The Dogs (1979)

Posted on September 12, 2024 | Leave a comment

dogs

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Canines on the attack!

Henri (Victor Lanoux) is a doctor who opens up a clinic in a planned community. He finds to his surprise that many of his patients are coming in complaining about dog bites. He then becomes aware of Morel (Gerard Depardieu) who runs a club were participants learn how to train their dogs to protect them from attacks. However, these same dogs have now become more of a menace that’s putting other citizens in the town in danger including the mayor who becomes a victim. Henri is soon at odds with his girlfriend Elisabeth (Nicole Calfan) who gets a guard dog after she is raped and she is more attached to the dog than him.

The story certainly has some interesting ingredients including the fact that the dogs themselves  aren’t really the threat, but more their owners who train them to be aggressive, which is a nice change of pace from other films from that era that would show animals attacking for seemingly no reason, or that they had become possessed by something evil. Here the set-up is more realistic and plausible and the residents are wealthy living in plush homes helps convey the idea that even ‘nice’ neighborhoods can have evil dwelling underneath and no place is ever completely ‘safe’.

Depardieu goes against type playing the villain and he approaches the part in a fascinating way where he’s not outwardly creepy at the start, but more just an awkward individual who genuinely believes, which is a mindset that he continues to have to the very end, that he’s the ‘good guy’ who’s simply helping vulnerable people find ways to adequately protect themselves. He also has a profound love for his dogs whom he likes more than people, that comes to prominence during a graphic birthing seen where the mother dog isn’t able to come through it. His performance is even more impressive when you factor in that he suffered a dog attack of his own in real-life just a few months before being offered the role and he took the part hoping it would alleviate his pent-up fears and he certainly goes all out here including allowing the dogs to attack and bite him while wearing protective clothing during the training exercises that he conducts.

On the other end, as his adversary, I didn’t find Lanoux to be half as impressive. For one thing he never comes-off seeming like much of a doctor nor ever seen wearing a white physician jacket and works inside a place that resembles a rented out business office than a legitimate clinic. He looks and behaves more like a detached business man walking through his role and never being as emotionally charged as the part demanded.

Calfan, as the girlfriend isn’t convincing either. She leaves her job late at night all alone even though she’s well aware of the crime in the area, which makes it seem like she’s foolishly walking into trouble and the subsequent rape attack gets played-out in a cliched and mechanical way. He recovery is too quick as she’s back to be her normal self again almost instantaneously without showing any of the post traumatic effects that victims of the crime typically do. Her character’s arch offers some intrigue as she at one moment ‘jokingly’ tells her dog to attack Lanoux and then at the last second calls him off, which understandably frightens Lanoux and made me believe she was mentally moving into a dark mindset and she would become the source of danger, but this doesn’t lead to anything. By the end she ‘snaps out of this phase’ and goes back to being her normal self even to the extent turning into the hero, which I didn’t find interesting at all and it would’ve been far more memorable had she slowly became the threat.

The film is too leisurely paced. We know upfront that these dogs, and the people who own them, are something to be feared, but the actual attacks take too long to get going and when they do they’re too quick and ultimately start to play-out in a redundant fashion. The chills and thrills are limited and there’s not enough surprises or twists. There are also some disturbing segments including a dog getting kidnapped and then bound with a muzzle while dangling in the air by a rope as it whimpers, which many viewers including animal lovers will most likely find highly unsettling.

Alternate Title: Les Chiens

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: March 7, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Alain Jessua

Studio: A.J. Films

Available: DVD (French), DVD-R (dvdlady.com)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Foreign Films, French Films, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Thrillers/Suspense

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The Hit (1986)

Posted on September 8, 2024 | Leave a comment

hit

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Not afraid to die.

Willie (Terence Stamp) turns states evidence against the criminal underground that he’d been apart of, which then sends his former partners away to prison, but before they go they sing ‘We’ll Meet Again’ just as he leaves the court room. Ten years later Willie is living the quiet life in Spain as a part of the witness protection program only to have his home invaded by a group of teens who kidnap him and take him to hitman Braddock (John Hurt) who was hired by the kingpin that Willie helped put away. Braddock along with his young partner Myron (Tim Roth) are instructed to take Willie, via a car, to Paris where the kingpin hopes to inflict harm on Willie before eventually killing him. However, things don’t go quite as planned as Willie shows no fear of death insisting that he’s accepted it as a part of the cycle of life and this throws the two hit men off convinced that he must have something up-his-sleeve, but does he?

