A Different Story (1978)

Posted on March 9, 2021 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Homosexuals in heterosexual relationship.

Albert (Perry King) works as a chauffeur to famous pianist Sills (Peter Donat) and he’s also his part-time lover, but when Sills finds another man Albert gets put on the street and must seek refuge as a squatter. Stella (Meg Foster) is a real estate agent who finds Albert taking up residence in one of the homes she’s trying to sell. She decides to let him move in with her and since both of them are gay they partake in a platonic friendship. Then immigration comes looking for him since he’s also an illegal alien from Belgium. In an effort to prevent his deportation Stella decides to marry him and they soon become romantic including having sex and a baby, but just as things seem to blossom Stella becomes concerned that Albert may be seeing someone behind her back.

While this movie may have seemed ‘groundbreaking’ when it came out it has not aged well and features an assortment of issues starting with the whole botched premise. Having a single woman take in a virtual stranger is never a good idea. If you have concern for a homeless person direct them to the nearest shelter, but inviting them back to your place is clearly dangerous. Perhaps because she knew he was gay she thought he’d be ‘safe’, but just because he’s not going to rape you doesn’t mean he might not rob her when she was away.

The characterization of Albert works too much off gay stereotypes such as having him into cooking, cleaning, and even dress designing. The film should’ve challenged the viewer’s perception of gay people by working against the cliché by having him into auto repair, football, and drinking beer instead. I also thought it was dumb that, in an effort to hide that he was gay, Stella pretends to have made the dinner when her parents (Richard Bull, Barbara Collentine) arrive for a visit, but why couldn’t she just have introduced Albert as her straight male friend who just happens to be a great cook, or are we to presume that every male chef out there is secretly gay?

Spoiler Alert!

The third act is when it jumps-the-shark not so much with the introduction of the baby, which was bad enough, but more when Albert starts fooling around on Stella with another woman! The whole idea that simply having feelings for a member of the opposite sex would magically ‘ungay’ a person, or that ‘love can change everything’ is just not true. The initial gay theme gets totally lost and it starts to resemble a flick about a straight married couple instead. In the end there’s just nothing different about this ‘different story’, which is the whole problem.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: May 10, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 48 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Paul Aaron

Studio: AVCO Embassy Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Gay/Lesbian, Romance

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Starstruck (1982)

Posted on March 7, 2021 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Teens dream of stardom.

Jackie (Joey Kennedy) is a teen working as a waitress at her mother’s pub, but dreams of becoming a famous singer. Her 14-year-old cousin Angus (Ross O’ Donovan) acts as her manager trying to get her a spot on the local talent TV-show called ‘The Wow! Show’, but Terry (John O’May) the program’s host, refuses to see her, so they decide to have her perform a publicity stunt by walking across two high rise buildings in downtown Sydney on a tightrope while nude. This gets so much news coverage that Terry can’t help but bring her on his show, which initially proves to be a great success until Jackie becomes pressured to cut her backing band and tone down her quirky style. After alienating all of her friends she then tries to win them back by plotting to crash a New Year’s Eve talent contest at the Sydney Opera House where they hope to win the $25,000 cash prize in order to save their now dying pub.

After the success of My Brilliant Career director Gillian Armstrong set out to make a movie that was completely different in style from that one and eventually came up with the idea of doing a musical parody and on that level it works. The musical numbers are not only quite funny, especially the one done inside the pub where all the customers and staff join together to create one long line dance, but impressively staged too. I was literally blown away with the segment done inside Terry’s penthouse pool that was meant to be a take-off on the old Busby Berkley numbers from the 40’s, but in many ways just as good if not better.

The film also gets filled with a lot of humorous moments, most of which, like Angus’ elaborate attempts to try and make contact with Terry and even ditching school to do so, are quite funny. The segment dealing with Jackie’s high wire act I found initially preposterous. How exactly where they able to connect the tightrope between the two buildings, which would’ve been a massive feat in itself and never shown, but the outcome, as silly as it is, still had me chuckling.

