Category Archives: Movies with Nudity

Coming Home (1978)

Posted on March 12, 2023 | 1 comment

coming

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 10 out of 10

4-Word Review: Falling for injured vet.

Sally (Jane Fonda) is the military wife to Bob (Bruce Dern) who’s been deployed to Vietnam. Since she now has more free time she decides to volunteer at her local VA Hospital. It is there that she meets Luke (Jon Voight) a former classmate from high school who has now come back from the war a paraplegic. Luke is very embittered about his condition and he’s initially angry and confrontational with Sally. Eventually he softens and Sally invites him to her house for dinner. It’s there that their romance begins to bloom and eventually they become intimate. Bob though, having suffered a leg injury, returns to the states and while Sally and Luke agree to keep their affair a secret Bob soon finds out, which leads to an ugly confrontation between the three.

The idea for the film was inspired by Fonda’s meeting with Ron Kovic, an injured vet who had written his autobiography Born on the Fourth of July that later, in the 80’s, became a movie starring Tom Cruise. Fonda though wanted to make a film with a character that was similar to him and got together with screenwriter Nancy Dowd in 1972 to write a script, which initially focused completely on the hospital setting without the affair, or B-story dealing with the conservative military husband. After many rewrites and bringing in Oscar winner Waldo Scott to help bolster the story the script finally managed to gain interest amongst the studios though many were still cautious about producing a movie dealing with the after-effects of the war, which at that time had never been done before, up until then only films dealing with the war, or those coming back with psychological issues, but not actual physical impairments and thus making this a first in that category.

Since Fonda was instrumental in getting the project produced she was the only choice to play Sally. I think she’s a fine actress who deservedly won the Supporting Oscar for her work here, but since she was on the front lines of the war protest and in many ways even became the face of it, the transition of her character isn’t as profound. Having an actress whose name wasn’t so aligned with left politics and who could better fit-into the part of a conservative housewife would’ve then made the character’s arch more dramatic. I felt too that Sally is too understanding of Luke right-off, the history of them going to high school together should’ve been excised, and instead she should’ve feared Luke when she first encounters him as he does act out-of-control and the romance between them happens too quickly.

Also, once her character changes her hairstyle from the old-fashioned straight to curly it should’ve remained as this visually establishes her character’s changing perspective and not go back to the straight look when she visits Bob in Hong Kong. To remedy this she should’ve decided to keep the curly look even if she feared Bob might not approve, she was technically becoming more empowered with him away anyways, and this would’ve signaled to Bob that she wasn’t the same person he knew when he left, or had the hair change occur after the Hong Kong visit, but having the hair style flip-flop works against the arch, which should be linear and not zig-zagging.

Voight, who won the Best Actor Oscar, and who had to lobby hard for the role as the producers originally wanted Jack Nicholson, is outstanding and there’s not a flaw in his performance with his best moment coming at the very end when he gives a lecture to a room full of high school students about his war experiences. My only complaint, which has nothing to do with his acting and more with the script, is when he bluntly tells Sally, when he goes to her place for dinner, that he dreams of making love to her, which seemed too forward especially since they end up having an impromptu kiss later. Since movies are a visual medium it should’ve settled with the kiss exposing the underlying brewing romance without his character having to explicitly state it. I also found it interesting that the DVD features a commentary track with Voight, Dern, and cinematographer Haskell Wexler, but Fonda is conspicuously not present and I wondered if this may have been due to Voight becoming a hardened conservative as he’s aged and because of their political differences Fonda not wanting to be in the same room with him.

Dern, like the other two, is excellent. His improvisational Dernisms as I like to call them come into play particularly when he gets intense I even learned what the slang term Jody meant, which is what he calls Voight at one point. You also, at the end, get a full view of his bare ass. Now, on the celebrity male naked ass scale I still say it’s a distant third to Dabney Coleman’s in Modern Problems  and Tim Matheson’s in Impulse, but it’s not bad.

Accolades must also go to director Hal Ashby, who was not the first choice as the studio initially wanted John Schlesinger. While Schlesinger could’ve been great I felt Ashby’s use of all natural lighting is what really makes the difference and becomes the over-riding look of the film. He displays keen use of the music too at the end when the song ‘Time Has Come Today’ by the Chamber Brothers is played and the lyrics are used to expose the underlying ticking time bomb of the situation that the three characters are veering speedily into.

My Rating: 10 out of 10

Released: February 15, 1978

Runtime: 2 Hours 7 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Hal Ashby

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 70's Movies, Academy Award Winners for Best Actor, Academy Award Winners for Best Screenplay, Academy Award Winners for Best Supporting Actress, Drama, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity, Romance

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The Swinging Barmaids (1975)

Posted on March 8, 2023 | Leave a comment

swinging

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Killer stalks cocktail servers.

