Category Archives: 70’s Movies

Bear Island (1979)

Posted on August 12, 2024 | 2 comments

bear

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Killer in the artic.

A group of scientists travel to a small island in the artic to study the effects of climate change. They’ve been instructed by Gerran (Richard Widmark), the leader of the expedition, who forbids anyone to go near the U-boat base, which are ships leftover from WWII, but Lansing (Donald Sutherland) whose father was a U-boat captain, decides to sneak off one day with his friend Judith (Barbara Parkins) to check it out. Along the way they get struck by an avalanche that kills Judith, and which Lansing is convinced was started by a mysterious man with a rifle. He goes to the location again the next day and is able to find the cave the ships are in via snorkeling. He comes upon evidence that someone else from the camp had already been there and soon more people from the group begin turning-up dead.

The film is based on the Allistair MacLean novel of the same name, which was published in 1971. Great care was put into the production to make it seem as authentic as possible. Producer Peter Snell wanted it filmed at a cold location because he desired a real looking the snowy landscape and stated that audiences “can tell styrofoam snow”, and since I’m originally from a northerly region I can attest to that myself and one of the things I really hate about movies that take place in cold places, but shot inside a film studio. However, they weren’t able to shoot it at the actual  Bear Island, which is off the Norwegian coast, because they wanted to take advantage of the tax write-off that they would get by filming it in Canada and this in fact became the most expensive movie ever made in Canada up to that time.

While the film didn’t do well with either the critics, or the box office, there are some really cool scenes. I loved the bird’s eye views, especially the opening one of a man skiing all by himself amidst the otherwise barren, white landscape. The sequence between two snow scooters known as ‘The Caterpillar’, which are driven by Sutherland and Vanessa Redgrave, and two hydrocopters, which are maned by the bad guys, makes for a very unique and exciting chase over the frozen tundra. The collapsing of a giant radio tower and Sutherland getting involved in a bare knuckle fist-fight are also quite memorable.

The acting is good especially by Widmark who speaks in a German accent. I also liked Christopher Lee’s performance though for him he gets more captivating after his character gets injured and he lays dying. Vanessa Redgrave though is wasted. She speaks with a Nordic accent, which makes it somewhat interesting, but her character doesn’t have much to do and is just lead around by Sutherland and the forced romance between them is both annoying and ridiculous. You’d think someone who had just won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress just a year before would’ve had a better quality of parts to choose from though her outspoken politics may have had something to do with a more limited selection of offers making her feel that she had to take this one simply to stay busy.

The film’s fatal flaw though is that it doesn’t stay faithful to the book and makes many plot changes including having the group be scientists instead of a film crew like it had been done in the novel. This was director Don Sharp’s idea as he felt you couldn’t ‘make films about film units’, which I whole heartedly disagree. People working on movies have a far more eclectic personalities, ‘artsy types’ than scientists who are more matter-of-fact about things and tend to respond in a reserved manner. The characters are quite dull and there’s very little to distinguish them from the others. The viewer has no emotional investment in any of them and thus who gets killed, or even the identity of the killer becomes pointless and outside of the snazzy stunts it has no impact.

Spoiler Alert!

Having the killer turn-out to be Lawrence Dane was another disappointment as he had played villains many times before and his lurking eyes makes him almost a shoe-in for a bad guy and the first person you’d expect.  Some creativity to the killer’s identity was desperately needed possibly even have it turn out to being Redgrave, or even Sutherland might’ve been a big enough surprise to make the rest of it seem worth it, but ultimately this is yet another example where too much attention was put into the effects and not enough in the character development.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: November 1, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 58 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Don Sharp

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD (Region 0), DVD-R

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Novels, Movies from Canada, Obscure Movies

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A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972)

Posted on August 9, 2024 | Leave a comment

deathjoe

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 9 out of 10

4-Word Review: Caring for disabled child.

Bri (Alan Bates) and Sheila (Janet Suzman) are a British couple caring for their daughter Josephine (Elizabeth Robillard), who they’ve nicknamed ‘Jo’ or ‘Joe Egg’. Sheila had a narrow pelvic, which caused Jo’s birth to be a difficult one. The couple had wanted the delivery to occur at home, but due to the complications they were forced to go to the hospital. Initially Jo seemed to be a healthy baby, but she began to suffer from ongoing seizures that eventually put her into a coma. She never came out of it and by age 10 sits in a wheelchair unable to speak, care for herself, or show any type of emotional response to anything. Bri and Sheila pretend to have ‘conversations’ with her in an attempt to lessen the stress of caring for her. Bri feels she should be placed in an institution, but Sheila won’t hear of it, which causes a rift to form in their marriage. Eventually Bri becomes so frustrated with the situation he begins to consider killing Jo and even starts to joke about his intentions to not only his wife, but also their friends (Peter Bowles, Sheila Gish).

