Category Archives: Movies Based on Novels

Double Negative (1980)

Posted on June 11, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Who killed his wife?

Michael (Michael Sarrazin) is a photojournalist tormented by fragmented memories of his wife’s murder. Paula (Susan Clark) is his girlfriend who’s trying to help him sort through these flashbacks, so he can find some answers. However, she too has things to hide as she’s busily paying off a man named Lawrence Miles (Anthony Perkins) who threatens to go to the police about what he knows about the killing. There’s also Lester (Howard Duff) a private investigator who sticks his nose too deeply into the case and finds himself at deadly odds with both Lawrence and Paula.

The film is based on the 1948 novel ‘The Three Roads’ written by Ross Macdonald under his real name Kenneth Millar. Macdonald later went on to have a stellar career writing novels about private investigator character Lew Archer and this story has plenty of potential but gets mishandled and ultimately becomes a misfire. A lot of the problem stems from the production employing three different writers who all had different perspectives on where they wanted the story to go and then relying on director George Bloomfield to cram it all together, which he doesn’t succeed at. The result is a fragmented mishmash that takes a long while to become intriguing and even then, remains interesting only sporadically. Lots of extended scenes particularly at the beginning that should’ve been trimmed and a poor pacing that barely manages to create any momentum.

It doesn’t help that the main characters are wholly unlikable and uninteresting. Clark especially comes off as arrogant right from the beginning when we see her drive by what appears to be Amish people in a horse and buggy fighting through the snow and cold while she enjoys things in her warm ritzy car, which makes her seem detached and uncaring. The scene where she’s trying to procure an important real estate deal and then gets hampered by Michael playing loud music in the other room, so she then excuses herself and promises to be right back. I was fully expecting her to yell at Michael for his misbehavior, but instead she strips off her clothes and the two make love, but it seemed like sex should be the last thing on her mind during such an serious business meeting and what would happen if the clients, who were just a door away and waiting for her return, would walk in on them? 

Sarrazin doesn’t cut it either. I know he’s been lambasted by critics in his other film appearances for being too transparent and forgettable and yet I’ve usually defended him as I feel he can sometimes be effective even given the right material. Here though he falls precariously flat. Some of it is the fault of the writing which doesn’t lend him to create a character with any nuance, or likability, but in either case he’s a complete bore and the viewer isn’t emotionally invested in his predicament. His flashback moments where he sees himself in some sort of prisoner of war camp doesn’t make a lot of sense, or have much to do with the main plot, and seems like something for a whole different movie. 

On the other hand, Perkins is fantastic and the only thing that livens it up to the extent that he should’ve been given much more screen time as the film sinks whenever he’s not on. It’s great too at seeing SCTV alums like John Candy, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty, Dave Thomas, and Catherine O’Hara in small parts where with the exception of Candy they’re not comical but instead make a rare turn at being dramatic. Duff is kind of fun and has one great moment, really the only good one in the movie, where he gets trapped in an elevator and must escape being shot by Perkins, who has his arm lodged in the otherwise closed doors, by desperately running back and forth in the closed space that he’s given. Michael Ironside has a memorable bit too as a bar patron who becomes incensed at Sarrazin when he refuses to allow him to buy him a drink. 

Spoiler Alert!

The denouement just leaves more questions and fails to tie up the loose ends as intended. For one thing it shows Sarrazin as being the one who strangled his wife, which I had started to suspect a long while earlier, so it’s not a ‘shocking surprise’ like I think the filmmakers thought it would. It also has Perkins leaving the scene, as he was having an affair with the woman, and even briefly speaking to Clark who witnesses him going, so why he’d insist Clark needs to pay him hush money didn’t make much sense. Sure, he could still go to the police and say that it was Sarrazin that did it, but Perkins fingerprints were at the scene of the crime, so I’d think either way he’d get implicated, and Clark could come forward saying she was a witness who saw him leaving. If anything, Clark should’ve been pushing him to go to the cops versus bribing him to stay away.  

Also, the way it gets shown, Clark comes into the bedroom after Sarrazin has already strangled his wife, so all she sees is him weeping over his wife’s dead body. For all she knew, from that perspective, is that Perkins really did kill the woman and Sarrazin was simply the first to come upon her dead body and thus for it to be crystal clear Clark should’ve entered while he was still in the middle of the act versus when he was already done.

Beyond that is that question of why would Clark want to stay with someone she knew had such violent tendencies? Wouldn’t she be afraid he could get upset at some point and do that to her? Sarrazin even asks her at the very end if she is afraid and her only response is: ‘aren’t you’? This though only muddles things further cementing it as a botched effort. 

Alternate Title: Deadly Companion

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: May 12, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Director: George Bloomfield

Studio: Quadrant Films

Available: Amazon Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Novels, Movies from Canada, Mystery, Obscure Movies

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Straw Dogs (1971)

Posted on May 28, 2025 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Man defends his home.

