Tag Archives: 70’s Movies

$ (Dollars) (1971)

Posted on December 30, 2011 | 5 comments

dollars

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Robbery done inside safe.

Inspired by the British hit Perfect Friday this inventive and original bank heist film holds up well and has a great mix of action and comedy as well as oozing with cynical sensibilities and jaded characters.  It is one of the very few films ever made that has a symbol for its title and no words. Although most reference books do list the word ‘dollars’ in parenthesis, technically it is the dollar sign that is the official title. It also has the distinction of not displaying its title on screen in any type of print format. Instead a brief scene with a large steel structure made into a dollar sign is shown at the beginning being hauled in the air by a crane.

The story evolves around a crafty bank robbery devised by Joe Collins (Warren Beatty) who is also the bank’s security expert. He comes to realize that various criminals have stolen money stored in the safety deposit boxes inside the bank’s safe.  He figures that he could steal the money from them and they would be unable to go to the police. He gets a ditzy call-girl named Dawn Divine (Goldie Hawn), who has been a prostitute to most of the criminals whose money is in the safe, to call in a bomb threat to the bank. As the bank is evacuated, Joe enters the safe and closes it. He then methodically transfers the money from the bad guy’s boxes and into Dawn’s, who also rents a box there, as the bomb squad searches for the explosive. Then the next day Dawn takes the money from her box and stuffs it into her bag without anyone suspecting a thing.

Of course this is only the first-part. The second half deals with the crooks slowly figuring out what happened and chasing down Joe, who they think has the money. This begins one of the longest and most elaborate chase sequences ever put on film.  It takes up almost the whole second hour and it is amazing. Joe ends up being chased through city streets, tunnels, subways, trains, and even on a frozen lake with thin ice. Beatty did most of his own stunts here, which is impressive especially during the lake sequence, which was done on location in Sweden. When he goes through the ice he is really going into icy water and seems to be genuinely struggling to get out. Veteran character actor Scott Brady is memorable as one of the antagonists named Sarge.  He was much older than Beatty, but this contrast is fun, especially with the very relentless way he stays on Joe’s tail despite being out-of-shape.

Goldie is great as always, somehow her ditzy blonde routine never seems to get old and it is played to perfection here. I did have a few issues with the character though. She has sex with these slimy middle-aged men and even plays out their kinky fantasies, but ends up only taking $100 dollars from them for her ‘services’. I know this takes place in 1971, but even if you factor in inflation it still seemed low when these guys were loaded. I also thought her attitude was a little too carefree.  She invited these men into her apartment, but seemed to have no back-up plan in case things got out of control, which seemed risky. It is also never explained how Joe came to know her, or devise the plan that he did, but it would have been helpful. There also the fact that despite being a very crucial link in the plan she shows little confidence and describes how she always breaks down under pressure. It is nice that Joe stays supportive and sticks with her, but I felt it was unrealistic. Just about anyone else would have second thoughts about going through with it when they have a partner who is so shaky, or at the very least considered someone who is more self-assured.

Beatty is a terrific. He displays a cool demeanor and nicely underplays everything.  His mop-top Beatles like haircut  shows in a subtle, visual way his non-conformity from the more staid and conventionally dressed bank mangers.

Gert Frobe, best known as the villainous Auric Goldfinger from the classic James Bond film Goldfinger, is a hoot as the bumbling, clueless bank manager Mr. Kessel. The only actor I didn’t like was Arthur Brauss as ‘the candy man’. He certainly had the steely cold eyes of a killer, but his excessively raspy voice was a distraction and did not sound natural. There was no reason given why he sounded that way, but I would have liked one.

Even after 40 years the film still seems fresh. There are certain things here that I have never seen anywhere else. The prolonged chase is one, but there is also the scene where, to get Joe out of the safe, they have a torch burn a hole through the metal. They use an actual blowtorch and the sounds of it burning into the metal as well as the smoke and flying sparks is vivid and exciting.

I know my brother, who once watched the film with me, as well as other reviewers on IMDB, have complained that the first part of the film is too disjointed, slow and confusing. It does have a certain fragmented, cinema-vertite style to it where the viewer is forced to make their own connections, but I have watched this movie several times and it has never bothered me. The robbery and chase are so creative that I feel it more than makes up for any other limitations.  This early segment also effectively show how nasty the villainous men are and there is a part where, at a strip club, a stripper has a giant image of a dollar bill projected on her nude body, which I found to be evocative and artsy.