The film is based on the stage play of the same name written by Peter Nichols who used his own experiences of caring for a child with cerebral palsy as the basis for the story. It premiered at the Citizen’s Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland in 1967 before eventually moving to Broadway a year later where it starred Albert Finney and Zena Walker and won rave reviews. The movie was filmed in 1970 and completed on time, but the studio decided to then shelve it fearing due to the downbeat storyline that they’d have no way to market it and it would be unable to find an audience. It was only after Suzman’s acclaimed performance in Nicholas and Alexandra that they eventually released it to theaters hoping to capitalize off the attention she got from that one in order to get people to see this one.

Many sources refer to this as being a ‘black comedy’, but I found absolutely nothing funny and in fact it’s instead brutally bleak. I guess the humor as it were was in the way the parents have ‘conversations’ with the kid, but this doesn’t really come-off as being even the slightest bit amusing particularly when you have the child just sitting there with her eyes rolled-up in her head and resembling someone who has died.

This doesn’t mean I didn’t like the film as in-fact I found it quite powerful, but clearly much more from the dramatic end. I admired the way it pulls-no-punches and forces the viewer to confront some very uncomfortable questions like what is the point of caring for a child that will never be able to recognize them, or show any response, or emotion to anything? Granted there’s many kids with disabilities out there and some can grow to lead productive lives, but when one is in a literally vegetable state such as this it does make it infinitely more severe and emotionally challenging. Director Peter Medak approaches the material, which is certainly no audience pleaser, in an earnest way with many varied cutaways and dream-like segments including one memorable moment where Bri and Sheila are on a gray, stormy beach and he imagines throwing the baby carriage that the child is in into the sea, which helps give the production a moody, surreal-like vibe and keeps it on the visual scale quite inventive.

The acting is superb especially Suzman whose character must deal with the inner turmoil of dealing with the stark reality a child who won’t ever grow into anything, but also a husband, whom she loves and is emotionally dependent on, who wants out. It’s interesting too seeing Sheila Gish in a supporting role as a friend who places a high degree on physical appearance and can’t stand anything that is ugly, or deformed and yet she in real-life many years later lost an eye to skin cancer and was forced to walk around with an eye patch.

I was most impressed though with Robillard whose career never really took-off, but proves up to the challenging task here and was picked out of over 100 other children who auditioned for the role. Remaining motionless and unresponsive and whose only noise is periodic moans isn’t as easy as you’d think especially when everyone else is moving and speaking around you. The best moments of the whole movie is when Sheila envisions what Jo would be like if she were a normal kid and we see shots of her jump roping and playing with the other children, which effectively accentuates their sad situation even more.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending, where Bri essentially runs away from home and leaves Sheila alone with the kid, I felt was realistic and most likely what would happen to most any couple stuck in the same environment. The shots of seeing Sheila lying down in bed fully aware that Bri is gone and looking almost at peace with that to me spoke volumes. My only complaint is that I felt the couple’s tensions and cracking of their relationship should’ve been apparent right from the start. They seemed to get along too well at the beginning, but with the child already age 10 by that point and with no signs of ever getting better I felt there should’ve already been plenty of arguments and disagreements and sleeping in separate bedrooms instead of showing them still having a robust sex life and only by the second act do things finally start falling-apart between them.

My Rating: 9 out of 10

Released: June 4, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Peter Medak

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 70's Movies, British Movies, Drama, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies with Nudity

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Bone (1972)

Posted on August 4, 2024 | Leave a comment

bone

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Black man terrorizes couple.

Bill (Andrew Duggan) is a slimy used car salesmen residing in Beverly Hills with his bickering wife Bernadette (Joyce Van Patten). He spots a rat in his pool and initially thinks a black man, who calls himself Bone (Yaphet Kotto), is there to remove it. However, Bone has other ideas as he accosts the couple and forces them back inside their luxurious home and begins ransacking it in an effort to find some money. When he is unable to he instructs Bill to go to the bank and take out all the money he has there and come back with it, or he’ll rape his wife. Bill immediately does as he’s instructed, but along the way starts to think he’d be better off without her and decides to not to take the money out and instead goes on ‘a date’ with a young woman (Jeannie Berlin) that he meets while standing in line at the bank. When the other two realize they’ve been had they then conspire to track Bill down and kill him in an effort to collect on his life insurance money.

This was the directorial debut of Larry Cohen who up until this time was mainly known for writing teleplays for many popular TV-series from the 60’s. While he is now famous for doing campy, low budget horror flicks this feature was far different from those and leans more in the arena of black comedy without much suspense. The story though is laced with a lot of social commentary, which is what stands it out and it’s just a shame that this has gotten lost in shuffle with all of his other efforts, some of which were quite cheesy, while this one has some impactful moments and signs of a serious filmmaker with strong potential.

The film though does have a few drawbacks, which I’ll get out of the way first. An ethically dubious car salesman is probably the oldest cliche out there as well as a bickering rich, white couple making the premise seem a bit predictable. The husband and wife are shown to be at odds immediately and thus there’s no surprise then when hubby decides not to try and save her.