David (Dustin Hoffman), a nerdy mathematician, has been given a research grant and uses it to relocate to the rural countryside of England with his wife Amy (Susan George). They move into a farmhouse that was once owned by Amy’s father and they hire four men (Del Henney, Ken Hutchinson, Jim Norton, Donald Webster) to fix up the roof. The men though don’t work much and spend most of the time making fun of David and ogling Amy. After several bad encounters, including the grizzly death of their pet cat, David fires them and hopes that’ll be the last it, but things only get worse. When a teen girl named Janice (Sally Thomsett) disappears her violently drunken father Tom (Peter Vaughan) thinks it was caused by Henry (David Warner) a mentally handicapped man that Janice had shown an affinity for. Tom, along with the four other men, become a lynch mob determined to find Henry and bring him some ‘street justice’. David and Amy, while returning from a church service, hit Henry with their car as he’s running from the other men. David agrees to take the injured Henry into his home until a doctor can arrive, but the five men insist on getting inside to beat and kill Henry for his perceived crime. Since David had avoided having any confrontation with the men previously even when they had openly mocked him, they presume he’ll be a pushover this time as well, but David has finally decided to take a stand and will defend his home from the intruders in any way he can. 

While it was controversial at the time many now consider this the pinnacle of director Sam Peckinpah’s career and his directorial touches are supreme. The capturing of the brown empty vast landscape of nothingness, shot during the winter of 1971, brings out a surreal sense making it seem like the characters are living in a purgatory outer world where everything is dead and helps explain the deadness of the men’s souls that have been forced to endure their entire lives there. The climactic sequence where David’s home comes under siege is deftly handled. Normally in thrillers pounding music gets played during these segments to ramp up the tension, but here there’s only the sound of a distance foghorn, which makes it much more creepy, distinct, and helps accentuate the isolation. 

Some have been critical of the film’s violence especially at the time when there was activism going on that tried to stymie violent material on both TV and movies with the idea that violence was a ‘learned’ behavior and if people didn’t see it so much in entertainment, then they wouldn’t do it in real life. Peckinpah though saw it differently as he felt violence was an instinctual reaction that couldn’t just be ‘unlearned’ and that in certain situations it was necessary and not every conflict could be resolved peacefully, a message the film brings out quite well. 

While Susan George gives an excellent performance, as do the four villainous men, particularly Vaughan as their ringleader making them some of the creepiest bad guys in film history, I did find her character confusing. I didn’t understand why she’d marry a guy that she found by her own admission cowardly even bringing up that he was ‘running away’ from problems he was having at his university and his ‘hiding behind his studies’ in order to avoid it. She also shows no respect for his work and several times even vandalizes his chalk board that has his mathematical equations, so what attracted her to him in the first place? Would’ve made more sense had she initially idolized him for his academic status and then became painfully aware of his meekness as the film progressed, which would’ve made for a more interesting arch.

Spoiler Alert!

The film is based on the 1969 novel The Siege of Trencher’s Farm by Gordon Williams, but with many changes some of which worked while others didn’t. In the novel the couple had an 8-year-old girl, but in the film there is no child. To a degree it doesn’t make that much of a difference though when the bad guys attack the house it might’ve heightened the urgency more knowing that David was not only defending his ‘home’, but also the safety of his terrified daughter. The biggest change that the film does is that it creates a connection between Henry and Janice where Janice sneaks away with him during a church party where she invites him to be intimate with her, but in the process, he accidentally kills her, which seemed too similar to Of Mice and Men. It’s confusing too why this teen girl, who outside of her buck teeth seems reasonably attractive, would feel the need to throw herself at a mentally handicapped man, or get flirty with David, who is married. Why can’t she find guys her own age to fool around with? Knowing the hormones of most teen boys that shouldn’t be too hard, so without further explanation to her psyche, which doesn’t happen, her ‘inviting’ of Henry is quite unnatural and forced. 

In the book Henry is instead a child killer who’s being transported back to prison when the vehicle he’s in gets stuck in the snow, which allows him to escape. At the same time Janice, who’s mentally disabled, which isn’t made clear in the movie, runs away from a Christmas party where she ends up dying from the exposure to the cold, but otherwise it has nothing to do with the escape of Henry and is only presumed to have a connection by the five men, which makes more sense and the screenplay should’ve have kept it this way.

On the other hand, in the book none of the attacking men die and are only badly injured, but I think death gives it a more final resolution, so the movie scores there. I also liked how David is forced to resort to items he can find around the house, much like in the film Last House on the Left, which came out a year later, to fight off the bad guys versus the cliched machoism of having a big gun to blow them away and it also helps to show how intellectual wits can ultimately be used to overpower the otherwise physically stronger attackers. 

The rape scene in which the wife gets assaulted by not only one, but two men was another problematic moment as the book had no such segment. For one thing it makes it seem like she’s actually enjoying the attack, at least with the first one, and she recovers from it much too quickly and doesn’t even bother to tell David about it and able to go on relatively normally afterwards, which didn’t seem realistic and thus I think it should’ve been excised since it comes off as exploitive and doesn’t have that much to do with the main plot. 

