Category Archives: 70’s Movies

Shampoo (1975)

Posted on December 29, 2016 | 3 comments

shampoo-2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 9 out of 10

4-Word Review: Hairdresser shags his clients.

George (Warren Beatty) is a successful hairstylist who makes a habit of sleeping with his lady clients. He wants to open up his own beauty salon, but lacks the funds and not enough collateral to qualify for a loan. He is currently sleeping with Felicia (Lee Grant) who tells him to ask her husband Lester (Jack Warden) for the money. Lester is having an affair with Jackie (Julie Christie) who used to be George’s girlfriend. George’s current girlfriend is Jill (Goldie Hawn) who is having the inklings to sleep with Johnny (Tony Bill) since she thinks George is not being faithful to her. Everything comes to head on the night of November 5, 1968 during the election returns when everyone finds out that everyone else has been cheating on them and things get hilariously awkward.

This could quite easily be the best satire on the mores of Southern California culture ever made. The fact that it gets juxtaposed with the election where the same people who voted for an administration that vows to crackdown on the ‘permissive culture’ are the same ones doing the immoral behavior makes a very loud statement on the foibles and hypocrisies of the establishment.

Richard Sylbert was nominated for the Academy Award for his set decoration and he should’ve won as the vibrant and colorful interiors of the plush homes that the characters reside in become almost like a third character and makes you feel like you are right there inside the places with the characters and immersed completely in their world. The spectacular skyline views seen from the window of Lester’s office are equally impressive and I also enjoyed the party sequence, which reflected a true party atmosphere particularly the one attended by members of the counter-culture and the stylized set lighting by a slowly opening refrigerator door that gradually exposes the identities of a couple making love in the dark to the shocked onlookers standing around is outstanding.

The talented female cast is terrific, but a bit misused. Jackie’s meltdown during the election party seemed way overdone. This was a smart woman who would’ve seen through Lester’s thin veneer from the start and therefore wouldn’t have been that ‘traumatized’ when it finally came out in the open.

I was also disappointed that we didn’t see more of Lee Grant’s character. She won the Academy Award for her work here, but there needed to be more of a wrap-up with her as well as a scene showing an ultimate confrontation with her daughter (Carrie Fisher in her film debut) who has a secret fling with George behind her back. However, the shot showing Fisher giving her mother the most hateful and disdainful glare you can imagine that literally burns through the screen is almost a gem in itself.

Despite his many transgressions I found Lester to be strangely likable. His quirky ‘bonding’ with George near the end is cute, but I really wanted to see him jump into the hot tub and smoking some weed with the hippies after they offer him a joint and was disappointed it never came to pass even though it does come close.

Beatty, who co-wrote the screenplay, has his moments too, but they don’t come until the final half-hour, but it’s worth the wait. His ‘confession’ to Jill about what motivates him to sleep with all of his female clients and what he gets out of it is not only funny, but quite revealing to any male with the same traits. His final desperate plea to Jackie at the very end is equally interesting and even a bit surprising.

My only real complaint is the fact that it doesn’t seem like a legitimate ‘60s atmosphere even though that’s when it supposed to take place. The adult characters are too brazen in their actions. The college crowd was the first to embrace the free love philosophy while the middle-agers, who were raised in a more repressed, guilt-ridden era, took longer to catch-up to it. It just reeks too much of the mid ‘70s where by that time ‘everybody was doing it’ particularly in swinging L.A., which is where the time period should’ve stayed. There is also never any explanation for why the fire department comes in to evacuate the guests from the building as they are watching the returns.

Still the message of how people who use other people will eventually end up getting owned by the very same folks that they think they are manipulating is very on-target and amusingly played-out.

shampoo-1

My Rating: 9 out of 10

Released: February 11, 1975

Runtime: 1Hour 49Minutes

Director: Hal Ashby

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Academy Award Winners for Best Supporting Actress, Satire, Sex

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The Tall Blonde Man with One Black Shoe (1972)

Posted on December 23, 2016 | Leave a comment

tall-blonde-2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Following the wrong man.

