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The Gambler (1974)

Posted on February 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

gambler

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Can’t control his addiction.

Axel (James Caan) is a college professor with a serious gambling addiction. He enjoys making bets on anything and everything whether it’s in a casino, over the phone betting on sports games, or out on the street playing one-on-one hoops with the neighborhood kids. No matter how much he loses he can’t stop from continuing the same pattern. When he owes $44,000 to the mob and they come looking for him and threatening his life he’s forced to ask his mother (Jacqueline Brookes) for the money and despite her disapproval she gives it to him out of her life savings, but then instead of paying off his debt he just uses it to gamble some more.

The screenplay was inspired by writer James Toback’s own life experiences and was initially written as a semi-autobiographical book before he decided to turn it into a script. The film is intriguing to a degree as gambling addiction is not anything that I’ve ever fully understood, so trying to fathom why some people would put up such huge sums of money to make a bet that they know they have a very good chance of losing, and even if they do lose will still continue to go on making bets anyways is baffling to me. Toback makes good efforts to try to explain the psych of a gambler’s mindset, which mainly gets revealed through Axel’s lectures to his class and at one point during a conversation with his bookie (Paul Sorvino) where he admits he could beat him with safe bets in competitions he was sure to win, but that this wouldn’t give him the same adrenaline rush, or ‘juice’, that placing a more riskier bet would.

Even with these explanations it still becomes gut wrenching watching him spiral out-on-control and dig himself deeper and deeper in a hole until you feel almost like turning away as it becomes genuinely painful, and frustrating, at seeing someone self-destruct the way this guy does. There are some very powerful moments including the scenes where the mother begrudgingly takes her money out of the bank to help him for fear he may lose his life if she doesn’t and her pained expression on her face as she does it really gets etched in your mind. Axel sitting in a bathtub listening to the final moments of a basketball game that he’s also bet big money on where the final score doesn’t go the way he wanted is also quite compelling.

The acting is strong with Caan giving a great performance that Toback originally wanted to go to DeNiro, who campaigned heavily for it, but director Karel Reisz choose Caan instead, only for Caan to state in later interviews that he hated working with him. Comedian London Lee, wearing an incredibly garish bowl haircut, is good in a very sleazy sort of way and Burt Young has a dynamic bit as an enforcer who tears up a lady’s apartment when her boyfriend is unable to repay what he owes. James Woods can be seen in a small role as a flippant bank teller though overall I still felt it was Brookes who steals it as the concerned mother and I was surprised she was not in it more nor that she didn’t get an Academy Award nomination as she really should’ve.

Despite a few powerful moments the pace is slow and there’s a lot of periods where it gets boring and nothing much happens. A lot of the blame goes to the fact that the main character has very little of an arch. He starts out already with the addiction gripping him and we can see what a problem it’s causing and the rest of the movie just continues to hit home this same point until it becomes redundant. It would’ve been better to have seen him before he had gotten into the whole gambling fix took over his life and personality, which would’ve created a far more interesting and insightful transition.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: October 2, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 51 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Karel Reisz

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Amazon Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, College Life, Drama, Movies that take place in the Big Apple

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Fast-Walking (1982)

Posted on February 25, 2024 | 1 comment

fastwalking

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Guard helps prisoner escape.

Based on the 1974 novel ‘The Rap’ by Ernest Brawley the film centers on prison guard Frank Miniver (James Woods) a pot smoking man who’s unhappy with the low pay of his current job and helps supplement his income by pimping prostitutes to the local Mexican laborers. Wasco (Tim McIntire) is a prisoner at the jailhouse Frank works at who has many outside connections. When a black political prisoner William Galliot (Robert Hooks) arrives at the prison Wasco fashions to have him assassinated by Frank, but Frank has other ideas. He’s already made a deal with Galliot to have him sprung from the inside and in so doing he’ll be given a cool $50,000. Wasco become aware of this other deal, but insists that Frank follow his plan, or he’ll put a hit on Moke (Kay Lenz) an attractive, sharp-shooting lady friend that Frank’s been sleeping with who is also Wasco’s girlfriend. Will Frank choose money over the girl, or will he have a plan-B of his own?

