Category Archives: Movies Based on Stageplays

Same Time, Next Year (1978)

Posted on August 24, 2024 | 3 comments

sametime

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Affair lasts 26 years.

George (Alan Alda) meets Doris while staying at an inn in California in 1951. Both George and Doris are married with kids, but that doesn’t stop them from having a tryst while they’re there since neither of their spouses are with them. They decide to continue to meet each year at the same time and inside the same oceanside cabin. This reoccurring rendezvous lasts all the way up to 1977 and they go through many changes both in their personal lives and personalities, but remain in-love with the other despite never divorcing from their spouses.

While there’s a definite Neil Simon quality to the dialogue and situational comedy it was actually written by Bernard Slade who at that time was best known for creating the sitcoms ‘The Flying Nun’ and ‘The Partridge Family’. Originally it opened as a play on March 14, 1975 and starred Ellen Burstyn and Charles Grodin and ran for 1,453 performances. Slade also wrote the screenplay to which he was nominated for an Oscar.

While the interiors were filmed on a soundstage the outer portion of the cottage was built specifically for the film and when shooting was completed it was decided to move this foundation to a location in Little River, California with the interiors fitted with the furnishings that had been used on the soundstage during filming and then allowing couples to rent it out. This became so popular that the cabin was split into two with one called ‘Same Time’ and the other ‘Next Year’ and can still be rented out for a romantic getaway to this very day.

While the film stays faithful to the stage version I felt there should’ve been added context revolving around how they meet. We see them first making contact as they enter the inn to check-in and then they have dinner at separate tables before Alda invites himself over to eat at Burstyn’s, but we never hear their dialogue and instead get treated to sappy music, which could’ve easily been chucked and not missed. It also fails to answer one of the plot’s more crucial questions: why would a married woman with kids be traveling the countryside all by herself? For Alda it could make some sense as it was socially acceptable for a man to be traveling single for business reasons, but woman at that time were pretty much stuck in the home doing the majority of the child rearing, so what would her reason be for being out on the road all alone? Maybe she was visiting relatives, but you’d think if that were the case they’d let her stay at their place, or she’d bring her kids along, but either way there needed to be an explanation and there isn’t any.

The fact that they’re able to continue to do this for literally two and a half decades without the spouses finding out for the most part begs a lot of questions. What excuses were they giving their families, so that they could continue to keep meeting at the exact same time of year? Having an angry spouse secretly follow them and then unexpectedly show-up could’ve added some extra spice and if this situation had occurred in real-life most likely that would’ve ultimately happened.

While this may sound like nit-picking I had issues with the cabin setting too. Don’t get me wrong it’s scenic and I loved the outdoor moments where you get a great view of the shore and pine trees, but the interior of the place should’ve changed, or been updated with the times instead of the furniture and the placement of it looking virtually the same for 26 years. Make-up work could’ve been done on Ivan Bonar who plays the Inn’s owner and while the two stars age in interesting ways he remains ancient looking right from the start and never changes.

On the plus side I found both Burstyn and Alda to be fabulous and I enjoyed their comic, and sometimes dramatic, interplay even though their transitions in personalities proves a bit problematic. Normally as people age their attitudes and perspectives can shift, but it’s more linear and not herky-jerky like here. For instance during the 60’s Burstyn gets into the flower child movement only to, by the 70’s, become a business owner and a part of the establishment. Alda too goes from hardcore conservative during the 60’s, even admitting to voting for Barry Goldwater, to necklace wearing lib by the 70’s, which seemed like these characters were just conforming to the trends and attitudes of the day like caricatures instead of real people.

Spoiler Alert!

All of the quibbles listed above I could’ve forgiven, but the ending I found annoying. I actually liked the idea that George’s wife dies and he meets someone else and she won’t allow him to keep seeing Burstyn, so he then puts pressure on Burstyn to divorce her husband and marry him, which she refuses, so he then walks-out. This I found to be very realistic as most affairs don’t last this long anyways, so the memories and good times they had would be treat in itself and should be left at that. For Alda then to walk back-in and say it had all been a lie and they could continue to get together ‘forever’ was too far-fetched for a concept that had been pushing the plausibility to begin with. Everything needs to end at some point as even ‘perfect marriages’ will stop when one partner dies. The audience saw the first meeting, so they should’ve been treated to the last one too. Even if it meant having them elderly and entering with their walkers it should’ve been shown and the story given, one way or another, a finality of some sort.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: November 22, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 59 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Robert Mulligan

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 70's Movies, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies with a Hotel setting, Obscure Movies, Romance

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A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972)

Posted on August 9, 2024 | Leave a comment

deathjoe

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 9 out of 10

4-Word Review: Caring for disabled child.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spoiler Alert!

