share of suspenseful moments, but again more logic loopholes. When Tom and Prunella are trapped in a room behind a wooden door a small child crawls through the window space and tries to shoot at them, but Tom manages to hit the kid with a bullet first with a rifle he’s found. The other kids then quit trying to break the door down the couple are in once they hear the shot and all go filing away. Tom says this is because none of the other adults responded with aggression and violence towards them like he did. Once they realized, by hearing the gunshot, that Tom meant business they all backed off knowing that he might kill them as well. However, the kids could not see through the door, the tiny window on it was too high up for them to look through, so for all they knew the gunshot was the sound of the small kid shooting the couple with his gun and therefore they should’ve continued the attack and not immediately stopped.

The children are also able to somehow brainwash their peers into doing their evil bidding by simply looking into their eyes, which somehow puts them under a spell. They even use this power to get the fetus inside Evelyn’s womb to attack her, but where do they get this power from? What kind of entity is behind all of this? Nothing gets answered, which leaves too many questions open and thus not as effective as it could’ve been.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: April 26, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 53 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Narciso Ibanez Serrador

Studio: Penta Films

Available: DVD (Region 0), Blu-ray (Region B/2)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cult, Foreign Films, Horror, Movies with a Hotel setting, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Obscure Movies

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Sisters (1972)

Posted on October 24, 2023 | Leave a comment

sisters

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Model has evil twin.

Danielle (Margot Kidder) is a young French-Canadian women from Quebec who aspires to be a fashion model and actress. She takes part in a TV-show styled after ‘Candid Camera’ where unsuspecting people find themselves caught up in a prank, which is where she meets Phillip (Lisle Wilson). The two go out on a date, but while at the restaurant she gets harassed by Emil (William Finley) her ex-husband. Then when they get back to her apartment Phillip overhears her arguing with another woman, which Danielle says is her twin sister Dominque. Since it is both of their birthdays Phillip decides to go out to get them a cake, but when he returns he gets viciously stabbed by the psychotic Dominque, but just before he dies he’s able to scribble the word ‘help’ onto the window with his own blood that Grace (Jennifer Salt), a journalist that resides across the street, sees. She immediately calls the police, but when they arrive into Danielle’s apartment there’s no sign of a body, or a struggle and Grace gets written-off as being a kook whose been imagining things, but she refuses to relent and begins her own investigation where she uncovers some dark details about Danielle and her sister who were once conjoined.

This was writer/director Brian De Palma’s first attempt at horror after completing many successful comedies that had gained a cult following. The story was inspired by real-life conjoined twins Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapova who’s sad upbringing where they were taken away from their mother and had abusive medical experiments done on them at a secret hospital in the Soviet Union, and which was chronicled, much like in the movie, in a story in Life Magazine in 1966, which after reading it De Palma couldn’t get out of his head. Visually it’s excellent with great use of editing and superior score by the legendary Bernard Herrmann, who was semi-retired at the time, but enjoyed the script so much that he agreed to be the composer.

Many of De Palma’s famous directorial touches are apparent including his use of the split-screen. While it’s been used, and some may say overused, in many films from that era, it gets worked to perfection as we get to see Danielle and her ex busily cleaning-up the crime scene while Grace gets held up by the detectives and they’re not able to go into the apartment right away. My only complaint here is that with the blood splatter all over I’m just not sure they would’ve been able to wipe it all away in such a short time frame, basically about 8 to 10 minutes, which should’ve more likely taken them several hours. Not showing the clean-up and having Grace and detectives arrive to find the place spotless with no body would’ve actually added more intrigue and thus in this case the use of the split-screen, while done adequately, I don’t think was needed.

Spoiler Alert!

The script leaves open a fair amount of loopholes, for instance we see Danielle walk into a bedroom and the shadow of her head on the wall along with another one, which is supposed to represent Dominque’s, but we learn later that Dominque died years early during the surgery to separate them, so we’ve should’ve only seen one head shadow and not two. Also, Danielle is told point-blank by Grace that she’s been spying on them from across the street, so you’d think later that she and Emil would make damn sure to close the blinds on their windows when they try to remove the sofa, which has the dead body inside, but instead they continue to leave the shades wide open and allow Grace, now back in her own apartment, to continue to peer in while the couple show no awareness to the possibility and don’t even bother to look out the window to see if they can catch Grace looking in. Another head-scratcher is why there was no blood splatter on Danielle’s clothing, since she ultimately is the one that killed Phillip, when Emil walks into the apartment.

The most confusing thing though is the ending in which Grace becomes hypnotized while inside a mental hospital and begins to see herself, through a long dream sequence, as being Dominque and attached to Danielle. When I first saw this, back in the 90’s, I thought it meant that Grace was the long lost twin and that they had been separated years earlier. While Grace doesn’t look exactly like Danielle most twins don’t, and she was still around the same age, hair color, and body type, so it seemed like a legitimate explanation and I wouldn’t blame anyone else who came to this same conclusion. Apparently though that’s not the case as Grace comes back out of it only convinced, through the hypnotism, that she didn’t see the murder of Phillip, but I felt they should’ve taken it one step further by convincing her that she was Dominque, whether it was true, or not, and then brain washed to take credit for all the murders while Danielle could then get off scot-free and this would’ve then been the ultimate twist.

