Category Archives: Movies Based on Novels

When the Legends Die (1972)

Posted on August 19, 2024 | Leave a comment

whenlegends

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Indian becomes rodeo rider.

Tom Black Bull (Tillman Box) is a young Ute Indian orphan living in the wild with his pet bear. One day Blue Elk (John War Eagle) an Indian elder comes upon the child and decides it’s time to get him acclimated into society by having him enroll into a school where Tom does not get along with the other students and forcing him to begrudgingly release his bear. Over the years Tom grows to being a young adult (now played by Frederic Forrest), but is bitter with the racism that he must endure. By chance he gets spotted by Red (Richard Widmark) who’s impressed by the way Tom can ride and control a difficult horse and decides he’d like to train him into becoming a rodeo rider. Tom sees this as an opportunity to get out of the slums that he’s in, but soon realizes that Red, who suffers from alcoholism, is exploiting him just like the other white men by forcing him to intentionally lose contests in order to trick people into betting against him.

During the early 70’s there were many modern-day westerns that focused on the rodeo circuit including Junior Bonner, J.W. Coop, The Honkers and Riding Tall. While all of those were good in their own right I’ve found this one to be at the top. The others were more a character study with the rodeo atmosphere a side-story while this one examines the training and technique that it takes to be a successful bronco rider with a meticulous detail making it more revealing and informative. The others didn’t always do a adequate job of making it seem like the lead character was actually riding the kicking horse and many times looked like a shot of the guy on top of one of those bull machines you see inside western barrooms, but here it’s captured in an authentic style including a disturbing moment where Tom refuses to get off the horse as it continues to buck, which ultimately exhausts the animal and requires it to be shot.

The story is based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Hal Borland who was a journalist who specialized in writing novels with an outdoor setting. The book though was aimed more for young adults and split up into four different sections while the film just analyzes the third portion. It also updates the time period to the modern day versus the turn-of-the century like in the book. It’s expertly directed by Stuart Miller, better known as a producer, with a well-written script by Robert Dozier that has crisp dialogue that manages to intimate a lot while saying little and never overstating anything.

Forrest plays his role with a sullen expression that remains constant throughout and some might complain it makes it one-dimensional, but I felt this helped illustrate the character’s inner anger and it’s fascinating seeing the juxtaposition of someone who’s very rugged and savvy when it comes to nature and animals, but quite virginal, literally, when it has anything to do with societal elements like women, alcohol, and other vices.

Widmark is brilliant as usual and one of the few people who can play a miserable, brash, and genuinely unpleasant old guy and still keep it on a humanistic level. Watching him go from gruff and demanding as he’s clearly the more worldy-wise at the start to more of a vulnerable and even dependent one at the end is a fascinating journey to watch. In many ways his relationship with Tom is like a father and son where the older one starts out as the stern teacher only to have it flip with the younger one, now fully accustomed to the world, taking the reins and caring, albeit begrudgingly, to someone who can no longer do it themselves.

My only complaint with the film that is otherwise close to flawless is that I would’ve liked to have seen one moment where Widmark shows some actual kindness to Tom as all the way through he’s quite grouchy and condescending even when Tom offers him some much needed support. I realize his character was a victim of the hard world he lived in and thus it wasn’t natural for him to show any tender side, which he most likely possessed very little of anyways, but one even fleeting moment of gratitude, even if it just was putting his arm around the young man and showing him a slight gesturing hug, could’ve gone a long way to giving it a bit more emotional balance and the touching image that every hard-edge drama ultimately should have and needs.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: October 19, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 47 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Stuart Miller

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 70's Movies, Buddy Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Novels, Obscure Movies, Revisionist Western, Sports Movies

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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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Hold-Up (1985)

Posted on July 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

holdup

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Robber disguised as clown.

Grimm (Jean-Paul Belmondo) has come-up with what he considers to be an ingenious plan. He will rob a bank disguised as clown with two of his friends, Georges (Guy Marchand) and Lise (Kim Cattrall). While he’ll be a clown the other two will pretend to be bank customers and then when he agrees with the Police Commander Simon (Jean-Pierre Marielle), whom he is negotiating with via phone, to release some hostages he’ll let Georges and Lise ‘go’ and no one will know the difference. Meanwhile Grimm will take-off his clown disguise and put on a new one as an old man while pretending that the clown is still inside holding the rest of the bank employees and customers at gunpoint. By the time the police catch-on that there’s no longer any clown the three hope to have escaped on a plane and be far away. While the robbery works without a flaw the getting on the plane part becomes a major, if not impossible, challenge.

