Category Archives: 70’s Movies

Running (1979)

Posted on January 9, 2016 | Leave a comment

running 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Life of a runner.

Michael (Michael Douglas) is suffering, at the age of 32, a midlife malaise. He goes from one dead end job to another and his marriage is crumbling. He runs to relieve the stress and finds that he has a major passion for it. When he qualifies for the Olympics he is initially excited, but it’s short lived because his former coach (Lawrence Dane) is on hand to constantly remind him how he has a tendency to ‘choke’ at the last minute and can never win a race when the pressure is on, which begins to wear on him psychologically.

The theme of a middle aged man having a passion for something that isn’t exactly ‘practical’ and resisting the pressures from the rest of world that tries to get him to conform to something that is, is highly relatable. I also liked the side-story dealing with the psychological element, which plays a far stronger factor in sports and amongst athletes than one might think. However, the majority of the screen time is spent with Michael trying to reconcile with his wife Janet (Susan Anspach) making it seem more like a romance and seemingly added in as ‘filler’ because the filmmakers believed that the running theme wouldn’t be enough to  carry it.

I also had a hard time understanding why the kids at high school, or at least his daughter’s friends, which gets played by Lesleh Donaldson in her film debut, would make fun of Michael simply because he was frequently seen around town running. I see joggers and runners every day and saw a lot of them back in the ‘70s too, so I don’t get why that would be a source of mockery and it seems like it was yet another manufactured dramatic element put in to give it more conflict. What’s even worse is when Michael finally qualifies for the Olympics then the kids do a full 180 degree turn and get excited about it and even run with him down the city streets, which gets corny to say the least.

Halfway in you realize this is just another variation of the Rocky formula and normally I would’ve found it annoying, but for some reason I actually got into it. I even liked the scene where he spots a giant cross standing on a hill and decides to run up the incline to reach it much like Rocky climbing the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and to some degree it’s invigorating although it would’ve been nice had it shown him standing next to the cross once the climb was achieved. The final segment that takes place during the climactic Olympic race even has a twist to it that I didn’t see coming and to a degree it’s interesting though pushing plausibility. I won’t give it away I’ll just say that he doesn’t win the race, but he doesn’t exactly lose it either.

Douglas did all of his own running and to prepare for the role he would run many miles a day; IMDB states that he ran 50 to 60 miles a day, which I found hard to believe, so we’ll just say it was ‘many’. Anspach is good as the sympathetic wife particularly when the character has a conflict of emotions and breaks out in tears. Eugene Levy appears with a full afro in a rare serious turn as Michael’s attorney. Lawrence Dane is okay as the hardened coach who dispenses a lot of ‘tough love’, but little else.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: November 2, 1979

Runtime: 1Hour 42Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Steven Hilliard Stern

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD (Italian Import Region 0)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Foreign Films, Movies from Canada, Obscure Movies, Sports Movies

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Eraserhead (1977)

Posted on January 2, 2016 | 2 comments

Eraserhead

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Couple has deformed baby.

In David Lynch’s first feature length film, a movie that took almost 5 years to make and had a good deal of it financed by Sissy Spacek and her husband, we have a surreal almost cryptic-like tale detailing a lonely man named Henry (Jack Nance) and his ultimate descent into a madness as he is forced to take care of severely deformed child while also harboring the dark urge to kill it.

It is hard to say whether one can like or dislike this as it goes so far out of the conventional form of film narrative that it seemingly defies all genres and puts itself into a category all its own. On a sheer technical level it is quite impressive especially when you factor in its shoestring budget and array of production set-backs. Each scene is meticulously detailed with wild and unsettling imagery that on a purely visual level will be more than enough to leave an impact. Overall the film is cold, ugly and unyielding, but helped tremendously by Nance’s presence as a sort of detached everyman who seems as confused and aloof to his surroundings as the viewer.