Critic Leonard Maltin has called this film ‘awfully similar to Perfect Friday’, but I have to disagree. I have seen both movies, which are excellent in their own right, but quite different in a lot of aspects. If you are looking for light entertainment that is exciting and still intelligently done, than this is a good flick to check-out.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: December 17, 1971

Runtime: 2Hours 1Minute

Rated R

Director: Richard Brooks

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

5 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Dry Humor, Heist Movies, Movies with Nudity, Robbing Banks

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The Anderson Tapes (1971)

Posted on December 29, 2011 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: They can hear everything.

In Sean Connery’s long and storied career in which he has played in a wide variety of films, The Anderson Tapes somehow always gets lost in the shuffle, which is unfair as it is really an offbeat gem waiting to be discovered and appreciated.  Fortunately in October it was finally released to DVD and the print is excellent and there is now discussions of a remake, but see the original first.

It involves a man by the name of Duke Anderson (Connery), who upon being released from prison, seeks to borrow money from the mob in order to finance a high scale robbery of an apartment building that is filled with affluent tenants. The problem is that Duke is being tailed by the government who, through means of sophisticated electronic devices, are able to record everything he says and does.  Even by today’s standards I thought the gadgetry and the way it was used was quite clever.

Many things help make this film stand out. One is the very distinctive music score by the legendary Quincy Jones.  It has a weird electronic, techno quality to it that nicely compliments all the gadgetry in the story.

The casting is also interesting.  Martin Balsam, who made a career playing typical, everyman characters, appears here as a flaming gay interior decorator, which he does hilariously well. Comedian Alan King gets cast in a serious role as the crime boss. Even the casting of Connery is offbeat.  Usually he plays characters with strong personalities who are very much in control.  Here he plays a character who is constantly forced to compromise and trying desperately just to hold everything together  he even ends up getting rejected by his girlfriend (played by Dyan Cannon) for another man and all Connery’s character can do is stand there looking dumbfounded.

The script has some really sharp dialogue. This is probably the third or fourth time that I have seen this film and yet I was still impressed by some of the great lines that I hadn’t caught from the previous viewings.  One should actually make a point to watch this film twice just so they can take in all the great writing, which coincidently was done by Fran Pierson the same person who did Dog Day Afternoon.

The most unique thing about the movie though is the actual robbery sequence, which is made memorable due to director Sidney Lumet’s innovative approach.  It is told in semi-flashback form where you see a scene of the robbery and then it cuts to a scene where the victim recounts what happened to the police, which makes for some creative segues. The robbery victims are full of odd quirks and quite amusing.  Two of the best ones involve Margaret Hamilton best know as the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz who plays a cursing, argumentative elderly woman in this her final film role. I also like the bedridden, paraplegic young boy (Scott Jacoby) who is far more resourceful than anyone thinks and ends up single handily ruining all of their well thought out plans.

This sequence also edits in scenes of the police force quietly getting set-up to raid the building.  I especially like the shots of the S.W.A.T. team members sliding along a rope from one high rise rooftop to another.  It is photographed in a realistic way so you see them dangling high in the air with nothing but the street below, which made me cringe a little.  This is also a great chance to see Garret Morris in a pre-Saturday Night Live role playing the head of the S.W.A.T. team.

There is very little that I didn’t like in this film that I otherwise found to be original and engaging from start to finish. However, of the two issues that I do have, one is the ending, which in typical 70’s fashion was a bit of downer. It does have a twist to it, but it is not as clever as I think the film-makers thought it was.  There is also a glaring factual error that in a film as sophisticated and polished as this should never have happened.  It deals with a woman on a phone stating that she is calling from Wichita Falls, Kansas.  Now Kansas does have a city of Wichita, but Wichita Falls is actually in Texas.

I highly recommend this movie not only to those who may be fans of Connery or director Lumet, but also to those who enjoy movies with an offbeat story and approach.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: June 17, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 39Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Sidney Lumet

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

2 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Dry Humor, Heist Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Offbeat

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Hannie Caulder (1971)

Posted on December 28, 2011 | 1 comment

hannie1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Hannie gets her revenge.

Three outlaw brothers (Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam, Strother Martin) on the run from a botched robbery come upon an isolated house in the dessert. There they kill the husband and then gang rape the wife whose name is Hannie Caulder (Raquel Welch). They set the house on fire and then ride away laughing.  She manages to escape the blaze and makes a personal pledge to get her revenge. She has never used a gun before in her life, but with the help of a kindly bounty hunter named Thomas Price (Robert Culp) she learns the art of being a gunfighter.

The film nicely symbolizes the emerging force of women in 70’s society while using it inside a western motif. When we first see her she is in the kitchen with an apron on and cooking.  She learns though how to survive in a man’s world, do everything they can, and earn their respect in the process. It follows the same formula used in later cult hits I Spit on Your Grave and Ms. 45 except those titles were far more explicit and violent.

