Les Miserables (1978)

          There are so many adaptation of Victor Hugo’s deathless 1862 novel that it’s impossible to call any one version definitive; from the celebrated stage musical to the various film adaptations to the novel itself, there’s a Les Miserables for any taste. In fact, there’s even a Les Miserables for those who prefer their cinema ’70s-style, thanks to this sturdy made-for-television production starring the underrated Richard Jordan as long-suffering hero Jean Valjean and veteran screen villain Anthony Perkins as dogged Inspector Javert. Efficiently directed by Glenn Jordon and intelligently scripted by John Gay, this version of Les Miserables delivers the familiar characters, moments, and situations with an acceptable replica of human emotion. Jordan achieves more than Perkins (who is mostly relegated to sneering), but the combination of a melancholy musical score, solid production values, and the vibrancy of Hugo’s incredible narrative makes this trek through familiar terrain worthwhile.

          Presenting a somewhat faithful adaptation while adding a few bits, deleting many more, and generally streamlining the storyline of the novel, the picture begins in France circa 1796. Poor Frenchman Jean steals a loaf of bread from a store window in order to feed his starving family, but he’s captured and sentenced to five years in prison. As more and more years are added to his sentence, Jean attempts to escape several times until finally breaking free once he’s reached middle age. Prison commandant Javert, well aware of Jean’s resilience, considers it a personal failure when Jean escapes. Upon gaining his freedom, Jean reverts to thievery for survival—until an encounter with a saintly clergyman gifts Jean with both wealth and the determination to live righteously. Jean becomes a successful businessman under an assumed name. Then, once fate brings him back into Javert’s orbit, Jean realizes that his liberty is tenuous. The situation is further complicated by the onset of the June Rebellion and by Jean’s selfless choice to become the guardian of an orphaned girl.

          Even though the filmmakers excised plenty of material, the telefilm of Les Miserables contains a lot of story, so the filmmakers wisely focus on the most dramatic scenes. Jean saving a fellow prisoner from certain death. Jean’s epiphany with the clergyman. Jean’s tense standoffs with Javert, during which they debate the value of the individual versus the need for social order. Jordan does some lovely work, showcasing his charismatic blend of masculinity and vulnerability, though he’s burdened with overly ornate dialogue and, in later scenes, questionable old-age makeup. Perkins, meanwhile, play-acts the role of Javert instead of inhabiting the character’s hatefulness; that said, Perkins is such a pro that his sour expressions add weight whether or not they’re backed by real intentionality.

          It’s easy to complain about episodes that get glossed over, and this probably shouldn’t be anyone’s first exposure to the story because certain things end up feeling too pat and predictable. However, there’s enough human feeling pumping through the piece—both from the DNA of Hugo’s novel and the earnestness of Jordan’s take on the leading role—that this Les Miserables comes across like meaningful entertainment instead of just another musty literary adaptation.

Les Miserables: GROOVY

WUSA (1970)

          An unholy mess with an amazing pedigree, WUSA was likely the result of good intentions. The movie seethes with idealism and indignation, so the sense that it’s about something important is inescapable. Unfortunately, the characters, dialogue, politics, and storyline are all so impossibly muddled and pretentious that it’s difficult to discern what’s actually happening onscreen, much less what any of it means. The movie is a bit like an op-ed screed written in haste during a supercharged news cycle, blasting accusations and invective without any discipline or focus. Paul Newman, who put the movie together with frequent producing partner John Foreman, stars as Rheinhardt, a radio DJ who shuffles into New Orleans looking to collect on a debt from a preacher named Farley (Laurence Harvey). There’s a vague sense that both men are con artists and/or drunks and/or gamblers, though clarity on these points is in short supply. Unable to wring much cash from Farley, Rheinhardt bums around the French Quarter and meets aging party girl Geraldine (Joanne Woodward), with whom he begins a half-hearted romance. Then Rheinhardt gets a job at talk-radio station WUSA.

          Enormous amounts of the film’s screen time are devoted to people either celebrating or criticizing the nature of WUSA’s broadcasts, but the speeches that Rheinhardt delivers on-air—as well as the monologues delivered by WUSA’s executive staff—are so cryptic that it’s hard to tell where the station falls on the political spectrum. Simply by dint of Newman’s offscreen politics, one must assume that WUSA is meant to represent the evils of the right wing. Anyway, the movie gets even more perplexing once viewers meet Rainey (Anthony Perkins), a weird character who lives next door to Rheinhardt and Geraldine. Rainey does some kind of door-to-door surveying of poor black neighborhoods, but his principal liaison to the African-American community, Clotho (Moses Gunn), acts as if he’s a pimp connecting Rainey with tricks—because, apparently, Rainey is a pawn in some grand conspiracy that’s related to WUSA. Suiting the bewildering storyline, the picture climaxes in a nonsensical riot sequence.