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

My Rating: 9 out of 10

Released: June 4, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Peter Medak

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD-R

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

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Absolution (1978)

Posted on April 17, 2024 | 1 comment

absolution

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Pranking a strict priest.

Father Goddard (Richard Burton) is the head of an English Boy’s School and uses his influence to control those who attend and is unflinching on his policies. Goddard constantly displays a cold and detached demeanor particularly with Arthur (Dai Bradley) a handicapped student that the Father doesn’t seem to care for. Benjie (Dominic Guard) on the other-hand is the teacher’s pet and routinely shown favorable treatment. Benjie though grows to resent the Father’s stern ways when he’s told he can no longer visit with Blakely (Billy Connolly) a motorcycle riding vagabond who has set-up an encampment just outside of the school grounds. Benjie decides to play a prank on the Father after hearing the lecture about the seal of confession, which a priest cannot break even if what he’s told is about a murder, so during confession Benjie tells Goddard that he’s murdered Blakely. Goddard initially doesn’t believe him, which sets off a myriad of twists that soon sends Goddard’s life, career and even his sanity spiraling out-of-control.

After the success of The Wicker Man, Anthony Schaffer was commissioned by director Anthony Page to write another script that could be made into a movie and Schaffer decided to choose one that had initially been meant as a stageplay, but had never been produced. However, once Schaffer had completed his adaptation Page was unable to find a studio willing to fund it and he was ultimately forced to use his own money and Burton agreeing to slash his normal fee in order to get it made.

The lack of a budget is sorely evident at the start featuring a grainy print with faded color and what initially seems like misplaced banjo music that would be considered more appropriate for a film set in the American south instead of England. Having it shot on-location at Ellesmere Collage helps as many of the local pupils played the students here and the film gives-off a realistic atmosphere about what a boys school would be like with all of the kids looking age appropriate for their grade level and not like, as with other teen school movies, older actors in their 20’s trying to come-off as if they were still adolescents.

Billy Connelly, in his film debut, is terrific and it’s fun seeing Bradley, who was better known for his starring role in Kes. Burton though is the standout as his jet setting persona that he had at the time with Elizabeth Taylor gets completely erased and he fully sinks into his role of a steely-eyed, cantankerous man who rules with a rigid, iron-fist and whose simple presence wields terror in the boys as he walks-by and to some extent the viewer too. It’s a commanding performance that helps the movie stand-out.

Spoiler Alert!

The story though, while intriguing, doesn’t fully work. It becomes obvious that Goddard is being tricked by the boys, but you feel no empathy for his quandary. He has spent so much time up until then being a jerk that you end up siding with the boys, at least initially, which seriously hurts the tension as normally in a thriller/mystery such as this you’re supposed to side with the protagonist and want to emotionally see them get out of their predicament. Here though you like his mental breakdown and not as invested in finding out the resolution beyond it. The final explanation, dealing with the Arthur character supposedly disguising his voice to sound like Benje’s is too much of a stretch and ultimately hurts the credibility.

Shaffer stated in interviews that this was not meant to be an anti-Catholic movie, but I feel he said this in order not to alienate potential viewers as it’s clearly written by someone who grow-up in the church and had many problems with it. Father Goddard is more a caricature meant to represent Catholicism as a whole and how the religion with its very rigid rules ends up trapping those who follow it with a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you don’t scenarios leaving its followers in a perpetual state of guilt and paranoia. This becomes quite evident at the end where the Father feels unable to break his seal of confession for fear of divine wrath, but also fears it for the murder he committed and his thoughts of suicide that would equally lead him to hell, per the teachings, making him more a victim of the religion than of the boys, which I feel was the whole point.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: December 8, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Anthony Page

Studio: Bulldog Productions

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Adolescence/High School, British Movies, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Stageplays, Spiritual Movies

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Equus (1977)

Posted on March 7, 2024 | Leave a comment

equus1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Teen blinds six horses.