The story is based on the novel ‘Quick Change’ by Jay Cronley, which 5 years later was made into another, better known movie that starred Bill Murray. This was a French production that was filmed on-location in Montreal, Canada and one of the few movies that starred Belmondo that didn’t do well financially back in his home country and in-fact it was the first staring vehicle of his that didn’t crack the top 10 of highest grossing movies of that year, which was the first for him since 1976 when L’Alpagueur achieved only 19th place.

Belmondo is certainly a legendary actor whose long and storied career deserves to be admired, but I didn’t care for him here and felt his presence actually brought down the whole movie. He was apparently quite admired behind-the-scenes amongst the cast and crew and he did all of his own stunts including a scene where he climbs out of a moving car and manages to slither his way, while the vehicle is still going at high speeds, onto a tow truck and he did this while already being in his mid-50’s. However, his character is overly cocky and his glib conversational interplay between he and the police chief does not come-off as funny and more like you side with the chief and want to see this arrogant man caught. You’d think someone who had never pulled-off a robbery before would be much more nervous, or at least display some signs of anxiety, so his unbridled confidence seems completely out-of-place with the situation he’s in.

If anything I enjoyed Marchand and Cattrall far better as these two seemed much more human and displayed the insecurity you’d expect. They were like regular people full of foibles and someone you’d actually want to root for and thus I felt the movie would’ve been greatly improved had it just focused on the couple doing the robbing and cut-out Belmondo’s part completely. I also didn’t think the clown disguise worked as unlike in the American version his whole face isn’t covered with white paint and instead simply uses a red wig, a red clown nose, and some eyebrows, which I didn’t feel would be enough to hide his true identity and witnesses could’ve easily recognized who he was outside of the clown get-up and thus the whole disguise thing ends-up defeating its own purpose.

The first act works pretty well with shades of Dog Day Afternoon and some offbeat moments to the bank robbery theme by having one scene where the hostages are forced to get in a circle and sing a rendition of ‘London Bridges Falling Down’. The second and third acts though become protracted and seem to be the start of a whole different movie altogether. The bank segment has a crafty, sophisticated tone where the humor has a satirical bent and the main characters seem smart, savvy, and cool. In the second half the movie suddenly becomes like a live action cartoon with an abundance of car chases and the three leads, who had seemed so clever at the beginning, quickly become inept at seemingly every turn.

The biggest problem is the Lasky character played by Tex Konig. Konig is a big bearded guy that resembles Bluto from the old Popeye cartoons who’s also a tow truck driver who wants to get his hands on the stolen money and chases the three all around the city, which leads to many car stunts and crashes. Some may enjoy the smash-ups, but it comes across as unimaginative filler by filmmakers that didn’t know how to end the story cleverly, so they came-up with a lot of mindless action in order to keep it going.

The infighting between Cattrall and Marchand seems unnecessarily added in as well. This animosity needed to be introduced right at the start in order to make it consistent with the plot and not just thrown-in later to add some conflict for the sake of conflict. You’d think too that if she really resented the guy she would’ve refused to go ahead with the robbery unless someone else took his place.

Having the story then end with the three going to France and then Italy just furthers dilutes the plot, which no longer resembles a robbery flick at all, but more of a jet setting one. While not perfect the remake, which came-out in 1990, fares better in just about all phases.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: October 23, 1985

Runtime: 1 Hour 54 Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Alexandre Arcady

Studio: Cinevideo

Available: DVD-R (dvdlady.com)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy, Foreign Films, French Films, Movies Based on Novels, Movies from Canada, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Robbing Banks

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Quick Change (1990)

Posted on July 27, 2024 | 1 comment

quick1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Clown robs a bank.

Grimm (Bill Murray) has had it with New York City. He wants to get out of there and move somewhere tropical as soon as possible and conspires to rob a bank in order to get the money to do it. He dresses as a clown and then has his girlfriend Phyllis (Geena Davis) and friend Loomis (Randy Quaid) pretend to be customers at the bank, so that when he releases the ‘hostages’ they can be two of them. The robbery goes smoothly as they’re able to get $1 million out of the bank, but trying to get out of the city itself proves trying as they get lost on their way to the airport and then their getaway car gets demolished. Police Chief Walt Rotzinger (Jason Robards) is hot-on-their-tale and relentless in his quest to haul them in as he proves to be just one slight step behind them where ever they go and moving in closer with every waking second.