Bernard Milan (Bernard Blier) and Louise Toulouse (Jean Rochefort) are two rivals within the French Intelligence agency with each looking to unseat the other from their position of power. To counterattack his rival’s ambitions Louise decides to trick the other side into wasting their time by getting them to believe that a man chosen at random is a spy and having them follow him around even though in reality he has no connections to the spy game at all. Violinist Francois (Pierre Richard) gets chosen when he is spotted at the airport wearing only one black shoe. Bernard and his men fall for the bait and follow around Francois wherever he goes and eavesdrop on his conversations like there is some hidden meaning in whatever he says and does, which leads to many amusing results.

The film’s main charm is its satirical jab at governmental bureaucracy and the way they spend so much time and money on wasteful elements that lead nowhere while blithely ignoring the bigger problems. It also playfully taps into the foibles of human nature and how people, once they are convinced of something, will continue to believe it to the point of willfully rejecting or rationalizing evidence that may point elsewhere.

The best bit comes with the overly serious facial expressions that Blier and his subordinates show as they intently listen into Francois’ lovemaking with a woman (Colette Castel).  The slapstick during one of Francois concerts and the side-story dealing with Francois’ friend Maurice (Jean Carmet) who thinks he may be going nuts as he spots the spies at various times when no else does are equally side-splitting.

Pierre Richard, who was not the original choice for the part, is perfect in the lead with his flaming, curly, disheveled hair the perfect look for a man that’s just a bit out-of-touch with world around him. The fact that he continues about his daily life while oblivious to all the spying going on around him makes it even funnier and I liked that despite the character being on the goofy side he still ends up coming off like a real person albeit on the eccentric end.

The script by Francis Veber manages to sustain its comical edge throughout, but like with many of his other plots it borders on stretching its one-joke too thin and seeming more like a collection of gags than an actual plot. The humor is funny enough that it works, but the story still lacks a second or third act and could’ve ended sooner than it does. The film also fails to show the most crucial moment of the story, which is why Francois was wearing one black shoe to begin with. It gets briefly explained later, but this is a scene that should’ve been shown right up front before any of the rest of it got played-out.

In 1985 20th Century Fox did an American remake of this film that starred Tom Hanks and was called The Man with One Red Shoe, which will be reviewed tomorrow.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: December 6, 1972

Runtime: 1Hour 30Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Yves Robert

Studio: Gaumont

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Foreign Films, French Films, Movies with Nudity, Satire, Spy/Espionage

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A Fan’s Notes (1972)

Posted on December 22, 2016 | Leave a comment

fan-notes

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: He writes about himself.

Exley (Jerry Orbach) is a loner residing in and out of mental institutions. He imagines having conversations with beautiful women, but is rarely able to approach them in real-life. He also obsesses over New York Giants running back Frank Gifford and wishes one day to achieve that same type of success, but fears that he’ll be a spectator in life just like he is in sports. He decides to begin writing about his nomadic existence in hopes that it will be a cathartic effort only to find that too harbors its own share of frustrations.

The film is based on the Frederick Exley novel of the same name, but despite the filmmaker’s best efforts it’s not able to achieve the book’s cult potential and in fact Exley himself stated that the movie “bore no relation to anything that I had written”. The idea of trying to somehow visualize a story that was never meant for the big screen is the film’s biggest issue and one that it cannot overcome no matter how hard it tries. The pacing is poor and tries awkwardly to make profound statements while at other points being zany and absurd, which is off-putting.

Orbach does well in the lead and helps hold it together. This also marks the official film debut of Julia Anne Robinson who appeared in only one other movie King of the Marvin Gardens before she tragically died in a house fire at the young age of 24. Like in that movie her acting is poor, but here it works in the positive because it makes her character seem transparent and accentuates the dream-like theme. The segment where she dresses up like a nun and then later as a street hooker, as part of Exley’s sexual fantasy, is fun as is his visit with her quirky parents (Conrad Bain, Rosemary Murphy).