With a script written by Charles B. Griffith, better known for having done Little Shop of Horrors, the story centers on Tom (Bruce Watson) a serial killer who stalks women who work at a bar called The Swing-a-Ling Club. His first victim is Boo-Boo (Dyanne Thorne), whom he felt ‘disrespected’ him when she referred to him as ‘sonny’ when she served him his drink, so he quietly followed her home and attacked her and afterwards took photos of her in provocative poses. He then changes his appearance and gets a job at the bar as a bouncer. He proceeds to kill two more of the waitresses, Marie (Renie Radich) and Susie (Katie Saylor) before setting his sights on Jenny (Laura Hippe). However, with Jenny he begins to admire the fact that she insists on staying faithful to her fiancée Dave (Jim Travis) and therefore he considers her to be ‘pure’ deserving of respect instead of a gruesome death. While visiting her at the home of her parents (Milt Kogan, Judith Roberts) he tries to convince her to dump Dave and get with him and he won’t take ‘no’ for answer. Will Lieutenant White (William Smith), who’s been investigating the case and does not consider Tom as a suspect, be able to connect-the-dots before it’s too late?

For an exploitation flick this one doesn’t seem all that titillating. The film’s promotional poster seen above alludes to ‘loose women’ having indiscriminate sex, the film was later reissued as Eager Beavers, which pushes this concept in an even more explicit way, but really you don’t see much of that onscreen. The women, who appear to be around 30 and looks-wise are okay, but nothing that would be considered stunning, come-off as basic working-class folks just trying to do their hum-drum jobs and not oversexed vamps in any way. Their personalities are indistinguishable from the other and their conversations deal with run-of-the-mill issues that aren’t compelling, or original. They also speak in a cliched, Flossie-like tough girl way of a New York street hooker, which I found annoying.

Having it shown right away who the killer is doesn’t help matters. Part of the fun of a slasher film, which this isn’t as it was made before that concept came into vogue though still follows the same basic formula, is trying to guess who the bad guy is, but having that quickly revealed losses the potential mystery element that could’ve made it more intriguing. We learn nothing about the killer, other than a police detective ‘profiling him’ as being someone with ‘mother issues’, but this is something the viewer needs to see and learn visually instead of having it explained to them. Smith as the good-guy is weak too. He’s been great in some of his other film roles, but he’s rather detached and downright irritable in this part and there’s long segments where he’s not even seen.

Gus Trikonis’ direction helps to give it a few extra points. While the killings lack blood I did like the way the hand-held camera follows the victim around as she gets chased through her apartment, particularly during the first attack, which lends an authentic, vivid feel as she tries to fight-off her attacker. The underwater photography showing one of the victims getting drowned is impressive as well, but there are some directorial mistakes here too.

One is when Tom kills Marie and then poses her naked body on a deck chair outside on the patio. The club owner Zitto (Zitto Kazann)  comes along and finds her there with Tom hiding behind the bushes and could’ve easily escape undetected, but instead he proceeds to attack Zitto, who is his boss and could identify him, so why not just get away from the crime scene instead of making things potentially worse for himself?

Another segment has Susie inside a film studio looking up towards a bright spotlight where Tom is standing, but because the light is so bright she must shield her eyes and cannot make out who’s talking to her.  When the viewer though is shown a point-of-view shot we can easily identify him, but if we’re really supposed to be seeing things from her perspective then the light should be blinding for us as well.

Another flawed moment has Jenny’s mother getting a call from a Smith warning her that Tom could be dangerous. She’s to pretend that she’s talking to someone else on the other end, so as not to tip-off Tom, who is sitting close by and can overhear what she’s saying. However, in the film the viewer can hear Smith’s voice through the receiver making it seem that if we can hear it then Tom should be able too. To have prevented this the film should’ve cut away every time Smith spoke showing him at the phone booth and therefore never would’ve heard his voice through the receiver.

Some may enjoy the sleazy storyline and Grindhouse reputation, but even on that level, there’s more explicit and violent stuff out there and it all gets handled in a highly routine way. In fact the only unique thing about the production is that both of the leading actors ended up committing suicide. Hippe’s was in 1986 and Watson, who suffered from manic depression, was in 2009.

swinging2

Alternate Title: Eager Beavers

Released: July 16, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 28 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Gus Trikonis

Studio: Premiere Releasing Organization

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drive-In/T & A, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Police Drama, Thrillers/Suspense

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Certain Fury (1985)

Posted on March 5, 2023 | Leave a comment

certain

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Two gals flee police.

Scarlett (Tatum O’Neal) is a teen prostitute brought to court to face charges of killing a prospective customer. Tracy (Irene Cara) the daughter of a doctor (Moses Gunn) is also attending the courtroom that day. She’s there on charges of drug possession and resisting arrest. Before they can be brought before the judge a shootout occurs inside the packed room in which several deputies are shot and killed. During the ensuing melee Scarlett and Tracy and able to escape and get onto the streets. Neither one knows the other and have many differences in their personalities and temperaments, but find they need to depend on each other in order to survive.