This is the second version of the story that was adapted from a 1981 novel of the same name written by Jay Cronley, a humorist who resided in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who two other novels, Funny Farm and Let It Ride that were also made into movies as well as Hold-Up that was a French film shot in Canada that was the first rendition of this plot. This adaptation proves to be the better one as it takes place, like in the novel, in New York City and takes full advantage of the city’s ambience making it feel almost like it’s a third character.

This is the perfect role for Murray and some critics felt this was his best acting performance of his career he also doubles not only as the producer, but also the co-director as he took over the reins in order to save the project when the originally directing choice Jonathan Demme decided to bow-out at the last minute. The snarky, glib personality of the character is played to the hilt by Bill who has the magical ability to be the world’s biggest smart ass and still have a unique charm about it. Great supporting work by Davis, though the two apparently didn’t get along behind-the-scenes and years later she accused him of sexually harassing her during the production. Good work too by Robards who doesn’t fall into the cliche of a stupid egotistical cop and instead proves to be pretty savvy, which helps accentuate the tension as he’s constantly on their heels and only a beat behind them no matter where they go.

The three acts are better tied together by placing the main nemesis as the city itself and creating a surreal After Hours vibe. Some of the potshots are subtle like watching all the hot dog vendors race over to where the robbery is taking place so that they can take advantage of the situation by selling food to all the onlookers. It also illuminates the ethnic, cultural mix of the Big Apple by featuring a jousting match between two Latinos on bicycles as well as the headaches of trying to find your way around the city and the confusing road signs and constant construction though some of this humor may not resonate with today’s viewers since with the advent of GPS many of these ‘asking for directions’ situations have now become a thing of the past.  The music score by Randy Edelman with its pounding, hard edge quality perfectly matches the city’s gritty, urban attitude.

While the robbery is slick I did find a few loopholes. The first is where does Murray get his other clothes when he changes out of his clown costume and disguises himself as one of the hostages to get away? He is not seen carrying a bag of any kind nor is Davis or Quaid, so not sure where the other suit came from. Some may argue that he was wearing it underneath his clown costume, but this doesn’t work since it was a shirt that came up to his neck that he’s seen coming out of the bank with and when he’s the clown he’s shown with a V-neck T-shirt that exposes the top of his chest. It also doesn’t explain where he gets the glasses, other wig, and shoes that he also has on when he walks out as the fake hostage.

The characterizations are a bit off too as both Davis and Quaid become easily rattled during the second half when they’re trying to get to the airport and become increasingly shaken that they’re going to be caught, but if they have a propensity to being that worried you wonder what gave them the nerve to go through with the robbery in the first place? During that segment they’re very cool and calm and even a bit ballsy, so why the sudden shift to overly panic the moment they get out? A way to have solved this would’ve had the Davis character with a penchant for risks, or enjoy living on the edge and taking chances, so every time they would get into a jam during their escape she’d see it as a certain thrill and not allow it to overtly alarm her.

Spoiler Alert!

The biggest beef though is with the ending in which Robards suddenly realizes, as he’s standing on the ground watching the jet fly overhead that has the three robbers onboard. The film acts like it’s now ‘too late’ and there’s nothing he can do about it, but there really is. All he has to do is go back to the airport and ask where the destination is of the plane that just took off, as I remember it was Paris, France. Since both the U.S. and France are members of Interpol he could easily contact the authorities there asking them to detain the three once the plane had landed. They could then be brought in for interrogation where a simply body search would expose all the money that they had taped to their bodies underneath their clothes, and in Quaid’s case in his duffel bag. This would be more than enough evidence to prove that they were the robbers and thus extradited back to the U.S. for prosecution.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: July 13, 1990

Runtime: 1 Hour 29 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Howard Franklin, Bill Murray

Studio: Warner Brothers

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

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Posted in 90's Movies, Black Comedy, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Remakes, Robbing Banks

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Jinxed! (1982)

Posted on July 22, 2024 | Leave a comment
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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Blackjack dealer is cursed.