To me the most jarring image is the baby, which is incredibly lifelike. Had it came off looking fake, or like some puppet or Claymation attempt the film would’ve been a failure, or deemed laughable, but this thing is freaky looking to the extreme and Lynch spares no expense in getting the camera close up to it, which could force some viewers to turn away. Supposedly it was made from the embalmed fetus of a calf, but no one knows for sure and the crew was forced to blind fold themselves when Lynch set it up, so the secret would never come out. Either way it is effective and it manages to move its eyes and mouth almost like it were real and coming off as far more authentic than any computerized effect.

Spoiler Alert!

Of course the most confounding thing about the film is its story and symbolism’s that can be interpreted in a million different ways depending on the viewer’s own perspective. For what it’s worth I’ll give you my interpretation, which isn’t that complicated. To me the deformed baby symbolizes Henry’s soul, which has been mangled by the soulless world that he lives in, which would explain why he is so extremely passive because he is simply a walking zombie. The scene where his head pops off and the ugly child’s head pops into its place only reinforces this. The lady that he sees in the radiator is an angel from heaven and the beautiful lady that lives across the hall from him is the devil who entices him with sex, but when she realizes he has no soul to take, just an ugly mangled remnant of one, which gets exposed to her when she sees him standing in the doorway, she quickly loses interest and moves onto someone else. When he finally kills the baby he is essentially killing himself, which then explains why he ends up in the final scene in heaven with the lady in the radiator.

The man in the planet that we see at the beginning represents Henry’s own subconscious as he quarrels within his mind at the thoughts of killing the child. The man could also represent the world at large and how it controls everyone with its levers, which when Henry finally kills himself they start to have sparks fly from them and the man struggles in containing them, which shows that Henry has now ‘broken free’ from the man and this world by taking his own life.

End of Spoiler Alert!

Some consider this a horror pic, but I found certain parts of it to be quite funny in a darkly humorous way particularly the segment where Henry goes to visit his girlfriend’s parents. To me the most horrifying thing about is the way it challenges the viewers to question their own morality by forcing them to face the difficult quandary or what they would do if put into the same situation as Henry and forced to care for a hideous looking baby that some would consider would be better off dead.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: September 28, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 29Minutes

Not Rated

Director: David Lynch

Studio: Libra Films International

Available: DVD (Criterion Collection), Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black & White, Black Comedy, Cult, Moody/Stylish, Offbeat, Psychological, Surreal/Fantasy

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The Dove (1974)

Posted on December 25, 2015 | Leave a comment

dove

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Sailing around the world.

Based on a true story and produced by Gregory Peck this film examines the journey of Robin Lee Graham (Joseph Bottoms in his film debut) as he sails in his boat called The Dove around the world. When he starts out he is only 16, but through the course of his journey he goes through many adventures, meets a beautiful woman named Pattie (Deborah Raffin) who he eventually marries and returns home a full grown man.

The variety of exotic locales and stunning cinematography by Sven Nykvist are a chief asset, but the film starts off with absolutely no backstory. The viewer is hoisted onto the boat with the main character without having any idea who he is, his background, preparation, reason for doing this, or his relationship with his family. Bits and pieces of this come out later, but it would’ve been nice to have had some of this info from the start and would’ve allowed for more of an emotional connection to the character.

The first hour is spent more on land than at sea, which is another problem because it doesn’t get riveting until he is actually on the boat and fighting the many elements. The melodic mood music gets excessive and should’ve been toned down as well and the two songs sung by Lyn Martin, which could’ve been scrapped completely as the natural ambience of the sea is far more soothing.

Bottoms, who retired from acting in 1999 and now runs an art gallery, does quite well. His boyish face and variety of emotions that he goes through during his adventure ring quite true for someone of that age and help to make the character quite real. I also enjoyed how the character is astute in certain areas, but very awkward in others particularly with the way he tries to court Patti, which also leads to the film’s best line “I’m feelin’ romantic…in a horny kind of way.”

Raffin is stunningly beautiful and her acting is outstanding and I liked how the female character was portrayed as being older, wiser and more practical. The two share a great chemistry, but Robin’s relationship with his ornery pet cat Arvana is equally interesting even though its demise is unpleasant.