Critic Leonard Maltin, in his review of the film, called it a ‘bizarre, mystical western’, but I saw little of that.  In a lot of ways it was very routine with the only difference coming in the fact that it was a women single-handily seeking revenge instead of a man. There were only a few offbeat qualities that stood out enough to be mentioned. One was detailing the making of a gun, which I found to be interesting as well as the Hannie’s training and the different, subtle techniques that a gunfighter uses. British horror actor Christopher Lee is cast as a Mexican gunsmith. There is also one shootout segment that is done in slow motion, which is very cool.  Otherwise the majority of it is standard fare that is adequate, but not real impressive.

The idea of having the bad guys play it up as comical goofballs was a mistake.  It hurts the tension because we should want to see Hannie get her justice on these guys.  It also seems to minimize the savage act that they do and make the brutal subject matter seem lighthearted and silly when it shouldn’t be. Now, with that said, I still found some of the lines Strother Martin was given to be amusing and he almost became a scene-stealer

Raquel is looking gorgeous and wears a few revealing outfits, but there is no actual nudity, which would have helped. I still feel her acting ability is a bit lacking and the range of characters that she can play is limited. I did like her attempt at portraying a gritty character and taking a role that wasn’t glamorous. For a leading lady she has very few lines of dialogue. It wasn’t until the end when she says a few snappy one-liners at the bad guys that her part begins to click.

Robert Culp is all wrong as the bounty hunter and love interest. He can be a good actor in certain roles.  I always liked him as Peter Falk’s main nemesis in the Columbo series, but here he just doesn’t seem rugged enough. He wears glasses and is middle-aged and looks like a tenured college professor instead of a gunfighter.  The budding romance between the two doesn’t work either. He was about 12 years older than Raquel and always behaved more like a father to her right from the start.  The scene showing them holding hands while walking along a beach seemed almost creepy.

To me the film doesn’t come together until the end when she tracks the outlaw brothers down one by one in unusual locales. One is at a whorehouse, the other in a ladies clothing store, and the third is in an abandoned prison. This is the best moment as the prison itself is very isolated and the sound of the blowing wind and the late afternoon sun gives the scene a lot of atmosphere.

This is not a bad movie, but it is not a particularly good one either.  It is quite compact, running only 85 minutes, and the pace is quick. Despite the subject matter it runs pretty much on the light side. Western and Welch enthusiasts may find this more interesting than others. Borgnine fans may also like it as he is effectively slimy here.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: November 8, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 23Minutes

Rated R

Director: Burt Kennedy

Studio: Paramount

Available : VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

1 Comment

Posted in 70's Movies, Revisionist Western

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Rock ‘N’ Roll High School (1979)

Posted on December 24, 2011 | 5 comments

rock

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: They like The Ramones.

Vapid, schlocky nonsense about high school students rebelling from an oppressive new principal named Miss Togar (Mary Woronov) with the help of the punk rock band The Ramones.

The film was produced by Roger Corman, who was known to be quite stingy with his budget, and it shows. As a joke the crew put in birds in the background to chirp ‘cheap, cheap’ over the credits.

There really is no storyline here. It is just a rapid-fire parade of one corny, lame gag after another that gets progressively worse as it goes along. Despite being labeled a teen comedy the humor is embarrassingly kiddie with the expected sex jokes and innuendos at a minimum. Normally, even in the worst of comedies, I can usually find a few lines, or scenes, to be funny, but here I found nothing that was amusing, or even halfway clever.

What is worse is the fact that there is no nudity! What kind of self-respecting teen comedy doesn’t have nudity? Not that a few fleeting naked bodies would have saved it, but at least it would have helped.

P.J. Soles won a cult following for her rambunctious performance as the student leading the rebellion, but her acting is very hammy. Vincent Van Patten, son of actor Dick Van Patten, is cast against type as the good-looking blonde All-American, who seemingly can’t get laid. Unfortunately, he has always had a very blank, ‘deer-in-headlights’ stare and I find his acting follows in the same suit.

Woronov is ineffective as the heavy. She is just not mean, or repressive enough and stupidly falls for all the dumb tricks that the students play on her. Her character should have been played-up more and her evilness more accentuated, which would have, even on a minor level, allowed for more tension and made the film seem less one-dimensional.

If I liked anybody here it would be Dey Young, who is the younger sister of actress Leigh-Taylor Young and the two look a lot alike. She is real cute, but in a nice natural way that is not overdone. She seems to be having a good time throughout and I enjoyed her spontaneity. Male viewers may also like her revealing gym outfit.