Harold (Rip Torn) is a gambler who can never seem to lose whenever he goes up against one Vegas blackjack dealer in particular, Willie (Ken Wahl). In fact Harold’s winning streak versus Willie becomes so extended that it gets him fired and he’s forced to find a similar job in Reno. Harold follows him up there and Willie’s losing ways start all over again. His supervisor (Val Avery) doesn’t think Harold is doing anything unethical and instead becomes convinced that he’s put some sort of jinx on Willie and for Willie to end it he needs to get something of Harold’s. He drives out to Harold’s isolated trailer where he resides and realizes he has a wife named Bonita (Bette Midler) who also happens to be a lounge singer. She’s sick of dealing with Harold’s abusive ways and makes a deal with Willie that they kill him and then spend the proceeds of his life insurance payout afterwards.

The movie is appropriately titled not so much for what occurs onscreen, but more with what happened behind it. The story was based on the Frank D. Gilroy novel ‘The Edge’, which was published in 1980 and then had the screen rights sold for $300,000. While Gilroy wrote the first draft it was then handed over to David Newman who did a second rewrite and from there passed onto Jeremy Blatt who did a third version before director Don Siegal and Bette Midler began doing further revisions until Gilroy finally asked for his name to be taken off the credits as the plot no longer resembled anything from the book.

The real issue though started with Siegel who was at odds with the leading lady and then eventually became stricken with a heart attack where he ceded directing reins to Sam Peckinpah who completed many of the remaining scenes uncredited. Star Wahl also found getting along with Midler to be difficult and the two feuded throughout making no secret of their disdain for each other even after the shooting was long completed.

From my standpoint the biggest problem was the casting. Midler can be a funny lady, but not in this type of role. She’s known for her snarky, brash, and outgoing personality, but here plays someone who’s shy and pensive something that just doesn’t connect with who she is at all. Maybe she wanted to step out of her comfort zone and that’s why she took the role, but she doesn’t play it convincingly and thus it’s hard to get into. Wahl isn’t up to the demands of being a leading man and it’s no wonder he retired from the business in 1996. His delivery is flat and nothing that he says, or does is engaging. He has a few amusing lines here and there, but overall seems to be phoning it in and the romantic moments between him and Midler come-off as clearly awkward and out-of-place.

There were a few elements that I did like. It captures the rustic side of Nevada quite nicely and not just Vegas, but also Reno and the rural portion of the state. You also get to see an actual, in fact there’s two of them, $10,000 bill, which the fed no longer prints making it the coolest moment in the whole movie. Torn also gives a energetic performance and could’ve put on a clinic for the other two if they had paid attention. Though during his character’s death scene he does blink his eyes and make some brief facial gestures when Midler kneels beside him and slaps him making it seem like he really wasn’t dead even though technically he was. There’s also a few too many shots of his hairy butt crack, which I didn’t particularly care for. A funny scene done inside an adult bookstore, where director Siegel gives himself a cameo as the porn shop clerk, which I found to be a highlight.

Spoiler Alert!

Unfortunately the third act veers off in a weird way where Midler goes on a scavenger hunt using cryptic letters that her deceased husband wrote her before he died, which as critic Roger Ebert describes in his review of the film, ‘paralyzes’ the movie. If anything Wahl should’ve gone along with her as they follow the clues, which might’ve strengthened their chemistry and made them seem more like real couple who could work together to solve things instead of these two individuals doing things mostly on their own.

There’s also no explanation for what exactly was causing the whole jinx thing. Supposedly the luck as it were was coming from the cigars that Torn was smoking, and which Midler later does as well, but why would these cigars bring good luck? Normally smoking cigars can’t help one win at blackjack, so what secret cosmic power did they possess, so that it made a difference in this case? There’s no answer either as to who Torn was calling on his pay phone outside of the trailer he lived in after he lost to Wahl and was now broke. It made it seem like he was conspiring, or in connection with someone else, or maybe some sort of behind-the-scenes organization, criminal or otherwise, and the film should’ve made it clear what this was about, but ultimately doesn’t.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: October 22, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 43 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Don Siegel

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity

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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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Eye of the Needle (1981)

Posted on July 7, 2024 | 8 comments

eye

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Spy infiltrates isolated family.