Filmed on-location at the old Montana State Prison building in Deer Lodge, Montana the film has an interesting look to it, which helps accentuate the characters. The American west has always had the allure of escape and individualism, so the rustic landscape here brings out not only Frank’s need to get out of the shackles of his dead-end job, but the prisoners as well. The small town setting has a sort-of renegade vibe where everyone is eager to  push-the-envelope of the law and feeling more than confident that they can get away with it. The guards seem almost as corrupt as the men they incarcerate and in some ways even worse. The entertainment is not seeing good conquer evil, but more with which side will manage to out con the other.

The story takes its sweet time getting told with the entire first hour spent just showing Frank’s on the job frustrations before it even gets to the prison break plan. It works more as vignettes than a plot with one amusing moment taking place in the visiting room with one prisoner named Ted (Sydney Lassick) more fascinated with Moke taking off her panties underneath her skirt than with what his own wife (Helen Page Camp) is saying who sits directly in front of him. The cat-and-mouse game that Frank plays with Moke who each challenge the other with their rifle skills with Frank shooting flat the tire of Moke’s motorcycle from a long distance only to have Moke do the same to Frank’s tire on his jeep while he’s driving it is a lot of fun too.

The acting is excellent and the film’s main driver. Lenz looks great, both with her clothes on and off and this marked her career peak as her roles after this were of the supporting variety, or stymied in obscure, low budget flicks. Tim McIntire is also quite good in his second-to-last feature before his untimely death. He spouts a lot of dialogue, which seems almost like a never ending rant at times, but he conveys it in such a snarky, articulate way that it’s still fun to listen to though I was confused why, being a prisoner himself, he was allowed to sleep in the same room as the guards and even socialize with them out in the open. At first I thought he was a guard since he’s given a lot of their responsibilities including lowering the lever each morning that open up the other cell doors. I could only presume that given the corrupt environment and the fact that he was Frank’s cousin that he was given some under-the-table leverage to get these perks and privileges, but it would’ve helped had it been explained better, or given some backstory.

It’s also interesting seeing M. Emmet Walsh here doing yet another nude scene. He has an aging, out-of-shape body type that you’d think no one on this planet would want to see naked, nor would ask to, and yet in a span of 2-years his bare body figured prominently in two different films. In Straight Time he gets his pants pulled down while chained to a fence overlooking a busy highway, which I thought was edgy enough, but here he again gets shown sans his clothes this time from the front side where you get to see underneath his bulging belly his little wee-wee dangling about as he stands outside the front door and yells at Woods who is pulling away, which makes for an image you may want to forget, but might have problems doing.

As for the action there’s not much of it. Sure there’s a couple of shootings, which are quick, and a few fleeting scenes of prisoners falling to their deaths, but that’s about it. No riots, rapes, knife fights, or prison yard fist-fights all stuff that most viewers have come to expect with these types of movies and thus unless they get into the subtle quirkiness may leave disappointed. The inmates are also strangely docile and respectful of authority and even though they greatly outnumber the guards and at times could easily over power them they don’t, which makes it seem not as gritty as it could’ve been though others may not mind this and instead enjoy the film’s offbeat quality including Lalo Schifrin’s bouncy score.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: October 8, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 55 Minutes

Rated R

Director: James B. Harris

Studio: Lorimar Productions

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Prison Flicks

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Cat’s Eye (1985)

Posted on October 30, 2023 | 1 comment

cats

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Three stories involving feline.

With a screenplay written by Stephen King the film is made up of three of his short stories with two of them taken from his 1978 novel ‘Night Shift’ while the third one was penned directly for the screen. The only connecting thread is a stray cat and actress Drew Barrymore who appear in all three tales though only have major parts in the third one.