While Kotto is certainly a big guy he still should’ve come with a weapon (a gun, or at the very least a knife) and the fact that he’s able to take control, so quickly without one makes it seem a bit too easy.  He just pops-in as if he were a genie, a few shots showing him casing the neighborhood would’ve helped alleviate this, and he should’ve been wearing a mask to disguise his identity, unless he was planning to kill them, but without a weapon that wasn’t likely to happen. He’s also able to find incriminating financial information about the hubby a bit too conveniently as this is a big house and yet within a matter of two minutes he comes upon it, which seemed too rushed.

The excellent acting though more than makes up for these other issues. Duggan certainly looks the part of an aging, compromised suburban businessman whose eaten up with guilt and depression. While only 49 at the time he appears more like 69 and I could’ve done without the scene where he runs down the street topless making his sagging skin and chest muscles quite evident. Van Patten is equally terrific and surprisingly goes fully nude in a well-shot and edited assault moment. Jeannie Berlin has some fine moments too as a gal Duggan picks-up who initially seems quite ditzy, but eventually reveals a very sad and painful experience from her past, which manages to be quite profound. Kotto too is good particularly his sinister smile even though Paul Winfield was the original choice and I think would’ve been better, but Cohen found his acting to be ‘too genteel’, so he went with Kotto instead.

What I really liked were the segues and intermittent cutaways that help reveal the darker side to the Duggan character like his imaginary car commercials were he starts to see bloody crash victims inside the vehicles he’s trying to sell. The imagery showing a German Shepheard dog that he used for those commercials and what he ultimately does with him is also quite alerting. The shots dealing with their adult son in jail and the climactic sequence in some sand dunes are quite strong to the extent it gives the movie a powerful punch at the end and makes it almost criminal that this isn’t better known.

Alternate Titles: Housewife, Dial Rat for Terror

Released: July 22, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Larry Cohen

Studio: Jack H. Harris Enterprises

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, Tubi

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Cult

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Rich Kids (1979)

Posted on July 24, 2024 | Leave a comment

richkids

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Dealing with divorcing parents.

Franny (Trini Alvarado) is a 12-year-old who’s learning that her two parents (Jon Lithgow, Kathryn Walker) are getting a divorce. She is unhappy about this and thus turns to her friend Jamie (Jeremy Levy) whose parents also went through a divorce a couple of years earlier. He gives her guidance and tips on how to deal with it. She turns to him as a confidant and begins spending time with him at his place even overnights. Her parents are under the impression that Jamie’s father (Terry Kiser) is keeping a watchful eye on them, but in reality he’s over at his new girlfriend’s pad and not paying the least bit of attention to what the kids are doing who then get into all sorts of mischief including alcohol. Once Franny’s parents do catch-on and head over there along with Jamie’s mother and her new husband (Roberta Maxwell, Paul Dooley) they fear it may be too late especially after Franny’s mother finds the book ‘The Joy of Sex’ that her daughter had hidden away and been reading.

On the surface this film, which was produced by Robert Altman, should’ve been a winner and on the technical end it does everything right.  The color schemes and docu-drama approach gives it a vivid day-in-the-life vibe and captures growing up on the Upper West Side neighborhood quite well to the extent that you feel like you’ve visited the area yourself once the film is over. The acting, particularly Alvarado in her film debut, is terrific though kudos must also go to Lithgow and Walker whose portrayal of fraught parents trying to shield their child from life’s ugly realities while also still attempting to be upfront and honest with her is well done. Director Robert M. Young shows a good eye for detail and keeps things visually interesting particularly when they go to Jamie’s dad’s place and interact with the exotic pets he has and make goofy faces with his bedroom full of wall mirrors on every side, which I felt was the movie’s highlight.

Story-wise there are a few profound moments and everything that occurs rings true, but in the process it’s not particularly riveting either. I sat through the whole thing expecting at some point to be grabbed in and it just never occurred. Part of the issue is that it takes too much of a minimalistic approach. So much effort is put in to keeping it realistic that nothing every stands-out. It’s like one of those 70’s after school specials that gets stretched out to 2-hours length, but could’ve easily said what it wanted to in only half that time. It’s all pleasantly done, but ultimately rather meh.

I didn’t like the sex difference of the two kids as it made me cringe all the way through fearing that even at age 12 things might start to get a little kinky like they’d play a game of ‘doctor’, or get drunk, which they kind of do, and dare each other to take their clothes off. It seemed at that age children still like playing with members of their own sex and are quite clicky about it and don’t really begin to reach out to the other side until maybe 14 or 15, so it would’ve been more believable if Jaimie had been a girl instead of a boy.