Henry (Donald Sutherland) is a German spy stationed in England during WWII, who comes upon an airplane site that he thinks is the Allied commandment post for the eventual invasion of Normandy, but upon closer inspection he finds out that the planes are all made of wood and the place is simply a decoy. With this information he tries to charter a U-boat to get back to his homeland, so he can hand his findings directly to Hitler and thus potentially change the course of the war. Instead his boat gets hit by a storm and crashes on the beach of Storm Island. Only four people reside there including Tom (Alex McCrindle), a lighthouse keeper and owner of a 2-way radio, which Henry needs to communicate back to Germany, as well as a young family made up of Lucy (Kate Nelligan), her husband David (Christopher Cazenove) and their 5-year-old son Jo. The family allows Henry to stay in their home while he recovers from his accident.  Lucy is sexually frustrated because on their wedding the couple got into a terrible car accident, which has left David paralyzed and unable to perform in bed. Henry catches onto to Lucy’s despondent situation and soon becomes her lover, but David suspects Henry of being a spy and the two have an ugly confrontation, which sends the situation for all those on the island to go spiraling out-of-control.

The film is based on the 1978 novel ‘Storm Island’ by Ken Follet, with the script staying pretty faithful to its source material. The story though kind of acts like two movies in one. The first half almost fully focuses on Henry’s spy exploits with lots of action and thrills while the second-half settles into being more of a subdued romance. Watching Sutherland playing this cold-blooded killer willing to callously off anyone that even slightly gets in his way without any remorse when for most of his career he played peace-loving hippie types, or at least that’s what he’s best known for, makes for an interesting contrast. It also shows as opposed to James Bond movies how being a spy can be a very lonely and unglamorous endeavor where a person is forced to constantly be on the run and can rely on no one, but themselves.

Spoiler Alert!

The shift during the second act where the tone becomes more of a drama doesn’t work as well. I couldn’t understand why Henry, this spy on-the-run and under extreme stress, would suddenly pick this time to get into a romance with a perfect stranger that he’s known for less than a day. If he wants to try and exploit the situation to feign romance so she will let down her guard and possibly defend him when and if the authorities arrive then fine, or maybe he’s just looking for some cheap sex to unwind him, which I could understand also. However, being in extreme survival mode where the welfare of himself and his top secret film are of the uppermost importance and then suddenly to pick this time to get sidetracked, and put himself in a an evermore and needlessly vulnerable position by trying to start-up and an affair while also simultaneously hiding-out made absolutely no sense.

I couldn’t buy into Lucie openly admitting her painful marriage to a perfect stranger either, which she candidly divulges to Henry less than 24-hours after first meeting him. Most people have pride and ego and thus won’t want to admit the harsh truth about their lives when somebody, in this case Henry, exposes it to them. They instead would want to ‘keep up appearances’ and maybe even become defensive, or resentful of someone they don’t know bursting into their home and openly telling them unflattering things about themselves and yet here Lucie melts completely when Henry confronts her about her flawed union and gushes out all the personal details like he’s her own personal therapist, which happens too quickly to being even remotely believable.

Spoiler Alert!

The affair angle didn’t seem necessary anyways since during the third act when she finds out he’s a spy she goes after him violently without any pause. You’d think if she had been intimate with him she might want to ‘hear his side of things’ or consider escaping with him from her dreary life instead of her immediate response being that he’s the mortal enemy.

With all this said I did like the climactic foot chase where Lucie goes after Henry with a gun alongside this rocky cliff ( in the book she throws a stone at him, but the shooting gun makes it more dramatic). Yet even this and some of the other twists that come about during the third act aren’t as effective as they could’ve been because all of the secrets are given away right from the start and instead having it start out in the cottage, where the relationship between Lucie and Henry could’ve taken more time to be realistic, and where Henry’s true identity wasn’t known upfront would’ve made what happens at the end more riveting, shocking and even profound, which with the way it gets done here doesn’t fully gel.

There’s also some problems on the technical end. The music is way too loud and at times obnoxious to the point it becomes heavy-handed and could’ve easily been left out altogether. The scene showing Henry chasing after Lucie who’s driving away in a car gets badly botched. The faraway shots of him running are okay, but the close-up, showing him from the waist up, looks like he’s jogging on a treadmill. The scene too inside the lighthouse where Lucie unscrews a lightbulb in order to insert a key into the socket and cause the fuse to blow looks phoney because if she were handleling a live bulb bare handed, as she does, she would’ve flinched and even let out a bit of a yelp from the scorching heat, but instead she doesn’t.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: July 24, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 52 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Richard Marquand

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Freevee, Roku, Tubi, Amazon Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Spy/Espionage

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Butterfly (1982)

Posted on July 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

butterfly

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Family has genetic birthmark.