This is another example where a movie I enjoyed when I first watched it years ago, but doesn’t quite live up to expectations upon the second viewing. For the most part this doesn’t happen that often and there has been some cases where a movie I didn’t like when I first saw it I’ve come to appreciate when seen a second time. This one though is definitely a case of the former and I came away a bit miffed on what its point was. When I first saw it I was impressed by the scene at the waterfall where Willie, who had a chance to escape, but doesn’t and instead decides to spend his time appreciating nature’s beauty until Braddock catches up to him, I found at the time to be quite memorable and unique moment as it revealed that the bad guy in this instance was the one more afraid and insecure of death than the intended victim.

However, there’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t mesh, or could’ve been more convincing. I had a hard time understanding why this sophisticated criminal group would hire a bunch of teen boys to break into Willie’s home (hideout). How could they trust these novices to get the job done and the fact that they’re able to do it so easily makes it seem that Willie’s ‘protection’ as it were wasn’t too impressive. It also negates the effect of the criminal unit. They’re supposedly this cunning, evil, underground group relentlessly pursuing their man against this supposedly intricate government program, but if literal kids can just break down the door with just a bit of effort then the whole operation from both sides comes-off as rather amateurish.

The casting of Hurt as the bad guy isn’t effective mainly because of his meek stature. Stamp was originally intended for that role and with his big build and piercing blue eyes would’ve been perfect, but it was ultimately decided for both actors to play against type and thus the parts got reversed, but it really doesn’t work. Hit men should have an intimidating presence, but with Hurt’s slim figure and quiet, exhausted looking demeanor that doesn’t happen. Roth as his quick-triggered, youthfully naive henchmen makes matters worse as he’s a walking cliche of a teen in over-his-head just biding time before his knee-jerk reactions to do them in. Thus the psychological games that Willie plays with them are not that interesting, or impressive since these two come-off as badly dis-coordinated right from the start and like any average person could easily outfox them.

Stamp’s character is baffling as well. During the courtroom moments he states his testimony is an almost hammy way like he’s making fun of the whole situation, which maybe he is, but it’s not clear as to why and his ulterior motivations are never answered. It’s hard to tell whether he really is a good guy, or maybe secretly a bad one as there are scenes where he puts other potential victims in definite danger and then feigns ignorance about it afterwards. He spends the whole time telling everyone how death doesn’t scare him and yet when a gun does finally get pointed at him he panics and tries to run while also pleading for his life, so which is it? The same goes for Roth’s character who during the course of the movie he seems to be falling for the lady hostage, played by Laura del Sol, and even protective of her and yet when the time comes for Hurt to shoot her he puts up no fight, or resistance, which defeated the momentum and missed-out on what could’ve been an interesting confrontation.

I like movies with multi-dimensional characters and the film does have that and certainly humans can be a bag full of contradictions. However, at some point it kind of needs to explain itself and it fails on that end. Intriguing elements about these people get thrown-in, but the story fails to follow through with it ultimately making it too vague, ambiguous to be full satisfying and in many ways it will most likely leave most viewers frustrated and scratching their heads as they ask themselves what the point of the whole thing was supposed to be.

I did though really enjoy the scenes with Australian actor Bill Hunter who is marvelous in support playing a man who takes over one of Hurt’s friend’s apartments while on vacation only to get the shock of his life when the hit man and his entourage show up unexpectedly. His rather pathetic attempts to mask his fear and trying to somehow carry-on a casual conversation knowing full well he could be blown away at any second is dark comedy gold and by far the film’s best moments.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: May 18, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 38 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Stephen Fears

Studio: Zenith Entertainment

Available: DVD, Blu-Ray (Criterion Collection), Tubi, Plex

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Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, British Movies, Cult, Foreign Films, Gangster Movies, Kidnapping Movies, Road Movies

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Cockfighter (1974)

Posted on September 5, 2024 | Leave a comment

cockfighter

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: He refuses to talk.