The title is a bit confusing as these really aren’t wealthy families sure they aren’t poor, but there’s nothing about their lifestyles or home life that isn’t of the middle-class variety making it misleading to have the word ‘rich’ in there. The promotional poster is awful too as the drawings don’t look anything like the real stars and depicts the two leads like they’re dorky looking, which they really aren’t. It also gives one the impression this might be an animated feature, which it certainly isn’t. Actual picks of the two stars would’ve been better especially since Alvarado has such expressive blue eyes, photogenic face, and wonderfully natural smile that one shouldn’t pass-up the opportunity to have her sweat face plastered on the promotional materials whenever possible.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: August 17, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 41 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Robert M. Young

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Comedy/Drama, Movies that take place in the Big Apple

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Thieves Like Us (1974)

Posted on July 14, 2024 | Leave a comment

thieves

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Convicts escape from jail.

Bowie (Keith Carradine) is a young man stuck in jail due to a murder conviction from when he was a teenager. He teams up with Chicamaw (John Schuck) a middle-aged man to escape from prison and meet-up with T-Dub (Bert Remsen) an older man who has them hide-out at a local auto garage where Bowie meets the owner’s daughter Keechie (Shelley Duvall) and the two start-up a relationship. The three men return to their criminal ways by robbing banks, which goes well for awhile until the quick-triggered Chicamaw shoots and kills a bank clerk, which gets him recaptured and returned to prison. Bowie, who has now gotten Keechie pregnant, feels a loyalty to help get Chicamaw out, but Keechie wants him to settle down and get a conventional job while learning to become a family man. Bowie though resists the urge and after leaving Keechie at a motel cabin owned by Mattie (Louise Fletcher) sets out to help Chicamaw break-out for a second time, but this ultimately leads to tragedy.

The film was based on the novel of the same name written by Edward Anderson and published in 1937. The book had been adapted before in 1949 as They Live By Night, which Robert Altman was not aware of before taking on the project. Joan Tewksbury, his longtime screenwriter, adapted the book in a matter of 4-days, but getting it financied proved challenging and it was only after Altman and two of his other producers offered to mortgage their homes to help bring in needed capital that it eventually got green-lit. Unfortunately once it was completed the studio didn’t know how to promote it and ultimately released it without any advertising budget or fanfare. After a brief 3-week stay in the theaters it fell into obscurity before being resurrected by critical acclaim, which made it do well on cable television and has since gained a small cult following.

The atmosphere is probably the best thing as Altman achieves an authentic 1930’s setting. Other films that try to recreate the era always come-off a bit affected and cliched, but because Altman actually grew up during the period he’s able to give it the needed grittiness and I felt right from the start I was being transported to a different time versus feeling like I’m looking back at a bygone era through a modern day lens. The film has two very memorable moments. One of them is when Bowie goes to the prison to help Chicamaw breakout and meets up with the prison warden who’s residing in this country-style house and feasting on a large dinner. The contrast of this home cooked meal prepared by his wife like they were peacefully living out on a rural farm versus stationed right in the middle of a prison with dangerous criminals is something I really loved. The bank robbery game that the three men play with Mattie’s children where they turn their living room into a make believe bank with the children playing bank clerks and then the men proceed to ‘rob it’ is quite cute as well.

The acting is excellent by Carradine who starts to come into his own during his moments with Duvall, who is also good and does her very first fully nude scene. Lousie Fletcher, who’s first movie this was after she took a 10-year hiatus to help raise her kids, is supreme and helps give the proceedings a very definite, no-nonsense attitude and it’s just a shame she wasn’t in it more though the segments she does have she makes the most of. Tom Skeritt turns out to be a delightful surprise here. Normally I’ve found his work to be rather forgettable and under the radar, but here he stands-out as an alcoholic father who’s a pathetic character with darkly amusing lines.

The film though does suffer from Schmuck’s and Remsen’s characters seeming too much alike and I found the rapport between them to be quite unenlightening. Altman also takes a page out of Hitchcock’s directing book where like with what Hitch did in Frenzy he has the camera pull back away from the action going on inside the building and focusing instead on what’s going on outside. He especially does this during the robberies, which is initially kind of interesting, but he does it too much and then when he finally does show a robbery in progress he does solely from a bird’s-eye view with the camera nailed to the ceiling, which causes the viewer to feel too emotionally detached from what’s happening. He also completely skips over the part where T-Dub gets shot and killed and Chicamaw recaptured, the viewer only learns of this by hearing it reported on the radio, but these are pivotal moments to the story and the film is slow enough the way it is, so this is the type of action that should’ve been played-out.

Spoiler Alert!

The climactic sequence where the cabin that Bowie is in gets surrounded by Rangers and shot-up doesn’t work at all. This is mainly because it’s too reminiscent of the same type of shoot-up done in Bonnie and Clyde that was more famous and riveting. Here it comes-off like a second-rate imitation of that one and does nothing but make you want to go back and see that one while completely forgetting about this one in the process.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: February 11, 1974

Runtime: 2 Hours 3 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert Altman

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 70's Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity, Remakes, Robbing Banks

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F.I.S.T. (1978)

Posted on July 5, 2024 | Leave a comment

fist

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Laborer becomes union leader.