In 1983 Tatum traveled down to New Zealand to star in a movie called Prisoners where she played the daughter of a prison warden who begins a relationship with one of the prisoners who is under her father’s watch. The film though was apparently so bad, or at least so disliked by her father Ryan O’Neal, that after viewing it as part of a preview audience he decided to buy the rights to it in order to keep it from being distributed and to this day very few people have seen it. This film, which was shot in June of 1984, was supposed to get her career ‘back on track’, by casting her as a streetwise 80’s punk, which was considered ‘trendy’ at the time, but was really just as much of a career killer as the other one and Ryan should’ve had the negatives of this one locked-up too.

That’s not to say it’s all bad. The action moments are genuinely impressive. The shoot-out is realistically handled with the gunshots that wound the police appearing authentic. The chase sequence goes on for quite awhile and includes the two going down into an underground sewer where there’s exciting underwater footage as well as a dramatic gas explosion. I even enjoyed the scenes inside a drug den in what seems like hundreds of people all lying around and shooting-up.

The film falters with the characters who aren’t fleshed-out enough to be interesting.  Cara is quite beautiful and looks great nude during a segment where she is attacked by Scarlett’s boyfriend (Nicholas Campbell), but she’s a bit too goody-goody. I would’ve liked more confrontation between the two and Cara being to be just as bitchy as O’Neal. As for Tatum she’s a caricature who lacks any type of depth to be believable. The only thing remotely unique about her is that she can’t read, but with no explanation as to why; is she dyslexic? She’s also snarly the whole time and thus making the two coming together and forming a friendship seem quite forced and mechanical as no one would want to be friends with her especially after she calls Cara the N-word several times to her face.

IMDb, on it’s storyline section for this film, incorrectly states that it takes place in New York, where most anyone would think a plot like this one would happen, but it was actually filmed in Vancouver. You become blatantly aware of this at the end when the camera pan’s the cities’ anemic skyline (it has since improved). I’m sure for tax reasons it was much cheaper to shoot it there, so that’s why the location was chosen, but for authenticity it’s not particularly believable as having such a vibrant underground punk scene like here it would’ve had to be in a giant metropolis instead of a mini-city. In either case this movie is a great example of how if you don’t have well defined characters it will flop no matter how good the action may be.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: March 1, 1985

Runtime: 1 Hour 27 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Stephen Gyllenhaal

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Tubi

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Buddy Movies, Movies with Nudity

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Overboard (1987)

Posted on February 26, 2023 | Leave a comment

overboard

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Rich bitch loses memory.

Heiress Joanna (Goldie Hawn) is a wealthy and snobby woman who hires Dean (Kurt Russell), a carpenter, to remodel the closet that she has on her yacht. Since Dean is a widowed father of four boys (Mike Hagerty, Jared Rushton, Jeffrey Wiseman, Brian Price) he’s more than happy to take on the job in order to bring in extra money, but Joanna, treats Dean poorly, is unsatisfied with his work and refuses to pay him. She ends up throwing him overboard with his tools. Later that night while still on the yacht she goes on deck to retrieve a lost ear ring and falls overboard causing her to hit her head and lose her memory. She is rescued and taken to a local hospital. News shows report on the incident along with pictures of Joanna asking if anyone knows who she is. Dean, who is with friends at a bowling alley, sees the report and concocts a scheme to take advantage of her amnesia by pretending she is his wife and bringing her to his home to do chores and take care of his kids in order to repay her debt to him. The  plan starts out seamlessly, but eventually she begins to bond with both the kids and Dean and then her real husband, Grant (Edward Herrmann) arrives at Dean’s residence in order to take her back with him.

Russell and Hawn began their real-life relationship while working on Swing Shift and wanted to do another picture together. This uninspired script, which was written by Leslie Dixon who had better success with Outrageous Fortune, is a misguided hybrid between Houseboat, a 50’s romantic comedy that starred Cary Grant and Sophia Loren, and Swept Away, a classic 70’s Italian film involving a rich, snotty woman stranded on an island with a working-class man. Unfortunately all nuance gets thrown overboard (pun intended) and we get left with the most extreme caricatures possible. While Hawn is certainly a fine actress her over-the-top character is too cliched and heavy-handed to be even remotely interesting or believable and the film falls hopelessly apart before it even gets going.

The basic premise is full of loopholes. The idea that just anyone could show up at a hospital and insist that some woman is his wife when that women shows no recollection of him and he’s able to bring her home without showing any type of documentation, marriage license, or photograph of the two together is beyond ridiculous. Just saying he recognizes a tattoo on her rear end wouldn’t be enough; maybe the two had a one-night-stand, but it wouldn’t be proof positive that he was married to her and yet for this hospital staff it was. Also, it’s very unlikely that Grant, Joanna’s real husband, would be able to get away with denying her existence as long as he does. He pretends he doesn’t recognize her when he goes to the hospital, so he can then bring young women onto his yacht to fool around with, but his friends and most certainly Joanna’s meddlesome mother, played by Katherine Helmond, would’ve seen the news reports too and gotten on him to go retrieve her, but for some reason in this movie rich people don’t watch the news only the poor folks.