Familiar character actors pop up briefly playing pesky photographers from National Geographic magazine that carried the story through his trip. John Anderson has a funny bit here, but the best is Dabney Coleman who speaks with an Australian accent!

The actual journey began in September, 1965 and wasn’t completed until April of 1970 with many stops and starts in between, which the film does a good job of showing as at several points Robin abandons the mission only to finally start it back up several weeks or months later. Although the film gives the impression that he completed the full journey in reality he didn’t as he started it in Hawaii, but finished it in Long Beach, California also the boat that he used for his trip ending up getting destroyed in 1989 during Hurricane Hugo.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: October 16, 1974

Runtime: 1Hour 45Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Charles Jarrott

Studio: Paramount

Available: VHS, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama on the High Seas, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies Based on Novels, Obscure Movies, Romance

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The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder (1974)

Posted on December 24, 2015 | 3 comments

crazy world 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Pretending to be crazy.

Vrooder (Timothy Bottoms) is a Vietnam Veteran who has returned from the war and is unable to cope with the stresses of everyday life, which eventually gets him checked into the psychiatric ward of a local VA Hospital. There he falls in love with Zanni (Barbara Hershey, but billed as Barbara Seagull) who works as a nurse there, but he is unhappy to find that she is already engaged to Dr. Passki (Lawrence Pressman). To escape his frustrations he hides out in an underground bunker that he has created near a local highway. The place comes complete with electricity and telephone service as well as an array of booby traps to tip him off if anyone comes near, but the heads of the local power and telephone companies’ start trying to track him down in an effort to stop his pilfering of their services, which could ultimately lead to an end to his days of freedom.

The film is cute, but a little too cute and was produced, believe it or not, by Hugh Hefner. It likens itself to being an offbeat comedy, but there really isn’t that much that is original about it and it comes off more like a tired anti-establishment flick with the proverbial authority figures portrayed in stale, one-dimensional ways. One could actually consider this as a weak cousin to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with Vrooder being McMurphy, Passki being a toned-down male version of Nurse Ratched and the suicidal Alessini (Michael Cristofer) being like Billy Bibbit.

The only slightly diverting thing about this film, that otherwise suffers from having a limited budget and looks like it was shot initially on video and then later transferred onto film, are the scenes involving the heads of the power and telephone companies (Jack Murdock, Lou Frizzell) working together to track down the culprit who’s stealing their service. The climactic scene in which Jack Colvin plays an over-the-top Dirty Harry type cop obsessed with getting Vrooder and sending an entire armed police force into the forest to find him is amusing as is the mugshots shown of past felons who had stolen electrical and phone service, which were all made up of headshots from the film’s behind-the-scenes crew.

Bottoms is rather transparent, but Hershey, with her effervescent smile and naturally carefree persona, is far better as her simple presence naturally exudes the film’s hippie-like theme. This was the second of four films in which she was billed with the last name of Seagull and this was done as a personal tribute to seagull that she had accidentally killed while filming a scene in the movie Last Summer.

Albert Salmi, in a rare appearance without his mustache, is excellent in support as Vrooder’s good-natured, fun-loving friend Splint and I found it hard-to-believe that this same man who could play such a peaceful character so well would years later in real-life murder his wife before turning the gun onto himself. Elderly film director George Marshall also does well as the aging Corky and his performance should’ve merited supporting Oscar consideration.

This obscure movie also marks the film debuts of several performers, which includes not only Murdock’s and Cristofer’s, but Ron Glass’ as well who plays an hospital orderly and Dena Dietrich playing Vrooder’s mother who later became best known as Mother Nature in a series of commercials that ran during the ‘70s.

crazy world 1

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: October 18, 1974

Runtime: 1Hour 38Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Arthur Hiller

Studio: 20th Century Fox

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Posted in 70's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Movies with a Hospital setting, Obscure Movies, Romance

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The Happiness Cage (1972)

Posted on December 18, 2015 | Leave a comment

mind snatchers

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: They control his mind.