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: December 22, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 57 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Sam Peckinpah

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD, Blu-ray (Criterion Collection)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Classic, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity, Thrillers/Suspense

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You’ll Like My Mother (1972)

Posted on April 13, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Pregnant woman held captive.

Francesca (Patty Duke) travels by bus to Duluth, Minnesota in order to meet her mother-in-law (Rosemary Murphy) after her husband dies in a plane crash in Vietnam leaving her alone and pregnant. When she arrives, she finds the woman to be cold and indifferent unlike how her husband had described her where he always insisted that ‘you’ll like my mother’. Francesca also finds out that he apparently had a sister, a mute girl named Kathleen (Sian Barbara Allen) that he had never mentioned. A snowstorm blocks her from leaving forcing her to stay in an upstairs bedroom where more troubling secrets come out including the fact that a young man named Kenny (Richard Thomas) is secretly residing in the home and has been accused in the past of being a serial rapist.

Blah thriller based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Naomi A. Hintze. The only interesting aspect about the film is that it was shot on-location at the Glensheen Historic Estate, which 5 years later became the site of a real-life crime when the mansion’s owner, Elisabeth Congdon and her nurse, were murdered by her son-in-law. The movie also marks the debut of Sian Barbara Allen, who died just recently and was quite active in TV and movies during the 70’s before retiring in 1990 in order to focus full-time on being an activist. She was, particularly in her prime, a great beauty with the most mesmerizing pair of blue eyes you’ll ever see. Unfortunately, her role doesn’t have her saying much outside of a few words she manages to mumble out and her character seems to be put in simply to help the protagonist figure out the mystery.

The story unfolds slowly and because the majority of it takes place in one building it becomes visually static. Since it was filmed in Minnesota during the winter the white stuff on the ground is real, which helps with the authenticity, but because it didn’t actually snow when it was being shot the crew was forced to use fake falling flakes in a feeble attempt to replicate a snowstorm, which they’re not able to pull off. Anyone who’s ever experience a real blizzard will see how tacky this one looks and thus the premise that ‘nobody can get through this storm’ is lost.

Patty Duke is good, but her character doesn’t do much outside of staying cooped up in room while Allen does most of the leg work. Her insistence that she didn’t need any help financially makes you wonder then why did she come at all? If it was just for a visit, she could’ve done that in the summer when Minnesota weather is more hospitable and after the baby was born. In many ways having her in need of money would’ve made more sense and heightened the dramatic tension since that would make her desperate with nowhere else to turn.

Murphy is a weak villain as half the time she’s more nervous than Duke and easily fooled making it seem that anyone could outfox her and get away. It doesn’t help that she stupidly gives away who she really is and why she’s there when she has a conversation with Thomas that gets overheard by Duke, which ruins the mystery when the film is only halfway through and thus killing what moderate intrigue there had been.

The foot chase through the snow at the end does offer some tension but waiting all the way until the finale for any action was a mistake and Duke should’ve tried to escape earlier. The plot twists aren’t enough to make sitting through worth it. It’s not adequate material for a 90-minute feature length film as there’s 30-minute episodes of the old ‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents’ with more plot wrinkles than what you get here.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: October 13, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 33 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Lamont Johnson

Studio: Universal Pictures

Available: DVD (Warner Archive)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Mystery, Thrillers/Suspense

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Cheech and Chong’s The Corsican Brothers (1984)

Posted on April 8, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Feeling pain from sibling.

In France during the 1840’s two brothers, Luis and Lucien (Cheech Marin, Thomas Chong), are orphaned when their fathers die during a duel. Over time they realize they can feel the other’s pain and then split up and go their separate ways at age 9 after they accidentally burn down their house. 20 years later they meet up but find that their personalities are quite different with Lucien upset about the treatment of the pheasants and hoping to start a revolution while Luis wants to avoid all confrontations. Both of them draw the ire of the Queen’s henchman Fuckaire (Roy Dotrice) forcing them go in disguise in order to visit the Queen’s two daughters (Shelby Chong, Rikki Marin).

If there was ever a movie idea that cried out impending disaster during the planning stages it was this one and how it ever went into full-fledged production is a mystery, but far more interesting to explore than anything that’s actually in the film. Possibly the two got the idea after having brief cameo’s in Yellowbeard, another period piece parody, but the red flags should’ve gone up immediately. The whole reason Cheech and Chong became such a hit was their stoner caricatures and without that there’s nothing to watch. The two have proven in previous installments of the film series to be very good at playing different characters, but they were always in support. It was the stoner comedy routine that made it a hit and getting completely away from that and even changing the time period to the 18th century was too extreme and fans of the duo’s earlier work rightly stayed away.

The only possible chance it could’ve had would’ve been if the stoners had found some sort of time machine and went back into history where their mentalities would clash with those from the different culture though even this could’ve backfired, but at least it would’ve kept some slim thread from the other films in the series versus this way where there’s no connection. Yes, it still has the two stars, but their roles here just aren’t funny or engaging. Clearly their egos had them thinking it was all about them, but it really wasn’t and without the right material these two really struggle with a lot of the attempted humor coming off as strained.