The punk band The Ramones appear as themselves. Initially the producers had wanted singer Todd Rundgren, who would’ve been better, but he refused. They then tried to get Van Halen, but backed down when they heard they were wild and too hard to control. For a while they even considered bringing in a disco band and calling it ‘Disco High School’.  For what it was worth I was not into their music, or at least from what I heard here, as their songs sounded too much alike with no harmony, or melody, and a beat that was too repetitive. Also, their vocals sounded more like shouting than singing. They showed no screen presence and reportedly their acting was so bad that the majority of their lines were cut. For the record though their lead singer Joey looks almost exactly like radio personality Howard Stern.

Sometimes, if done right, teen comedies can be fun because they allow one to harken back to their own high school years and bring back fond memories like John Hughes’s Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club do. However, those films at least had some shred of reality to them while here the characters and situations are too cartoonish and over-the-top. Nothing is relatable and even for satire it goes overboard. It’s a ‘bomb’ in every respect.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: August 24, 1979

Runtime: 1Hour 33Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Allan Arkush

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray

5 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Cult, Farce, Low Budget

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Prime Cut (1972)

Posted on December 24, 2011 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Shoot-out in Kansas.

If you enjoy a great compact action flick, but are tired of the same old formula then Prime Cut may be for you.  It is the story of Nick Devlin (Lee Marvin) who is head of the crime syndicate in Chicago who travels to Kansas City to take on the head of their syndicate and avenge the death of one of their men as well as recouping an unpaid debt.

The movie has a lot of great offbeat touches that starts during its opening montage that takes place in an actual slaughterhouse.  Here you get a graphic glimpse of the inner mechanics of meat packing while soft, romantic piano music is played in the background.  The credits are displayed in a way that makes them look like they are being sliced by a meat cutter with cool meat cutting sound effects.  From here the quirky elements just keep coming. There is a wild chase through a wheat field where Marvin and Sissy Spacek find themselves attacked by a giant wheat thrasher that eats up their limousine and spits out the car parts into hay bails.  There is also a well filmed shootout amidst a sunflower field as well as Spacek’s revealing see through dress, which she wears to a posh restaurant and a giant plastic cow that gets shot up with holes and spews out milk.

This film is so unique that I am amazed it hasn’t acquired a stronger cult following. It stands up very well by today’s standards and even seems a bit shocking as it includes a scene involving white slavery where drugged young women are caged naked in stalls just like cattle and ranchers inspect and bid on them.

Marvin does well in his tongue-and-check role and pretty much steals it. He speaks his snappy lines in his usual terse manner with his famous stone expression, but he does it with a wink in his eye and at times even shows a soft side.  Sissy Spacek, in her film debut, looks young and fresh faced here. She is pretty and appealing in a very natural way. Only Gene Hackman as the villain named Mary Ann seems wasted. He does a good job for the material that he is given, but he needed more screen time and his character is not allowed to evolve at all.  Honorable mention also needs to go to Gregory Walcott as Hackman’s slimy henchman named Weenie.  The two get involved in an amusing scuffle while their accountants sit at their desks and busily add up their numbers and futilely try to ignore them.

Director Michael Ritchie nicely captures the Kansas landscape and gives it a very picturesque quality. It is probably the best on-location shooting of Kansas since Picnic. I did wish that the film was a little longer and showed more of a history between the two adversaries. It also seems to run out of steam at the end with a final shoot-out that isn’t all that clever or exciting and not up to the standards of the rest of the film.  Still this movie should appease any action fan and the story and direction are consistently original.

My Rating: 8 out 10

Released: June 28, 1972

Runtime: 1Hour 28Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Michael Ritchie

Studio: National General Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD

1 Comment

Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Dry Humor, Offbeat

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Lipstick (1976)

Posted on December 23, 2011 | 4 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Don’t get her angry.

During the mid-70’s, Margaux Hemingway, granddaughter of the legendary author Ernest Hemingway, was one of the most photographed and highest paid models in the business, in fact she was the very first model ever to be awarded a million dollar contract.  After appearing on the June, 1975 cover of Time magazine she caught the eye of famous Hollywood producer Dino De Laurentiis who thought he could turn her into a star. The idea was to prove that she wasn’t just another pretty face by casting her in the difficult and challenging role of a rape victim, which they hoped would affirm her as a ‘serious’ actress. The gamble failed and she appeared in only a few more B-pictures even though her kid sister Mariel, who was cast in the film by Marguax’s suggestion, ended up having her career take off. Alcoholism and depression followed before she eventually committed suicide in 1996 at the age of only 42.

The story is basically just another tired exercise in the now cluttered rape and revenge genre. Chris McCormick (Marguax) is a beautiful lipstick model who is brutally victimized by a weirdo named Gordon Stuart (Chris Sarandon). She is dragged through the long and arduous court proceedings only to have him found not guilty and then start to stalk her younger sister (Mariel), which forces her to take matters into her own hands.