Set in the 1930’s in Cleveland the story centers on dock worker Johnny Kovac (Sylvester Stallone) who becomes so upset at the poor treatment of the employees that he leads a revolt that soon gets squashed by a management when Kovac goes to the office of Mr. Andrews (James Karen) who promises to bring his demands to ownership only for the next day to have Kovac and his friend Belkin (David Huffman) fired from their jobs. Impressed though by their tenacity truck driver Mike (Richard Herd) recruits them into his union telling them they would have a job of going out and recruiter others. Kovac initially refuses the offer until he finds out that a free car would come along with it. Kovac eventually rises up the union ladder until he becomes their national leader, but with the power and prestige also comes corruption and enemies.

This was Stallone’s first film after doing Rocky, which was a bit of a gamble by director Norman Jewison. He had wanted to cast Jack Nicholson in the role, Nicholson would later star in a similar film Hoffa, which came out 14 years later, but was so impressed at Stallone’s performance in the boxing film that he offered the role to him before he was even a household name. Jewison felt Sly was a star in the making just from what he saw in the preview of the film not knowing whether that movie was ultimately going to be a runaway success, or not. Had it not it might’ve put him in an awkward position as the studio wasn’t likely to finance a project that didn’t have guaranteed star power. As it was it became a blockbuster making the tables-turned a bit because Stallone could’ve easily backed out of the deal since it had only been a verbal agreement and he had since then been offered higher paying roles, but he kept to his word and took on this project, which surprised Jewison as many big names in Hollywood don’t always stick to their promises, but then later when the film didn’t do as well as expected Jewison’s blamed Stallone’s casting as part of the problem.

From my perspective I thought Stallone was terrific. His delivery does come-off as a bit monotone, but I felt that’s what added to the authenticity as this was a character with a limited education, so he probably wouldn’t sound real smart to begin with. Seeing Sly fight the system correlated with his real-life struggles as an actor trying to make it big in a competitive business, which helped to make it seem all the more genuine like this was a guy who had really lived the same type of life as the man he was playing.

In support I was highly impressed with David Huffman. This was an actor, whose career and life were sadly cut short in 1985 when he got stabbed to death, who I had always found quite bland. He had an attractive looking face, which I figured is what got him his foot-in-the-door, but his acting always came off as blah, but here he puts a lot of emotion into his role and it’s interesting to see the way his character grows and morphs throughout. James Karen and Tony Lo Bianco both have small parts, but there sinister facial expressions and ability to mug to the camera without it seeming obvious is what helps them stand-out. I was surprised though with Rod Steiger who gets second billing, but doesn’t appear until 1 Hour and 33 minutes in. His part, as a powerful senator, does ultimately become integral to the proceedings, but the fact that he underplays instead of his usual over-acting is what got me.

I thought the way Jewison captured the setting was great. It was actually shot in Dubuque, Iowa because by that time Cleveland no longer looked the way it once did, but the flavor and vibes from that period come-out strong and you feel right from the start that you’re being swept away to a bygone time. Stallone’s ascension into the ranks of union head prove riveting, but his corruption and downfall get glossed over and seemed rushed. I did though appreciated the way it examines worker’s unions from all angles both the good and bad making it seem less like a propaganda movie than Norma Rae, which came-out at around the same time, but only focused on the positive aspects of unions.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending, in which Kovac gets shot and killed while in his home came-off like a cop-out. It was intended to reflect at the time the recent disappearance of union head Jimmy Hoffa, but seeing the main character get assassinated without telling who was behind it proves unsatisfying. Sure we could probably surmise who the culprits were, but having to sit through a long movie only to be left with more questions than answers makes the viewer feel like watching it had been a big waste of time.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: April 13, 1978

Runtime: 2 Hours 25 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Norman Jewison

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Conspiracy Theories, Movies Based on Short Stories

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Paradise Alley (1978)

Posted on June 28, 2024 | Leave a comment

paradise

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Promoting brother as wrestler.

Cosmo (Sylvester Stallone) is a local street hustler in Hell’s Kitchen who will attempt just about anything to make a buck even pretending to be a homeless person begging for money. Eventually he gets the idea of turning his younger brother Victor (Lee Canalito) into a wrestler and then promoting his bouts inside the ring with others. Victor, who’s strong and well built, initially resists, but he eventually grows tired of his job hauling ice blocks and decides to give in. Cosmo’s other brother Lenny (Armand Assante), a war veteran who walks with a limp, is not keen to the idea either, but through prodding comes onboard as Victor’s manager. Things start out well, but the despite winning the contests Victor’s body takes quite a toll and Cosmo ultimately believes it’s time to give up on it, but Lenny, who begins to enjoy the money he’s making as manager, refuses to let up and pushes Victor into more and more dangerous matchups, which Cosmo’s worries may be putting Victor at too much risk.