The running gag dealing with their ability to feel the other’s pain runs out of steam fast and outside of that there’s really no laughs with many of the bits seeming better suited for a TV-sitcom if even that. The ending scene where Cheech imagines what the women he’s about to marry will look when they get older is the only unique moment with everything else being borrowed from some other movie, or show, which in almost all cases did it better than here. Only Edie McClurg and Dotrice have anything that is even faintly memorable, and their presence help keeps it slightly afloat.

It’s also fun to see Rae Dawn Chong, Tommy’s daughter, in a small bit as a gypsy that they meet while at a restaurant. Rae has always seemed to have a much different mentality than her father who’s predominantly goofy while she comes-off as serious, so I liked the idea of them sharing some scenes together but wished it hadn’t been so brief and that she’d been given a bigger role.

The only good thing to come out of this is that it finally became clear to everyone involved that it was time to put the whole thing to rest and both men decided to split-up and go their separate ways. The reason for this came when the two had a falling-out during postproduction when Chong decided to dub Cheech’s wife’s lines with a voiceover expert. Both were able to find success individually and finally reunited to bring back their stoner characters in an animated film in 2013.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: July 27, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes 

Rated PG

Director: Thomas Chong

Studio: Orion Pictures

Available: DVD, 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Parody

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The Chocolate War (1988)

Posted on January 29, 2025 | Leave a comment

chocolate

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Teen challenges the hierarchy.

Jerry (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) is the new student at an all-boys Catholic School that finds himself insnared into a controversy that wasn’t of his making. Brother Leon (John Glover), the school’s headmaster, promotes a program in which all the students must sell a certain allotment of chocolates in order to bring in much needed revenue for the school. While it’s technically voluntary the students are strongly pressured to take part in it and all of them do except for Jerry who for ten days refuses to get involved. This it turns out was the result of a hazing ritual brought on by a secret fraternity of students known as The Vigils. The idea was for Jerry to prove himself as being mentally strong enough to join the group by standing up to the intimidating Leon. Leon though becomes aware of what’s going on and since he’s in close contact with Archie (Wally Langham), the Vigil’s leader, he forgives the action convinced that once the 10-days are up Jerry will conform like all the others and take part in the sales drive. However, to everyone’s shock this doesn’t happen. Instead, Jerry continues to rebel, and his nonconformity has an infectious quality causing other students to take part, which challenges the strength of the school’s hierarchy to keep everyone in line. 

The film is based on the 1974 novel of the same name by Robert Cormier, which many critics have deemed one of the best young adult novels every written, but also one that routinely shows up as being on the top 10 list of banned or challenged books in high school libraries. It marks the directorial debut of Keith Gordon, who up until this time was better known for his acting particularly his starring role in the horror classic Christine. As a director I think he does a splendid job. I loved the eclectic camera angles, the zooms and hand-held shots. The soundtrack is distinctive featuring songs by artists who allowed their music to be used at a significantly lower price due to the movie’s low budget. The on-location shooting done at an abandoned seminary in Kenmore, Washington is perfect with the gray and dreary Northwest late autumn landscape perfectly reflecting the grim characters and situation. 

The acting is impeccable especially Glover who creates a three-dimensional villain who’s bullying at times, but at other points nervous and insecure. Mitchell-Smith, whose teen heart throb appearance belies is high-pitched voice, which I’ve never cared for and the reason I believe his acting career didn’t last, is quite good mainly because he isn’t forced to say much and instead relies on his reactions to what goes on around him, which in that element he excels. Langham is the perfect composite of the preppie bully particularly with that hairstyle that has ‘attitude’ written all over it, but his best moment is when he picks at a pimple on his arm after he gets off the phone with someone. I had noticed it during his conversation and was almost stunned when he picked at it. So many other teen movies show adolescents with unblemished skin, with maybe only a few geeky kids that have acne, but here one of the ‘cool’ kids was shown with it, which coupled with him actually trying to squeeze, which teens in reality will do, was genuinely groundbreaking and not something I’ve ever seen in any movie before or since. 

While there’s many memorable moments there’s a few loopholes as well. The fact that the students didn’t have any locks on their lockers, and thus allowing the Vigils to put trash into Jerry’s locker, didn’t seem valid as virtually every high school I’ve been in, past or present, does. The running segment dealing with Jerry and his father receiving harassing anonymous calls is quite dated due to now having caller ID, but even then, they could’ve still called the authorities to have their phone line tapped and thus the calls would’ve been traced, which is something you’d think they’d ultimately would do as it continued to occur. It’s also unclear how the students are able to sell the boxes of chocolates and achieve such a high quota. The film intimates they’re using unscrupulous methods, but not explicit enough as to the exact method. 

Spoiler Alert!