Frank (Warren Oates) has a passion for cockfighting. While he’s had other endeavors in his life he’s always come back to this because of the unpredictability. He can predict the way the chicken is built how it will fare in a fight, but it’s actual fighting spirit is unknown until it’s put to the test and because of that factor it keeps him intrigued with the sport. However, his bragging gets him into trouble when one of his chickens losses a battle during a makeshift fight inside a hotel room with a chicken from fellow cocker Jack (Harry Dean Stanton). After he’s forced to pay up the bet Jack tells him that he ‘talks too much’ convincing Frank to take a vow of silence and become effectively mute until he’s able to win a cockfighting championship.

The story is definitely a relic of a bygone era as cockfighting is no longer legal in the U.S. with Louisiana being the last state to ban it in 2008. Today only a few countries in the world allow it as the sport is considered by many to be animal abuse. The film pulls-no-punches and will be deemed brutal for certain viewers who’ll probably turn it off by the halfway mark if not sooner. The fights between the chickens are actual and up close. You see the beaks of one cock jamming into the eyes of another and their dead carcasses of which there ends up being many thrown into a heap onto others into a trash bin, or in one segment where the fights take place in a hotel room, into a bathtub with what seems like hundreds them. There’s even a scene where Oates hacks-off a live chicken’s head with an ax and another moment where he lays a chicken onto the pavement and then steps on its head and yanks it off from the rest of its body by sheer force, so if any of these details upset you then it’s best to stay away from the movie altogether.

For those who are game the story ends up having a darkly humorous tone. The armed robbery that takes place inside a hotel room and Richard B. Shull’s character hiding his earnings amidst the pile of dead chickens where he presumes no one would dare think to even check is amusing. The best moment though comes when Ed Begley Jr. becomes incensed when Oates’ chicken kills his during a fight and being so distraught at losing his prized possession comes after Oates with an ax.

The acting is marvelous particularly by the legendary Oates though he doesn’t say much until the very end, but he makes up for it by being the film’s voice-over narrator. What impressed me most though was his comfort level in handling the chicken’s and at one point casually dealing with one that tried attacking him, which made me believe that this must go back to upbringing in rural Kentucky where he lived amongst them as a kid so he was used to their behavior and not scared away as I’d think another actor without that type of background wouldn’t be able to pull-it-off.

The script was written by Charles Williford, who appears in the movie as a judge/ref during the cockfights and based off his novel of the same name. While the film does move along at a brisk pace and is never boring I did feel it lacked a certain context. It works more like a preview than a full story. You get a general feeling about the people and atmosphere, but not a deep understanding. My main curiosity was with the folks who come to see these fights and what motivated them to want to watch such a bloody sport. Analyzing this mentality would’ve been interesting, but never happens making the film feel incomplete and like it’s only barely tapping into the surface of the subject.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: July 30, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 23 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Monte Hellmen

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, Fandor, Pluto, Tubi, Plex, Shout TV

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the South, Sports Movies

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Meatballs (1979)

Posted on September 2, 2024 | 1 comment

meatballs2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Shenanigans at summer camp.

Tripper (Bill Murray) has been assigned to lead a new group of counselors-in-training while simultaneously pulling pranks on camp director Morty (Harvey Atkin). He also takes shy camper Rudy (Chris Makepeace) under his wings and giving the kid some confidence, so that he can play in sports and feel that he has a chance to win. Tripper also gets involved in the annual Olympiad between his camp, Camp North Star, and their rival Camp Mohawk, which sits across the lake from theirs. Camp Mohawk has won the title the past 12 years, but this year Tripper thinks things will be different mainly because he’s trained Rudy on how to be a cross-country runner due to their early morning jogs together and assigns him, much to the disagreement of the other campers, to run against Mohawk’s top runner in the crucial final race.