The first segment is called ‘Quitters, Inc.’ and involves James Wood playing the part of a man named Dick Morrison who is trying to quit smoking and enters an agency that boasts a high success rate of getting their clients to stop. It’s run by Vinny (Alan King) who tells Dick that if he doesn’t stop smoking instantly that they’ll kidnap his wife (Mary D’Arcy) and put her into a room where she’ll receive electrical shocks. To prove his point he puts the cat in the cage and then through a glass partition Dick witnesses the feline getting shocked, which is enough to scare him into quitting on the spot. Yet as the days progress Dick finds himself constantly getting the urge to light-up, but Vinny warns him that he has people who’ll be watching him and if he does dare to backtrack they’ll immediately grab his wife and bring her into the cage. Eventually though the compulsion to have a cigarette gets to be too much and he sneaks a puff only to then face the dire consequences.

This segment tries for black comedy, but doesn’t go far enough with it. While Woods, who usually excels as the twisted types, is quite good as the straight man, I couldn’t understand why he didn’t go the police when his wife gets taken, or why any of the other clients didn’t either, which should’ve gotten the business quickly shut down and the owners prosecuted for running an unethical operation. Famously brash comedian Alan King isn’t given enough leeway to allow his cantankerous persona to go full throttle though watching him wearing a white leisure suit and lip synch the words to the song ‘Every Breath You Take’ makes it almost worth it. It’s interesting seeing James Rebhorn in a bit part as a drunken business man at a party as he later had a prominent role in the movie The Game, which had a very similar storyline to this one involving a business that overtakes their client’s lives and is constantly watching them.

The second segment called ‘The Ledge’ involves a man named Johnny (Robert Hays) who must walk across a thin, outdoor ledge along a penthouse wall many feet above a busy street. If he succeeds then the penthouse owner, Cressner (Kenneth McMillan), will grant his wife a divorce and allow her to marry Johnny whom she’s been dating.

This story is the best one mainly because it has McMillan who is one of the finest character actors of all time and supplies his role with an amazing amount of energy and dark campiness. The scenes of watching Hays trying to maneuver his way on the ledge while being simultaneously attacked by a pigeon and at times McMillan who throws things at him out his window, is really terrifying. You feel like you’re on the ledge with him and I cringed all the way through this one, but in a good way as I really got swept up in it though the twist ending is a letdown.

The third and final segment called ‘The General’ involves a young girl living in North Carolina, named Amanda (Drew Barrymore) who takes in a stray cat much to her nagging mother’s (Candy  Clark) chagrin as she feels the animal may attack Amanda’s pet bird named Polly whom she keeps in a cage in her room. Amanda though likes the cat, whom she’s named General, because he scares away the evil troll, who’s the size of a rat and sneaks into her bedroom at night through a small opening in the wall to steal away her breath while also attacking Polly.

This segment has some interesting special effects, but it’s hard to tell if this is intended to be scary, or comical. It’s probably supposed to be a mixture of both, but I wished it went more for the scares since the movie, which gets billed as being a ‘horror’ doesn’t really have much of them otherwise. This segment also doesn’t really have any twist to it other than the parents finally believing that a troll really does exist in their daughter’s bedroom, but then telling her not to tell anyone about it, but why? It seems like if there’s one of them there could be others and the whole home should be inspected and fumigated and if I were the homeowner I wouldn’t want to spend another minute in there until it was, so having this family just forget about it and go back to normal didn’t seem like a normal response. The troll is also too reminiscent of the devil doll in Trilogy of Terror, which was far more frightening.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: April 12, 1985

Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Lewis Teague

Studio: MGM/UA

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, Horror, Movies Based on Short Stories, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies that take place in the South

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The Onion Field (1979)

Posted on May 26, 2023 | Leave a comment

onion2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Guilt over partner’s death.