          WUSA’s discombobulated script is credited to Robert Stone, who later won the National Book Award for his novel Dog Soldiers (1975), which was adapted into the Nick Nolte movie Who’ll Stop the Rain (1978). The director of WUSA, Stuart Rosenberg, also did excellent work elsewhere, helming Cool Hand Luke (1967) and The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984). On top of all that talent, WUSA features supporting turns by the fine actors Don Gordon, Pat Hingle, David Huddleston, Clifton James, Diane Ladd, and Cloris Leachman, as well as a rousing musical number by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Alas, whatever all these noteworthy people thought they were doing didn’t actually make it to the screen, because WUSA is virtually impenetrable.

WUSA: LAME

The Last of Sheila (1973)

          An oddity with a highbrow pedigree, this mystery/thriller boasts an eclectic cast of prominent actors and a labyrinthine plot that’s designed to be catnip for fans of games, puzzles, and riddles. Yet the most unique aspect of the film resides behind the camera: The Last of Sheila was written by actor Anthony Perkins and composer Stephen Sondheim, representing the only feature-film writing credit for either man. Apparently the two were longtime friends who entertained their showbiz pals by arranging flamboyant scavenger hunts, so The Last of Sheila plays out like a hybrid of an Agatha Christie whodunit and a treasure hunt. Describing all the intricacies of the storyline would spoil the fun, but the broad strokes are as follows.

          Movie producer Clinton (James Coburn) invites several Hollywood friends to his yacht, which is named after his late wife, Sheila, who died under mysterious circumstances. Each of the friends wants something from Clinton, so he manipulates their greed for sporting purposes. The friends include Alice (Raquel Welch), a movie star whose relationship with her manager/husband, Anthony (Ian McShane), is rocky; Christine (Dyan Cannon), an ambitious talent agent; Philip (James Mason), a director whose career has lost momentum; and Tom (Richard Benjamin), a desperate screenwriter whose wife, Lee (Joan Hackett), hides a terrible secret. Employing his immense wealth, Clinton stages elaborate treasure hunts in each port of call, and he issues provocative clues related to his guests’ peccadillos.

         Superficially, this is a jet-set caper movie, so director Herbert Ross provides plenty of eye candy thanks to exotic European locations (as well as copious shots of Cannon and Welch in bikinis). On a deeper level—well, as deep as this deliberately vapid movie goes, anyway—The Last of Sheila explores that trusty old theme of the avarice that drives Hollywood. Everyone in the movie is out to screw everyone else, whether professionally, psychologically, or sexually. Some of the actors capture the bitchy spirit of the piece better than others. The standout is Cannon, playing a role inspired by legendary talent agent Sue Mengers (also the inspiration for 2013 Broadway show I’ll Eat You Last, starring Bette Midler). Whether she’s fretting about her weight, maneuvering for an optimal negotiating position, or sizing up potential sex partners, Cannon perfectly captures the omnivorous nature of Tinseltown players. Benjamin, Coburn, and Mason lend interesting colors, Hackett and McShane provide solid support, and Welch does a better job of keeping up with her costars than might be expected.

          Filled with betrayals and lies and schemes—as well as the occasional murder—The Last of Sheila is a bit windy at 120 minutes, and some viewers might find the final revelations too Byzantine. Nonetheless, if there’s such a thing as thinking-person’s trash, then The Last of Sheila is a prime example.

The Last of Sheila: GROOVY

How Awful About Allan (1970)

          Ten years after the release of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), actor Anthony Perkins was still trying to avoid typecasting—even though he occasionally backslid to the realm of psychological horror. In this competent but underdeveloped made-for-TV thriller, Perkins plays a man who returns home after spending eight months in an asylum. Prior to his institutionalization, Allan (Perkins) started a fire that killed his parents and permanently scarred his sister, Katherine (Julie Harris). The trauma also left Allan partially blind, though doctors insist his condition is psychosomatic. Written by Henry Farrell, who adapted his novel of the same name, How Awful About Allan feels a bit like a play, since nearly the whole thing takes place in the large house Allan shares with his sister. Allan, who may or may not have fully recovered his mental health, keeps “seeing” a mystery figure roaming around the house, although Katherine insists she and Allan are alone. Meanwhile, Allan tries to recover normalcy by interacting with doctors and with a family friend, Olive (Joan Hackett). The central question, therefore, is whether Allan has discovered the activities of a home invader with malicious intent, or whether Allan has simply gone crazy.