Martin (Richard Burton) is a disillusioned, middle-aged psychiatrist who gets tasked with finding out why a 17-year-old boy named Alan (Peter Firth) blinded six horses one night in a stable with a sickle. At first Alan is uncooperative during their sessions and will not speak to him and instead sings out commercial jingles repeatedly, so Martin must go to Alan’s parents (Colin Blakely, Joan Plowright) in an effort to find some answers. It is here that he learns the mother is highly religious and taught her son that ‘God sees all’ particularly when it comes to sexual transgressions. Alan though has replaced God with his obsession with horses and idolizes them instead where he essentially makes them his ‘deity’. Martin now must try to break the boy away from this fanaticism in an effort to make him ‘normal’, but realizes when he does that the kid will cease to have passion and become like Martin himself who no longer has any emotions for anything including his own wife whom he no longer shares intimate relations.

Director Sidney Lumet has always had a penchant for turning plays into a movies and with some of them he’s had great success like with 12 Angry Men, but some of his other efforts did not fare as well. This project was met initially with a lot of apprehension, but overall Lumet’s directorial flair adds a lot and cinematically it works for the most part. The effort to get away from the staginess of the story by having several scenes done outdoors, like Martin having a discussion with his friend played by Eileen Atkins, about the case while raking leaves I felt really worked. Again, with cinema you have to have the characters doing something during the dialogue even if it’s some sort of chore as there’s nothing more stagnant than talking heads in a movie. The opening sequence done over the credits is well done too as it features Martin dealing with hostile patients hitting home the point of how burnt-out with his career he is without having it told to us and the white color schemes accentuates the tone one is most likely to see in hospitals.

The controversy came with the portrayal of the horses. In the play there were performed by muscular men inside a horse costume, but for the movie Lumet decided they needed to use real animals. This is okay until it comes to the scene where they get blinded. The play version only intimates the violent act, but with the movie you actually see the sickle go right into the horses’ eyes, which is so realistically done I don’t know how they did it without hurting the animal. This was way before computer effects, so just be warned if you’re an animal lover these scenes may be too graphic to bare and could easily take some viewers out of the story to the extent they may not be able to get back into and might just turn it off altogether.

The casting is a bit problematic. Both Burton and Firth played the roles in the stage version, but by this point Firth was no longer looking like a 17-year-old, he was in fact already 23. I admire his bravery to ride a horse in the nude in one of the movie’s more memorable moments, but he still resembles adult features physically taking away the innocence of the character and the shock of how someone so young, i.e. a teen. could commit such a vicious act. Burton too looks too worn out having spent this period of his career battling alcoholism. Some may say that this fit his role, but his presence seems at times almost lifeless and like he’s just walking through his part. The segments where he speaks directly to the camera become long-winded, stagey and aren’t effective.

The story itself may not work for everyone. It was inspired by a true event, which occurred in 1954, that playwright Peter Shaffer heard about, but did not actually investigate. Instead he wanted to come up with his own hypothesis on how someone could do what this character does without learning the real reason that motivated the actual culprit. Some may find the teen’s motivation here to be interpretive and revealing while others will blow-it-off as pseudo psychology and not able to fully buy into. For example certain viewers will find the scene where the father catches the boy kneeling in front of a picture in his bedroom of a horse and ‘worshipping it’ while wearing a make-shift harness to be quite disturbing though with others this same segment may elicit a bad case of the giggles instead.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: October 14, 1977

Runtime: 2 Hour 17 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Sidney Lumet

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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

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Ten Little Indians (1989)

Posted on January 22, 2024 | Leave a comment

tenlittle

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Everybody is getting killed.

Ten strangers get together on an African safari. The group includes: A doctor (Yehuda Efroni), a judge (Donald Pleasance), a captain (Frank Stallone), an actress (Brenda Vaccaro), a General (Herbert Lom), a nanny (Sarah Maur Thorpe), a detective (Warren Berlinger), along with a man named Marston (Neil McCarthy), and a couple with the surname Rodgers (Paul L. Smith, Moira Lister). They’ve been invited by a man named Mr. Owen, but upon their arrival he’s nowhere to be found. Instead they hear his voice that’s been recorded onto a phonograph where he tells them that they’ve been invited because they’ve been accused of committing a crime years ago and gotten away with it, but he intends to put a stop to that by killing them off one-by-one. As each guest gets murdered one of the heads from the ten little Indians statues that sits in the middle of the dining room table goes missing.