Los Angeles police detectives Ian Campbell (Ted Danson) and Karl Hettinger (John Savage) are on-duty driving around in an unmarked police car when they spot two men, Gregory Powell (James Woods) and Jimmy Smith (Franklyn Seales), driving suspiciously, so they pull them over. While Campbell is talking to Powell, Powell is able to pull out a gun he had hidden in his trousers forcing Campbell to drop his weapon. Hettinger is then told to give up his weapon as well, which he does, or risk seeing his partner get shot. The two cops are then taken at gunpoint to an remote onion field where in the darkness of night Campbell is shot and killed, but Hettinger escapes and manages to run 4 miles until he finds someone and gets help. While the two criminals are eventually apprehended and found guilty it is Hettinger that suffers the most from the guilt of surviving when his friend and partner didn’t and from the humiliation of being the subject of a police video detailing what not to do when stopping a vehicle, which leads him to a severe mental breakdown in both his personal and professional life.

The story is based on the actual incident that occurred on March 9, 1963 with the traffic stop happening on the corner of Carlos Avenue and Gower Street in Hollywood and the murder happening off of Interstate 5 near Bakersfield. It was written into a novel by former cop turned author Joseph Wambaugh in 1973. I remember reading it when I was 14 and finding it captivating from beginning to end. While the film stays faithful to it I still felt it wasn’t as effective and in a lot of ways not as gripping. Even though it was a long time ago I remember the part about Powell’s ‘disguise’ where the only thing he changed about his features was putting a distinctive mole on his left ear lobe, which sounded completely absurd. This is discussed in the movie, which gets a subtle eye roll from Smith his partner, but the irony is, which is talked about in the book and not the film, is that the witnesses from the robbery that Powell was in described the mole to the police and this litrerally threw the detectives off for awhile as they kept searching for a man with a distinctive mole that Powell had since removed, so as silly as it sounded, his idea had actually worked, but the movie never gives this pay-off.

The chase through the onion field is also really hurt. I remember finding this section the most captivating part of the book and finding it a truly tense and horrifying moment that seemed to go on forever and a major element of the story, but in the movie this moment gets trimmed down significantly. Years ago, when I first saw the movie on TV, I thought it was because they had edited it down due to time constraints in order to get more commercials in, but when I finally viewed the full version on DVD I found this wasn’t the case. For whatever reason the chase in the onion field lasts for only a few minutes and not done from Hettinger’s perspective, which is what made it such an intense reading and it’s a real shame as it makes the movie much less impactful then it could’ve been. It turns the whole onion field incident into a side story instead of the main event.

The performances by Woods and Seales are outstanding and the element that really gives the film its energy they also look exactly like the people they’re playing to the point it’s almost freaky. Woods is especially creepy and he literally demands your attention with each moment he’s in it. Seales though, whose career never really took off and he died at the young age of 37 from AIDS, is excellent too as he plays someone who is very timid especially when initially with Powell, but brazen at other points and the way his and Powell’s relationship evolves both through their criminal and then when behind bars is quite fascinating. The scream that he lets out when Campbell gets shot, which was not in the script and completely improvised, has a very riveting effect and the one thing about the film that I had remembered from watching it decades earlier.

Unfortunately the two leads, the people we’re supposed to be the most connected with, are quite boring. It’s not like it’s the actors faults either. Danson, this was his film debut, is not bad, but his character isn’t fleshed out enough. Other than enjoying playing the bagpipes we don’t learn much else about him and nothing he says his captivating, or interesting. The same with Savage his inner turmoil and mental breakdown really doesn’t have the intended emotional impact in fact his moments bogs the movie down and you can’t wait until they get back to the bad guys who as rotten as they are what gives the movie its liveliness. I realize that Wambaugh felt it was very important to get Hettinger’s story out there and it was the whole reason that motivated him to write the book, but I came away feeling, at least movie wise it would’ve worked better had it just focused on the two crooks and their weird ‘friendship’.