The film’s most controversial moment, and one that may have led to it doing poorly at the box office, is the way it changes the original ending. In the book Jerry gets defeated by Archie in the climactic boxing match, but in the movie, Jerry wins, and Archie is subsequently replaced as The Vigil’s leader. Personally, both endings have interesting nuances, so I can’t say I favor one over the other though the movie version does bring out some intriguing elements. However, fans of the novel tend to hate it feeling it was an attempt by Hollywood to give the story a more ‘uplifting’ conclusion. 

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: November 18, 1988

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Keith Gordon

Studio: MCEG

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, PlutoTV, Tubi

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Cult, Movies Based on Novels

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The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984)

Posted on January 26, 2025 | 1 comment

pope

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Cousins turn to crime.

Charlie (Mickey Rourke) and Paulie (Eric Roberts) are cousins working at a restaurant who get themselves fired when Paulie is caught skimming checks. Since Charlie’s girlfriend Diane (Daryl Hannah) has a baby on the way he must act fast to bring in some money. Paulie convinces him of a ‘great’ opportunity, which is to hire a former safecracker, now working as a clock repairman, Barney (Kenneth McMillan) to break-open a safe inside the building of a large company that reportedly has a large amount of money inside it. Charlie is cautious as he doesn’t completely trust Paulie whom he finds immature and unseasoned, but he’s so desperate that he reluctantly agrees. Things go smoothly at first, as they’re able to break into the building easily, but the unexpected arrival of undercover cop Walter (Jack Kehoe) soon sends their plans awry. When Walter dies during the melee they’re now on the hook for his death as well as in the bad graces of mob boss Eddie (Burt Young) who’s safe it was that they tried to rob. 

The film is based off of the 1979 novel of the same name by Vincent Patrick who also penned the screenplay. It does an excellent job of creating a vivid feel of Greenwich Village where it was shot on-location and the interactions of the characters seem overall authentic. The only real issue is the way it hinges of extreme Italian American stereotypes where it seems like anyone from that background must be involved in crime and if any other group was portrayed that way it would be deemed problematic if not downright controversial. The cliches are so strong that had it been heightened just a small degree it could’ve been deemed as parody, or even satire and in fact IMDb does list it as being a ‘comedy’ though I really don’t think that’s the case. I believe it’s meant to be a drama, but either way, for the sake of balance, it would’ve helped had there been some Italians even just one who didn’t fall into the tired caricatures. 

The acting is the crowning achievement. Roberts is superb and I really found it hard to believe he didn’t become a star from this. While he’s always been a great character actor I think he should’ve been given more and I do realize he’s still busy in the business and has been consistently, but I don’t think the quality of the parts has always been there and most filmgoers are probably more familiar with his sister Julia, which is a shame. I was completely blow away by him here and genuinely surprised why the Oscar didn’t fall into his lap.

Rourke is excellent too, but more because he wisely underplays his role and allows Roberts to carry all the emotional energy. Had they both been competing for it it would’ve failed, but their different approaches help create a nice contrast and sometimes it’s the best actors who don’t force it and for the most part that’s what Rourke does here. Of course, he too has his moments like when they go to the racetrack, and he bumps into a guy and instead saying ‘excuse me’ like a normal person he instead says, ‘out of my way asshole’. Him beating up on his refrigerator when Diane leaves him has a memorable quality to it though I would’ve thought the fridge would’ve been more damaged and he should’ve at the very least injured his hand, which strangely doesn’t occur despite him punching at it repeatedly.  

On the female end most accolades goes to Geraldine Page who got nominated for the supporting Oscar despite having only 8-minutes of screentime. She gives a powerful performance for her limited presence, but the idea that she could stymie police efforts to search her deceased son’s room by giving veiled threats that she’ll make them look bad in the media I didn’t totally buy. If cops want something bad enough, they’ll get it with the possible exception of money exchanging hands, which in this case didn’t happen. Hannah as the girlfriend has almost the same screentime, maybe a little more, and hits the bullseye as an idealistic young woman who believes she can somehow get her boyfriend to change only to learn the ultimate harsh lesson that it doesn’t work that way. 

Spoiler Alert!

The ending I felt was a letdown. I was actually intrigued with Charlie finding the tape from the deceased cop that implicated Eddie and seeing how he could use that to stay out of trouble for being a part of the robbery. Having Paulie then swoop in by putting lye into Eddie’s drink and poisoning him seemed too easy. Eddie had just gotten done having his men cut-off Paulie’s thumb, so he should expect Paulie would be looking for revenge and not naive enough to have him make his drinks, or if he does at least have one of his henchmen taste it first. You have to wonder how Eddie was able to climb up the crime ladder if he was that stupid and thus the climax really isn’t that clever, or surprising as the camera focuses up-close on the coffee cup making it too evident that something is going to happen. A letdown for a movie that had been relatively smart up until then.  

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: June 22, 1984

Runtime: 2 Hours

Rated R

Director: Stuart Rosenberg

Studio: MGM/UA

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Gangster Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple

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Avalanche Express (1979)

Posted on January 24, 2025 | Leave a comment

avalanche2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Defector on a train.