Christopher Walken plays James Reese a veteran of the Vietnam War who has issues with aggression. After numerous arrests he gets shipped off to a hospital in Europe run by Dr. Frederick (Joss Ackland) and overseen by a U.S. General (Ralph Meeker). There they do tests on the patients by implanting special devices into their brains that connects to their pleasure centers and can quell their aggressive behavior by having them feel a pleasurable sensation every time a button is pressed from a remote.

Walken’s performance is outstanding and Ronny Cox as his fellow patient is also quite good especially the part where he has the device implanted into his own brain, which turns him into a sad, pathetic, child-like state. Bette Henritze gives an interesting performance as well as a naïve, middle-aged nurse hired to make the patient’s stay more ‘happy’ by supplying them with books and board games only to be attacked and raped by Cox and then forced to play a game of checkers with him afterwards.

The story, which was based on a play by Dennis Reardon, certainly has its moments. In fact I was surprised how caught up into I got since the production values are close to appalling. The film was shot in Denmark in a building that looks like it was formerly a rundown mansion converted into a makeshift hospital for the sake of the movie. It all looks embarrassingly cheap and the idea of having a big hospital with a full-time staff and even a barbed wire fence and guard dogs, but only three patients is quite hard to believe.

Had the budget been bigger it might’ve been able to reach a broader audience. Bernard Girard’s direction is okay for the limitations that he was given, but the film’s faded, grainy stock and overall amateurish look becomes a turn off from the beginning and something that it cannot overcome. The plot itself is interesting, but the concept has been filmed before and with better results.

Alternate Title: The Mind Snatchers

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: June 28, 1972

Runtime: 1Hour 32Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Bernard Girard

Studio: Cinerama Releasing Corporation

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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

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The Mafu Cage (1978)

Posted on December 16, 2015 | Leave a comment

Capture 66

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Her sister is psycho.

Ellen and Cissy (Lee Grant, Carol Kane) are two sisters living together in a dilapidated mansion, where they keep a pet ape named Mafu locked in a cage that sits in their living room. One day Ellen finds that Mafu has died so at the insistence of Cissy, who says she will kill herself unless they get another one, she goes to a local zoologist (Will Geer) and buys another. Things go well at first, but Cissy’s behavior becomes increasingly more erratic and she takes her frustrations and anger out on the new ape in abusive ways.

The film was directed by actress-turned-director Karen Arthur by a script written by Don Chastian who was another actor and based on a play by Eric Wesphal. I really wasn’t sure what these characters or this bizarre story was supposed to mean. I thought being the ‘70s and a female director that it would have symbolic connections to feminism or even lesbianism, which does get alluded to briefly, but overall the message is confusing and unfocused. The pacing is poor and about 10 minutes in I was already quite bored with it.

The only real saving grace is Kane’s presence who gives a startling performance as a psychotic woman. I had always admired her talent, but became even more impressed with her after seeing this. Her most amazing/bizarre moment is when she dresses up as an African warrior complete with red body paint and then later soaks in a tub filled with blood red water while carrying on an impromptu phone conversion with herself.

I had mixed feelings in regards to Grant whose age difference between Kane is 25 years making her look more like a mother figure than a sister. It was also hard to sympathize with her character as she refuses to have Cissy institutionalized or even examined by a mental health professional even though her behavior is dangerously erratic and only a completely irrational person would choose to ignore it or think that it will somehow ‘magically’ improve, which of course it doesn’t

The ape was the one performer that I enjoyed the most and fortunately a real one was used. The way the chimp responds to things and interacts with Kane are genuinely fascinating to watch and makes him a natural scene stealer without even trying. However, the part where she beats him with a metal chain is quite disturbing supposedly he was never actually hit and the credits do list an animal agency was present during filming and monitored it, but it’s difficult to watch nonetheless.

Patient viewers may find certain segments and imagery to be interesting and the film does improve a bit as it progresses, but overall it’s a weird curio that will leave most people indifferent and confused.