Burgess Meredith appears only briefly, but practically steals it with his outrageousness. Watching him lie down on the floor in an effort to look up a blind woman’s skirt is a real hoot as is his ability to walk on his hands across the edge of a sofa.

Had the film stuck solely with the goofy comedy it might’ve worked and there are indeed a few memorable bits. The part where Exley punches an obnoxious woman (Elsa Raven) in slow motion is arresting and the segment where he imagines himself inside a scene of a his favorite soap opera where he directs the cast to strip off their clothes and have sex right in front of the camera is pretty funny too, but the best moment is the telephone conversation he has with a couple where he pretends to be a lawyer pleading with them to take-in the husband’s mentally unstable brother.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: July 21, 1972

Runtime: 1Hour 32Minutes

Rated R

Director: Eric Till

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Novels, Movies from Canada, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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All the President’s Men (1976)

Posted on December 17, 2016 | 3 comments

all-the-presidents-men

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: They take down Nixon.

In the early morning hours of June 17, 1972 five men are found burglarizing the Democratic Headquarters at the Watergate Office complex in Washington D.C. The next day a young Washington Post reporter by the name of Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) is assigned to cover the case. Initially it was considered only a minor story, but as he digs further into the details he finds wider connections including links that lead directly to the White House. Together with Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman),who is another reporter, the two men continue to research and end up battling one roadblock after another in their quest the uncover the truth.

If there is one area where this film really scores in it’s in the way that a journalist’s job gets portrayed. In fact many colleges show this film to their student who are majoring in the field in order to given them a realistic perspective of what the profession actually involves. For me I found it quite enlightening particularly the first hour. The many people and steps that a reporter has to go through just to get one solid lead is interesting as is the protocol system determining which story gets the front page and which don’t.

The layout of the newsroom was also fascinating as it all seemed very authentic and like they were working in an actual one. To my absolute shock I found out later that it had all been constructed on a film set, but so meticulously done that you couldn’t tell the difference. Initially several scenes were filmed in the real office using actual employees in the background, but the knowledge of being on camera made some behave in ways that they normally wouldn’t and this ultimately forced the filmmakers to decide to recreate it on a soundstage and use actors as the office crew.

The performances by the two leads are good, but neither of them resembles their real-life counterparts. Both Redford and Hoffman were already pushing 40 at the time and looking it while Woodward and Bernstein were still in their 20’s when this story occurred so the line that the Jack Warden’s character makes about these two being ‘young and hungry’ and looking for a good story to build their careers on doesn’t make as much sense.

The characters aren’t well fleshed out either. No time is spent on what these guys were like when not ardently following up leads, which is absolutely all we see them doing.  The original screenplay, which was written by Woodward and Bernstein, had a subplot involving the two trying to score with women, which would’ve helped add a comical touch and parts of that should’ve been kept in.

The second half lags as there are too many leads and names that get bantered about that don’t have faces connected to them making it seem like information overload that doesn’t help the viewer get as emotionally involved as they should. Having cutaways showing Nixon and/or is aides becoming increasingly more paranoid as the reporters closed in on them could’ve added that much needed extra dimension.

There is a stunning bird’s-eye shot of the inside of the Library of Congress, which is amazing and the fact that many of the scenes get filmed at the actual sites where the real-life instances occurred is both impressive and commendable. I also enjoyed the wide-array of recognizable faces that show up in bit parts including Valerie Curtain as a frightened source and Polly Holliday as an evasive secretary. They even cast Frank Wills the real-life security guard who broke the case wide open playing himself in the film’s opening scene, which is cool even though for me the film’s second half fails to be as entertaining as the first, which prevents it from being a classic.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: April 4, 1976

Runtime: 2Hours 19Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Alan J. Pakula

Studio: Warner Brothers

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Academy Award Winners for Best Screenplay, Academy Award Winners for Best Supporting Actor, Buddy Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies Based on Novels

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Racquet (1979)

Posted on December 15, 2016 | Leave a comment

racquet-1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Tennis champ gets old.