On the whole it’s still an adequate production that holds enough interest and makes some good points about an important event that shouldn’t be forgotten, but at times it also seems like an overreach. Wambuagh’s insistence that everything be as accurate as possible gives the narrative a cluttered feel particularly with all the various court proceedings with each one having a different set of attorney’s, judges, and courtrooms which becomes dizzying instead of riveting. Pairing certain elements down would’ve helped as it’s not quite a completely effective, despite the great effort, as it could’ve been and without question another incidence where the book is far better.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: September 19, 1979

Runtime: 2 Hours 6 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Harold Becker

Studio: AVCO Embassy Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 70's Movies, Court Drama, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies Based on Novels, Police Drama

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Split Image (1982)

Posted on November 26, 2018 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Their son becomes brainwashed.

Danny (Micheal O’Keefe) is a struggling athlete who’s feeling overwhelmed by the demands and pressures of college life. He meets-up with Rebecca (Karen Allen) who invites him to a weekend stay at what turns out to be a religious cult run by Kirklander (Peter Fonda). It is there that Danny becomes brainwashed into the organization and cuts off all ties with his parents (Brian Dennehy, Elizabeth Ashley) who decide they have no option but to kidnap him and then have him deprogrammed by a brash, caustic deprogrammer (James Woods) who they find to be rude but helpful

This film is very similar to Ticket to Heaven that was produced in Canada and has the same story and structure. The Canadian production though is a bit better especially with the way it examines the protagonist getting acclimated into the cult. Both films have the young man becoming brainwashed in a matter of one weekend which to me is too quick. The Canadian film though at least examines the different activities that they go through to wear him down and it gets in your face with it, so the viewer feels as exhausted as the young man when t’s over while this film glosses over that part making the transition seem too extreme. The Canadian film also detailed the character’s constant inner turmoil even after he’d been indoctrinated while here Danny behaves like a light switch that completely changes from his old self in a snap and then never looks back, which is less realistic

The B-story dealing with a romance that he has with Rebecca while in the group degrades the the story to a sappy opera level and should’ve been left out. Allen certainly is perfect for her role as her bright, beaming blue eyes gives her character that brainwashed appearance, but the extended conversations she has with Danny are strained making me believe that the scenes inside the cult should’ve been cut as they’re corny instead of compelling and focused instead  solely on the parents point-of-view at trying to get him out.

The film though does score with the deprogramming segment, which gets much more extended here. Director Ted Kotcheff uses elaborate visual effects to convey Danny’s point-of-view and unlike in Ticket to Heaven the deprogrammer doesn’t allow the family and friends to sit-in on his sessions as he feared they won’t understand his methods, which is more believable.

Ashley as the mother is great especially her meltdown near the end with Danny when he tries to physically attack her.  I had some problems though with Dennehy’s character as he seemed much too calm and laid back and even starts singing as they drive to the cult location even though most people would be nervous and then later showing him breaking down and crying as he watched an old video of Danny is too overwrought.

Woods though perfectly captures the anti-hero with his intended brashness being more amusing than offensive. The part where he plays-out a scene to the movie Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring Spencer Tracy was I’m convinced ad-libbed and a great example of  how his acting genius gives this movie a needed edge and whose presence keeps it watchable.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: October 3, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 50 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ted Kotcheff

Studio: Orion Pictures

Available: VHS, Amazon Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, College Life, Drama, Movies that take place in Texas, Obscure Movies, Psychological

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Against All Odds (1984)

Posted on February 8, 2016 | Leave a comment

against all odds

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Searching for missing girlfriend.

Terry Brogan (Jeff Bridges) is an aging football player who gets cut from the team and in desperate need of cash. He reluctantly accepts a paying assignment from his friend Jake Wise (James Woods) which has him traveling to Mexico in search of Jake’s girlfriend Jessie (Rachel Ward) who just so happens to also be the daughter of the team’s owner (Jane Greer) that cut Terry from the squad. Terry manages to find Jessie rather quickly and the two promptly fall in love, which propels a string of odd events that soon has Terry embroiled in a complex criminal scheme that threatens both his life and others.