Right from the beginning this film comes off as very clumsy dramatically. Gordon is the high school music teacher of her younger sister Kathy. Chris is introduced to him at one of her photo shoots, but is too busy to listen to his music tapes, so she gives him her home address and tells him to ‘stop by anytime’.  Now, back in the 70’s people may have been a little less cautious than they are these days, but giving one’s home address to a man that she barely knows and isn’t interested in just to listen to one of his weird music tapes seems utterly ridiculous.

The rape happens almost right away before there is any character development. It almost seemed like this was the intended leering ‘highlight’ of the film with the rest just thrown in as second-rate filler. Wikipedia describes this scene as being one of the most ‘infamous in film history’.  That may have been the case at the time, but since then there have been many films that have exceeded what you see here, most notably in the controversial French hit Irreversible. Personally, I didn’t find it to be all that extreme. The one good thing I could say about it is that Sarandon is effectively menacing. I also liked the way his character is initially shown to be very meek and geeky and his inner-rage only comes out after he feels he has been slighted, which I felt made him a little less one-dimensional.

The courtroom scenes fall flat. Normally I find a good court drama to be riveting, but here it is stagy, phony, and uneven. The best thing about this segment is the presence of Anne Bancroft as Chris’s attorney Carla Bondi. She helps give the picture some stature and I wished she could have been in more of it.

If the film comes together at any point it is after the assailant is found innocent and Chris is forced to try to move on with her life and career despite the emotional toil and stigma. This segment has a certain socially relevant drama quality and to an extent it works even though it is brief. It also conveys some rather alarming statistics including the fact that only 10, 000 out of an estimated 50,000 rape cases every year actually ever get reported and only 2 out of 100 rapists ever get convicted. Since the credits list experts in the field that were consulted I can only assume that these numbers were accurate. Things may have hopefully improved since then, but the figures still seemed startling. However, all of this gets undermined by a tacked-on, manufactured, over-the-top, Rambo-like finale that relies too much on extreme coincidence and severely stretches the credibility.

I also found the film’s visual style to be unappealing. The colors are garish and gaudy while captured through a soft focus lens that resembles a model shoot in a glamour magazine and gives one a glossy trash perception.

I can see why Mariel made a strong impression with viewers. Her testimony on the stand is both touching and heart-wrenching and her emotionalism seems genuine and gripping. Marguax does not fare as well. Although her performance improves as the film progresses I still felt she was in way over her head and her nasal sounding voice is a bit irritating.

Although this film was pretty much panned by critics and audiences alike upon its initial release there is a new generation of people who feel it is underrated as evidenced by the many positive comments about it at IMDB. I approached this with an open-mind, but couldn’t help but come away from it feeling it was exploitation from beginning to end and even at that level it seemed derivative and uninspired. The whole thing left me cold and feeling like I wasted 90 minutes.

My Rating 3 out of 10

Released: April 2, 1976

Runtime: 1Hour 29Minutes

Rated R (Rape, Violence, Mature Theme, Language)

Director: Lamont Johnson

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

4 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Court Drama, Drama, Exploitation, Movies with Nudity

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Thieves (1977)

Posted on December 21, 2011 | 6 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: A couple drifting apart.

Sally and Martin Cramer (Marlo Thomas, Charles Grodin) are a middle-aged, married couple whose relationship is slowly drifting apart.  They were once connected through their youth and idealism, but now Martin is older and more cynical. He just wants to settle down and live the quiet life as he feels ‘the world is not worth saving’. Sally is still the idealist, she teaches at an inner-city school and even wants to adopt a young African-American boy, which Martin does not want because of the boy’s propensity to steal things. Sally is also pregnant and considering an abortion. The film consists mainly with them arguing about these issues while considering divorce and having affairs.

The film did not go over well with the critics at the time of its release and I was surprised because it was written by renowned playwright Herb Gardner.  I was impressed with Gardner’s talents after seeing the film A Thousand Clowns, which was based on one of his plays. I enjoyed his offbeat characters and situations as well as the sharp one-liners.  I was expecting more of the same here, but found this to be flat and slow going. The idea of having a couple argue almost endlessly for the entire movie can be tough to pull off, but has been successfully done. Most notably in Made for Each Other starring real-life husband and wife Joseph Bologna and Renee Taylor as well as Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?. However, in both of those films the characters were eccentric and interesting and their fights were lively and animated.  Here the characters are dull to the point that there is really no reason to care how their marriage turns out, or even what happens to them. Their arguments become almost soap opera like. Yes, some of the dialogue is eloquent and you can tell it was done by a playwright, but there still needed to be more action and cutaways. The overall mood of the film is very downbeat and paints the city of New York and modern life in general as an urban hellhole.  There could be some truth to this, but it ends up becoming real depressing when the viewer gets beaten over the head with it the whole time.