The film has a terrific supporting cast especially Pat Evison as the elderly and overweight Nana, who shows exuberant support for Jackie’s ambitions even when the other adults don’t. O’Donovan and his constant scheming is also engaging, but I found Kennedy’s performance in the all important lead role to be flat. Singing-wise she is quite good, which is the whole reason she got the part, but her acting doesn’t have the same energy. Her character really isn’t very funny either and it’s Angus doing all the hard work to get her noticed and she never seems to appreciative it making the viewer not as emotionally invested at seeing her succeed as they should’ve been.

The film gets a bit too quirky for its own good too. It’s got a lot of visual pizazz, but no substance whatsoever and it would’ve been nice had there been some grittiness tied in. Everything happens too easily making it seem like a fairy tale and convincing me that the most suitable ending would’ve had Jackie waking up and realizing it had all been a dream because that’s exactly what it comes-off like.

On a side note I was surprised how much the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which was completed in 1932 and stands as the world’s tallest, gets shown. Not only is it featured in every skyline shot of the city, but there’s also a mural of it on the wall of the pub, a toy model of it on top of the pub’s TV, and even a replica of it put on stage during the film’s climactic dance number. I’m not sure what the exact shot count number is that features it in one form or another, but if you take a shot of whiskey every time you see it you’ll be drunk and passed out on the floor by the time it’s over.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: April 8, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 45 Minutes (Australian Version) 1 Hour 35 Minutes (US Release)

Rated PG

Director: Gillian Armstrong

Studio: Cinecom International Films

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, Pluto TV, Tubi

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Campy Comedy, Foreign Films, Movies from Australia, Musical

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Cabo Blanco (1980)

Posted on March 4, 2021 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Search for sunken treasure.

Giff (Charles Bronson) is an American living in the small fishing village of Cabo Blanco, Peru where he runs a cafe/bar just after the end of WW II. It is here that he becomes inadvertently embroiled for the search of sunken treasure somewhere off the coast where one searcher dies mysteriously while looking for it. Captain Terredo (Fernando Rey) the local police chief insists that the death was an accident, but Giff disagrees and becomes even more suspicious with the arrival of Marie (Dominique Sanda). Terredo almost immediately begins insisting she must leave the village at once convincing Giff that she must hold the secret.

For a film starring Charles Bronson this thing is incredibly tame and non-violent. His name became so synonymous with action movies during the 70’s that you’re expecting that there be at least some of it here, but outside of a half-minute where Chuck clobbers a would-be assassin there is very little of it. I was also presuming that since the storyline did have something to do with sunken treasure that the cast would be on or in the water for most of the runtime, but after the first 5 minutes it becomes completely land-locked.

Initially I thought putting Bronson inside an ensemble cast with performers like Jason Robards, who had a completely different acting style, would prove interesting, but the two don’t share a lot of screen time together and when they do are mostly adversarial. Chuck otherwise is his same old self, playing the one-dimensional character that he did all through the 70’s only here he stands out like a sore thumb as the supporting players give a more nuanced performance that he’s unable to do. He was also nearing 60 and having Sanda play the object of his desires looks like a grandfather coming onto his granddaughter. The youthful Simon MacCorkindale shows more energy and more up to physical demands, which should’ve made him the star.

Sanda’s presence helps especially with her beauty and a face that makes her appear like she was just 18 and for whatever reason looking younger here than she did in The Conformist, which had been filmed 10 years earlier. I also enjoyed Denny Miller, best known for playing Tarzan as well as Tongo, the ape man on an episode of ‘Gilligan’s Island’. Here he’s one of Robard’s henchman complete with German accent and neo-nazi bowl haircut.

The film doesn’t start to get interesting until the very end when Bronson is forced to speak to a parrot in order to get a secret password that the bird was apparently trained to say. I also like the bit involving a jukebox that goes on the fritz, but otherwise there’s nothing inspiring or original and looks like it was written simply to cash-in on the big name stars. It’s almost worth checking out though simply for the location. While it wasn’t filmed in the real Cabo Blanco, but instead in Barra de Navidad, Mexico, it still has a very sunny, exotic look that gives off a soothing, relaxing feel, so forget the story and just take in the sights.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: January 23, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 27 Minutes

Rated R

Director: J. Lee Thompson

Studio: AVCO Embassy Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity

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The Night Digger (1971)

Posted on March 2, 2021 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Handyman holds dark secret.