Alternate Title: Don’t Ring the Doorbell

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: December 1, 1978

Runtime: 1Hour 42Minutes

Rated R

Director: Karen Arthur

Studio: Clouds

Available: VHS, DVD

 

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Gay/Lesbian, Low Budget, Movies Based on Stageplays, Offbeat, Psychological

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J. W. Coop (1971)

Posted on December 13, 2015 | 4 comments

jw 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Rodeo star makes comeback.

J.W. Coop (Cliff Robertson) has just spent 9 years in prison. After finally being released he finds that the world has changed quite a bit. He’s no longer the big rodeo star that he once was and younger, more educated men have now taken his place. There’s also the new hippie movement that he isn’t quite sure what to make of. With his mother (Geraldine Page) growing senile and no other friends to turn to he decides to take one last stab at the rodeo circuit and determined to beat the odds and become the champion because for him second place is the same last.

The film has a wonderfully gritty quality to it that fully immerses the viewer into the western rodeo landscape and lifestyle. The rugged characters and conversations seem authentic without ever being condescending. The film reveals a lot about the inner toughness needed to survive in that environment as well as the competiveness and eventual loneliness.

Robertson’s stab at directing is flawless and convinced me that he should’ve done more movies behind the camera. He uses several techniques that make the rodeo experience vivid for the viewer including filming a point-of-view shot from on top of the bronco as well as even more impressively showing one taken from underneath a horse as it is running. I also liked the shot where the screen gets split into four squares with each of them showing some of the many hotels that he stays at during his travels on the circuit, which visually hits home how exhausting life on the road can be. There’s also a haunting segment shot late at night at a lonely oil rig that is brief, but quite memorable.

Former model Cristina Ferrare, who is probably best known as being the ex-wife of automaker John DeLorean as well as host of ‘Home and Family’ gets a rare turn at acting playing a hippie who falls in love with Coop.  Her performance is solid even though I found it hard to believe why such a young woman would fall for a man who is so much older, less educated and having not much more money than she does. Their relationship goes on far longer than I realistically would expect, but I still liked the idea of how two people from two very different backgrounds and generations can still manage to connect. Robertson’s performance is equally good and the film also has the novelty of casting Page as his mother even though in real-life she was actually one year younger than he was.

The segment where a throne of teen girls jump out of a trailer and beg for Coop’s autograph as well as the ending in which Coop, with his leg in a cast, attempts to ride a bull are the only two times that it overreaches in a film that is otherwise quite honest and uncompromising and particular good at mixing subtle comedy with stark drama.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: October 3, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 52Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Cliff Robertson

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Revisionist Western

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Serpico (1973)

Posted on December 5, 2015 | 5 comments

serpico

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: A cop fights corruption.

One of the followers of this blog has requested that I review this movie, so today we take a look at Frank Serpico (Al Pacino) a policeman who fought against corruption that plagued New York’s police department during the ‘60s. Even though many of his partners on the force would accept under-the-table payouts from criminal elements in exchange for ‘looking-the-other-way’ he wouldn’t and when he would tell his superiors about it nothing would get done. Instead they would transfer him to other precincts only for him to find the same problems there. It was only when he decided to report the issue to the New York Times that people started to take action, but in the process he also made himself a mark and vulnerable to having his unhappy comrades set him up to be shot while on-duty.

The film is based on the Peter Maas novel, which in turn recounts the life of the actual Frank Serpico and the events he went through while working on the force between the years of 1959 to 1972. Not only does he remain alive today, but according to recent reports is even considering, at the ripe old age of 79, a run at political office. Equally interesting is that he and Pacino roomed together during the summer that this was filmed and became close friends.

It’s been years since I’ve read the novel, but I felt this film sticks closely to what actually happened and the always reliable Sidney Lumet manages to keep things exciting and insightful. The dialogue is sharp and the on-location shooting, which was done in every borough of New York except Staten Island, gives the viewer an authentic feel of the city as well as the police environment.

