The Player (1971)

Watching this lifeless low-budget drama about the misadventures of a small-time pool hustler will deepen your appreciation for the visual ingenuity of The Hustler (1961) and its sequel The Color of Money (1986) because those films make billiards seem exciting. While one could put forth a feeble argument that the tedium of The Player accurately depicts how time-consuming contests of skill can seem dull to everyone but active participants, it’s doubtful that writer-director Thomas DeMartini’s goal was to bore viewers. Then again, seeing as how The Player had a microscopic release before disappearing for more than 50 years, it’s not as if DeMartini had many viewers to bore. Anyway, thanks to the enterprising folks at YouTube channel FT Depot, a mostly intact version of The Player appeared online in 2024, allowing the curious to appraise its virtues. The film concerns Lou Marchesi (Jerry Como), a slick player mentored by real-life pool star Minnesota Fats (who portrays himself). Yet interactions with Fats are largely peripheral to the story, which follows Lou’s transfer of romantic affection from supportive Linda (Carey Wilmot) to manipulative Sylvia (Rae Phillips). As goes Lou’s love life, so goes his pool career. These characters and their relationship dynamics are deeply uninteresting, a flaw exacerbated by DeMartini’s penchant for aimless montages set to goopy love ballads—and that’s on top of his predilection for numbingly repetitive pool scenes set to interminable loops of generic rock/funk music. Beyond the flimsy plot, The Player suffers from a bloated runtime, flat visuals, and terrible acting. Nonetheless, some cinemaniacs might find the picture of minor note because it evokes the pool-hustler world in a believable (read: unglamorous) way, and there’s always a frisson associated with rediscovering a movie once thought lost.

The Player: LAME

MIA: Rare ’70s Movies

Hey there, groovy people! It’s been a few years since I reached out for help tracking down elusive movies, and longtime readers will recognize a few titles here from previous posts of this nature. Anyway, here’s the drill—in my quest to paint as full a picture of ’70s cinema as possible, I’d love to track down some or all of the following movies, which have eluded my normal pathways for finding films. I prefer to patronize only legit sites, so thanks in advance for not recommending iffy bootleg portals, and of course if anyone can lay their hands on physical media I’d be into making the appropriate arrangements. (Alas, the VHS rig that served me well for many years has transitioned off this mortal plane, so I’m living that DVD/Blu life.) Some of these pictures may be truly lost, but for the obsessive cinema blogger, hope always burns bright. Oh, and I’m especially interested in tracking down Black Chariot, a 1971 drama with Bernie Casey, because a 4K restoration has been making the rounds but, as sometimes happens, I didn’t hear about an LA screening until after the fact. Any tips on future chances to catch this one would be greatly appreciated! Similarly, thanks so much for anyone who can help me lay my retinas on . . .

 
Black Cream a/k/a Together for Days (1972) directed by Michael Shultz
The Black Pearl (1977)
Challenge (1974) & The Brass Ring (1975) with Earl Owensby
Country Music (1972) with Marty Robbins
Death Play (1976) with James Keach
Dirty Movie (1973) with Tom Skerritt
Distance (1975) with James Woods
Dreams of Glass (1970)
Events (1970) feat. Robert Altman
Extreme Close-Up (1973) written by Michael Crichton
A Fable (1971) with Al Freeman Jr.
The Gentle People and the Quiet Land (1972)
Goodnight Jackie a/ka/ Games Guys Play (1973)
The Great Balloon Race (1977)
Hanging on a Star (1978)
Irish Whiskey Rebellion (1972) with William Devane
Last Foxtrot in Burbank (1973)
Legacy (1975) directed by Karen Arthur
Life Study (1973) with Tommy Lee Jones
The Limit (1972) with Yaphet Kotto
No Longer Alone (1978) feat. Billy Graham
Okay Bill (1971) directed by John G. Avildsen
The Only Way Home (1972) with G.D. Spradlin
Prisoners (1975) with Howard Hesseman
Richard (1972) with Mickey Rooney
Sammy Somebody (1976) with Susan Strasberg
Scream, Evelyn, Scream! (1970)
Shhh (1975) with Rita Moreno
Silence (1974) with Will Geer
Spirit of the Wind (1979) with Chief Dan George
Walk the Walk (1970) with Bernie Hamilton
Welcome to the Club (1971) with Jack Warden
Who Says I Can’t Ride a Rainbow? (1971)
Willy & Scratch (1975) with Claudia Jennings
You’ve Got to Walk It Like You Talk It or You’ll Lose That Beat (1971)

Inside Amy (1974)

The basic premise of low-budget exploitation flick Inside Amy is solid enough that if the picture had been written and directed with a modicum of skill, it could have become a memorably sleazy thriller. Charlie (James R. Sweeney, billed as Eastman Price), a successful lawyer hurtling toward middle age, has grown bored with marriage to alluring but straight-laced Amy (Jan Mitchell), so when he learns about a local nightclub catering to swingers, he pressures Amy into visiting the club with him. This inevitably leads the couple to a wife-swapping party. At the moment of truth, Charlie can’t perform with a stranger, but Amy gets it on with several partners, even though she says afterward she still loves her husband. Driven mad by jealousy, Charlie systematically hunts and kills Amy’s playmates. In an alternate universe, some imaginative striver made this picture with Charlie and Amy as fully rendered characters, thus yielding a morality tale about the tension between sexual fantasies and marital reality. In this universe, director Ronald Victor Garcia—later to build a respectable career as a cinematographer and occasional director, mostly for television—executed Helene Arthur’s lifeless script clumsily. The kills are bland, the sex is tame, the film has virtually zero tension, the acting is mostly terrible, and the finale is thoroughly anticlimactic. Inside Amy doesn’t even rate highly in terms of kitsch, except perhaps for the scolding title song (“Amy, you better straighten out or be prepared to meet your fate”). As if Inside Amy wasn’t sufficiently lurid, the picture was later released as both Super Swinging Playmates and Swingers Massacre.

Inside Amy: LAME