Maura (Patricia Neal) is the repressed daughter of Edith (Pamela Brown) who both reside in a large gothic mansion. Maura has never married and completely controlled by her overbearing mother, but feels she has no way of getting out of it. One day Billy (Nicholas Clay) rides in on his motorcycle looking for work. He wants to be the resident handyman. Maura declines to hire him, but is overridden by her mother. Soon Billy is living at the mansion with the other two and helping out by fixing things when he can, but Billy is tormented by his tortuous past, which leads to a twisted conclusion.

The film is based on the novel ‘Nest in a Fallen Tree’ by Joy Crowley that was adapted into a screenplay by Roald Dahl who at the time was married to Neal. I’ve never read the novel, but feel it must assuredly have more context particularly with Billy, than what you get here. The plot certainly has some intriguing elements, but it all gets lost with the poorly defined characters. For instance there’s several flashbacks shot in black-and-white showing Billy being tormented by a group of women, but no explanation for who these women were or why they were doing it, or why Billy was got caught up in that situation to begin with. Without more of a backstory the plot and people in it don’t mean as much and the film becomes transparent.

I did though like the directing by Alastair Reid, which is the one thing that holds it together. He makes great use of shadows and darkness and the brief scenes of Billy’s attack on women have a chilly visual effect. I also loved the setting shot at Oakley Court, which is a large stately mansion built in 1859 and now used as a hotel. The scene where Maura goes searching for Billy in his room and opens up what you think is a closet door, but instead is just a gateway that leads to three other rooms shows just how immense the place was, which though does prove to be a bit problematic if you think about it. Why would these two lonely women live in such a large place and if they aren’t rich, which Edith states in the scene where Maura serves them steak dinner, which  she states they ‘can’t afford’ then where did they find the money to own such a large place and maintain it?

The acting by Brown and Clay is good and some interesting bits by Graham Crowden in a supporting role, but Neal seems miscast. I realize she got the part because she was married to the screenwriter, but she looks almost as old as Brown, who plays her adoptive mother, but in reality there was only a 9 year age difference. Her character, like with Billy’s, is not fleshed-out enough making her actions more confusing than revealing like when she despises Billy’s presence at one point only to suddenly throw herself at him the next.

The ending is disappointing. I sat through this wondering what the twist was going to be, but there really isn’t any and it just leaves more questions than answers. Apparently Bernard Herrmann, who was hired to do the music, disliked the ending immensely and this was the first thing out of his mouth when he sat in to screen the film. He even threatened not do the soundtrack unless it was changed, but after arguing with Dahl he eventually caved, but personally I wished he had gotten his way.

Alternate Title: The Road Builder

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: February 25, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Alistair Reid

Studio: MGM-EMI

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, British Movies, Foreign Films, Moody/Stylish, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity

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Shame (1988)

Posted on February 28, 2021 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Lawyer uncovers town’s secret.

Asta (Deborra-Lee Furness) is enjoying her vacation holiday from work as a lawyer by traveling through the Western Australian countryside on her motorbike only to get into an unexpected accident late one night when she inadvertently drives into a flock of sheep in the road that due to the darkness she didn’t see. With her bike now damaged she brings it into a repair shop run by Tim (Tony Barry). Since the parts for the bike need to be shipped in Asta agrees to stay at Tim’s residence in a spare room. It is there that she overhears a conversation involving Tim’s daughter Lizzie (Simone Buchanan) and her sexual assault by a group of young men at the town’s bar. No one seems to want to press any charges and everyone in the town places the blame on Lizzie by openly implying that she’s a ‘slut’, but Asta gives her the confidence to go to the police and press charges only to find that those same men are now after her and consider her to be their next ‘conquest’.

The film is loosely based on a true story, that also inspired The Accused, which starred Jodie Foster.  However, here the approach is different where the rape victim isn’t the main protagonist, but instead someone who wasn’t even involved in the actual incident and mainly just stands on the sidelines as an observer, which isn’t as compelling. The Asta character almost becomes like a transparent ghost who’s always in the middle of the action, but overall doesn’t really do much to help propel the story along. The producers had wanted Asta to be more violent and vigilante-like, but the director nixed this idea even though I felt it would’ve helped.