          Director Curtis Harrington, who helmed a fair number of spooky projects during a long career that included everything from documentary work to episodic television, does what he can to jack up the mood and style of How Awful About Allan, but his hands are tied by the internal nature of Farrell’s story. Since the real drama takes place inside Allan’s head, very little action occurs, so the movie includes many repetitive scenes of Perkins walking around the house and calling out to people who don’t answer. Quick flashbacks to the traumatic fire and a mildly violent finale add some oomph, though for many viewers this will represent a case of too little, too late. Still, Perkins is interesting to watch in nearly any circumstance, with his intense expressions and lanky physique cutting a memorable figure—especially when he zeroes in on his Norman Bates sweet spot. It’s also worth noting that How Awful About Allan was produced by small-screen schlockmeister Aaron Spelling, whose other horror-themed projects for television were, generally speaking, less subtle than this one. So, even if How Awful About Allan is fairly limp by normal standards, it’s the equivalent of a prestige project by Spelling standards.

How Awful About Allan: FUNKY

Mahogany (1975)

          Among the more subversive aspects of 1970s cinema is a string of melodramas so campy, so overzealously feminized, and so preoccupied with glamour that they feel like paeans to gay nightclub culture, even if the filmmakers involved originally had something more butch in mind. Like the equally absurd 1977 potboiler The Other Side of Midnight, this flamboyant Diana Ross star vehicle concerns a woman who drives remarkable men wild with desire even as she fascinates women with her beguiling mystique. And while the notion of the lovely Miss Ross as a supermodel isn’t hard to accept—she’s certainly bone-thin enough—other aspects of the movie occupy the realm of the ridiculous.

          Conceived and written in the mode of a 1930s “women’s picture,” Mahogany depicts the adventures of Tracy (Ross), a wannabe fashion designer struggling to make ends meet in Chicago by working in the display department of a high-fashion store. Right from the beginning, Tracy is portrayed as a self-confident superwoman—in one especially ludicrous scene, Tracy intimidates a would-be mugger into leaving her alone simply by mouthing off to him. Therefore, when Tracy meets bleeding-heart politician Brian (Billy Dee Williams), she makes it clear that her career is a bigger priority than romance. He accepts her terms, more or less, and they become a couple. Meanwhile, Tracy attempts to peddle her designs to potential buyers, and she inadvertently catches the eye of bitchy fashion photographer Sean (Anthony Perkins). Taken by her look, Sean encourages Tracy to become a model, eventually inviting her to Rome, where he believes she’ll become an international celebrity. Predictably, this juncture leads to a falling-out with Brian, so Tracy leaves Chicago for a jet-set lifestyle in Europe. The story then entangles Tracy in a romantic quadrangle comprising Tracy, Brian, Sean, and European millionaire Christian (Jean-Pierre Aumont).

          Although shot quite attractively by cinematographer David Watkin, Mahogany goes over the top so many times it nearly becomes a comedy. At one point, for instance, a delirious Tracy entertains guests by dripping hot wax all over her face and chest. Those crazy European parties! Other highlights: Brian and Sean literally wrestle with a gun in between them; Christian tries to buy Tracy’s sexual favors for 20 million lira; Tracy debuts an entire line of kabuki-inspired clothing; and so on. Tying all of this together is the pretty tune “Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To),” which plays, either instrumentally or with Ross’ memorable vocal performance, about five zillion times. FYI, Mahogany was the first and last movie directed by Motown founder—and perennial Ross champion—Berry Gordy, who reportedly took over the film after firing original helmer Tony Richardson. The world is not poorer for Berry’s decision to leave directing to others.

Mahogany: FUNKY

Catch-22 (1970)

         Director Mike Nichols once described the “green awning effect” of becoming an A-list filmmaker. By notching two big hits in the late ’60s, Nichols convinced Hollywood he knew how to connect with audiences. Testing his newfound power, perpetually mischievous Nichols pitched a movie about a green awning outside a building—the movie would simply train a camera on the awning so viewers could watch different people pass underneath. According to Nichols, some executives expressed interest in this awful idea simply because they wanted to be in the Mike Nichols business.

          This helps explain why Paramount Pictures let Nichols spend a then-extravagant $17 million on an adaptation of Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel Catch-22. A satirical and surrealistic World War II story exploring topics including bureaucracy, capitalism, and trauma, the book features a disjointed timeline and a sprawling cast—unlikely fare for a big-budget studio picture. Nonetheless, Nichols and screenwriter Buck Henry (whose previous collaboration was 1967’s The Graduate) endeavored to focus the narrative by centering attempts by Captain Yossarian (Alan Arkin) to get relieved from his duty as a bomber pilot, his justification being that combat has driven him mad. (The title refers to a Kafkaesque military guideline stipulating that anyone capable of recognizing his own insanity must be sane and therefore suitable for combat.) Surrounding this main plot are myriad deviations, some into subplots, some back and forth through time, and some into the eerie world of dreams. 