Jess (Stacy Keach) takes care of an unused mine outside of a small Arizona desert town. One day Kady (Pia Zadora) shows up at his doorstep. Jess doesn’t recognize her at first, but then realizes she’s his 17 year-old daughter the product of his marriage to Belle (Lois Nettleton) who abandoned him 10 years earlier for another man named Moke (James Franciscus). She is pregnant by a man who refuses to marry her, so she  wants to steal silver from the mine that Jess protects in order to help her financially with the child who’s on the way. At first Jess disapproves, but Kady uses her provocative body and looks to essentially seduce him and get him to relent. However, a local man named Ed (George Buck Flower) witnesses their stealing from the mine as well as their lovemaking later on, which gets them arrested for incest.

The story is based on the 1947 novel ‘The Butterfly’ by James M. Cain, who at the time was an immensely popular author, who had many of his books made into movies, but due to the controversial nature of this one it had to wait 35 years until it finally went to the big screen. He was inspired to write the story when years earlier, in 1922, he got a flat tire while driving through a mountainous area in California and a farm family that had moved there from West Virginia helped him fix it, but at the time he speculated that the young daughter they had with them was a product of incest.  The movie makes several deviations from the book. In the book Jess was the overseer of a coal mine and the plot took place in West Virginia while the Kady character was 19 instead of 17.

While the plot has some tantalizing elements, and on the production end it’s well financed, the whole thing comes crashing down due to the really bad performance of its lead actress. Zadora at the time had done only one other film before this one, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, which was universally lambasted. It probably should’ve killed anyone’s career who had been in that, but she continued to struggle on in the business. Then in 1972 while performing in a small role in a traveling musical show, she caught the eye of a rich businessman named Meshulam Riklis, who was 29 years her senior. The two began dating and eventually married in 1977. Her new husband was determined to make her a star even if it meant buying her way in. He put up the entire $3.5 million budget for the film while demanding that she be placed as the star forcing director Matt Cimber to cast all the other parts around her. Riklis even put up big money to help get her promoted to winning the Golden Globes Newcommer of the Year Award, but all of this didn’t get past the critics, or audiences who rightly saw her as undeserving of all the attention and while she did a few other movies after this, which were equally panned, and even a few music videos and singing ventures, she is overall largely forgotten today and hasn’t been in a movie in 30 years.

To some extent her performance isn’t completely her fault as her character is poorly fleshed-out, which is my main gripe. I just couldn’t buy in that this chick on the verge of adulthood would be so extraordinarily naive that she’d come-on to her own father and not see anything wrong with it. First of all why is she sexually into her dad anyways as majority of girls tend to want to go for guys their own age and if not there has to be a reason for it, which this doesn’t give. In either case she should have some understanding that the rest of society doesn’t condone this behavior nor having her aggressively flirt with literally any guy she meets. The fact that she’s so blissfully ignorant to the effects of her behavior made her not only horribly one-dimensional, but downright mentally ill. Sure there’s people walking this planet that harbor some sick, perverse desires, but virtually all of them know they’re taboo and not dumb enough to be so open about, or if they do they learn real fast. Having her unable to understand this, or never able to pick-up on even the slightest of social cues is by far the most annoying/dumbest thing about it.

Keach, who gives a good performance and the only thing that holds this flimsy thing together, has the same issue with his character though not quite as bad. The fact that he doesn’t even recognize his daughter at first is a bit hard to believe. Sure he left the family 10 years earlier, but that would’ve made her 7 at the time and although she has clearly grown I think she’d still have the same face. He gives into his temptations too quickly as at one point he massages her breasts while she’s in the tub. Now if he weren’t religious then you could say he didn’t care about the taboos and had been living so long alone that he’d be happy to jump at any action he could irregardless if they were related, but the fact that he goes to church regularly should make him feel guilty and reluctant to follow through. In the book he’s portrayed as fighting these internal feelings by turning to alcohol, which is the way it should’ve been done here as well.