Russell seems to enjoy his part, but like with Hawn his character is a tired caricature that’s not remotely original, or unique in any way. While the movie tries hard to get you to like him I still felt what he does with Joanna by tricking her into thinking she’s his wife was highly exploitive and not forgivable even when factoring in the poor way she had treated him.

The four boys are yet another issue. With the exception of the one who talks in Pee Wee Herman’s voice, which was apparently ad-libbed and not a part of the script, there was no distinction between any of them and they all could’ve been combined into just one. It’s also hard to believe that they’d all agree to play along with Dean and pretend she was their mother when they really knew she wasn’t as most kids are notorious for not be able to keep a secret. I was surprised too that the kids would all accept this new woman into their life and forget that their real mother ever even existed. These kids, or at least one of them, would’ve had some bonding with the real one and been reluctant to just let that go and welcome in her ‘replacement’. The kids were also used to having no rules and doing what they wanted while their dad was away at work, so having a new person come in out of nowhere and start enforcing discipline would most likely caused a rebellion instead of them all embracing this newfound orderly lifestyle.

Had the characters and comedy been more subtle like perhaps having the Hawn character not being a super rich heiress, but just a suburbanite living in a better part of town who has a slight disagreement with Russell when he comes to her house to do some work, then this idea might’ve had potential. However, as it is, the caricatures are too silly and overblown for any viewer with discernable tastes to get into. Also, for such slight and predictable material it takes way too damn long to play-out. Should’ve only been 80 minutes not almost 2-hours.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: December 16, 1987

Runtime:  1-Hour, 52 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Gary Marshall

Studio: MGM

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies with Nudity, Romance

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The Sidelong Glances of a Pigeon Kicker (1970)

Posted on February 24, 2023 | Leave a comment

pigeon

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Cab driver dislikes pigeons.

Based on the novel of the same name by David Boyer, the story centers on Jonathan (Jordan Christopher) a Princeton graduate who spends his days working as a New York cab driver with no ambition to climb up the corporate ladder. Jonathan detests the establishment, but is too old to be a part of the hippie movement, so he rebels from society in other ways by being flippant with his customers and kicking at pigeons in Central Park. His friend Winslow (Robert Walden) has problems of his own as he’s 24, but still a virgin. Jonathan takes Winslow to a party in an effort to find him a woman, but Winslow is so socially awkward that they all turn him down. Back at his apartment Jonathan meets-up with Jennifer (Jill O’Hara) who’s busy trying to ‘find herself’ while living off of her parent’s money. Initially Jonathan resists her advances, but since they’re both lonely he eventually agrees to a relationship with her as long as there are no strings attached. He even brings her to visit his mother (Kate Reid), but then at a holiday party Jennifer makes the mistake of  saying she wants to get married and have kids, which scares Jonathan away and the two break-up only for Jennifer to then sleep with Winslow, which causes Jonathan to become jealous.

This was one of an assortment of youth pictures from the early 70’s trying to analyze the alienation of the love generation and their resistance to conformity and middle class values. These films tended to be much less structured and in certain cases downright experimental, but the subject matter was still considered topical enough that the studio heads at MGM decided to pick it up for distribution only to then quickly drop it when previews of it scored low with test audiences. It was then handed over to a fledgling film company known as Plaza Pictures that re-edited it down to 90 minutes while cutting-out much of the second act in the process and then re-naming it as Pigeons, but this version did no better and the film sat in obscurity for many decades before finally getting a DVD release in 2014.

While I do like offbeat movies I did find the way this one began hard to get into as the lackadaisical pace makes it seem like there isn’t any plot and just a lot of throwaway segments dealing with the angst of big city living. It does improve and manages to even have a few keen moments. John Dexter’s direction, he was better known for his work in the theater as well as his rude behavior towards women, helps a lot. In fact it’s the directing that keeps the thing watchable and despite the modest budget it’s quite polished with the most impressive moment, outside of a taxi car driving off the dock and into the water, is when Jonathan goes under his kitchen cabinet in an attempt to exterminate hundreds of ants. This isn’t as easy as it sounds to get a camera and lighting into such a small space, nor finding all the ants, and I suspect the cabinet was specially made for the production, but still on a small scale it’s impressively done.

The film also features a great supporting cast including Walden in his film debut who is both believable and amusing as Jonathan’s shy and apprehensive friend. O’Hara is equally engaging, she looks exactly like her more famous sister Jenny O’Hara and for awhile I thought it was the same woman. Kate Reid is a scene-stealer as the meddling, oppressive mother and William Redfield has a great moment near the end playing the stepfather who openly has a one-night-stand with a lady he meets at a Christmas party and then comes home late at night to talk to Jonathan about it.