The script was written by Stallone that was initially started as a novel. He wrote this before Rocky, but couldn’t get anyone interested in financing it though he was at least able to get it optioned. He then had an acting audition with two producers, Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, while he didn’t get the part he did mention, as he was walking out, about this script. The two men were interested in looking it over, but the other producer who Stallone had optioned it to refused to give it up, so Sly instead wrote Rocky, which he then handed over to Chartoff and Winkler, which was green-lit. Then when that became a runaway success the producers agreed to finance this one even allowing Stallone to not only star, but also direct.

Unfortunately the result here is a mish-mash with things being off-kilter right from the start. The absurd race that Stallone has with another man, done over the opening credits, where the two jump from one tall city building to another seemed hard to believe. At some point one or both are going to miss hitting the other side and fall most likely to their death, which does happen eventually, but the guy is lucky enough to conveniently hang onto an outdoor clothes line though with no explanation for how he got down from that and Stallone, supposedly his friend, just laughs at him dangling there and struts away. Stallone also sings the opening song, which is dreadful.

Things really don’t improve much from there. There are a few nice camera angles and provocative close-ups here and there, but the scenes meander to the point there doesn’t seem to be any momentum, or story. The tone shifts precariously from gritty realism to romanticized idealism. The characters aren’t consistent either. Stallone is the one that initially involved in pushing his reluctant brother into the ring while Assante is very cautious and then for some inexplicable reason this gets reversed with Stallone warning of the danger while Assante becomes overly driven. However, for it to make sense there needs to be an explanation for this big change between the two and none is given making their mutual character archs poorly fleshed-out.

Stallone is certainly engaging though his likability gets tested especially with the segment where he ties up a live monkey, even puts a gag in its mouth, and then dangles it from the ceiling. Anne Archer is fun and virtually almost unrecognizable sporting a red hairdo while playing a sassy Italian love interest. Kevin Conway is highly amusing as the heavy who talks tough when surrounded by his henchmen, but proves wimpy when all alone and his climatic pants pulldown is a hoot. Noted real-life wrestler Terry Funk is quite memorable as the muscled bully and the arm wrestling match-up between he and Victor where the mounting sweat glistens off his body as he struggles to keep his arm from hitting the table is one of the movie’s highlights.

The climactic wrestling match done inside a building with a very leaky roof where the action is done in slow-motion with water splashing all over does have its moments though it eventually becomes redundant. While there’s flashes of occasional brilliance it never fully comes together. A tighter script and more consistent tone were sorely needed and Victor, who’s the only likable guy of the bunch, required more of a multi-dimensional context. The fact that he could beat-up anyone and do it in such a humble way while never having to pay the ultimate price either physically or mentally just isn’t believable.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: September 22, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 47 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Studio: Universal

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

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

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Wild Horse Hank (1979)

Posted on June 22, 2024 | Leave a comment

wildhorse

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Teen girl saves horses.

Based on the novel ‘The Wild Horse Killers’ by Mel Ellis the story centers around a teen girl named Hank (Linda Blair) who while tracking down her escaped stallion comes upon a group of men abusing some horses. She later learns that these men plan on destroying them in order to resell their meat for pet food. Hank becomes determined to herd them along treacherous terrain to the safety of a federal park where the horses will be free to roam without danger of being hunted. The problem is that it will be 150-mile trek and her father (Richard Crenna) doesn’t feel she’ll be up to the job, but Hank isn’t use to taking no for an answer and decides, with rifle in hand, to take on the challenge.

What stood out for me was the gorgeous western Canadian setting filmed on-location at both Dinosaur Provincial and Waterton Lakes National Park in the province of Alberta. The vast open view gives one a true sense of the outdoors and the rugged elements. The portrayal of the towns folk particularly the girlfriend of one of the bad guys, played by Barbara Gordon, who refers to her toddler son as her ‘popcorn fart’ and allows him to sip beer while complaining to everyone that he’s ‘a burden’ displays in raw fashion the economic hardship of country living and how fringe some in that region are and what levels they’d be willing to resort to in order to try and get out of it. It also gives a motivation for why the men are as savage as they are and it isn’t so much that they’re just ‘evil’, but more because other opportunities in such isolated areas are sadly few and far between.

The men are portrayed differently than in most other films where bad guys are given menacing looks and threatening presence. Here though they’re more like non-descript jobos you might find at the neighborhood bar, who on their own don’t pose much of a threat and like with the culprits in the classic film Straw Dogs don’t really become scary until they band together showing how otherwise benign people can become dangerous through peer pressure and financial insecurity, which in a way ends up making them even scarier.

Blair can certainly be a great actress if given the right material and knowing how much she loves animals I’m sure she took on this project because the theme was close to her heart, but the character doesn’t offer her much acting range. Normally the protagonist is supposed to grow and change in some way during the course of a movie, but here she’s one-dimensional. She’s super head-strong right from the start and remains that way to the end making her personal journey static. Had she been insecure at the beginning and then learned to overcome those feelings would’ve at least given the character a genuine arch.