Tommy Everett (Bert Convy) is an aging tennis star who is learning to accept that he no longer has the skill that he once did. His life though is not in order and he needs money so that he can purchase his own tennis court and use it to give lessons to the rich clientele of Beverly Hills. Since he doesn’t have the capital for a down payment he sleeps with Leslie (Edie Adams) who is the wife of Arthur (Phil Silvers) a rich financier. During their lovemaking he asks her for the cash and she initially agrees even though she doesn’t intend to come through with it. In one last attempt to prove his virility he decides to take on tennis great Bjorn Bjorg in a televised match that he hopes will prove that he still has what it takes.

This so-called comedy is so frighteningly unfunny that you have to wonder why anyone would’ve been paid to write-it as its desperate attempts at humor are downright embarrassing. The script went through many rewrites and it shows as there is no cohesion and the action meanders badly until it all becomes quite pointless.

Supposedly this was an attempt to cash-in on the success of Shampoo, which was far better and so superior to this one it’s isn’t worth trying to compare except to say that was a classic and this isn’t. The jokes here are too strained and the innuendoes so juvenile that it makes sitting through not worth it on any level. The movie would’ve been improved had it stayed focused on the tennis angle, but instead it goes off on Convy’s romances and sexual conquests until you completely forget about the tennis part until it finally goes back to it at the very end.

Convy’s presence, especially in the lead, makes things even worse. He was a great game show host, but in the acting realm he was a hack to the point that he comes off looking like he never had even a day of acting training.

The supporting cast if filled with an array of familiar faces, but due to the script’s limitations end up being badly underused. Susan Tyrrell’s take of a snobby real estate agent should’ve been great, but isn’t. Tennis legend Bobby Riggs is fun, but not funny and Dorothy Konrad gets a few laughs, but it all comes at the expense of her obesity, which is tacky.

Phil Silvers is the only good thing in the movie and he even manages to elicit a few chuckles especially the part where he dresses and acts like a giant turkey. Yet even this, like with everything else in the film, is pretty sad and only proves to what pathetic extent it was willing to go to just to get a cheap laugh.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: June 7, 1979

Runtime: 1Hour 29Minutes

Rated R

Director: David Winters

Studio: Cal-Am Productions

Available: None at this time

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Posted in 70's Movies, Campy Comedy, Obscure Movies, Sports Movies

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Superdad (1973)

Posted on December 9, 2016 | Leave a comment

superdad-1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: This movie is awful.

Charlie McCready (Bob Crane) is worried that his daughter Wendy (Kathleen Cody) is hanging out with the ‘wrong crowd’ and dating a guy (Kurt Russell) that has no ambition. He tries spending more time with her and her friends in order to get her to appreciate his more conservative viewpoints, but finds that this doesn’t work. He then concocts a scheme to have her go to a different college than her boyfriend by pulling some strings and having someone on the board come up with a phony scholarship, but when she finds out about this she runs away in a rage and begins hanging out in a hippie commune run by a cult leader named Klutch (Joby Baker) who intends to force Wendy to marry him while Charlie tries his best to stop it.

This was Disney’s attempt at tackling the generation gap phenomenon, but the results are shallow with characters and issues that are too one-dimensional and generic to be considered relevant. There isn’t even any of that patented Disney slapstick, which could’ve at least allowed some diversion from the otherwise tedium. To top it off the music is excruciatingly sappy including an opening tune sung by Bobby Goldsboro, which could be enough to make most people want to turn it off before the film has even barely begun.

In hindsight having Crane cast as a character who preaches old-school values when in reality he was living such an excessively hedonistic lifestyle is the height of all irony. The way his character is so preoccupied with his daughter to the point that he even dreams about her is borderline creepy and makes it seem like he has some sort of latent incestuous obsession with her.