This was the fourth film directed by Ivan Reitman and while he went on to direct a lot of big hits I felt here he was still learning the craft and it would’ve been a better movie had someone with more experience been at the helm. Originally it was intended for John Landis to direct, but he was too busy working on The Blues Brothers, so Reitman reluctantly took the reins, but the pacing and tone is all off. To some degree it seems to want to be an Animal House wanna-be filled with off-color humor and slapstick, but at other points it tries for sentimental drama. Nowhere is this more evident than it’s eclectic choice of music featuring bouncy tune by Rick Dees and then turning around and having a sappy song by Maureen McGovern that seems out of place for a film that most of the time dwells in low brow humor.

Story-wise it’s incredibly vapid and seems to almost be plotless most of the way. The main crux of the script is apparently centered around Rudy and Tripper’s attempts to help him find some confidence in himself, but even these moments come-off as trite and thrown-in at haphazard intervals. In-between we get treated to a lot of silly hijinks and benign characterizations that mostly fall flat. There’s a lot of potential story threads that the could’ve been funny, but the movie fails to follow through on.

There’s a segment where the parent’s come to visit for a day, but this lasts for a minute and then it’s over. I also wanted to see the reluctant Rudy give out the morning messages of the day via an intercom set-up that had been traditionally done by Tripper. Since Tripper was going to be out he handed over the duties to Rudy who seemed nervous about the responsibility, so it would’ve been interesting to watching how he ended up approaching it and how the other campers responded, but instead we aren’t shown any of it. The same goes for a little boy who brings a frog with him that doesn’t ever move because he’s ‘tired’ yet we never get any follow-up to this, so why even have the scene, which isn’t funny or interesting anyways, if it has no real point to the plot?

The running gag involving the camp director named Morty who’s constantly referred to as ‘Mickey’ gets overblown and rather dumb. It has him being such a sound sleeper that the other campers, under Tripper’s guidance, move him and his bed, along with his bedside table, out of cabin and into various other parts of the campsite including at one point on a raft on a lake. When he wakes up he then finds himself in a very precarious situation, but it’s hard to believe that someone could sleep that deeply that they would’ve wake-up while they were being moved. Even if that were the case you’d think they’d come-up with some way to prevent it occurring in the future like bolting their door shut, or constructing some sort of booby trap that would catch the pranksters in the act. This could actually make it even funnier as it would be upping the ante each time versus just replaying the same old prank. At the very least you’d expect an ultimate angry confrontation between Morty and Tripper who he knew was behind it, which at one point he threatens to do, as he states ‘we’ll talk about it later’, but we never see the ‘talk’ actually happen, which again makes it seem like the movie really isn’t going anywhere.

Bill Murray, who reportedly wasn’t sure if he wanted to do it due to his SNL obligations at the time, but finally did show up to the shoot on the third day of production, is genuinely quite funny and the only things that saves it from being a dud though it comes close to being one anyways. However, his character does prove to be a bit problematic in the scene where he aggressively tackles an attractive counselor he wants to have sex with, played by Kate Lynch, which would be deemed sexual harassment in this day and age and not the ‘good natured, boys will be boys’ fun that it was considered at the time.

The film though does manage to elicit nostalgic homage to the camping experience, so those that look back to their summer camp days with fond memories may bond to this better. Otherwise I found it highly overrated and genuinely surprised that it did so well at the box office.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: 1 Hour 34 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Ivan Reitman

Studio: Paramount Pictures

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Campy Comedy, Crude Comedy, Cult, Foreign Films, Movies from Canada

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Same Time, Next Year (1978)

Posted on August 24, 2024 | 1 comment

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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I Am the Cheese (1983)

Posted on August 22, 2024 | Leave a comment

iam

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Dealing with past memories.

Adam (Robert MacNaughton) is an adolescent boy taking a bike trip through Vermont in order to deliver a present to his father (Don Murray). During his ride memories from the past that had been stuck in his subconscious come to the surface including his on-and-off relationship with Amy (Cynthia Nixon) as well as the sometimes odd behavior of his father. Helping sort through these things including him finding in his father’s desk drawer two different birth certificates with his name on it, is Dr. Brint (Robert Wagner) a therapist at a mental hospital that Adam is currently residing in.