The film’s Achilles heal is the casting of Christopher. He rose to fame as the singer of The Wild Ones, which got him cast as a rock singer for the cult hit Angel, Angel Down We Go, which generated enough notice that producers decided to take a chance on him in a lead role, but it doesn’t work. His character is unlikable and he lacks a dynamic presence let alone his disheveled mop-head hair-do that resembles a bird’s nest. Having the film begin by showing him kicking at pigeons in Central Park, fortunately his foot doesn’t seem to actually hit any of them, makes the viewer despise him right from the start and things never improve.

Spoiler Alert!

The cop-out ending is a disappointment as it features Jonathan riding off on a train headed to Des Moines, Iowa, but I’ve rarely found anyone who’s been born and raised in New York to move to the farmlands of the Midwest. Sure many New Yorkers have gripes about where they live, most anyone is never completely happy with their home city, but ultimately they remain because it’s what they’re used to. Instead of ending it with him riding away it should’ve made this a part of the movie showing his adapting to a completely new and alien place, which could’ve given the movie some interesting insight and made a stronger impression than it otherwise does.

Alternate Title: Pigeons

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: October 28, 1970

Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes (DVD version runs 1 Hour 30 Minutes)

Rated R

Director: John Dexter

Studio: Plaza Pictures

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Christmas Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with Nudity

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X Y & Zee (1972)

Posted on February 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

x

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Wife sabotages husband’s affair.

Zee (Elizabeth Taylor) is the middle-aged wife of Robert (Michael Caine) and the two have been in a tumultuous marriage for many years. Then at a party Robert spots Stella (Susannah York) who is a single mother with two boys. Robert enjoys her much calmer less confrontational demeanor, which is the exact opposite of Zee’s and the two quickly fall into an affair. Zee though becomes aware of what’s going on and becomes determined to put a stop to it one way or the other. At first she is meddlesome by constantly calling-up Stella and warning her about Robert and even going to her place of business to harass her. When that doesn’t work she tries playing into Robert’s sympathy and at one point even attempting suicide, but when all that fails and the affair continues she uses her gay friend Gordon (John Standing) to dig-up some dirt on her and when she finds out the secret that Stella has she uses it to exact her revenge.

Taylor and her over-the-top shrewish performance is the whole reason the movie works and if you watch it for that purpose you won’t be disappointed. Sure she’s played this role a bit too often to the point that it was becoming more of a caricature for her and ultimately what I feel killed her career as by the 80’s she was no longer making films for the big screen, but still when she’s as entertaining doing it as she is here it’s still a joy to watch. Unfortunately she dominates every scene that she’s in that it leaves very little room for her co-stars particularly York who’s completely dull by comparison. York certainly was an accomplished actress, but in this movie she’s unable to go toe-to-toe with her superior co-star and the film suffers for it. A strong actress with a definite presence was needed instead York just quietly sits there looking overwhelmed as Taylor’s character continuously berates her. If anything Mary Larkin, who plays Caine’s nerdy secretary, should’ve been the love interest, Caine ultimately sleeps with her anyways, as she’s so meek that you would feel sorry for her when Taylor got snarky with her, but with York you feel nothing and it’s almost like she’s transparent.

Caine on the other-hand is able to hold his own, but his frothy retorts at Taylor’s abuse is never quite as clever, or entertaining as hers. My biggest issue with his character is why doesn’t he just divorce her as he’s quite wealthy and could easily do it and yet avoids it. He mentions at one point wanting to kill her, but never just divorcing her. Since the couple never had any kids it would be less messy, so why not just take that route and then he could see York, or any other woman for that matter without worrying about Taylor getting in the way. I realize some marriages are held together for weird reasons, even those when it becomes achingly clear that it should end, but for whatever reason it doesn’t. However, after 2-hours of watching this those reasons should eventually become clear, but they never do.

Spoiler Alert!

I sat through almost the entire movie just waiting to find out what the ‘dark secret’ was that York’s character held, as described by Leonard Maltin in his review, only to finally realize it was nothing more than her being a closet lesbian. What’s worse is that nothing much happens once the secret is exposed. Maltin also describes Taylor/York’s lovemaking scene as ‘ranking high in the annals of poor taste’ though this sentence has been removed from his review in the later editions of his book presumably to avoid making him look homophobic, but whatever lovemaking he may of seen I didn’t and I watched the full 1 Hour 49 Minute newly remastered version from Columbia Pictures (same version streaming on Amazon Video), so either a minute of it got snipped on this cut, or Maltin was offended at seeing the two women hug, which is all there is.