While I liked the segments dealing with the parents of the boys who committed the rape and their denial of what happened and at one point even agreeing to pay-off the victim’s family not to press charges, as it’s interesting to see things from the family of accused, which most rape movies don’t do, but overall I found the story structure to be lackadaisical. I was a bit confused during the first act about what had occurred as everything is handled in a subtle and conversational fashion. We never see the actual crime happen it’s just spoken about in passing, but I felt at some point there should’ve been a flashback to the build-up of it and I was fully expecting it to come along at some point, but it never does.

The characterizations of the males is too extreme and stereotyped. I’m okay with some of the men being bad apples, as this can occur anywhere, but in this movie they’re all portrayed as being leering savage animals with no conscience or self-control. The fact that they’ve apparently raped other women in the town the same way just made it all the more over-the-top. I’ve never heard of small towns dealing with marauding, serial rape gangs and wondered what made this one so special. Was it something in the water?

There is a certain Mad Max vibe to it, which was apparently what the filmmakers were aiming for, but the results are only so-so. At least in Mad Max it had a surreal, futuristic setting, but this thing has extreme behavior happening amongst the men in an average place in the modern-day, which didn’t make much sense.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: February 26, 1988

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Steve Jodrell

Studio: Barron Films

Available: DVD, Amazon Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Foreign Films, Movies from Australia, Movies with a rural setting, Thrillers/Suspense

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Playing for Keeps (1986)

Posted on February 27, 2021 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Teens refurbish rundown hotel.

Danny (Daniel Jordano) has just recently graduated from high school and has big entrepreneurial dreams.  He becomes aware that his family has inherited a place called Hotel Majestic in Bethany, Pennsylvania and decides he wants to turn it into a nightclub for teens, but first he must first pay off the $8,000 due in back taxes. Together with his two friends: Spike (Mathew Penn) and Silk (Leon W. Grant) they devise a way to earn the money by pretending to be Boy Scouts and selling cookies to office workers. When they finally payoff the debt they find an even bigger challenge, which is fixing up the decrepit place while also fighting off a man named Harry Cromwell (Robert Milli) who runs a Chemical Company and wants to turn the hotel property into a waste dump.

This was Harvey Weinstein’s first directorial effort, which he did alongside his brother Bob and released under the then new Miramax studio, which was named after their parents Miriam and Max. This also marks Harvey’s first known case of sexual harassment when he invited an attractive 20-year-old waitress named Tomi-Ann Roberts, who was waiting tables in the town where they were shooting in, up to his hotel room to audition for a role he felt she’d be ‘perfect’ for and when she arrived she found him naked in a tub and requesting that she should disrobe as well to make sure she’d be ‘right for the part’ even though there’s no nudity in the movie.

If Weinstein’s name wasn’t so famous and you didn’t know who the director was you’d be convinced it was done by some talentless hack whose first and last film venture this was. While it does remain at least lively everything else about it is stupid including the corny, cliché-ridden comedy that permeates every scene. I found the three leads, who seem to be cast to meet some sort-of politically correct quota as they’re different races, to be quite bland particularly lead star Jordano who shows no varied emotions or facial expressions other than the same glossy smile all the way through no matter what other emotional situation he may be in.

The townspeople are boring caricatures too with their café jukebox having no other selections of music to play than Kate Smith, and the people behaving like they’d never heard of Billy Idol or Michael Jackson, which is ridiculous as I grew up in a small Midwestern town during the 80’s and our radio stations and juke boxes had a wide selection of the latest hits just like the big city. Having the only other open-minded person in the town being the farmer’s super hot daughter (Mary B. Ward) who magically falls for Danny was just a little too convenient.

The process of renovating the place, which takes up almost the entire runtime, gets so drawn-out that it becomes boring. I also couldn’t believe that all of Danny’s high school friends, which he recruits as ‘stockholders’, would be willing to stick through the arduous challenge of the fixing up the hotel like they do and most would’ve walked away pretty quickly. When they are finally able to complete the project the place gets filled with such tacky 80’s deco art that I found it better looking when it was rundown.

Marisa Tomei, who makes her film debut here, is quite engaging and I enjoyed her better in this role than her more famous Academy Award winning one from My Cousin Vinny. I also liked Kim Hauser, who plays Danny’s kid sister, and has an appealing Karen Black-like cross-eyed look. Had these two been made the stars instead of the three transparent guys it would’ve been better.