Based on the 1977 Colin Forbes novel of the same name the story centers around General Marenkov (Robert Shaw) a soviet agent who’s decided to defect to the west. Harry (Lee Marvin) is the CIA agent in charge of extraditing Marenkov back to the U.S., but to do so they must travel via train across Europe. Nikolai (Maximilian Schell) is a KGB agent assigned to stop Marenkov’s escape and tries many ways to stymie his trip before finally settling on creating an avalanche, which will not only impede the train ride that Marenkov and Harry are on, but if done right should completely destroy it and end the lives of everyone inside.

The film was noted for its many difficulties during the shoot including the death of its director Mark Robson from a heart attack with only 2-weeks left of filming forcing Monte Hellman to step in and complete the production. The biggest problem though was that during the post-production it was deemed that the opening scene, which featured Shaw speaking to his soviet counterparts in broken English, should be redone with Russian dialogue. However, Shaw too had already died from a sudden heart attack in August and thus was no longer able to come-in for reshoots, so they settled on his voice being dubbed by Robert Rietti for that scene. This would’ve been fine had they stopped there, but instead they came to the conclusion that for the sake of consistency Shaw’s voice should be dubbed by Rietti for the entire film, which was a huge mistake.

Shaw has a highly distinctive and wonderfully articulate delivery and for the viewer to miss out on that is downright criminal. I think most audiences could’ve forgiven that his voice sounded a bit different during the opening bit and probably wouldn’t have even cared or noticed since they were so busy focusing on the subtitles anyway. It becomes like a bait and switch, since Shaw’s name headlines the cast, but since somebody else does his speaking it’s like he’s not really in it and thus a big rip-off to his fans who came to see the movie simply because of him.

The special effects are equally abhorrent. There’s been many movies that have created fake snow scenes, but this one has to be the cheapest looking one yet. The falling flakes look more like Styrofoam and the white stuff on the ground resembles foam from a bathtub especially as the vehicles slush their way through it like it’s a white liquid. The sequence showing the train gliding down the tracks is clearly of the miniature variety and will fool no one.

The casting is a mess too especially the appearance of Joe Namath, a great football player, but a threadbare actor who has no business being in a big budget Hollywood picture. He’d be okay for a TV-movie with other B-performers, but for something that’s supposed to be taken seriously his presence makes the thing even more tacky than it already is. Even stalwart leading man Marvin fails here as he shows no emotion even when it’s warranted, like when he gets word that train they’re on is headed for disaster and yet he remains hyper stoic like he’s a robot with no feelings. Having him get shot dead early on only to return later isn’t the gotcha they thought it would be as I was predicting he’d reappear as there’s simply no way a big-name star like him would sign onto a movie just to be killed off right away.

Linda Evans is good simply because she has the ability of playing a cold, bitchy lady quite well. It could almost be described as her forte and her snippy comments and icy behavior towards Marvin during the first half are engaging and helps give the proceedings a bit of a dramatic flair. Turning the two into lovers though during the second half ruins all the underlying tension and since they don’t share much of a chemistry anyways having them remain adversarial throughout would’ve worked better.

Schell as the villain is as cardboard as he was playing the bad guy in The Black Hole. His career is long and distinguished, but his success is clearly not in these types of roles though he does at least get the film’s one good line. It comes when he’s told he must go undercover in disguise by playing someone who does not smoke. Since his character is a chain smoker, he panics that he won’t be able to go on without a cigarette and exclaims “That’ll kill me’.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: October 19, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 28 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Mark Robson

Studio: 20th Century Fox

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Disaster Flicks, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a train setting, Spy/Espionage

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Hurricane (1979)

Posted on January 11, 2025 | Leave a comment

hurricane

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Tropical cyclone strikes island.

Charlotte (Mia Farrow) is the daughter of Navy Captain Charles (Jason Robards) who was appointed governor of a small island of Alava, which is under U.S. control. She comes to the island for a visit as she hasn’t seen her father in quite a while and immediately becomes attracted to Matangi (Dayton Ka’ne) who works as a houseboy at her father’s estate. A romance blossoms between the two and when her father finds out he puts Matangi in jail on trumped-up charges, but Charlotte is able to find a way for him to escape, but as they go on the run her father sets out to find them and put Matangi back behind bars just as a massive hurricane descends.

The film is a remake of the 1937 movie that was directed by John Ford and in itself an adaptation of the novel of the same name by James Norman Hall and Charles Nordhoff. After completing the runaway hit King Kong, another remake of a 1930’s movie, producer Dino De Laurentiis became inspired to tackle a second classic from the same era. He was most enthused with this one due to the hurricane effects as he was convinced that with modern technology it could be more vivid than the original and even hired the same man, Glen Robinson, who did the special effects for that one to recreate it here, but with modern film capabilities that had been unavailable when the story was first produced. So much focus was admittedly put into the ending that things like character development, which director Jan Troell had come onboard to work-on, were largely ignored causing Troell to consider it an unpleasant experience and he spent the remainder of his career making films in his homeland of Sweden as he felt after this that working on a Hollywood project wasn’t to his liking.