The film is based on the book of the same name written by Robert Cormier, who appears briefly as Amy’s father, who wrote many young adult novels with his best known one being The Chocolate War. The screenplay was written by David Lange, who was also the producer, and the brother of Hope Lange who gets cast as Adam’s mother and is a reunion of sorts for her with Don Murray, who plays Adam’s father, and whom she’d been married two from 1956-62. She had also co-starred with Robert Wagner in The Young Lions in 1957 though here they don’t share any scenes together.

The film, which was the one and only directorial foray of Robert Jiras who worked as a Hollywood make-up artist for many years, is decidedly low budget though since most of the action takes place with Adam on his bike it really doesn’t hurt the effect of the story and the lush summertime New England scenery becomes an added benefit. MacNaughton, who’s better known for playing the older brother in E.T. before leaving the acting business after the 80’s and becoming a mail sorter, is quite good as he effectively channels his character’s inner anxiety and confusion. Nixon is also a stand-out playing against the cliche of a typical teenage girl, who are usually portrayed as being giggly, insecure, and into the latest fads, but instead she is cultured, poised, confident, and smart and she adds a wonderful addition to the movie and it’s just a shame she wasn’t in it more.

The plot follows the book pretty closely including the constant shifting between the present and the past and also the therapy sessions. While I usually like non-linear narratives I initially found this structure off-putting. The publishers in fact felt, when the they read the initial manuscript, that it would too confusing for young readers and pressured Cormier to simplify the structure, which he refused. Despite this it does become genuinely riveting by the second act.

Spoiler Alert!

The twists are good and makes sitting through it worth it though the moment when the bad guys catch-up with Adam and his parents should’ve been played-out more since it’s such a traumatic moment. It’s possible that because this was aimed at teen viewers the producers felt this violent element required being toned down, but crucial scenes like these have to stand-out and the way it gets done here it just doesn’t.

In the film, like in the book, the psychiatric sessions are ultimately revealed to be a sham where Robert Wagner’s character isn’t a doctor at all, but instead part of the government conspiracy to make sure Adam doesn’t know more than he should about his parent’s past as otherwise he would be deemed a ‘risk’ and ‘terminated’. However, in the movie they have Adam escaping from the place and riding off on his bike like he’s now ‘free’, but he really isn’t. He has no job skills, no family, no money, and no place to live. He’s be better off just staying at the clinic even if it was a fake one, as he at least had a roof over his head and food to eat. Being on his own at 16 was unlikely to end well and such a sophisticated government operation such as this one was at some point going to track him down, dead or alive, so the tacked-on ‘happy ending’ doesn’t jive.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: November 11, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Robert Jiras

Studio: Almi Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD-R

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Drama, Movies Based on Novels, Mystery, Obscure Movies

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When the Legends Die (1972)

Posted on August 19, 2024 | Leave a comment

whenlegends

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Indian becomes rodeo rider.

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: October 19, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 47 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Stuart Miller

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD-R

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

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Runaway Train (1985)

Posted on August 17, 2024 | 1 comment

runaway

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Trapped on speeding locomotive.

Manny (Jon Voight) is a robber locked away in solitary confinement at a maximum security prison because of his two previous attempts at escape. He plans on making a third try with the help of a younger, more naive prisoner named Buck (Eric Roberts). Their breakout this time proves successful, but they find themselves having to fight the bitter cold and hike along the frozen Alaska landscape. They come upon a rail line and board a train by sneaking onto one of it’s four empty locomotives. However, unbeknownst to them the engineer, (Reid Cruickshanks) suffers a fatal heart attack while starting up the train and causing it to accelerate at high speeds, which is too fast for them to jump off. Later the two meet Sara (Rebecca De Mornay) an employee of the train company and three devise a plan to climb onto the lead engine and press the kill switch, but while this is going on the two fugitives are being pursued by police bounty hunter Rankin (John P. Ryan) who’s determined to board the runaway train via a helicopter and arrest Manny and bring him back to prison.

The story is based on a script by Akira Kurosawa who had read an article written in Life magazine about a runaway train and decided it would make for a good movie and planned to have this be his first American film. The shooting was to take place in the fall/early winter of 1965 with Peter Falk playing Manny and Henry Fonda as Rankin. However, the location, which was upstate New York received some early season snowstorms, which caused many production delays and eventually the financers pulled-out and film ultimately was never made. The project sat dormant for many years until 1982 when the script’s current owner managed to get Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky, at the suggestion of Francis Ford Coppola, interested in reviving it.