This film is a remake from the 1947 film noir classic Out of the Past, but it does not fare as well as the original. The main problem is that it requires the viewer to make some major leaps in logic and only proceeds to get more implausible as it goes along. The fact that both Jake and the team’s owner want to hire Terry to find Jessie is the biggest issue. Why would these two want to throw gobs of money at someone who has no experience in finding people or know the first thing about the process. They wouldn’t hire him to fix their car if he had no experience in that area, so why expect him to have any ability in finding a missing person. Professional private eyes have spent years tracking down people and have attained skills that a novice wouldn’t, so why not just leaf through the Yellow Pages of their local phone book and hire a private investigator with good credentials to do the job instead?

Terry also locates Jessie much too quickly. Mexico has a population of 125 million people and yet in only a couple days he miraculously spots her buying food from across the street from where he is having a drink. In equally miraculous fashion she is somehow able to, after only speaking to him briefly, figure out which hotel he is staying at and bursts into his room unannounced the next day, which is also dumb because who leaves their hotel room door unlocked especially when staying in a foreign country? Later the Alex Karras character is somehow able to find the two as they make love inside an ancient Mayan temple deep inside the remote jungles of the Yucatan, which again is highly questionable and probably even more implausible than the other two examples mentioned above.

The motivations of the characters are another issue. There’s a scene where the Swoosie Kurtz character, as a favor to Terry, goes into a dead man’s office to retrieve some important files from a safe while having a Doberman growling at her and a corrupt security guard ready to harm her at any second, but why someone would put their life on the line for somebody that they really don’t know that well is nebulous and in reality wouldn’t occur.

There is also a scene involving Jake and Terry drag racing down the busy streets of L.A. in broad daylight. Some fans of the film consider this to be quite exciting, but I found it to be unrealistic as it is hard to believe that they could get away with it without catching the eye of a traffic cop as they were doing it. Having two middle-aged men be so utterly reckless not only with their own lives but those of the other drivers is also hard to imagine and puts their most prized possessions, which is their snazzy sports cars in jeopardy of getting totaled. Going to some other less traveled place to do their off-road racing would’ve made more sense.

On the plus side Larry Carlton’s moody soundtrack is great and helps create just the right tone. I also thought Ward was a perfect choice for her role as she is quite sensual and seductive without ever overdoing it. The film also scores with its breathtaking Mexican scenery.

I liked that Greer, who starred in the original version, gets cast as Ward’s mother and although I felt Richard Widmark does quite well as the heavy I was disappointed that the role wasn’t offered to either Robert Mitchum or Kirk Douglas as they had appeared in the original as well.

The plot features many twists, which keeps it mildly interesting, but it also borders on getting convoluted and is never emotionally compelling. The ongoing love affair between the two leads ends up being annoying as well. For one thing she two-times him while also bailing on him the moment things got tough. If a person does that to someone once they will do it to them again if given the chance, so ‘losing’ her wasn’t much of a loss and makes the image of her crying for him, which gets shown over the closing credits, all the more melodramatic and over-the-top.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: March 2, 1984

Runtime: 2Hours 1Minute

Rated R

Director: Taylor Hackford

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Remakes, Romance, Sports Movies

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The Visitors (1972)

Posted on November 14, 2015 | 3 comments

visitors 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: His past comes back.

Vietnam veteran Bill (James Woods) has moved back into civilian life while enjoying the quietness of the country with his girlfriend Martha (Patricia Joyce) and her infant son. One day in the dead of winter while Bill is away shopping two of his former war buddies Tony and Mike (Chico Martinez, Steve Railsback) come by for an unexpected visit. When Bill returns he is not happy to see them and when Martha asks him why he tells her of how while in Vietnam he had witnessed the two raping a woman and later he decided to report it, which got the two men sent to prison. Now that they are out he is afraid they may be looking for revenge. Tony insists that he’s forgiven Bill for what he did, but Mike’s intentions are much more ominous especially with the way he eyes Martha. As the night wears on the tensions mount until festering over into anger and mayhem.