The film has the distinction of being the third movie version of the story done by producer Harry Alan Towers as the first one was produced in the 60’s and the second, which also starred Lom, in the 70’s. The story itself is based on the Agatha Christie novel ‘And Then There Were None’ though the ending was changed to replicate the stage play, which was considered more upbeat. While in the novel and play the setting was an island here it’s the desert of South Africa, which I liked as it gives the proceedings a distinct atmosphere. However, there’s an unusual moment at the beginning where the natives help carry the guests’ luggage to the camp site, but then halfway there for no explicit reason they turn on them by clicking their tongues in unison and ultimately abandoning them, which is creepy, but there’s never an explanation for why they do this.

The landscape looks hot and dry though there’s no sweat glistening off the actor’s faces leading me to believe it was shot in the winter time and thus the complaints about the heat, which are casually mentioned are invalid. I did get a kick out of one of the tents, the main one, having an upright piano. Don’t know who in the world would want to painstakingly haul a piano into the desert sands, or essentially the middle of nowhere, but the appearance of it gave me a chuckle. I was also amused by the elevated lift, held together by a frayed rope, that each guest is forced to sit-in as it takes them many feet in the air of a wide gorge, in order for them to get to the campsite. The contraption looks flimsy and it’s rather unnerving seeing them get into it and ride it all the way down.

The acting is entertaining and made-up of many B-stars whose faces you’ll recognize though not necessarily their names. Vaccaro fares best as a bitchy, spoiled, Hollywood star whose career has gone on the decline. Lom is good as an aging man whose memories plays tricks on him, but Stallone, who’s the younger brother of Sylvester and could almost pass of as his twin, has little to add. Berlinger had gained a lot of weight to the point that he’s rounder than a beach ball, is adequate, but the normally reliable Pleasance appears elderly and lacking energy making his presence almost sad. Smith continues in the mold of the jail guard in Midnight Express, a part that made him famous, but his heavy breathing and lurking ways are not interesting and his acting one-note.

The mystery angle doesn’t get played-up too well as the guests get killed-off with a boring regularity making it at times seem almost like a low-grade slasher. The characters don’t respond to their stressful conundrum realistically. For instance one of the guests dies by drinking alcohol that was linked with cyanide, but the rest of them in the ensuing days go on eating and drinking even though you’d think they’d be nervous about ingesting anything for fear that whatever they put in their mouths could also poisoned. They also go back to their tents each night and peacefully sleep despite seeing the other guests get offed by a unseen killer, which would’ve made me, and most others too fearful to get any shut-eye and instead stay wide awake for fear that the killer would attack the minute anyone closed their eyes.

Spoiler Alert!

The tension is nil and there’s really no interest in finding out who the culprit is. In the book everyone dies and the authorities are only able to figure out what happened from a message that they find written by the judge. Here both Stallone and Thorp make it out alive though Thorp lets go of the rope that had been around her neck just as Stallone comes to her rescue making me believe that she would’ve hung herself before he would’ve been able to get her out of the noose. The rescue plane flies over them instead of landing making it unintentionally seem like they had been left stranded and not saved after all. Having everyone die except for Stallone, which is what I thought was going to happen, and then having him arrested for the murders he really didn’t commit would’ve been a much more ironic twist.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: May 17, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 38 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Alan Birkinshaw

Studio: Cannon Films

Available: Blu-ray, Tubi

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Posted in 80's Movies, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies with a rural setting, Mystery, Remakes

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Tribute (1980)

Posted on December 1, 2023 | Leave a comment

tribute

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Father reconciling with son.

Scottie (Jack Lemmon) has been working in show business for decades and has built up many friends and fans, but finds it all come crashing down when, at the mere of age of 55, he gets diagnosed with leukemia. His greatest regret is not having a close relationship with his now grown son Jud (Robby Benson). He wants to reconcile, but not make it obvious that’s it’s because he’s about to die. When Jud comes over for a surprise visit with his mother (Lee Remick), whom Scottie has long since divorced, he tries to mend things and become the father he never had, but the hurt runs deep and Jud proves to be resistant to everything Scottie tries making him feel even more hopeless and forcing him to come to terms with his personal faults and inadequacies.

The film is based on the stageplay of the same name, which also starred Lemmon, and got sold into a $1 million movie deal before the stage version ever hit Broadway. On the surface it’s deemed a drama, but the script by Bernard Slade, who also penned the play, comes off more like a desperate comedy akin in tone to Same Time Next Year, which is Slade’s most famous work that had a strong dramedy vibe to it. This works on that same level as it attempts to lighten the poignant moments with comical bits, but it fails miserable.