The worst thing though is his acting specifically with the way he would scream out whenever his character is in some sort of danger like when he goes water skiing. Larry Hagman always had the best yell especially as Tony Nelson in the TV-Show ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ as his shrieks sounded masculine while Crane’s sound more like a high pitched scream from a female and are disconcerting instead of funny.

The Wendy character is another weak point. First she has parents who have brown eyes and in Crane’s case jet black hair as well, so if the dark gene is always the dominant one then how where they able to produce a blonde, blue-eyed offspring? Her character is also too transparent and too subservient to adult authority and not like an actual teen at all. There is one brief moment where she rebels by becoming a hippie chick, which could’ve at least added an interesting dimension to the otherwise sterile role, but unfortunately the film drops this thread just as soon as it gets introduced.

The depiction of the cult-like hippie group that is run by a controlling leader who happens to also be a painter, which ironically gets played by actor Joby Baker who later quit his acting career to become a full-time painter, is like with everything else in this movie quite generic. Clearly it was based on the Manson cult, but I got the feeling that the filmmakers were trying to send a broader message by inferring a judgmental view that all hippies ended up this way, which just proves how out of touch they were with the younger generation as they clearly didn’t understand or appreciate their lifestyle at all, which ultimately proved they were unfit to make a movie dealing with the generation gap subject in the first place.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: December 14, 1973

Runtime: 1Hour 35Minutes

Rated G

Director: Vincent McEveety

Studio: Walt Disney Productions

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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

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The Cassandra Crossing (1976)

Posted on December 8, 2016 | Leave a comment

cassandra-crossing-2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Virus on a train.

A terrorist (Lou Castel) who’s infected with the pneumonic plague sneaks onto a train in order to escape capture, but in the process infects the other passengers. U.S. Colonel MacKenzie (Burt Lancaster) devises a plan to have the train rerouted to a quarantine camp in Poland, but this will require the train to go over a bridge known as the Cassandra Crossing, which has not been used since 1948 and could be structurally unsound. When the passengers realize what the plan is they revolt and make an attempt to stop the train before it gets there, but will it be too late?

The way the bridge gets photographed is excellent and helps make it seem like a third character. An actual working bridge known as the Garabit Viaduct was used and is still in operation today, so the filmmaker’s ability to effectively make it look old and weakened is impressive. The climactic sequence showing the train going over the bridge is very exciting and well shot even if certain angles look conspicuously like a toy train instead of a real one it’s still a showstopper and well worth sitting through just to get to that point.

The film though fails on many other levels. For one thing the characters are not likable, or even all that interesting, so the viewer has little empathy as to whether they are able to make it through their quandary or not. The train is too ordinary looking with little pizazz or visual appeal and more attempts should’ve been made to have a luxury one used instead. The fact that the patients begin to miraculously recover from the disease during the second half makes sitting through the first part almost pointless.

The cast is filled with a lot of familiar faces. Ava Gardner is great in a role that allows her to show some key comic touches, but Sophia Loren, who was cast because her husband at the time was the producer, is completely wasted and forgettable. Lancaster is equally stymied in a role that has him virtually locked inside a control room with not much to do except look perpetually worried. Having his character decide to not panic the passengers by telling them about the virus, but instead he chooses to lie and inform them that the train is being rerouted to avoid bombs planted onto the railway line by terrorists ends up inadvertently getting the passengers just as upset to the point that it’s unintentionally funny.

Richard Harris who plays a doctor trying to treat the infected people while also working to prevent the train from driving into an impending disaster is the only cast member who gives the film any life. Like in the similarly themed Juggernaut his brash and irreverent approach that openly stands up to authority without hesitation helps to make his anti-hero persona seem genuine and refreshing, which in turn makes the film more gripping. His attractive real-life wife Ann Turkel, who plays a singer in a hippie band here, isn’t bad either, or at least not on the eyes.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: December 18, 1976

Runtime: 2Hours 8Minutes

Rated R

Director: George P. Cosmatos

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Disaster Flicks, Foreign Films, Movies with a train setting

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A Pain in the A__ (1973)

Posted on December 4, 2016 | Leave a comment

pain-in-the-ass-1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Loser irritates hit man.