The casting of Farrow is part of the problem as the role called for a woman in her 20’s even though she was already well into her 30’s, but since she had what Dino described as an ‘eternal face of an 18-year-old’ he decided to hand her the part anyways. Her character though is so one dimensional that her time on the screen isn’t captivating. Ka’ne, who was an Hawaiin surfer with no acting experience, does better than expected though he only did one other movie after this before retiring from the business and working the rest of years as a compost truck driver and hotel doorman. Max Von Sydow is good in support playing a doctor who utters the film’s best line, most likely ad-libbed from his well-known atheist roots where he asks why a painting of Adam would require him to have a belly button since if he was created from dust then he’d have no need for an umbilical cord.

The biggest issue is the romantic angle as it occurs too quickly. An interesting relationship is one that has a challenge and this one should’ve had several as Mia’s father was clearly not going to be happy about her seeing Ka’ne and therefore she should’ve been apprehensive about getting involved, or even suspicious as how did she know he wasn’t just using her for leverage to get the old man to soften his stance on policies Ka’ne wanted changed? Instead, they fall into each other’s arms in a seamless few minutes and the whole first hour is spent with them dreamily swimming around in the ocean in a lovesick fashion, which is dull. Having the character of Moana appear, played by Ariirau Tekararere, who was the woman Ka’ne was arranged to marry, offers some potential, but since she barely speaks and when she does it’s in her native tongue without the benefit of subtitles, her presence doesn’t offer much.

Spoiler Alert!

The finale, which is all about the hurricane, is somewhat exciting, but it’s not perfect. The destruction of the homes appear like they’re miniature models and seeing constant shots of blowing rain becomes tiring, but watching the people leave the church while Priest Trevor Howard continues to pray at the pulpit is kind of funny and having the ship burst through the wall was cool too.

However, I wasn’t exactly sure that the couple really got ‘saved’ at the end like the viewer is supposed to believe. Yes, they survived the storm but were now stuck on a tiny sandbar in the middle of the ocean with no source of food, or transportation. Unless some help came along, which wasn’t guaranteed, they weren’t going to survive long. Thus, it’s not a real ‘happy’ ending because although they weren’t killed right away like the others doesn’t mean they won’t die an even more painful death of starvation.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: April 12, 1979

Runtime: 2 Hours

Rated PG

Director: Jan Troell

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Blu-ray (Import Reg. A/B/C)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Disaster Flicks, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Remakes

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The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

Posted on January 3, 2025 | Leave a comment

eddie

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Gunrunner tries avoiding sentencing.

Eddie (Robert Mitchum) is an aging gunrunner living in Massachusetts whose career in crime has taken a toll on his family. He feels his life in and out of jail has caused him to lose connection with his kids and wants to avoid a repeated stint in the slammer. Another sentencing is likely as he’s been charged with hijacking a truck, so he works with special agent Dave Foley (Richard Jordan) to help reduce his pending time, or get it cleared altogether, by agreeing to give him tips of other crooks he’s worked with, of planned crimes that are about to take place including a string of bank robberies that have been occurring throughout the area and being carried out by people Eddie knows. While Eddie is able to give Dave some help it’s not enough and he continues to be squeezed to offer more names and when he does his former associates become convinced, he’ll sell-out on them, so they devise a plan that’ll quiet him once and for all. 

The film is based on the 1972 novel of the same by George V. Higgins that won numerous accolades including by such famous authors as Norman Mailer and Elmore Leonard who called it the ‘best crime novel ever written’. While the film does closely follow the story in the book, and received equally positive reviews, it did very poorly at the box office. A lot of the problem is that while the actions is captured in a gritty and unglamourous way, the idea behind the film was to give a harsher viewpoint of those working in the criminal underworld as The Godfather had been deemed at the time as being too romanticized, the characters are not people to get emotionally vested in and the plot fails to garner any momentum. The crimes get carried out in too much of a methodical way and lack tension. The viewer doesn’t care what happens to these people and thus the movie ends up lacking much of a point.

There were certain things that I did like. The gray and brown late autumn landscape helps accentuate the cold, soulless lives of the characters. The bank robberies are captivating for a while as it focuses on the intricacies of carrying out such daring heists and the planning though I felt seeing one of these was enough and having to go through two of them made it redundant and unnecessary. 

Mitchum gives an excellent performance and certainly appears and acts like someone who’s been beaten down enough by the system that’s he’s willing to do whatever he can to self-preserve. His attempts at a New England accent aren’t bad either. However, I would’ve liked to see some interaction with him and his kids as this is the whole motive for why he turns informant as he wants to spend more time with the family and not go to jail, but we never see any actual communication that he has with them albeit a brief moment with his wife. Had there been more family moments where the viewer could actually feel the character’s quandary on an emotional level than they might’ve been more wrapped-up in seeing him get through it, but by the way it gets done here there’s very little if any of that. He’s also not in it enough and there’s long stretches where we see Steven Keats, a fellow gunrunner, who’s more adept at showing the anxiety and paronia that goes into someone living the fringe lifestyle that he does and thus it would’ve been a more captivating film had it focused on him instead. 