It seems like, based off of the imdb reviews that I read, that the only reason people like this movie is because of its 80’s cheesiness and if that’s what you’re into you’ll be more than satisfied as this thing sure has a hell of a lot of it. Others though will find it shallow and mindless.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: October 3, 1986

Runtime: 1 Hour 42 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Directors: Bob and Harvey Weinstein

Studio: Miramax

Available: DVD

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Campy Comedy, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with a rural setting

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Jenny (1970)

Posted on February 23, 2021 | Leave a comment

jenny

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: An unmarried, pregnant woman.

Jenny (Marlo Thomas) is a young woman living in New York City who has a one night stand with a man engaged to be married and ends up getting pregnant. She fears the stigma of being an unwed mother, so when she meets Delano (Alan Alda), a struggling filmmaker who wants to marry in order to avoid the draft, she agrees. The marriage of convenience does not start out well as living together brings out all of their differences, but the closer they get to the delivery date the stronger their bond to each other grows.

This was intended to be a breakout role for Marlo, who was still doing her TV-show ‘That Girl’ at the time and filmed this while on hiatus from that one. She was hoping this would be the first of a long line of starring vehicles for her and even precipitated the ending of her series two years later in order to be available to do more movies, but the offers never came. One of the main reasons is that the movie did not do that well either at the box office, or critically. Much of the blame could be given to the limp storyline that acted like the social mores of 1939 were still intact in 1969 where having a baby without a husband would be considered ‘scandalous’ even though it was the height of the hippie movement where lovemaking outside of marriage had become the new trendy thing making this film very dated even before it was ever released.

The film should’ve been titled ‘Delano and Jenny’ as Alda’s performance is the one thing that manages to hold it together. He’s best known for playing Hawkeye in the TV-show ‘M*A*S*H’ where he was a touch-feely, sensitive 70’s guy, but here he’s character is quite self-centered and volatile. Yet this is the one thing in the movie that’s interesting. Marlo’s performance on the other-hand ends up being one-note. Watching her big, brown eyes show a constant look of pain and sadness becomes too excessive and too redundant.

The supporting players help a little. Marian Hailey plays Delano’s world-wise, jaded lover, which is a far cry from the nerdy, nasally sounding, neurotic character that she was in the cult hit Lovers and Other Strangers. Vincent Gardenia and Elizabeth Wilson, who play Jenny’s parents, also played another married couple that very same year in the movie Little Murders. The scene where everyone takes a look at a cabinet full of teeth that Jenny’s father had made during his career, as he was a dental prosthetist, and had encased in the middle of his living room did offer a rare funny moment, but the camera should’ve done a close-up on the dentures as he described them instead of  having the viewers only see it from a distance.

The first half is surprisingly watchable as it brings out the inevitable realities that would occur when simply marrying for convenience, but having the film shift to a love story at the end doesn’t jive. These two had so little in common it didn’t seem possible that they could’ve fallen in love even if they had wanted to. Jenny’s character needed to be better fleshed out as well. She comes-off as shy and cautious and yet is brazen enough to hop into bed with a guy engaged to someone else, which is a scene we needed to see played-out instead of only discussed in passing later.

Spoiler Alert!

When the nurse brings in the infant as Jenny and Delano sit in the hospital room was the one moment I thought there might be a surprise as the baby looked from the back to be African American and from the front to be Asian even though apparently he was neither. I was hoping that it was as that would’ve been something that that neither the moody Delano nor the viewer would’ve expected and helped given this otherwise sterile story the edgy twist that it needed.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: January 2, 1970

Runtime: 1 Hour 29 Minutes

Rated M

Director: George Bloomfield

Studio: Cinerama Releasing Corporation

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Drama, Movies that take place in the Big Apple

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Stone (1974)

Posted on February 21, 2021 | Leave a comment

stone1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Somebody’s killing the bikers.