Ralf (Lino Ventura) works as a hit man and is hired to assassinate Louis Randoni (Xavier Depraz) who plans to testify against the mob. Ralf checks into a hotel room and plans to shoot Louis as he tries to enter the courthouse from his hotel window, which sits across the street from the court building. As he prepares for the hit he becomes distracted by Francois (Jacques Brel) in the neighboring room who attempts to kill himself after his wife leaves him. Ralf is concerned that Francois’s actions will elicit unwanted attention, so in an attempt to quiet him he ‘befriends’ him, which leads to many ironic scenarios.

The film was written by the prolific Francis Veber and based on his play. Ultimately it’s just a one-joke premise, but what makes it work are the two characters particularly the hit man who is portrayed in a serious way and never once betrays the essence of who he truly is, which is that of a cold blooded killer intent on doing his job and then moving on to his next. The comedy comes from his perturbed reactions at having to deal with a loser that despite his best intentions he can’t seem to ever get rid of.

Famous singer Brel does quite well as the clingy pest who is so wrapped up in his own personal quandaries that he fails to notice that his new ‘friend’ really isn’t his friend at all. Brel’s boyish looks plays well off of Ventura’s constantly stern expression and the plot becomes almost a constant play on errors as each one misreads the other.

The overall set design though is boring and the majority of action takes place solely inside the two hotel rooms, which eventually makes the proceedings quite static. It would’ve been nice to have had more of a conversation between the two as Brel does almost all of the talking while Ventura simply remains quiet while looking bored and angered, which is fun for a while, but more of a character arc could’ve been implemented.

The ending is a cop-out and not satisfying at all. I also felt Ventura was a bit too old and the character would’ve been more intimidating had it played by someone younger and more rugged although for the record Ventura plays the role perfectly especially when he gets injected with a drug that makes him tired and reluctantly  dependent on Brel’s guidance.

In 2008 Veber directed a remake of this film, which met with some success. Also in 1981 director Billy Wilder did an American version of this with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau playing the two leads. That film ended up adding a few changes and will be reviewed tomorrow.

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My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: September 20, 1973

Runtime: 1Hour 31Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Edouard Molinaro

Studio: Mondex Films

Available: VHS

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Posted in 70's Movies, Buddy Movies, Comedy, Foreign Films, French Films, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies with a Hotel setting, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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Going in Style (1979)

Posted on November 28, 2016 | Leave a comment

going-in-style

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Old guys rob bank.

Three elderly men (George Burns, Art Carney, Lee Strasburg) who are living together in a rundown Brooklyn apartment and on a fixed income decide one day to liven up their lives by robbing a bank. None of them have ever committed a crime before and don’t even know how to handle a gun, but end up pulling off a major heist nonetheless and getting away with $35,000 in cash. However, things begin to fall apart once the crime is completed and even a side-trip to Vegas can’t keep the feds from slowly moving in.

On the outset the plot seems like a very funny idea and some of the social context about the difficulties of growing old that gets mixed in with it is right on-target. However, to me it just doesn’t come together. The men latch on to the idea too quickly and I would’ve expected more resistance or having at least one of them chickening out at the last second. These are individuals with no criminal record and although I realize that they are bored why couldn’t they have just taken up a new hobby or social cause instead. It’s not like they were out on the streets or completely desperate. The apartment they resided in looked livable enough and I might’ve bought into the premise better had one of them needed a major operation and thus the others were forced to go to extremes like robbing a bank to help pay for it.

The part where they sit around a table trying to figure out which stack of bullets goes into which gun is amusing and quite possibly the best bit in the film, but there’s a lot more comic potential that could’ve been squeezed out of this otherwise quirky plot that is never taken advantage of. The crime gets carried off in too much of a seamless fashion with a myriad of possible problems that could’ve and should’ve cropped up being completely overlooked.