Had some of it managed to actually been funny I might not have complained, but it amounts to cringe instead. The most eye-popping moment is watching Lemmon in a chicken costume run around his place going ‘balk-balk’ and even lay a giant egg on the sofa, which I felt was a career low point. What’s even dumber is his wooing of a young woman, played by Kim Cattrall, who’s also a patient at the hospital. He gets into her room by pretending to be a doctor and then gropes her breasts in a feeble attempt to check her heart rate. A normal woman of today, and even one back then, should respond with outrage for him copping-a-feel by disguising himself into being someone he isn’t, but in this stupid movie she’s instead ‘charmed’ by his antics and it’s enough to get her to go to bed with him later.

What’s worse and even more outlandish is that Scottie then sets her up with his son to have them conveniently ‘bump into each other’ in public and then begin going out. Yet how many sons are going to be cool with Dad sleeping with their girl first? Of course Scottie never tells him that he’s already ‘tested her out’, but it does end up showing inadvertently what a conniving jerk the old guy is and what the film considers to be nothing more than an amusing comic side-story really hurts the likability of the character if you think about it.

The acting is good. Lemmon is expectedly strong and so is Remick as his wife though her part is limited. I liked seeing Benson, who usually got stuck with immature parts due to his young, geeky features, play the mature and sensible, level-headed adult of which he does perfectly. Colleen Dewhurst has some strong moments as the caring nurse and Cattrall, despite the annoying nature of her dippy character, is pleasing enough. Yet the ultimate scene-stealer goes to Gale Garnett famous for the mid-60’s folk song ‘We’ll Sing in the Sunshine’, who plays a hooker and in one segment goes topless (looks great), but it’s a bit jarring when you realize it’s the same person who sang such a sweet-natured tune, tough in some ways you could say it’s also a testament that her creative talents are quite broad.

The third act, where they have this major tribute for Scotty has a touching potential, but gets overdone by filling-up an entire auditorium with all of his ‘close friends’, which even for a social butterfly seemed a bit exaggerated. The scene where the hooker gets a restaurant packed with all of her male clients who have ever slept with her has an amusing quality though again equally hard to believe that all of these men would be cool with everybody knowing that they’ve bedded a prostitute. I’ll give props though to the segment showing Scotty getting treatment in the hospital, which gets shown exclusively through still photos, which I found visually innovative.

Unfortunately everything else falls into second-rate melodramatics. It doesn’t even have the decency to tells us whether Scotty dies or not. When an entire movie deals with a character’s ultimate demise I think it should eventually get answered instead of leaving it open. It makes the whole terminal illness thing seem like a tease done to emotionally manipulate the viewer than an actual reality that it supposedly is.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: December 19, 1980

Runtime: 2 Hours 1 Minute

Rated PG

Director: Bob Clark

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies from Canada, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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First Monday in October (1981)

Posted on November 23, 2023 | 2 comments

firstoctober

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: The first lady justice.

While Daniel Snow (Walter Matthau), an associate justice on the Supreme Court who leans heavily left on most issues, is on vacation in Alaska, he gets word that the staunch conservative judge has passed away. The President then decides to nominate a woman to the court by the name of Ruth Loomis (Jill Clayburgh). Unfortunately Daniel is not happy about this as she’s as conservative as the man she replaced. Once the nomination is confirmed the two are immediately at odds over such things as pornographic movies and corporations that pollute the environment. While they bicker and debate constantly they do end up becoming friends, which comes in handy when Ruth realizes that her late husband was involved in some unscrupulous matters and she considers resigning from her position though Daniel tries desperately to talk her out of it.

The film is based on the 1978 play of the same name written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, who also wrote the screenplay. Initially the play, which first starred Jean Arthur and Melvyn Douglas received such terrible reviews that it soon closed and was revamped with Henry Fonda and Jane Alexander, was considered a novelty as up to that time no woman had ever served on the nation’s highest court. That all changed when Ronald Reagan nominated Sandra Day O’ Connor in July of 1981 forcing this film, in an effort to appear timely, to move up its release date to August, but the timing didn’t work and the movie was overall panned by both the critics and public.

The only interesting aspect is watching it from today’s perspective where the Supreme Court has now become a toxic and divisive issue when back in the early 80’s that was not the case. When the Girl Scouts of America posted on Twitter commemorating Amy Coney Barret getting nominated and approaching it as an achievement for women it got a lot of pushback from those unhappy with her due to her conservative leanings. Yet in this movie the fact that the character is staunchly conservative is not considered a problem and feminists and other women are seen during the senate hearings proudly cheer her on and considering her nomination a landmark.