Admittedly I was disappointed as I was hoping to see them kiss, or in bed together, which would’ve livened it up a bit and made it worth sitting through, which otherwise is a strain. The lesbian angle should’ve been introduced much earlier and showing Taylor and York not only getting-it-on and enjoying it, but inviting the reluctant Caine in as a threesome. That would’ve made the movie truly sophisticated and ahead-of-its-time, but having it end the way it does with York seeming very ashamed and defeated about her homosexuality makes it dated and out-of-touch with modern-day sentiments. A misguided relic of its period that really doesn’t have much to say and nowhere near as ‘daring’ as the filmmakers thought it was.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: January 21, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 49 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Brian G. Hutton

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD-R, Amazon Video, Tubi

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Posted in 70's Movies, British Movies, Drama, Foreign Films, Gay/Lesbian, Movies with Nudity

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Hide in Plain Sight (1980)

Posted on February 5, 2023 | Leave a comment

hide

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Searching for his children.

Thomas Hacklin (James Caan) is a divorced father of two children who has visiting rights to see his kids every weekend. One day when he arrives at his ex-wife Ruthie’s (Barbra Rae) residence he finds the home abandoned and no one around. He eventually learns that her and the kids have been put into the Witness Protection Program due to her remarriage to Jack (Robert Viharo) a gangster who qualified for the program when he became a state’s witness against the mob. Thomas’ efforts to find his kids prove futile and the authorities are no help, but he becomes relentless and hires a lawyer (Danny Aiello) to represent him in court, but even then the odds remain seemingly insurmountable.

The film is based on the novel of the same name by Leslie Waller, which in-turn was based on the actual experiences of Thomas Leonhard who one day in 1967 when he went to pick-up his kids for his weekly visitation found them gone and the house that they had been living in with his ex-wife Rochelle to have been abandoned. This then precipitated an 8-year crusade by Thomas to get them back, which proved to be a landmark legal battle, but on July 4, 1975 he was eventually reunited. The film though changed several things from the true story including adding in a subplot where Thomas gets followed by the mob and eventually leads to a violent confrontation. It also compresses the time span from 8 years to 18 months.

While I enjoyed the movie more than when I first saw it over 10 years ago the issues that I had with it during the first viewing remained the same. Most of it had to do with Caan’s, in this the only film that he directed, non-use of close-ups, which the studio heads complained about during the production. A good example of this is when Thomas and ex-wife are arguing on a public sidewalk the camera does not move-in, like in most movies, to allow us to hear what they’re saying, but instead pulls back, so they go further away, but what’s the point of seeing characters on the screen argue if we can’t hear what it’s about? Another scene has Thomas arriving at his ex-wife’s abandoned home, but instead of having the camera go inside with him as he enters it, it remains outside and then tracks around the home to the back door, which Thomas is seen leaving. This though lessens the impact as having the viewer visually witness the suddenly empty house would’ve been far more dramatic.

I did though like that many of the scenes were shot in Buffalo at the exact locations where the real-life incidents happened. The film reconstructs the look and feel of the 60’s quite nicely and many of the participants from the actual events coached the actors on how to perform their roles accurately. The acting is impressive especially by Viharo who’s mafia mobster caricature is right on-target. Kenneth McMillan is quite entertaining as a police detective who initially impedes Thomas’ efforts, but eventually has a change-of-heart. As with any great character actor, which McMillan clearly is, it’s what they add to the part that makes it interesting and here it’s his excessive eating with virtually each scene he’s in has him stuffing his face though I wondered how many takes were required to do each scene and if he ultimately overate and got himself sick while performing the role.

Spoiler Alert!

I was annoyed though with how certain fictional things that got added-in like Thomas’ dealings with the mob got played-down instead of up. The original script by Spencer Eastman called for a lengthy car chase and violent fist-fight, but Caan chose to take the subtle route making these moments less tension filled and possibly too slow and uneventful for some people to sit through. I was also amused how the actual reunion between the father and kids was different from the one in the movie where it’s portrayed as being a happy one. In real-life the kids disliked their father’s rules and ended up moving back with their mother showing how ironic life can be where you fight hard for something and then when you finally get it it ends up not being as great as you thought it would be.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: March 21, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 32 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: James Caan

Studio: MGM

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Gangster Movies, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity

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Circle of Two (1981)

Posted on January 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

circle3

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Old man/young teen.

Ashley St. Clair (Richard Burton) is an aging painter of 60 who has lost his passion and hasn’t either sold, or attempted to do a painting in over 10 years. Sarah (Tatum O’Neal) is an unhappy 15-year-old who’s tired of dating guys her own age as she finds them to be immature and only interested in one thing…sex. She then meets Ashley, first after she sneaks into an adult theater to watch an X-rated movie and then later at a coffee shop. Despite the extreme differences in their ages they still connect through their mutual interest in art. Ashley even begins to paint again and the two share an enjoyable, but platonic friendship. However, once Sarah’s parents (Robin Gammell, Patricia Collins) find out about they put an immediate stop to it by locking her in her room and and in protest Sarah refuses to eat.

Based on the novel ‘A Lesson in Love’ by Marie-Terese Baird this film marks the final one to be directed by famed Greek director Jules Dassin and in many ways this may be the weakest one that he did. The whole way the relationship gets going is very rushed and forced. Bumping into the same person twice in one day, in the big city of Toronto, doesn’t seem likely and then having Sarah fall so head-over-heels for him to the point she starts spouting out the ‘L’ word quite quickly is dingy. A more plausible scenario would’ve had Ashley teaching an art class (he no longer paints, but still has to bring in an income somehow) of which Sarah attends and then through the course of several months a bond is slowly created.