The film also does a successful job at showing the drawbacks of accepting bribes without ever getting preachy or heavy-handed. One might think, like many of Serpico’s partners do, that taking some kickbacks isn’t that big of a deal, but then the film shows in one brief moment a policeman shoving another man’s head into a toilet when he doesn’t ‘pay up’, which hits home how the police become no better than organized crime who would notoriously demand ‘protection money’ from business owners.

The only thing I didn’t like was the music, which was too loud and jarring. Fortunately it’s put in only sparingly, but its melodic quality takes away from the grittiness and the film works far better by simply relying on the ambient sounds of the locations that the scenes are in. In fact this is one movie that could’ve done fine without any music at all.

Pacino is fantastic and I loved how the character starts out as this clean shaven, boyish looking fellow only to grow into a bearded, long haired guy as the story progresses, which symbolically connects with the way he becomes savvier to the system. The character also sports earrings long before it became vogue for males to wear them.

Tony Roberts does well as one of the few cops that sides with Serpico and tries to help him in his fight and F. Murray Abraham can be spotted near the end as a member of a vice squad who tries setting Serpico up to be killed. This movie also marks the film debuts of character actors Alan Rich and Kenneth McMillan. In my mind this is also the debut of Judd Hirsh. Some sources state that his first onscreen appearance is in Jump, which came out two years earlier, but I watched that film and couldn’t spot him anywhere, but her I was able to spot him right away.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: December 5, 1973

Runtime: 2Hours 10Minutes

Rated R

Director: Sidney Lumet

Studio: Paramount

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

5 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Police Drama

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When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? (1979)

Posted on December 3, 2015 | 1 comment

when you comin back red ryder 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Terror at a diner.

The year is 1968 and the setting is a small, lonely diner nestled at the border of Texas and New Mexico. Richard (Hal Linden) and his violinist wife Clarissa (Lee Grant) arrive for a morning cup of coffee. There is also Angel (Stephanie Faracy) the diner’s lone waitress and Stephen (Peter Firth), who was nicknamed Red during his youth due to his red hair at the time, but besides them the place is empty and peaceful. Then Teddy (Marjoe Gortner), an unhinged Vietnam vet and his hippie girlfriend Chery (Candy Clark) enter. They are without money and stranded with a broken down van, which makes Teddy particularly volatile as he begins harassing the others with evasive questions before eventually terrorizing them all by trapping them inside the place and forcing them to do whatever weird, sick thing he asks.

The film is based on the 1973 Off Broadway play by Mark Medoff, who also wrote the screenplay. In many ways it’s similar to the 1967 black-and-white drama The Incident in which Tony Musante and a young Martin Sheen trap several subway riders inside a subway car and spend the rest of the night terrorizing them simply for their own personal amusement.  Both films are structured the same with the first part examining the characters before they arrive at the scene and revealing a bit of the personal dramas that each of them face and then spending the second half showing them trapped in a claustrophobic setting and forced to deal with their reluctance at confronting their fears.

The 1967 film though outshines this one as there were more characters, which gave it a better variety of personalities as well as bad guys that were menacing and believable. Gortner is too much of a ham making him more irritating than scary. The part was originally played by Kevin Conway during its Off Broadway run and his performance won many accolades, which should’ve been enough for them to have offered him the chance to reprise the role here. Gortner, who also produced seemed intent at trying to use this as a vehicle to promote himself as being a ‘serious’ actor, but he was too old for the role from the beginning since he was already in his mid-30’s at the time this was shot while vets coming back from the war during the ‘60s where only in their late teens or early 20’s.

The film only gets mildly interesting during the confrontation sequence inside the diner, which takes 45 minutes of the film’s 2-hour runtime just to get there. The way the characters respond to Gortner’s scare tactics and the supporting cast’s performances, who are all far better actors than Gortner, is the movie’s only compelling element, but even here there are issues. The biggest one being that the people seem too wimpy and today’s viewers will get frustrated at how overly compliant they are to Gortner’s demands and never once try to overpower him despite having ample opportunity.