The story is loosely based on an actual crime that occurred in Vietnam on November 19, 1966 when five American soldiers kidnapped and gang raped a 21-year-old Vietnamese woman who they later killed. One of the soldiers, who did not take part in the crime, but did witness it, reported the incident to his superiors, which eventually got the other men convicted and imprisoned.

The incident was first made into a movie in 1970 in Michael Verhoeven’s o.k. and then 19 years later Brian De Palma did another version of it called Casualties of War, which starred Michael J. Fox. This version differs from the other two in that it only alludes to the crime, but never shows it. Instead it hypothesis on what might’ve happened had those who were convicted came back to revisit the one that had turned them in.

Story wise the film works to a degree as it reveals things in layers, which helps hold the mystery and filming the majority of it inside one lonely, isolated house gives it an effectively claustrophobic feeling, but the production values are extremely low and resembles more someone’s lost home movie than a feature film directed by a one-time Hollywood legend. The background sound is mainly made up of a howling wind noise, which helps heighten the creepiness, but then during the second half director Elia Kazan inserts music, which becomes a distraction.

The ending leaves open a wide array of unanswered questions along with a lot of murky character motivations that makes the whole thing seem pointless and ill-conceived. The only interesting element to get out of it is seeing Woods and Railsback in their respective film debuts. Railsback is especially good in a part he seems born to play and one he honed to even greater success years later in The Stunt Man.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: February 2, 1972

Runtime: 1Hour 28Minutes

Rated R

Director: Elia Kazan

Studio: United Artists

Available: Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Drama, Low Budget, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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Alex & The Gypsy (1976)

Posted on June 20, 2014 | 3 comments

alex and the gypsy

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Gypsy out on bail.

Alex is a middle-aged bail bondsman who is down on life and masks his disappointments with cynicism. By chance he meets the beautiful Maritza (Genevieve Bujold) a young gypsy woman who travels the countryside reading people’s palms and futures for a living. When she is accused of trying to kill her father and thrown into jail Alex decides to post her 30,000 dollar bail in an attempt for a brief romantic fling, but she instead spends the whole time trying to escape and keeping the overly-stressed Alex constantly on guard to prevent it.

The film has a pleasantly laid-back, free-spirited style to it that at times does meander, but nicely reflects the attitude and feeling of the decade that it is in. Director John Korty wisely pulls back and doesn’t try to over-direct, but instead allows his talented cast to carry the picture by creating well-defined and relatable characters. The dialogue and conversations are full of dry, acerbic wit and just the right amount of jaded sensibilities to keep it hip and real.

Lemon is great and has grown as an actor by taking on roles that are more world-weary and edgy  and going light years from the clean-cut, all-American young man type characters that he played in the comedies from the 50’s and early 60’s where he always was naïve and in-over-his-head. Here the character is like an extension of the one he played in Save the Tiger that being a middle-aged man who has lost his faith in everything and everyone and yet still holds out for that elusive moment of magic. His side comments are amusing making this one of his funniest and most endearing performances.

Bujold is ravishing and in fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen her looking better. Korty seems to know how to photograph her in just the right way by making full use of her prominent and alluring eyes. Her moments on screen give off a subtly sensual quality. Her nude scenes aren’t bad either particularly when she is lying handcuffed to a bed almost emotionless while Lemmon, who is under the covers, attempts to have sex with her.

James Woods is also terrific showing a surprising knack for comedy as Alex’s nerdy and timid assistant. Although his character has only limited screen time he skillfully manages to almost steal the film from his two more established co-stars especially in a scene in the bail office where Alex gets bribed by a mafia criminal as well as another one inside a hospital where he tries to explain to Alex why he foolishly allowed Maritza to get away.