Although billed as a comedy there is very little of it. The majority is heavy drama and the comedy that they do have comes off as forced, unimaginative, and heavily reliant on stereotypes. For instance Sally makes all her inner-city students put their weapons into a box before they enter her class. I thought it would have been more believable had one of them decided to use them on her, but they never do. Despite the ‘rough and tough’ image the kids seem strangely compliant.  Martin is a principal at a snotty private school, so his problems are at the other end. One scene has him ‘negotiating’ with a spoiled ten year old to come out of his limousine and into class, which is equally contrived.  There is also the strange neighbor who lives in the apartment beneath theirs and is played by actor Hector Elizondo.  He makes random, weird comments throughout that supposedly are used for comic relief, but end becoming quickly irritating.

I thought it would be fun to see Marlo Thomas in a film role as she has done very few of them in her career. She is most well-known for playing the part of Ann Marie the struggling actress in the 60’s TV-series That Girl. Her character was known to be very naïve and proper in that series. Here her character is more jaded and savvy, which makes for an interesting comparison although she is known as a feminist and liberal activist in real-life, so if anything this character more closely identifies with her true personality. She does end up giving an excellent performance overall. Charles Grodin does not fare as well. Usually his sardonic humor and dry approach can elevate even the blandest material, but here the maudlin script ends up pulling him down. Even Grodin fans who have seen this film stated that he seems to be just going through the motions. I also didn’t like the fact that he has a flute and ends up constantly playing the same sad tune. Noted character actors Gary Merrill and Mercedes McCambridge appear as homeless people, but are not given a single line of dialogue, which I found to be frustrating and a waste of their talents.

If there is one positive thing to say about this dreary production that has no visual or cinematic style it is in the presence of Irwin Corey, who plays Sally’s racist and scatological father.  He manages to liven up all the scenes that he is in and I came away impressed as he is mainly a stand-up comedian famous for his bawdy Professor Irwin Corey act. I was even more impressed to find that as of this writing he is still alive and well at the ripe old age of 97 and still doing his comedy act while married to the same woman for over 70 years. A documentary about his life and career called Irwin and Fran is set to be released later this year. Judging just from the trailer it looks more interesting and enjoyable than this film.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: February 11, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 32Minutes

Rated PG

Director: John Berry

Studio: Paramount

Available: Netflix Streaming

6 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Obscure Movies

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The Choirboys (1977)

Posted on December 20, 2011 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: These guys are crude.

I’ve been a fan of author Joseph Wambaugh ever since I was fourteen and read ‘The Onion Field’, which I found to be incredibly gripping.  Wambaugh, a former policeman turned author, usually writes stories about cops that are laced with drama as well as humor.  ‘The Choirboys’ novel had all of these ingredients and rose to the top ‘New York Times’ bestsellers list. Unfortunately the film version did not do quite so well.  Wambaugh hated it and continues to lambast it even in interviews today.

Most others disliked the film as well although there are a few who liked its outrageous humor.  As any good reviewer I wanted to be open-minded.  The film has languished in obscurity for decades.  It was released to theaters just two days before Christmas in 1977 and then faded out quickly.  It has never been shown on broadcast television. It was released to VHS on 1993, but copies of it are rare.  It has never been released on DVD, but just recently it has become available on the Netflix streaming option as well as Starz Play. So if you still want to see this film after reading this review, then that is where you can find it.

The film, like the novel, starts out with a scene from the Vietnam war where we see a soldier trapped in a cave and panicking as the enemy moves in.  It then cuts to the present day where a group of policemen who, after a grueling day of work, routinely let loose by having what they call ‘choir practice’ in the evenings.  This is simply a code word used as an excuse for hard partying and practical jokes, which takes up the whole first half of the film.  The second hour turns dramatic as that same soldier that was trapped in the cave, and is now one of the policemen, has a frightening flashback which leads to tragedy.  His police buddies try to cover it up and the rest of the movie deals with the subsequent investigation.

One of the biggest drawbacks to the film is the incessant amount of pranks and juvenile behavior that is shown, which quickly becomes  redundant.  I did like the part where one of the jokes goes too far and one of the men yells out “let’s get out of here before somebody calls the cops”.  I also like the statement George DiCenzo’s character says to a prostitute as he is having sex with her.  It is very anti-PC, but a laugh-out-loud moment nonetheless.  The rest of the pranks are dull and unimaginative. Director Robert Aldrich could have cut ninety percent of it and still made his point. It all ends up making cops look like inane buffoons without balancing it with their humanity like the novel did.

The second hour deals more with the drama, but really isn’t much better.  The lighting is dark and shadowy.  The shot composition has no visual flair and ends up looking more like a cheap TV show than a movie.  The editing is very choppy and the film fails to find a good pace or momentum.