The film is for the most part masterfully done and quite suspenseful with kudos going to filming it in Alaska where the snow and ice are real and so vividly captured that you can almost feel the cold permeate through the big screen. Originally it was to be shot in Montana where the prison is, the same one that was also used in Fast Walking, but the weather conditions proved to be mild and attempts at fake snow weren’t successful, so it was eventually decided to move the production further north.

I did though have some quibbles with the escape sequence, which gets done by having them hide in a cart of laundry, which is awfully predictable and unimaginative and you’d think a maximum prison such as this one would be on the lookout for such a thing making it all seem too easy. Voight having a gadget that could bend bars was equally too convenient. I realize prisoners can be adept at smuggling in many things, but if it’s so simple to get something that can literally bend steel bars then why doesn’t every prisoner use to breakout?

The casting of Voight was in my opinion a mistake, or at least not as effective as another actor in the part. He looks too thin and not threatening at all despite him wearing false teeth, tanning his skin in more of a darker tone, and putting on a fake scar around his eye, but for me this all came-off as highly affected and just didn’t seem gritty enough. While his performance improves as he gets on the train I couldn’t buy-in that this was a real bad ass as the movie wants you to believe and I really wish Voight had listened to his first instinct and not taken the role as he felt it wasn’t he type of character he could play, but eventually changed his mind when Konchalovsky convinced him that great actors play against type. I also didn’t like screenwriter Edward Bunker changing him into a bank robber as in the original script he was a killer, which would’ve made for a far more intriguing character arch as it would then attempt to humanize someone that is perceived as being quite viscous.

The train scenes are quite intense as it takes on a man vs. the elements theme with Roberts, who usually plays sleazy characters, doing quite well as the conscientious person here. De Mornay is fantastic too wearing very little make-up, which makes her look younger and almost teen-like and far more youthful than in Risky Business, which is a film she did 2 years before this one. My only complaint is that the character gets introduced in an awkward manner where she just literally ‘pops-in’ without any warning in the middle of it and the film should’ve given the viewer some hint that there was someone else on the train right from the start.

The scenes inside the dispatch office are highly engaging and become almost like comic relief, which for a film that’s as tension filled as this one, is a welcome addition and helps give the viewer a bit of a breather between moments on the train. I loved how oblivious the dispatchers, played by the talented T.K. Carter and Kyle T. Hefner, are initially to the situation and are seen at the start being quite laid-back. Hefner is even in the bathroom when the news hits and the film misses a great opportunity, similar to the one in Catch-22, where he would be seen sitting on the toilet as he got updated on the situation. Kenneth McMillan, one of the all-time great character actors, comes-in later to lend advice and he really should’ve been given more screentime and possibly replaced Hefner altogether as he has a way to create amazing energy that his co-stars just didn’t.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending in which Manny goes down with the train, we don’t actually see it crash, but know it’s coming, with Manny raising his arms in the air like he somehow has achieved something I found disappointing. I didn’t care for it back when I first saw it during my college days and had the same response to it this time around. This was in the original script as well and was intentionally done to go against the theme of most American movies were the protagonist must always come out as the perceived winner, but either way it comes-off as all wrong for this time of film. We spend so much time watching him do whatever it takes to survive and going to great risks to accomplish it that to see him ultimately give-in to his inevitable circumstances and simply accept death to come and take him kills all the momentum that had built-up and becomes a letdown for the viewer. I kind of wonder if this is the reason why it didn’t do well at the box office as it only managed to recoup $7 million of its $9 million budget.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: December 6, 1985

Runtime: 1 Hour 51 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Andrei Konchalovsky

Studio: The Cannon Group

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Pluto TV, Roku, Tubi, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Movies with a train setting, Prison Flicks

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Bear Island (1979)

Posted on August 12, 2024 | 2 comments

bear

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Killer in the artic.

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

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

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

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

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

Spoiler Alert!

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

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: November 1, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 58 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Don Sharp

Studio: Columbia Pictures

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

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

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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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