Every '70s Movie Is Fifteen Years Old!

As in life, birthdays start to blur after a while, but because so much of what exists in the digital space is ephemeral, it seems significant to note that Every ’70s Movie has been humming along for fifteen years since its launch on October 14, 2010. While the era of daily posting is long gone, there’s still plenty of life in this endeavor, and I’m looking forward to the end of this calendar year, when getting two big projects off my desk will allow for a bit of overdue ’70s immersion. Occasions such as this blog’s latest milestone remind me that as much joy as I get from exploring Me Decade cinema and reporting about what I find, this project would be meaningless if there wasn’t an audience for these reviews. To readers who’ve been with the blog for years, to those who joined the party more recently, and to anyone visiting this page for the first time, thank you. Happy birthday to all of us! More reviews are coming, albeit at the unpredictable pace that’s become the norm at Every ’70s Movie, and in the meantime, keep on keepin’ on!

Unrelated, I would be remiss if I didn’t note the recent passing of the remarkable Diane Keaton, one of the leading lights of ’70s cinema; whether she was sparkling in Woody Allen comedies or startling in tough dramas such as Looking for Mr. Goodbar, to say nothing of her important work in the Godfather series, Keaton was a gifted interpreter of the human experience, a fashion icon, and a singularly interesting personality. RIP.

Checkmate (1973)

Yet another instance of pornographers sneaking into the mainstream via softcore, Checkmate—also known as Pepper and Pepper: Agent OOX—is a dunderheaded riff on James Bond, replacing the suave stud of the 007 franchise with a statuesque blonde. Wiseass operative Pepper Burns (Diana Wilson) gets called into service when villain Madame Chang (An Tsan Hu) announces her plan to seize control of a secret nuclear-armed satellite controlled by four different countries; if the countries don’t pay Chang $1 billion each, she’ll nuke their biggest cities. So far, so good. Yet once Checkmate establishes its premise, the movie tumbles into repetitive stupidity. Chang’s gimmick is using seductresses to coax representatives of the four countries into undressing so Chang can steal keys the reps carry on their persons—but seeing as how she murders the reps immediately afterward, why not just kill them right away and skip the sexcapades? Pepper does virtually nothing for the movie’s first hour, meaning she hangs around and receives reports until engaging in a dull foot chase through Central Park. Eventually Pepper’s big moment arrives—screwing the American representative (a coupling shown at interminable length) in order to sorta-kinda-but-not-really gain the upper hand on Chang. Although Checkmate is thoroughly awful, not only because of its idiotic script but because of the cheap visuals, there’s a certain playfulness on display. For example, when the Russian rep sees his seductress nude, he exclaims, “Holy mother of Stalin!” It’s not wit, but it’s something. Leading lady Wilson, previously a Playboy model under the name Reagan Wilson, has a bit of swagger, so she might have become an enjoyable B-movie regular if she’d made other films. Then again, appearing in something this tacky could stifle anyone’s enthusiasm for filmmaking.

Checkmate: LAME