In some ways having the political drama that the modern day court holds today might’ve made the story more interesting as the thing is so genteel that it’s enough to put most people to sleep. The script would’ve had more intrigue had their been a bad guy, maybe like the producer of the porn movies who gets talked about, but never seen, or even the elusive head of a mysterious corporation whose case the court is set to hear, that should’ve been added in to create genuine conflict, which is otherwise sorely missing.

I did like the scene where the judges get together inside a viewing room to watch the porno flick ‘The Naked Nymphomaniac’, but Matthau’s character should’ve been present during this and it’s less funny without him. Their subsequent arguments about whether X-rated movies should be allowed under the First Amendment seems quite dated as this issue had already been considered settled law and by the 80’s most video stores were offering adult films for rental and cable movie channels were showing porn late at night making the plot here woefully out of touch with the times.

Matthau and Clayburgh are great actors, but their performances here prove to be dull and lifeless. Having some sort of romance enter into the picture, it gets briefly alluded to when Matthau admits to having a certain attraction to Jill, but immediately dropped, might’ve given it a spicy angle, but just portraying them as friends with different viewpoints isn’t enough to keep it captivating. There’s  not too much that’s funny either. There’s a couple of semi-humorous lines here and there, but nothing that will make anyone break out into uproarious laughter. Matthau’s inability to eat his lunch using chopsticks while in a Chinese restaurant might amuse some slightly, but overall it’s a dull, empty ride. Very surprising that this thing received an R-rating. The only objectionable part is when they watch a porn flick, but nothing much in the way of nudity or sex is shown.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: August 21, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 39 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ronald Neame

Studio: Paramount Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Comedy/Drama, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies with Nudity

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Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (1970)

Posted on September 11, 2023 | 1 comment

lastmobile

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: A game show wedding.

Myrtle (Lynn Redgrave) and Jeb (James Coburn) meet at a game show being taped in New Orleans and find themselves working together as contestants when brought up onto the stage. They end up winning some money, but are told that they cannot collect it until they’re officially married on live television, which they both agree to. After the nuptials they travel to an old mansion known as the Waverly Plantation that has been in Jeb’s family since 1840. Jeb wishes to use the money earned on the game show to fix up the place, but finds his plans being stymied by Chicken (Robert Hooks) a multi-racial half-brother that has been residing at the place and maintaining it for many years. Chicken insists that he’ll become the next owner of the place once Jeb succumbs to terminal cancer, but Jeb wants Chicken off the premises immediately and have the document stating that Chicken is the next of kin to be destroyed. He orders Myrtle to flirt with Chicken until she can get him into a compromising position so that she can steal the document. Once that is retrieved he then wants her to kill him with a hammer while Jeb waits upstairs. Though initially reluctant Myrtle decides to go through with the plan only for Chicken to turn-the-tables on them with an unexpected twist.

While playwright Tennessee Williams is celebrated for his acclaimed work like A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof many people don’t realize that his biggest success came early in his career while towards the end,  especially by the mid-60’s through to his death in 1983, his output was very little and what he was able to get produced was generally not well received by either the critics, or the public. This film is based on his play The Seven Descents of Myrtle, which was originally written as a short story in 1942 and published in 1954. Williams then decided to turn it into a one-act play in 1967, but then expanded it to a full length stage production, which premiered on Broadway on March 27, 1968 with Harry Guardino as Chicken and Estelle Parsons playing Myrtle. This version though only ran for 29 performances and was generally considered a failure.

However, director Sidney Lumet saw the production and decided he wanted to take a stab at turning it into a movie. He made several changes to the story with the biggest one being that in the play the Jeb character, who was called Lot, was a closeted transvestite, which is something that the movie doesn’t bring up at all though would’ve been far more interesting had it done this. The play also doesn’t feature the game show segment, which was very surreal and makes the film seem almost like a misguided parody.

I did enjoy the way famed cinematographer James Wong Howe captured the decaying mansion, which was filmed on-location in St. Francisville, Louisiana, a famous small town known for its abundance of historic old buildings. Everything else though falls flat. The opening bit at the game show is funny, but becomes jarring with the second-half, which is more dramatic making it seem like two completely different movies with highly inconsistent tone rammed into one. The Myrtle character is not fleshed-out enough to make any sense, or even seem remotely believable and ultimately like with the rest of them comes-off as an empty composite that is not relatable in any way to real people.