Toad (Hugh Keays-Byrne) is a member of the Grave Diggers biker gang who stops off one sunny day to hear a politician giving a speech at a park. He has just taken some acid and feeling the effects of it and so goes straying from the rest when he sees a shooter hiding inside a nearby building and when the gun goes off and kills the politician the bikers gets blamed for it. Soon members of their group start getting knocked-off in bizarre ways convincing them that somebody is after them for what they witnessed. Stone (Ken Shorter) is the long-haired police detective who infiltrates the group in order to find out who the killer is, but the bikers are initially unhappy with a ‘pig’ being a part of their organization, but eventually they form a friendship and work together to nab the bad guy before he kills more.

The story was originally meant as an episode for an Australian TV-show, but when that series got canceled before this episode could air, it was then reworked into a feature film. Real Australian bikers were used as supporting players with many of them being paid with free beer for their efforts. The film eventually did quite well at the box office and has garnered a cult status worldwide although the 99 minute length, which is what is widely available, was not the original cut, which was much longer at 130 minutes, but director Sandy Harbutt did not like this version, so this became a rare occasion where the director’s cut leaves out many scenes that was originally shown in the theaters.

As a film it’s not too bad and I particularly liked it’s moody opening that has a lot of weird camera angles and freeze-frames. The funeral procession showing hundreds of bikers careening down the highway leaves a memorable impression as well. The killings are cool too, including a dangerous stunt that required a driver to ride his bike off an 80-foor cliff and into the ocean.

On the drama ends there’s some interesting moments including Stone’s initiation, but when he’s off by himself it gets boring quick especially since Shorter’s mop-top hairstyle makes him look more like a lost singer to a ’70’s Glam band than a cop. The film only works when the bikers are in it and becomes nothing more than a tepid, pedestrian drama without them. The wrap-up isn’t as interesting as the opening and I kind of wondered if the mystery angle even needed to be put in as there are long segments where the investigation isn’t even talked about to the point that it almost seems forgotten.

The much ballyhooed violence isn’t all that impressive either with the fist-fights looking like poorly staged stunt work by amateurs. They’re also quite brief and don’t take up as much of the runtime as you’d expect. However, as a character study it has an appeal as I found the bikers themselves to be a fascinating bunch and wanted to get to know them better and the plot should’ve focused on them solely.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: June 28, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 39 Minutes (Director’s Cut) 2 Hours 10 Minutes (Original Studio Version)

Not Rated

Director: Sandy Harbutt

Studio: British Empire Films Australia

Available: DVD

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cult, Foreign Films, Movies from Australia, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Road Movies

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Drive-In (1976)

Posted on February 20, 2021 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Mayhem at the movies.

It’s just another evening at the drive-in movies in a small Texas town except this time there’s more action in the theater than in the movie being shown. As the people watch the latest action flick known as ‘Disaster ’76’ on the big-screen there’s all sorts of commotion going on around them. Gifford (Trey Wilson) and Will (Gordon Hurst) are two bumbling amateur crooks who plan on robbing the concession stand during the show. Glowie (Lisa Lemole) is the fed-up girlfriend of Enoch (Billy Milliken), who leads the local teen gang, and who desires a more clean-cut guy like Orville (Glenn Morshower), but Enoch and his obedient thugs try to prevent this potential union from happening. There’s also the paranoid African American Dr. Demars  (Bill McGhee) who frets about having to live in the middle of ‘Klan Country’, but still manages to take his wife (Gloria Shaw) to the show, but also ends up in the process having several inadvertent encounters with the volatile Enoch.

Rod Amateau’s name may not be as well known as other notoriously bad filmmaker’s like Ed Wood Jr. or Tommy Wiseau who helmed the infamously awful The Room, but he probably should be. Not only did Amateau create ‘My Mother the Car’, but he also did ‘Supertrain’, which are considered two of the worst TV-shows ever produced. He also wrote and directed The Garbage Pail Kids, which usually lands high on everyone’s terrible movie list. However, his directorial effort here isn’t bad and for awhile even engaging. My favorite part is a scene done inside a roller skating rink where we see real teenagers, that are age appropriate and with varying body-types, behaving very much like small town teens of that era would. It’s like a taking a time machine back to the simpler times and seeing how things really were, but without the pretension.