The sex angle is a complete mess. Fortunately Ashley makes no moves on her, but Sarah does aggressively begin to come-on to him and at one point stands completely naked in front of him. In her autobiography ‘A Paper Life’ O’Neal expressed great discomfort in having to do this scene though I didn’t detect this, but maybe that’s just because she’s such a great actress, but either way the scene was completely unnecessary.  It’s also inconsistent with the character as she broke-up with her boyfriend Paul (Michael Wincott) because he was trying to pressure her into having sex and she was still a virgin, so if she didn’t want sex with a guy her own age why would she want it with one who was way older and is this era of pre-Viagra how could she even be sure he could do it? A better scenario would’ve had sex never coming into play and it was simply their other mutual interests that connected them and it was only outsiders, like Sarah’s parents, that presumed the worst when it really wasn’t occurring.

The one bright spot is the acting with both leads being superb. O’Neal proves that her strong and memorable performance in Paper Moon was no fluke and the only thing that keeps the film watchable. Burton is excellent as well. Although he usually has a strong presence here he wisely takes a step back playing someone who’s weak and tentative, which in many ways reflected his own career at the time where many felt he was washed-up and the years of alcohol abuse certainly did age him making him look even older than 60 when he really wasn’t, and thus a perfect fit for the part. The only issue here is that Tatum seems way too mature for 15 both physically and personality-wise and having her play someone who was 17 would’ve been more appropriate.

While the film remains marginally compelling the talky ending in which Burton goes on a long speech like a tenured professor lecturing to a college class practically ruins it. I was also frustrated that we never learn much about the old man, played by George Bourne Sr., an elderly gentleman who agrees to let Ashley paint his portrait for a fee, which in-turn revitalizes his career and I felt this character should’ve been in it more, or at least a few scenes showing what they talked about as his portrait was being done.

Tatum’s abstaining from all food plays-out poorly as well. For one thing she doesn’t change physically, so we’d never know she wasn’t eating if it weren’t mentioned. She then travels to New York and I was fully expecting her to pass-out in the middle of crowded Grand Central Station from a lack of nutrients, but apparently in-between time she had eaten something, but this should’ve been shown and the fact that it isn’t is a sign of shoddy film-making, which despite Dassin’s previous output, this whole movie ends up pretty much being.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: May 7, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Jules Dassin

Studio: World Northal

Available: DVD-R, Amazon Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Novels, Movies from Canada, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Romance

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The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (1981)

Posted on January 18, 2023 | 1 comment

night

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Not like the song.

Travis (Dennis Quaid) is an aspiring singer with some talent, but little discipline. He’s achieved one hit song,but his drinking and partying keeps getting him in trouble. Amanda (Kristy McNichol) is his younger sister and though she’s only 16 she is more mature and responsible. She tries to manage Travis’ career by getting him to Nashville, so he can cut a record and get an agent, but his wild ways and their lack of funds, keeps preventing them from getting there. Eventually he gets arrested for public drunkenness and in order to pay the fine is forced to get a job at a local bar. It’s there that he meets Melody (Sunny Johnson) and tries to pursue a relationship, but becomes aware that Seth (Don Stroud), the deputy sheriff, has a thing for her as well and he won’t allow any other guy to talk to her as he’ll fly into a jealous rage and warns Travis of this, but Travis being reckless as always doesn’t let this phase him. As this goes on Amanda begins a romance of her own with with Conrad (Mark Hamill) who works as a state trooper.

Although in theory it’s ‘inspired’ by the song of the same name it technically doesn’t have anything to do with it. In other films that were made from songs like Convoy, Harper Valley PTA, and Ode to Billy Joe, the central theme was maintained and then expanded on, but here we don’t even get that. The song, with lyrics written by Bobby Russell and then sung by his then wife Vicki Lawrence, had to do with a man getting executed for killing another man who had an affair with his wife even though it was really his kid sister that did the crime. A plot like that could’ve had great potential for being an interesting movie, so why the producers didn’t just go with that original concept I don’t know, but it seems like a travesty for them to retain the song title and I’m surprised the producers of the record didn’t sue.

The plot, as it is here, is limp and uninspired. It basically feeds off of a lot of predictable shenanigans like Travis getting caught in a hotel bed with another man’s wife and then being chased around both on foot and in a vehicle until both he and Amanda are able to get away. In between we get treated to a lot of songs, which normally I’d say was nothing more than filler, which it still is, but since the rest of it is so lame, it comes off more like the best thing in it. Quaid and McNichol do all of their own singing and even wrote their own lyrics and they give energetic performances when onstage, so if you decide to see this thing then I’d suggest fast-forwarding through the rest of it and just stick with the music and you might be pleased.