There are a few bright spots.  I really liked the Burt Young character. Many people remember him best from the Rocky movies.  Here he plays an incredibly grungy, crass police sergeant who exposes a tender side at a completely unexpected moment.  I also liked Don Stroud’s performance as the unhinged policeman.  In many ways I felt he carried the majority of the movie.  Perry King is also good as a cop hiding a dark side.  He does real well in these types of parts and reminded me of his performance in The Procession of Joel Delaney. The movie also stars the very durable Charles Durning, which is also a good thing.  As of this writing he is now eighty-seven years old and has four, yes four, projects on his slate for this year alone.

The film though does not live up to the novel and reading the book in this case would be the much better choice.  Normally I dislike Hollywood’s recent penchant for remaking old films, but in this instance I would applaud it.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: December 23, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 59Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert Aldrich

Studio: Universal

Available: VHS

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Posted in 70's Movies, Crude Comedy, Movies Based on Novels, Obscure Movies

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Stay Hungry (1976)

Posted on December 19, 2011 | 1 comment

 

stay hungry 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Read the book instead.

Craig Blake (Jeff Bridges) is a young southern man left alone with his butler in a big mansion when both his parents die in a car crash.  He works at a shady investment firm run by the con-man Jabo (Joe Spinnell).  They have managed to purchase all the other buildings on a block except for a workout gym. Craig is told to meet with the owner of the gym named Thor (R.G. Armstrong) and transact a purchase, so the firm can use the space to build a high-rise office complex.  However, once Craig meets with some of the people working there, including Joe Santo (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who is a body builder and uses the gym to prepare for the Mr. Universe title, as well as the pretty receptionist Mary Tate (Sally Field) he starts to have second thoughts about going through with the deal.

The film is based on the 1972 best-selling novel of the same name by Charles Gaines. There are quite a few differences between the book and the film, with the novel being much better. In the book there is no real estate firm, or potential acquisition of the building. Craig is simply bored with life and goes to a gym on a whim and uses the idea of bodybuilding as a way to find an identity. The book also features a camping trip that the group goes on and a fascinating psychedelic experience that Craig has when he takes an illicit drug that was completely cut out of the movie. The book has much richer characterizations and a profound philosophy that is devoid in the movie.

The film is poorly paced. Nothing really seems to happen and it only comes together at the end and by then it is too late.  Director Bob Rafelson tries to make the movie take on too many things. It shifts awkwardly between drama and sardonic comedy, but fails to achieve any type of cohesion, or momentum.  The flow is more like a European style of filmmaking where the story is told in a more relaxed pace and features long takes and side conversations. However, the dialogue isn’t interesting enough to carry it and the film focuses too much on the relationship between Craig and Mary, which happens too fast and doesn’t seem to have enough chemistry.

I also didn’t like how the character of Craig is portrayed. Bridges gives his usual dependable performance, but he has no southern accent even though he is from the area and everyone else speaks in a very thick one. He talks and acts much more like he is from the west coast and, like the viewer, acts as if he is some detached stranger that is just passing through with no real roots in the area, people, or customs. I think the Hollywood producers intentionally did this because they figured mainstream audiences could not relate to a southerner, who are still straddled with the unfair stigma of being hick, redneck, and racist. So the character was modified to bring broader appeal, but in the process becomes unrealistic and a bit annoying.

On the technical end it is okay although the budget looks limited. Filming on-location in Birmingham, Alabama helps, but I would have liked to have seen more of the area. There are a few unique scenes that make it somewhat enjoyable. One includes Craig stealing a painting off the wall of an office and another involves a throng of half-naked body builders spilling out onto the streets of the city and holding up traffic. There is also a very violent altercation at the end between Craig and Thor that features them battling with each other while using equipment from the gym. The action here is choreographed and edited nicely and looks genuinely real. There is also a brief moment where Field and Bridges go water skiing that was done by the actors themselves and not stunt doubles.

Schwarzenegger is appealing in what is considered his first official acting debut since in his previous two films his voice was dubbed and he had no speaking lines in the other. I liked the way the character is humanized here and shown with a different side to him including having him play the fiddle in a country band. Field is good playing a very feisty and rambunctious character. It also features her in a nude scene although it is from the back only. Woodrow Parfrey also deserves mention as Uncle Albert simply because his eccentric acting style always grabs your attention even in the smallest of roles. He also is the film’s narrator and speaks with the most authentic, best sounding Southern accent out of everyone.

R.G. Armstrong is by far and away the most memorable part of the film. He wears a hilariously awful wig throughout and is slimy in a real goofy way in every scene he is in. His best part comes when he has sex with a couple of prostitutes while on some of the workout machines. He also did, at age 60, his own nude scenes, so you have to give him credit there.