Granted Grace’s character is shown as having a mother (Mary Davenport), but the script could’ve been rewritten to have her taken out and Grace could’ve instead been portrayed as being an orphan, or adopted, which could’ve left open the possibility. In either case the dream segment, which is creepy and stylish done, would’ve had more of a payoff then it does had it taken this route.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: November 18, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 33 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Brian De Palma

Studio: American International Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray (Criterion Collection), Amazon Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Cult, Horror, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with a Hospital setting, Slasher/Gore

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Terror at Red Wolf Inn (1972)

Posted on October 14, 2023 | 1 comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: An appetite for humans.

Regina (Linda Gillen) is a shy college student living in a dorm by herself who doesn’t have enough money to go to Spring break with the rest of her friends, so she’s forced to stay on the campus all alone while the others go. Then she receives a letter telling her that she’s won a free trip to a bed and breakfast resort called the Red Wolf Inn. She’s offered a private plane ride to get there and once she arrives she’s greeted by a kindly elderly couple (Arthur Space, Mary Jackson) who own the place and two other women, Pamela (Janet Wood) and Edwina (Margaret Avery), who are also staying there, as well as the couple’s adult grandson Baby John (John Neilson). While things start out well Regina soon grows uncomfortable and convinced that the couple has ulterior motives. When both Pamela and Edwina disappear Regina fears she’ll be next, but her efforts to escape are thwarted trapping her in the home to become the next meal item unless she can convince Baby John, who has fallen for her, to help her find a way out.

This very odd piece of 70’s horror that seems to want to combine a grisly theme with offbeat humor definitely has a few keen moments. My favorite was the way Regina finds out that she’s ‘won something’ and excitedly shouts it out to her otherwise empty dorm building. Some may consider this exaggerated as most people today would be highly cynical of such a letter, but back in the 70’s, (and I was around then), the teens were more trusting and had a propensity to be experimental and act as if life was just one big adventure, so in that respect the movie gets it right and this became for me one of the funnier moments The only caveat is how did the couple find out about Regina to send her the letter? Why was she chosen and how often and how many of these letters did they mail and how many of them got answered, which never gets addressed, but should’ve.

On the horror end its not very scarry and only borderline creepy. There is a dream sequence that had the potential of being cool, but doesn’t go on long enough. Regina’s attempt at escape I did like, but it does leave open plenty of loopholes like why was a motorboat, that wasn’t tied to any dock, conveniently left out in the bay for her to swim to? Initially I though it was an intended trap and she’d get into it and see dead bodies lying there, but that’s not the case as she uses it to get over to a neighbor’s house, but no ones inside and all the other buildings in the area are eerily empty, but why? The dinner scene in which everyone chomps at their food like pigs could’ve been considered revolting and upsetting had it been confirmed that it was people they were eating, but this wasn’t yet established, so the shock effect is lost.

Some have labeled this as a comedy-horror and one of the first films to use this sub-genre, but outside of the opening bit there really isn’t anything all that amusing. There are some moments of extreme awkwardness like when Baby John smashes the head of a baby shark repeatedly against a rock while a shocked Regina looks on in horror before he turns to her and confesses how much he loves her, which is darkly humorous in a distorted type of way, but outside of that the chuckles are as infrequent as the scares.

Spoiler Alert!

I did enjoy Mary Jackson’s performance who goes from nice old lady to threatening matron effectively, but the wrap-up leaves much to be desired. Initially it’s sort-of exciting as Regina and Baby John make a daring run for it only to be chased down by the older couple’s dog and then viciously attacked by both the pet and the old man. The film then cuts to show Regina and Baby John back inside the kitchen of the grandparent’s home having supposedly gotten the upper hand, but this is a struggle that needed to be played-out, the film lacks action anyways and this would’ve offered much needed excitement and tension. Showing the old couple’s decapitated heads inside the freezer had a gory appeal, but then having the old guy look up and wink ruins it and turns the whole movie into one big stupid joke.

Some viewers insist that the 77 minute version, which is what’s available on DVD despite the cover saying it’s 90 minutes, is the edited version with certain scenes of ‘horror’, or other ‘dark’ moments left out and this is based mainly on the fact that IMDb lists the original runtime as 90 minutes and Leonard Maltin’s review book says it’s 98 minutes, but I’m not so sure. As short as the 77 minute runtime is it still came off as draggy. This was also made in an era where implying the violence and gore was considered shocking enough making me believe that the DVD cut is pretty much the whole thing. Even if a longer version may exist it’s doubtful that it would be filled with more carnage as it’s clear that the filmmakers were going for a soft tongue-and-cheek approach making me believe the supposed lost scenes would’ve amounted to being talky bits that wouldn’t have added much.

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Alternate Title: Terror House

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: September 27, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 17 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Bud Townsend

Studio: Red Wolf Productions

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, College Life, Horror, Low Budget, Movies with a Hotel setting, Offbeat

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