I was surprised too that Crenna, who’s only adequate in his role and borders on being miscast, doesn’t go along with his daughter on her trek. He argues with her about how dangerous it is and yet ultimately waves her on her way and stays home. Had he tagged with her there could’ve been more opportunity for conversation and learned more about these people instead of long segments of silence, which makes the viewer more emotionally detached from what the character is going through instead of engaged.

I know I’ve complained about other adventure movies that throw in a hooky romance as a subplot, which I usually find annoying and yet this is a rare case where I wish it had been done. There’s a young good-looking guy named Charlie, played by Michael Wincott, who’s related to the poachers, but teeters the fence on whose side he’s on. He has some interactions with Blair during her trek and seemed like he was a potential love interest, but then he disappears only to come back later. He should’ve stayed all the way through as they made an interesting and cute couple with just enough animosity to keep it spicy.

Spoiler Alert!

There is a scene where Blair’s horse gets injured and she’s forced to shoot it, which I found powerful and the climactic sequence in which her father, who conveniently reappears again, gets all the truckers to create a roadblock, which stops the traffic, so the horses can cross the road. Overall though the film lacks subtext. The formula is too simple and straight forward. It may interest preteens especially those who love horses, but the main characters aren’t multi-dimensional.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: May 15, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Eric Till

Studio: Canadian Film Development Corporation

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Novels, Movies from Canada, Movies with a rural setting, Obscure Movies, Outdoors

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White Line Fever (1975)

Posted on June 16, 2024 | Leave a comment

white

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Truck driver fights corruption.

Carrol Jo (Jan-Michael Vincent) has returned from a overseas trip in the Air Force and is now set to marry his sweetheart Jerri (Kay Lenz), but to do so he must get a job. Since he grew up in the trucking business where his father was a long haul driver he decides to buy himself a rig by getting a loan at the bank. Once purchased he drives to the Red River company in town to find cargo to haul, so that he can quickly start making money and get out of debt with the bank as soon as possible. However, he realizes that the company has become overrun with corruption and if he wants to work there he must agree to haul contraband, which he refuses. He tries going into business for himself, but the folks at Red River, who secretly have deep connections to some very influential and rich people, are determined not to let his start-up get-off the ground and stymie his efforts at every turn, which causes Carrol Jo to take matters into his own hands and proceeds to instigate an elaborate revenge.

This was Jonathan Kaplan’s 5th film effort and he got hired onto the project when one of the producers mistakenly thought the film he did before this one, Truck Tanner, had been about truck driving, which it wasn’t, but Kaplan decided to just take the offer without bothering to correct the confusion. His directorial instincts helps a lot particularly at the beginning where he uses some interesting montages including showing actual pics of Vincent and Lenz as children and then progressive photos as they age into adulthood. There’s quick edits, which gives it a breezy pace and never allows it to get boring.

However, the story itself is quiet pedestrian as there’s no interesting twists. Small town bigots running a questionable trucking operation is about as cliched as it gets and it’s hard to get emotionally invested in the proceedings when you know exactly how it’s going to work out. No new angles get added in and everything from the one-dimensional characters to the paper thin plot is so painfully predictable it becomes genuinely irritating.

The story has more of a herky-jerky structure than a linear one. I thought the whole first two acts would be Vincent dealing with the repeated harassment until he’s had enough and implements a vigilante style response, but instead it becomes more violent vignettes with the bad guys doing something underhanded and then Vincent immediately responding making it seem episodic and like the plot is moving in a circular fashion instead of forward. Shooting it in Tucson, Arizona is alright though the barren, sandy wintertime desert landscape isn’t exactly eye-catching. Having police cars fitted with Confederate flags and cops behaving like southern hicks is out-of-place as Arizona is a western state far removed from the deep south as most of the people living there have come from the north to escape the cold winters and certainly not from places like Alabama like the movie seemingly wants you to believe.

The supporting cast is certainly engaging especially Slim Pickens who manages to always be fun no matter what B-movie he is in, but Vincent is weak. This was reportedly when he first started using cocaine, which culminated in both the downfall of his career and eventually his life. He mentioned that he never felt comfortable with the fame and I suspect it’s because he knew deep down he maybe didn’t really belong. He’s a good-looking guy who in supporting parts had some potential, but as someone trying to carry a film he’s incredibly blah and doesn’t add anything other than the basic reaction shots. Lenz shows a far more interesting energy and the script should’ve been rewritten to make her the truck driver trying to fight a male dominated industry, which would’ve given the movie the unique spin that it needed.

The villain side gets botched as well. Pickens would’ve been okay, but he amounts to being just a throwaway henchman as does Martin Kove, who years later would get remembered as being the mean coach in The Karate Kid. L.Q. Jones though had strong potential and had he been the so-called brains behind the thing it could’ve been forgiven and there’s even a long, drawn-out foot chase between he and Vincent near the end that isn’t bad, but the ultimate culprits turn-out to being this group of non-descript old guys headed by Don Porter best known for playing Sally Field’s widowed father in the TV-Show ‘Gidget’. Now, R.G. Armstrong, who plays Porter’s shyster lawyer, isn’t bad, but Porter doesn’t have enough sleazy flair to give the part any panache making him come-off more like he’s just another stock character. In films like these there needs to be one really nasty mastermind that needs to be taken down and having it get assimilated to an entire group of otherwise non-descript old guys dilutes it too much.