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My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: April 23, 1976

Runtime: 1Hour 42Minutes

Rated R

Director: Bob Rafelson

Studio: United Artists

Available: VHS, DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Dry Humor, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with Nudity, Quirky

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The Late Show (1977)

Posted on December 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Quirky couple solve mystery.

Ira Wells (Art Carney) is a crusty, old-fashioned detective from a bygone era who has settled down into retirement while renting out a small bedroom in the house of a sweet old lady (Ruth Nelson). One night he is visited by his old friend and fellow detective Harry Reagan (Howard Duff) who has been shot and dies before he can tell him the identity of his killer. Ira makes it a pledge to avenge the death of his friend and bring the killer to justice.  At the funeral he meets a flighty, free-spirited woman by the name of Margo Sperling (Lily Tomlin). She tries to hire Ira to get him to find out who has kidnapped her pet cat and holding him for ransom. Ira initially refuses until he finds out that his friend Harry had been investigating the case before he was shot.

Although billed as a comedy this is really much more of a gritty crime-drama molded as a modern day film noir. I think this is what threw me off when I first saw the film as well as audiences of the time.  With those two leads I was expecting a lot of zaniness especially with the pairing of such divergent characters. There is some subtle humor at times and one instance where Margo drives a van throw the front yards of some houses while escaping the bad guys, but overall the emphasis is really on the characters and the mystery. On this end it is okay. The mystery is intriguing enough to keep you involved and has a few nice twists and an array of weird suspects. Eugene Roche is the most amusing as Ron Birdwell, a man who is constantly trying to sell merchandise that he has stolen and has cluttered throughout his house.

The two lead characters propel the film and are well developed. Both actors play their parts well. I thought this was quite possibly Lily Tomlin’s best performance. It is also one that mostly closely resembles her true personality.  I enjoyed how at first both disdain the other, but then quietly come to appreciate each other and even grow a certain fondness and attachment.  However, I was disappointed that the film did not go further with this.  I thought the characters were highly believable and would have liked to have seen more conclusion as to what happens with their budding friendship. Personally I would have liked the first hour of the movie dealt with the initial case and then had them team up to solve an even more complex one in the second hour. A sequel or series would have been even better as it is certainly a potent premise.

One thing that really impressed me was writer-director Robert Benton’s keen eye for detail even with the little things. Although not always consciously noticed by the average filmgoer, the little things such as lighting, set decoration, and staging can having a very strong effect as to whether the film succeeds, or not.  A good director will always pay close attention to this while the poor one will overlook it, or cut corners. One example of this is Ira’s bedroom, which had the cluttered look most people’s homes have, but most movies fail to effectively recreate, as well as pictures and artifacts from years past that helped explain the character in a visual way. There is also a scene where Ira is doing his laundry at the local Laundromat while Margo talks to him about the case. I thought this was a nice touch as usually movie characters are never shown doing mundane daily tasks even though it is something most regular people have to spend a lot of their time doing. I noticed that he put in his clothes first and then the detergent, which I thought was a mistake. I presumed it was because actor Carney was just going through the motions and not paying attention, but then Margo mentions the error. This might have been an ad-lib on Tomlin’s part, but it is nice that they left it in as it helps accentuate the reality and shows even further how meticulous the detail was. I appreciated the scene involving actor Bill Macy who plays a bartender. Being a recently trained bartender I can attest that he mixed and served the drinks in the correct way, which isn’t always the case in other movies.

The Ira character also wears a hearing aid as did actor Carney in real life. There is one scene where Ira aims his gun and gets ready to shoot at a fleeing suspect, but just before he does he takes out his hearing aid. This makes sense as the loud sound from the blast at such short range would probably destroy the mechanism. The scene is so unusual that they added it into the film’s trailer and actress Tomlin even mentions it when she is interviewed about the film on the Dinah Shore show, which is part of the DVD’s special features. The only quibble I had here was that on the very next shot Ira has the hearing aid back in his ear and I thought it would have been too quick for him to have done that.

The only area where this film fails is in the use of the blood, which is a problem in a lot of movies. Blood is always a very dark red and yet here it is a bright red and looking almost like cherry syrup. When Ira investigates a murder scene he finds a long streak of this bright red stuff going along the carpet that looks quite evident that it was put on with a paint brush.

If you like a mystery that closely resembles the feel and pace of an old Phillip Marlowe case than you may enjoy this. It is technically well made in just about every aspect, but I still went away feeling that the films from the 30’s and 40’s end up doing it better.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: February 10, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 33Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Robert Benton

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: VHS, DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Dry Humor, Mystery

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