The eclectic supporting cast does make it more interesting than it should. Orson Welles caught my attention not so much for his role as a judge, but more because of his wacky combover. James Franciscus, who usually played sterile good guys is surprisingly snarly as the heavy and Stuart Whitman has a few good moments as a fiery preacher though even here there’s some logic loopholes that aren’t explained like how did he know Kady was Jess’ daughter, which he mentions while at the pulpit much to the surprise of Jess as he hadn’t introduced her to anybody.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: February 5, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 48 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Matt Cimber

Studio: Analysis Film Releasing Corporation

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity, Obscure 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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Let it Ride (1989)

Posted on June 19, 2024 | 2 comments

let

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Betting at horse racing.

Jay (Richard Dreyfuss) along with his friend Looney (David Johansen) are two struggling Miami cab drivers. One day Looney, who secretly records discussions that his passengers have while in the backseat of his cab, overhears a tip by two men of an upcoming horse race. He passes on the recording to Jay. Jay has not had much success in betting and has even promised his wife Pam (Teri Garr) that he will quit, but he can’t pass up this opportunity and places a wage on the horse that had been discussed. It turns out to being a photo finish in his favor and he spends the rest of the day making more bets by using all of his winnings as his wagering. Soon, he finds himself getting richer and richer even as his wife comes to the track in an effort to get him to stop. Will his luck hold, or run out?

Probably the best thing about the movie is the acting particularly by Dreyfuss, who’s known for playing aggressive, snarky types, but here comes-off as surprisingly sympathetic. You genuinely feel for the guy and his need to win at something and has one comically touching moment where he kneels at the toilet of a grimy bathroom stall and prays/pleads to God for a break. Garr, who reunites with Dreyfuss as the two starred 10 years earlier in Close Encounters of the Third Kind where they also played a husband and wife, is equally engaging though while seen right at the start disappears for quite awhile only to reappear briefly during the second act where it would’ve been better had she remained in it all the way through.

In support Johansen, better known as Buster Poindexter the lead singer of the punk band the New York Dolls, is amusing as Jay’s ever losing friend and Robbie Coltrane has some great reaction moments as the ticket seller. Jennifer Tilly almost steals it as a voluptuous vamp while Allen Garfield gets in a few funny quips as her Sugar Daddy boyfriend. A young Cynthia Nixon, wearing braces, can be seen as a underage girl trying to sneak in a bar with a phoney ID though her part doesn’t have all that much to do with the main plot and Michelle Phillips, singer from the Mama’s and the Papa’s, as a rich women who comes onto Jay at a luncheon.

The story, which is based on the 1979 novel ‘Good Vibes’ by Jay Conley, starts out well. I enjoyed the way it captures the working class life of Miami versus the usual glossy look at the chic neighborhoods of the area. All the actors including the stand-ins and those milling about in the background have a very ordinary, everyday quality, which nicely captures how people, who sometimes have very little money, will still flock to the track in a desperate attempt to ‘make it big’ even though it rarely ever happens. The shooting, done on-location at the famed Hialeah Park Race Track, one of the oldest in Florida, is terrifically done and you feel like you’re right there standing next to the track as the horses go thumping by while kicking up clumps of dirt.

The tone though is inconsistent. Instead of remaining this character study with a slice-of-life quality it instead skewers into becoming a camp comedy. Case in point comes when Jay gets arrested for mistaken identity, but still makes a mad dash to place his bet, which gets filmed in a sped-up fashion including having him crash through a wooden door with a cartoonish flair that’s jarring and out-of-place. It also gets highly exaggerated as in only one day’s time everyone at the track gets to know Jay and cheers him on, which is too quick of a turnaround for such a thing to realistically happen.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending leaves much to be desired as Jay just continues to win and win until his earnings amount to over $600,000 (or $2 million in today’s dollars), but what is causing him to have such a streak of luck? Did God really answer his prayers, or is some other mystic source at play? Everyone knows that you end up losing more than you win at gambling and a winner’s luck will eventually run-out at some point.  Showing a guy who never was good at gambling before without having earned it like learning some special skill, or insight, makes for a flimsy and fanciful movie. Getting lucky on one bet, maybe even a really, really big one that beats long odds, which is how the movie should’ve played it, might happen, but having him just continue to ‘get lucky’ with no explanation is too exaggerated and doesn’t show the harsh downside, which if you’re going to do a story about gambling in any type of realistic way, needs to be shown as well.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: August 18, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 27 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Joe Pytka

Studio: Paramount

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in Florida, Sports Movies

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