Spoiler Alert!

Even the action seems a bit lacking. Granted there are a few edge-of-your-seat moments like when Vincent gets on top of a moving rig in order to fire a rifle at the driver of another vehicle that’s chasing them and Pickens death scene, in which he gets runover by a truck is pretty shocking too, but other than that the stunts are run-of-the-mill. The ending was a particular letdown as it has Vincent driving his truck through the gate of Porter’s residence and then into the marquee that sits out front, but I wanted him to go all the way and crash through the walls of the plush mansion. I’m sure that would’ve been deemed too expensive to pull-off, but it would’ve given it a more dramatic conclusion and if done in slow motion could’ve been really cool to see and might’ve made sitting through the rest of it worth it.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: July 16, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Jonathan Kaplan

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD-R, Amazon Video, Tubi

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Fast Cars/Car Chase

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Remember My Name (1978)

Posted on June 7, 2024 | Leave a comment

remember

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: His ex-wife returns.

Neil (Anthony Perkins), who works as a local carpenter, is married to Barbara (Berry Berenson). While the two have their share of ups-and-downs they mostly find a way to work it out and get along. Then comes Emily (Geraldine Chaplin) whose been recently released from jail. She begins harassing the couple for no apparent reason. After she breaks the window of their home Barbara insists on pressing charges. Neil though resists while divulging that he had previously been in a relationship with her and because of certain things that occurred has a misplaced sense of guilt to cover-up for her actions. Barbara does not understand this and the two break-up while Neil decides to rekindle things, but while Emily initially seems receptive she may actually harbor ulterior motives.

Alan Rudolph does a marvelous job of directing this emphasizing the working-class existence with a pale color scheme and great use of on-location shooting, which gives the viewer a vivid and intimate portrait of the character’s lives and their environment. The use of showing that Emily had previously been in prison without actually saying it by simply using certain sounds and visuals as she sleeps is a genuinely inspired moment as is the use of the brief dialogue that reveals things slowly and deliberately using subtle hints that achieves a certain fragmented narrative.

Chaplin is brilliant and convincing in the lead and her unique colored eyes helps build a riveting psycho-like effect though with her extremely thin frame it’s hard to imagine she’d be able to take-on and even beat-up the Alfre Woodard character as she does though one could possibly justify it by saying she learned fighting skills while in jail. Perkins is also quite good, but the use of his real-life wife Berenson, who didn’t have a lot of acting training, hurts as her time on screen is rather blah including the otherwise tense confrontation that she has with Emily when Emily invades her home, which might’ve been a more interesting scene with a better qualified actress in the part.

While the first-half is quite slow I was thoroughly gripped and found the whole thing fascinating, but this tapered-off by the third act when Perkins and Chaplin rekindle things while at a restaurant. The scene gets done in amusing way as the couple keeps ordering alcoholic drinks one after the other, much to the consternation of the waiter, played by Terry Wills, but having Perkins go back immediately to Chaplin with almost no apprehension kills the intrigue. This is a woman that supposedly murdered someone before, so how does he know she can be trusted? Having him more defensive and cautious and even conflicted as he was technically still married would’ve helped continue the tension instead of deflating it.

Spoiler Alert!

The scene in which the Moses Gunn character, who was having a bit of a fling with Emily, goes back to her apartment apparently to murder Perkins who had been temporarily staying there, could’ve been done better. It’s only intimated that Gunn kills him as we see a nervous look on Perkins face as he hears somebody at the door and then it cuts away to the outside of the building with loud crashing music to display that there was violence, but I really felt it should’ve gotten played-out visually. Perhaps it could’ve been done Rear Window-style with it being captured through the windows, which would’ve stayed consistent with the film’s detached tone, but to leave the story’s most crucial moment up to speculation was a letdown.

The same can be said to Alfre Woodard’s character who promises revenge on Chaplin, but it never comes. A good physical confrontation between the two could’ve added some much needed action, which otherwise is sorely missing and makes the film seem incomplete. Having Chaplin terrorize the couple by messing up their flower garden is a bit too tame as any squirrel or raccoon could’ve done the same thing while putting a bloody animal on their doorstep, or nailing a graphic picture of the person she had killed before would’ve been far more frightening.

Overall I liked the style, but the attempt to keep things buttoned-down all the way through doesn’t work. At some point, just like with the ticking time bomb mentality of its main character, it needed to explode with violence that would’ve awakened the viewer with a shocking effect. The fact that this is only slyly hinted at is a letdown and doesn’t give the movie the strong pay-off that it should.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: October 1, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Alan Rudolph

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD-R, Tubi

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Moody/Stylish, Obscure Movies, Thrillers/Suspense

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