The second half that deals with two of them taking a trip to Vegas seems like a plotline to a whole different movie.  Writer/director Martin Brest should’ve chosen one or the other by either playing up the bank robbery premise and its preparation more or just rolled from the beginning with the Vegas trip, which has a lot of funny untapped potential as well, but cramming the two together or not taking enough advantage of either one was a mistake.

Burns gives an excellent performance and I was amazed how very talented this 83 year-old gentlemen was especially when you factor in that he never had any formal acting training and was basically just a vaudeville comedian, but here he creates a convincing and surprisingly savvy character. Strasberg, who spent years as an acting teacher and didn’t do any film roles until much later in his life, is superb as well and I was disappointed his character wasn’t in more scenes.

A reboot of this film has already been completed and set for an April 7, 2017 release. It will star Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin as the three elderly men and I’m quite interested to see how the two versions deviate from the other. I’m hoping that the comedy angle gets played up more and from reading the synopsis I have an inkling it will. It hopefully will be an improvement as I came away from this one feeling like it had missed-the-mark.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: December 25, 1979

Runtime: 1Hour 38Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Martin Brest

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Buddy Movies, Comedy/Drama, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Robbing Banks

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The China Syndrome (1979)

Posted on November 18, 2016 | 2 comments

china-syndrome

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: He senses the vibration.

Kimberly Wells (Jane Fonda) is a television news reporter who along with Richard (Michael Douglas) her cameraman gets a chance to go inside a nuclear power plant and film its operations. While inside they witness the plant going through an emergency shutdown when the coolant to one of the nuclear reactors becomes dangerously low. Richard secretly films the nervous reactions of the men in the control room during the incident and wants to broadcast the footage on the news, but the station managers refuse for fear they might get sued. Later Kimberly comes into contact with Jack (Jack Lemmon) who is a shift supervisor at the plant and he informs her that the welds on the pumps are compromised and could lead to a core meltdown at some point. Richard, Kimberly and Jack then conspire to somehow get this information out to the public before it is too late while also avoiding those who wish to silence them.

One of the things I really enjoyed about this film is the way it remains completely realistic throughout and never once compromises anything simply for the sake of cheap drama. The behind-the-scenes politics of an on air news show is quite fascinating particularly how it is decided what constitutes ‘news’ and what doesn’t as well as the staff’s pecking-order and how an individual reporter has limited say on what topics they can actually report on.

The inside of the power plant is impressive particularly the scene where Jack goes inside the massive pump room to investigate a leak. The control room looks quite authentic and the film’s final twenty-five minutes take place solely inside of it, which makes for a gripping climax.

The film also has the distinction of having no musical soundtrack. Other than a song by Stephan Bishop which is played at the beginning there is no other music to be heard and quite frankly I didn’t miss it at all. The sound of the power plant’s emergency alarm going off is all that is needed to create tension and having the closing credits scroll to a deadening silence leaves a powerful impact. Apparently a score was composed by Michael Small, but it was rejected and rightly so as I listened to some of it and it had way too much of a disco sound and didn’t fit the theme at all.

The stars are excellent, but I was surprised how Fonda’s part gets increasingly pared down as the movie progresses. Douglas steals it away from her during an angry confrontation with his superiors, but ultimately Lemmon is the real star even though it deceptively doesn’t start out that way. The supporting cast is equally good including Wilford Brimley as a loyal, but quiet employee, Scott Brady as the cantankerous plant manager and Richard Herd as the steely and conniving owner.

As for the merits of the film’s message it’s hard to say. What was once a hot/trendy topic during the ‘70s and ‘80s now seems long forgotten. However, the script still brings up many good points no matter what one’s political leanings are and it’s great to watch a film that can be intelligent and entertaining at the same time without ever going overboard on either end.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: March 16, 1979

Runtime: 2Hours 2Minutes

Rated PG

Director: James Bridges

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray (Region 0), Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Thrillers/Suspense

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