Spoiler Alert!

The ending is the biggest letdown. While it’s the same one as in the book it’s too uneventful to be riveting or impactful. It features Eddie getting invited to a hockey game by Peter Boyle, a fellow hood, and another man who after the game take a drunken Eddie out for the ride where he passes-out and thus gives them the opportunity to conveniently shoot him, which they do. While I did enjoy close-up footage of an actual hockey game as it features players in an era where they didn’t have to wear helmets, I did find the way Eddie falls prey to the men to be too easy. This was a career criminal, so he should’ve in the back of his mind been well aware that his ‘friends’ may start to suspect him of being the snitch that he is and put on a more defensive mind set. I was fully expecting him to be faking passing out and at the last second jumping out of the car and trying to get away, which could’ve led to an exciting climactic foot chase, but stupidly falling into their trap without a peep of a fight isn’t an adequate payoff. He might as well had just shown up to the event with a bullseye tattooed to his forehead that said ‘shoot me’ as it ends-up playing-out in pretty much the same way. 

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: June 26, 1973

Runtime: 1 Hour 43 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Peter Yates

Studio: Paramount Pictures

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Gangster Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Robbing Banks

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Johnny Got His Gun (1971)

Posted on December 28, 2024 | Leave a comment

johnny1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Left with no face.

Joe (Timothy Bottoms) finds himself stuck on a hospital bed, covered with a white sheet and unable to communicate with any of the doctors or nurses. As a soldier fighting in WWI, the last thing he remembers is being hit with an artillery shell and he presumes he’s injured and the medical staff is just trying to make him well again, but ultimately, he comes to the conclusion that he’s lost all of his limbs and even his face. The only thing left is his brain, which allows him to relive the memories of the past, but with no ability to express himself, or see or hear anything, like a prisoner in his own body. Locked away in a utility room, so his disturbing condition won’t be seen by others, he tries to suffocate himself but finds even that to be impossible. Eventually he’s able to use morse code by banging his head against his pillow to alert the staff that he’s still conscious and not a vegetable, but his demands to be toured around in a glass coffin in order to show the public the horrors of war go unheeded.

The film is based on the 1939 novel of the same name by Dalton Trumbo, which was inspired by the real-life case of Curly Christian, a Canadian WWI soldier who lost all four of his limbs during battle. The book was met with many accolades from the critics and was even considered for a movie as early as the 1940’s when it was to star a young William Holden, but funding for the project fell through. By the 1960’s when anti-war sentiment grew during the Vietnam years renewed interest in bringing the novel to the big screen mounted and plans were put in place to have Luis Bunuel direct, but yet again funding became an issue and the pre-production was paused for several years until Trumbo himself decided to take it on by working with private investors to get the required capital. The modestly budgeted film was then given a limited release in the summer of ’71 but was never a hit and largely forgotten until revived in 1989 when the heavy metal group Mettalica used footage from the film in their music video ‘One’.

The film has some interesting aspects including having the present-day scenes shot in black-and-white while Joe’s memories and dreams are done in color. Timothy Bottoms, in his film debut, is excellent. For most of the movie we only hear his voice-over of his thoughts, but within that limitation he plays it well and uses his tone eloquently to convey his emotions and inner angst. The supporting cast such as Jason Robards as Joe’s caustic father help give the movie a bit of an edge and Diane Varsi as the sympathetic nurse who shows compassion with Joe’s dismal predicament and quarrels internally about what to do including considering shirking her professional responsibility in order to put him out of his misery, is quite good too.

The structure though doesn’t fully work. The memories of past events, including his home life and upbringing, are too general, stuff that could’ve happened to anybody and thus nothing stands-out. The dream sequences don’t have enough visual flair and are much too talky. Trumbo may be the master of the written word, but his cinematic sense is lacking, and the film drones along putting the viewer to sleep instead of reeling them in emotionally. The anti-war message may have been ground-breaking for the ’30’s, but by the time of the movie’s release there were too many other art mediums saying the same thing, so what gets said here is nothing new and comes-off as redundant and even preachy.

My biggest complaint though is that we never see Joe’s actual physical state. During the whole movie he remains conspicuously covered by a white sheet, which I found to be a cop-out. I wasn’t opposed to keeping what he looked like a mystery for most of the way as revealing it right away would’ve taken away the shock effect, but at some point, it needed to be exposed to the viewers horrified eyes. Just constantly describing something doesn’t work in movies, maybe in books, but in film one should always go for the visual. Not sure why it wasn’t done here. Maybe they thought it would be too costly to create the special effects, or the gruesomeness would sicken the audience, but wasn’t that supposed to be the whole point? By keeping it at a ‘tasteful’ level it misses-the-mark and one of the main reasons why the movie doesn’t have as strong of an impact as it could’ve.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: August 4, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 52 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Dalton Trumbo

Studio: Cinemation Industries

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity, War Movies

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