The acting by Quaid is excellent and Don Stroud is great as the nemesis. McNichol is alright, at least when she’s singing, but otherwise gets pushed to the background and with her super short hair and nagging personality lacks sex appeal and at times looks almost like she could’ve been Quaid’s kid brother instead. The fact that they’re so close and do everything together would make one wonder if there’s something incestuous going on. In the more innocent times of the early 80’s maybe this wouldn’t be the first thought that would pop into people’s minds, but these days I’d suspect others would be wondering the same thing. There’s also no explanation for what happened to their parents. At one point McNichol mentions that she’s orphaned, so there really needs to be a backstory showing of what caused that.

Spoiler Alert!

The biggest gripe though is with the ending in which Travis gets shot and killed by Seth, who also dies in the gunfight. It then concludes with McNichol getting with Hamill, who quits his job as the state trooper, and the two drive-off in her rickety old truck to God knows where. Since the story was mainly about the brother/sister relationship then I felt that’s where it should’ve ended with them in Nashville either getting the record deal, or not. The Hamill character is bland and seemed to be added in with no other purpose, but to extend the already anemic plot. There’s also the fact that he was 29 at the time while McNichol plays someone who was only 16, so them getting into a relationship doesn’t exactly look kosher. Granted the age of consent in the state of Georgia is 16, so I guess in the eyes of law it’s okay, but many today will consider this kind of romance to be cringey, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s the main reason why this film has never had a proper DVD release nor any streaming option.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: June 5, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 52 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Ron Maxwell

Studio: AVCO Embassy Pictures

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Movies Based on Songs, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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The Disappearance (1977)

Posted on January 16, 2023 | Leave a comment

disappearance

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Where is his wife?

Jay Mallory (Donald Sutherland) is a professional assassin who works for a secret organization that contracts him out to do hits all over the world. After returning home from his latest assignment he finds that his wife Celandine (Francine Racette) is not there. Since they had a tumultuous relationship he initially presumes she left on her own accord, but then his friend and fellow hit man Burbank (David Warner) informs him that her disappearance may have something to do with his last hit. The organization that employs him now calls with another assignment, but this time they’re reluctant to give any details, which is unusual. Jay is afraid he’s being set-up as Burbank told him that the company is known to ‘retire’ those that are deemed no longer useful or trustworthy. He decides though to go through with the assignment as he’s curious how it will play-out and confident enough in his ability to get out of any jam, but soon finds himself faced with an entangling twist he never expected.

The film is a fascinating portrait of what can be done with creative direction. Stuart Cooper, who’s not exactly a household name and in fact this was his last theatrical film until 2010 when he did Magic Man, lends some interesting directorial touches that makes the story and characters more interesting than they might otherwise. What I especially liked was the non-linear narrative in which the movie cuts back and forth between the past to the present day. These types of storylines are typically frowned upon by Hollywood studios as they’re considered to be ‘too confusing’ for mainstream audiences to follow, but I had no such difficulty and felt it allowed in added nuance that would not have been present had the plot been approached in the conventional way. Nonetheless when the film tanked at the box office upon its initial release the studio insisted that the film be re-cut where the story would be presented in the standard linear format, but this version did even worse, so fortunately for the DVD/Blu-ray release it was brought back to its original way and labeled as being the ‘director’s cut’ though Cooper actually had no input on it, but eventually approved once he viewed it.

It’s also highly atmospheric particularly with the way it captures the cold, wintry climate of Montreal in the dead-of-winter. Having been born and raised in Minnesota I can tell a fake winter scene done on an indoor sound stage using artificial snow within seconds, but here the cold, including the mounds of snow drifts and nasty hollowing wind, is quite vivid and helps to symbolize the cold nature of the characters and the business they’re in.

I was a little more lukewarm with the acting. Sutherland can certainly be an outstanding leading man, but he seems too kind and sensitive for a person making a living killing others for money though I did like the scene where he plays memory games with his wife while at home, which brings out how crucial paying attention to detail is for his line of work. The supporting players are all familiar faces though I felt Warner was a bit wasted and underused. Virginia McKenna, best known for her starring role in the classic Born Free, is seen for only a brief bit though her interaction with Sutherland is quite pivotal while Christopher Plummer doesn’t appear at all until the final 15-minutes, but still manages to come-off with a memorable presence.

Spoiler Alert!

The film’s biggest downfall though is with the ending, which becomes one twist too many. Up until that point the twists had been a logical fit that made sense when you went back and thought about it. Then at the very end Sutherland gets shot and killed while walking home from the grocery store, but it’s never shown who did it, or why. Maybe it was the secret organization that wanted to ‘retire’ him, but this needed to be shown and explained. Just leaving the viewer hanging with a violent, but vague scenario isn’t satisfying and cheapens the rest of it.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: September 17, 1977

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Stuart Cooper

Studio: Trofar

Available: DVD (Region 2), Blu-ray

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

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