The movie is also notorious for featuring some rather shocking moments of nudity. It starts out with a full body shot of Candy Clark in the buff, who was married to Gortner in real-life at the time this was made and that isn’t too bad, but then it proceeds to later show 48-year-old Linden in nothing but speedo shorts doing sit ups with his butt crack clearly exposed. Still later there is a scene where 52-year-old Lee Grant has her shirt hoisted all the way over her head with her breasts in full view and then paraded around the diner in mocking fashion. The film’s most over-the-top moment though comes when Gortner himself is stripped naked and bent over a table while having a proctoscope shoved up his rectum as he continues to have a conversation with the man who’s doing it.

Filmed on-location in Fabens, Texas, which was also the site of a famous scene in The Gateway, and Las Cruces, New Mexico the movie just doesn’t convey enough tension to make it compelling or worth catching. It would’ve worked better had it skipped the first half dealing with the backstories of the characters, which was never a part of the original play anyways and just gone straight into the diner sequence while also casting a leading actor that had some actual acting training.

when you comin back red ryder 1

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: February 9, 1979

Runtime: 1Hour 58Minutes

Rated R

Director: Milton Katselas

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: VHS

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies that take place in Texas, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Thrillers/Suspense

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Harrad Summer (1974)

Posted on November 29, 2015 | Leave a comment

harrad summer

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Bringing sexual liberation home.

The school year is over and now the students of Harrad, which is the college that teaches and promotes open sexuality, go home for the summer and put what they’ve learned into action in their everyday lives. Like in the first film this sequel focuses on just four of the students who find that their parents and friends are not as broad minded as they are, which causes friction in not only their relations with them, but with each other as well.

This film for the most part works surprisingly well. Director Steven Hilliard Stern takes more of a playful approach to the material and mixes in some funny moments that overall are quite entertaining. The wide variety of locales elevates the stagnant feeling that the first one had and it also manages to address a wider variety of issues.

The story is broken up into three segments with each one focusing on the student’s home lives as they visit each of their parents for 2-weeks at a time as a group. The first part, which deals with Stanley’s (Robert Reiser) folks isn’t too interesting and is fortunately pretty brief. The visit to Harry’s (Richard Doran) is the most comical and the film’s highlight while Stanley’s conflicts with Sheila’s (Laurie Walters) father (Walter Brooke) during their visit to her folks seem contrived and pointless. The film never manages to get to Beth’s (Victoria Thompson) parents, which is probably just as well.

The film’s biggest drawback is that neither Don Johnson nor Bruno Kirby, who were so good in the first film, reprises their roles here and their absence is sorely missed as  Reiser and Doran don’t have the same acting talents and are quite weak in comparison. Thompson, who was blonde in the first film, now has, with no explanation, jet black hair, which makes her look exactly like her sister and fellow actress Hilary Thompson. Also, Emmaline Henry, who was best known for playing Mrs. Bellows in the ‘60s show ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ replaces Tippi Hedren who was unavailable for the sequel and James Whitmore’s role gets taken out completely.

The supporting cast is what gives the film its spark. Comedian Marty Allen, whose hair looks like the ultimate bird’s nest and usually gets more attention than his comic ability, is fun as a drunken party guest. However, Pearl Shear, who plays his wife, is the real scene stealer as an overweight middle-aged woman, who in Mrs. Roper-like fashion, eagerly wants to get involved with the kids and their new found sexual liberation and even takes part in a nudist session with them.

Bill Dana, famous for creating the Jose Jimenez character, is quite good as well playing Harry’s staunchly conservative father who can’t deal with the open sexuality of the younger generation only to surprisingly come around to it at the very end. He also gets the film’s best line when after denying to Harry that he ever had any affairs finally admits “Maybe I did a couple (women) in Vegas and a few in Cleveland, but what else is there to do in Cleveland.”

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Alternate Title: Love All Summer

Released: August 6, 1974

Runtime: 1Hour 43Minutes

Rated R

Director: Steven Hilliard Stern

Studio: Cinerama Releasing Corporation

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, College Life, Comedy/Drama, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Sequels, Sex

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