The ending is the film’s only real letdown. It is not a particularly bad one, but it is a little too cute and doesn’t seem to mesh well with the rest of the film. It also offers no real conclusion and leaves the viewer hanging as to what ultimately became of these characters. A little more of a side-story particularly the one involving the bounty hunter (Todd Martin) might have given the film a bit more excitement and dimension.

I also wasn’t too crazy about Henry Mancini’s melodic and serene score. He’s a great composer for sure, but something with more of an acoustic or modern folk rock tinge might have fit the story’s theme and mood better.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: October 3, 1976

Runtime: 1Hour 40Minutes

Rated R

Director: John Korty

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: None at this time.

3 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Dry Humor, Movies Based on Short Stories, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Romance

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Eyewitness (1981)

Posted on January 21, 2013 | 4 comments

eyewitness

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Janitor loves news reporter.

Daryl (William Hurt) is a nighttime janitor at a large Manhattan office building. He spends his otherwise lonely existence obsessing over a local news reporter Tony Sokolow (Sigourney Weaver) and records every news broadcast she is in and watches them each night when he gets home. Then a murder occurs in his office building and Tony covers it for her program. Daryl tries to use his inside knowledge to get closer to Tony, but is reluctant to tell her all the information he knows since he fears that it was his friend Aldo (James Woods) who committed the crime.

Hurt, who usually plays the intellectual type, does well here in the low-key role. Weaver is also excellent doing what she does best which is playing a tenacious no-nonsense woman who can take care of herself. My favorite part with her is when she is accosted by a couple of men with guns, but doesn’t scream, keeps her composure, and manages to get away.

The romantic angle is the film’s strong point. Tony’s on-camera interview with Daryl when she tries to get more information out of him, but he instead gushes about his undying love for her is funny. It is refreshing that when Daryl tells Tony about how he obsesses over her she doesn’t freak out and consider him a stalker, but instead is charmed by it. The two use each other for their own purposes, but the viewer is giving the impression that these are genuinely nice people who just have very contrasting personalities and approaches, which is what makes the budding relationship interesting. However, having them go to bed together and confirm their affections for each other seemed anti-climactic as it was more intriguing wondering if Tony really was starting to have feelings for Daryl, or just using him to get information and the film should have stayed at this level until the very end.

The mystery portion gets lost in the shuffle. The film is slow with very little tension. There are a few good action moments, but there needed to be more. The scene where Daryl almost gets crushed in a trash compactor had definite potential, but needed to be played-out longer. The part where he and Tony are attacked by a dog is very intense, but the climatic sequence where Daryl is chased by the killer through some horse stalls is certainly slick and well-shot, but it comes too late and I had already become bored and detached with it. The identity of the killer was a definite surprise, but it is also a bit preposterous and a little too convenient in the way it somehow manages to tie all the characters into it especially Tony.

Director Peter Yates does some excellent on-location shooting of New York City especially with the crowded streets and neighborhoods as well as Central Park, but the musical score is sparse and lacking. There is a pleasing jazzy score near the beginning that has a nice easy going beat to it, but then outside of a few tense moments there is nothing. This creates a film that is too quiet. Adding an urgent score could’ve helped make it more compelling, or at the very least given it more energy and personality.

There are a lot of familiar faces in supporting roles, but the majority of them are wasted. Morgan Freeman and Steven Hill as the police investigators who banter endlessly
with each other are dull and useless. Kenneth McMillan as Daryl’s handicapped father is dynamic, but pointless to the story as a whole. Christopher Plummer is always reliable, but he has done better. James Woods is good because he is a master at playing unhinged characters and I liked the casting of Irene Worth as Tony’s mother simply because she looked almost exactly like what Sigourney would end up looking when she reaches that age. This is also a great chance to see Pamela Reed in an early role as Daryl’s fiancée.

The film ends up biting off more than it can chew and the idea of mixing a cutesy romance with a murder mystery doesn’t gel and leaves a sterile effect in both areas.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: February 13, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 43Minutes

Rated R

Director: Peter Yates

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: VHS, DVD, Netflix streaming

4 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Mystery, Romance

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