The acting though by Redgrave is quite strong. Normally British actors have a hard time masking their accent, but here she’s able to speak in an authentic Southern dialect without her European voice being detectable in the slightest and she puts on a provocative striptease to boot. Hooks dominates the proceedings and ultimately outclasses Coburn who later admitted regret at doing the project and considered his appearance here to be a low point in his career. Having Williams write the screenplay might’ve helped and I’m not sure why he wasn’t asked, but Gore Vidal doing the task turns the whole thing into an absurd misfire that should never have been attempted.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: January 14, 1970

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Rated X

Director: Sidney Lumet

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD-R (Warner Archive)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Drama, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with a rural setting, Obscure Movies, Offbeat

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Summertree (1971)

Posted on June 9, 2023 | 1 comment

summertree

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Dropping out of college.

Jerry (Michael Douglas) is a 20-year-old university student who finds going to college to be drag as he’s disinterested in the subjects being taught and would rather play his guitar for a living. Since the year is 1970 his parents (Jack Warden, Barbra Bel Geddes) fear that this could get him drafted and advise against it, but Jerry refuses to listen convinced that he’ll get accepted into the conservatorium, which will restore his student draft deferral. In the meantime he also starts up a relationship with Vanetta (Brenda Vaccaro), a local nurse he meets when he brings in Marvis (Kirk Calloway), a black youth he’s spending time with through the big brother program, into the hospital after he skins his knee. Everything seems to be going Jerry’s way, he even gets a job playing his guitar at a local coffeehouse, but then the draft notice comes in the mail and the  music school decides, to his shock, not to accept him. He feels he has no other choice but to escape to Canada, but Vanetta does not want to go with him and his parents don’t think this is a good idea and secretly plot to prevent it.

The film is based on the stageplay of the same name by Ron Cowen that was produced in 1967 and originally had Douglas cast in the lead only for him to get fired during the rehearsal phase and replaced by David Birney, which so incensed his father Kirk, that he bought the rights to the play in order for it to be made into a film that his son could star in. It’s directed by Anthony Newley, which is an unusual choice since Newley was from Britain and not as affected by the Vietnam war and also for the fact that he was mainly known as an actor, writer, and singer with very little hand in directing. Overall he does okay, but the song done over the opening credits, which is sung by actor Hamilton Camp, is atrocious and makes you want to turn it off before it’s even begun. The stop-action ‘comedy’ done through a home movie type look, that gets shown while the horrible song is played, is bad too making this thing really stumble out of the gate though it manages to recover.

The plot works like three stories compressed into one. The segments dealing with Jerry’s relationship with the child, who is very streetwise and foul mouthed, but still quite engaging, are the best. His attempts to form a relationship with Vanetta though prove awkward as he follows her down a lonely dark alley late at night, which would make him seem by today’s standards like a stalker, and then taking her out to a cemetery on their ‘first date’ when it’s pitch black out would not be something most people would find romantic and instead quite creepy. Vaccaro is a great actress though more in roles featuring strong women and not necessarily as a love interest. This did precipitate a long on-going relationship between the two in real-life that lasted 6 years and for voyeurs you also get to see her topless as she rarely ever did nude scenes, but for whatever reason decided to do it here.

Spoiler Alert!

His relationship and conversations with his parents I initially found interesting. Coming into the movie I thought this would be a long, drawn-out arguments of conservative old-school parents and the liberal kid, but that’s not really the way it works. The parents are against him going to war as much as he is and it’s only the staying in school part that they find disagreement, but then when he decides to go to Canada in a last ditch effort to avoid the draft suddenly they’re against that too even to extent of trying to bribe a mechanic to fiddle with Jerry’s car, so he can’t drive it, but why? The shift in their perspectives seemed too quick. If they’re concerned they might not be able to see him much if he’s stuck in another country it would still be better than him coming home in a body bag and even if he does come out of it alive he’d be emotionally scared, or physically disabled for life, which wouldn’t occur if he was in Canada, so from my perspective the parents should’ve supported his ‘escape plan’ and the fact that they don’t needed more explaining.