The performances are if anything quite lively including Morshower, best known as Aaron Pierce from the series ’24’, in his film debut and sporting a full, bushy head of red hair. It’s also great seeing Lisa Lemole in a prominent role as she later left acting in 1985 when she married Mehmet Oz better known as Dr. Oz. This also marks the acting debut of Trey Wilson, who went on to play many colorful supporting characters before having his career cut short by an unexpected death at the young age of only 40. Gary Lee Cavagnaro, who’s more famous for playing Engelbert in The Bad News Bears, is amusing too as Morshower’s younger brother.

Unfortunately despite a promising start the film ultimately flounders especially during the second act as too much cartoonish silliness gets in the way of any subtle realism. At the end the cars of the customers slowly file out of the drive-in like what had occurred was no big deal and the viewer is left feeling the same way. The stakes needed to be higher and the event needed more of a long-lasting consequence. A funny idea would’ve had the mayhem cause actual destruction to the drive-in while the disaster flick played perhaps even having it burn down to a cinder. Since the theater in real-life got demolished just a few years after this was shot it might’ve been possible and thus allowed the film to leave more of lasting visual impression than it does.

The Drive-in theater in Terrell, Texas as it looked in 1975 when the film was shot.

The same location as it looks now.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: May 26, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Rod Amateau

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD-R (Sony Choice Collection)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Campy Comedy, Movies that take place in Texas

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Stir (1980)

Posted on February 14, 2021 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Prisoners stage an uprising.

China Jackson (Bryan Brown) was a part of an earlier prisoner revolt and when he was released he became a media advocate informing the public about the rotten conditions of the South Australian prison system and the abusive tactics of those running it. When China returns to prison after committing another crime while on parole the guards make sure that life for him on the inside is made as miserable as possible to get back at him for what he said. Yet as stirrings inside the jailhouse begin to grow and fears of a violent uprising manifest, the guards begin working with China in an attempt to quell it, but even his efforts to calm things backfire leading to a massive revolt.

The screenplay was written by Bob Jewson, which as the epilogue states, was a prisoner inside the Bathurst Jailhouse in February, 1974 where rioting lead to the place being almost entirely destroyed. The story here touches on many of the elements that Jewson faced while incarcerated and several of the supporting cast members in this film were actual prisoners during that riot.

The film has an impressively gritty feel that far exceeds most other prison flicks. Similar to Fortune and Men’s Eyes the camera gets situated inside the cell instead of being placed outside of it and then looking in. The result gives the viewer the feeling of being locked into the cramped, dingy cell alongside the  prisoners leading to a claustrophobic and uneasy feeling, which lasts for the entire duration of the movie. When the guards burst into it for no apparent reason and begin riffling through the prisoners things and pushing them up against the wall you sense their tension and can relate to the ongoing stress that they must live with.

I also loved how when the riots break out the camera takes a point-of-view perspective by running along with the prisoners has they tear the place apart making you think that you’re one of them. Later, when the guards reclaim control, the camera again takes the point-of-view perspective this time making you feel like you’re being marched through the gauntlet as they take turns beating each prisoner with their rubber batons, which literally made me wince as I could imagine the same type of pain that they were going through.

The casting of Bryan Brown I initially didn’t like. He’s a good actor, but too well known of a face, even for back then, so it was hard for me to detach who he was from some of the other parts he has played though his increasingly intense performance does help. I did like that one of his front teeth appears decayed here and they left it that way for filming, which enhances the gritty quality versus doing the Hollywood treatment and having it capped. I did though have a problem with him getting shot in the back of his shoulder, but he continues to be able to move his arm easily without any apparent pain, which I surmised would’ve been doubtful.

Spoiler Alert!

While the film does have its slow, talky moments I did appreciate how we see things from both the prisoner’s and guard’s perspectives. Most other prison flicks like to paint the guards as being all bad, but here we’re made to understand their fear and how not all of them were on the same-page and at times even openly at odds with each other. The third act is where the violence explodes and it’s effective, but what I found most disturbing was the aftermath where the prisoners get rounded up and put into pens that were even smaller than the cells the they came from looking almost like animals herded into a cage and making their protest and anger, some of which was quite justified, seem futile and pointless as things just went right back to the way they were before.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: August 31, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Director: Stephen Wallace

Studio: New South Wales Film Corporation

Available: None at this time.

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Posted in 80's Movies, Foreign Films, Movies from Australia, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Prison Flicks

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