The ending in which the parents are in their bedroom, with Jerry now off to war, and them acting like ‘everything will work out’, which is a far cry from what they thought before, gets botched. For one thing there’s an issue of Life magazine sitting on top of the TV talking about the weekly body count from the war on it’s cover, but I would think the parents would’ve thrown that out as they wouldn’t want to be reminded that their son may soon become one of those statistics and just leaving it in a place where they’d constantly be reminded of it didn’t seem realistic. They also both roll over and go to sleep while leaving the TV on, but who does that? Seeing an image of Jerry’s dead body being carried away on the TV isn’t the shocking surprise that the filmmakers though it would be as as the film spends a lot of time priming the viewer that is what it’s leading up to making the final image corny and even tacky instead of riveting.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: June 9, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 29 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Anthony Newley

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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

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Reuben, Reuben (1983)

Posted on April 15, 2023 | Leave a comment

reuben1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Housewives lust for poet.

Gowan (Tom Conti) is a middle-aged poet going through writer’s block who hasn’t written anything in 5 years and manages to remain solvent by touring around a college town and reciting his older writings to women’s clubs. The stress though of not being able to produce anything new causes him to turn to alcohol and further rescinds his writing ability. Geneva (Kelly McGillis) is a college student several years his junior who spots him on a train one day and agrees to pay his fare when he’s found not to have any money. This generosity manages to have a profound affect on him and he makes a commitment to mend his ways while also going out with Geneva on casual dates. The awkward love affair doesn’t go far as Gowan continues to drink and embarrass her every time they go out. When Geneva finds out she’s pregnant the two then must decide how they will proceed.

Unusual romantic flick that has all the ingredients of failing, but manages somehow to have a certain light appeal. Much of this is thanks to McGillis, who in her film debut really shines and while this film is not one of her better known ones I still consider it her best work. Normally film’s dealing with May-December romances don’t work because the younger partner is always portrayed as being wide-eyed and naïve, but here it’s Geneva that’s the sensible one who calls all the shots and remains in control. This change of pace gives the old theme a refreshing new spin and made it palatable enough to hold my interest and in certain moments even becomes touching.

Conti gives a good performance, but he seems more like a caricature. He wears the same dowdy outfit all the way through making me wonder if that was the only suit he owned and if so whether he reeked of odor. I found it hard to believe that this guy, who looks like he was living on the streets, would attract all these frustrated housewives who’d be rushing to go to bed with him. With all the alcohol he consumed I’d have serious questions whether he’d be able to perform, or how sex with him could possibly be much better than with their husbands as I would think it might actually be worse.

Supposedly this was all meant as ‘satire’ and based loosely on the life of Dylan Thomas. Possibly in book form, as this was based on the novel of the same name by Peter De Vries and then later turned into a stage play, it might’ve worked, but as a film set in the modern day it’s confounding. Thomas hit his fame in the 30’s and 40’s when movies and television where just getting started and therefore writers held more clout, but by the 80’s there were so many other types of celebrities that some frumpy looking drunk guy who used big words to create long poems wouldn’t be someone a suburban housewife would get all that excited over. The opening sequence shows the reactions on their faces as they listen to him recite some of his writings and while one of them has a confused look on her face I felt they all should’ve and for my money that would’ve been really funny.

Spoiler Alert!

The finale, which Leonard Maltin in his review calls ‘curious’, but I’d describe more as ill-advised is the one thing that really hurts it. I’m not sure what the thinking was other than Dylan Thomas died young so possibly they felt Gowan needed to die too, but it was the wrong decision. Normally I get annoyed with movies that tack-on a happy ending and have everything work-out even when it’s not earned, but this film works in reverse by throwing in a very sad one that comes out of nowhere and doesn’t fit the tone of the rest of the movie, which for the most part had been quite whimsical.

The way it gets done is pretty dumb too as he elects to hang himself inside his apartment after he finds out all of his top teeth, many of which have been rotting for years due to neglect, would have to be removed. While losing teeth is no one’s idea of fun it does happen to a lot of folks of all ages and dentures (this was made before the advent of implants) if fitted properly aren’t always that noticeable, so to kill yourself over something like that seemed awfully rash.

Just as he’s about to hang himself he gets inspired again to write and even excited about finding new women to sleep with, but then a lovable sheep dog named Reuben runs into the room (you’d think someone planning to kill himself would have the sense to shut his door and lock it) and being overly affectionate jumps-up and knocks down the chair that he’s standing on, which comes-off as being more farcical than anything. I was fully expecting the wooden beam that the rope was tied around to break from the stress of all the weight, which in reality I think it would, but instead it doesn’t and he’s left hanging leaving me genuinely baffled. For such an otherwise light and quirky movie to end this way was very jarring.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: December 19, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 41 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert Ellis Miller

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies with Nudity, Romance

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