          Viewed through the most forgiving lens, Catch-22 captures the chaos and horror of Yossarian’s experience by confronting him with an endless variety of bizarre characters and confounding situations—to watch Arkin drift from hysteria to stupefaction and various emotional states in between is to feel not just his anguish but also his desperate need for human connection. Viewed through a harsher lens—the perspective adopted by most critics during the film’s original release—Catch-22 epitomizes directorial overreach, with clarity falling victim to scale. Strong arguments can be made for both takes because for every brilliant moment that Nichols renders, seemingly a dozen others elicit bewilderment. There’s a lot of seesawing between “How did he think of that?” and “What the hell was he thinking?”

          Aesthetically, Catch-22 is perfection thanks to cinematographer David Watkin’s exquisite high-contrast lighting and Nichols’s startlingly complex shots, such as lengthy unbroken takes featuring actors’ movements choreographed with explosions and flying planes. (The appearance of Orson Welles in a small role feels like a wink to Welles’s penchant for similarly baroque sequences.) The other impeccable element of Catch-22 is a cast overflowing with talent: Bob Balaban, Martin Balsam, Richard Benjamin, Norman Fell, Art Garfunkel, Jack Gilford, Charles Grodin, Bob Newhart, Paula Prentiss, Martin Sheen, Jon Voight, and—pulling double duty—screenwriter Henry. Particularly great are Balsam as a heartless commander and Voight as an officer whose entrepreneurial schemes achieve ghastly proportions.

          Yet the key element of Catch-22 is also the most divisive, and that’s the script. Occasionally the film’s extreme comedy and extreme tragedy mesh in memorably weird scenes, notably the sequence featuring an unforgettably gory onscreen death, but more often the satire is excruciatingly bleak, as when Nichols punctuates a rape/murder scene with an absurdist punchline. Nichols deserves praise for trying to nail such a difficult tonal balance, but whether he succeeded is another matter. The script also suffers for extravagance given that whole characters and subplots could have been removed.

          Because Nichols was one of the first directors to peak during the New Hollywood era, the grandiosity of Catch-22 and the failure of the film to recoup its cost during initial release now seems like a harbinger for subsequent examples of auteur excess—Bogdanovich’s At Long Last Love (1975); Scorsese’s New York, New York (1977); Spielberg’s 1941 (1979); and, of course, Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (1980). Like all of those films, Catch-22 cannot be reduced to a snarky footnote. It’s a window into the creativity of an essential filmmaker, and its best moments are mesmerizing even if, for most viewers, the sum is less than the parts. It’s also weird as hell, which represents a certain kind of perverse integrity. So, whether Catch-22 strikes you as a work of unconventional genius or a case study in what happens when a director buys his own hype, it is unlikely to leave you unaffected. 

Catch-22: FREAKY

ffolkes (1979)

          Midway through his tenure playing a certain suave secret agent in Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Roger Moore was probably itching to do something different—which might explain why he attacks the leading role in this entertaining British thriller with ferocity noticeably absent from his acting in the 007 movies. Portraying an eccentric operative named Rufus Excalibur ffolkes (two lower-case letters at the beginning of the last name, thank you very much), Moore upends nearly every aspect of his James Bond characterization. Instead of a nightlife-loving rake, ffolkes is a recluse who prefers his cats to the company of women, and instead of being a charming sophisticate, he’s a tactless snob. Furthermore, rather than being a superhero capable of doing virtually anything, ffolkes is a specialist in just one tactic: underwater commando attacks.

          Thus, when three oil rigs located off the English coast get overtaken by terrorists, the British government knocks on the door of ffolkes’ castle—literally, because he lives in a decaying stone edifice—asking for help. Thereafter, the movie delivers tightly coiled excitement as the commandoes sneak onto the oil rigs with stealthy weapons like harpoons and knives, seeking to thwart the baddies before hostages are killed and the rigs are demolished with explosives. Written by Jack Davies from his own novel Esther, Ruth & Jennifer (the code names of the oil rigs), this picture was released as North Sea Hijack in the UK during 1979 before creeping onto American screens in early 1980 with the new title ffolkes. Although it didn’t do much business at the box office, it found a welcoming home on pay cable—and, as it turns out, ffolkes is nicely suited for home viewing.

          A brisk, workmanlike thriller with an entertaining mixture of bitchy banter and high-seas action, the movie has just enough zing in terms of production value and star power to feel like a major motion picture, but it’s so contained and straightforward it might as well be the pilot for a TV series. In fact, Moore is such a delight as ffolkes that it’s a shame no further adventures featuring the character were filmed: By the end of the movie, the character is so solidly established he could have swam the high seas for years afterward, foiling evildoers who dared to sully the world’s waters.

          Much of the credit for the picture’s Saturday-matinee vibe goes to director Andrew V. McLaglen, whose previous collaboration with Moore, The Wild Geese (1978), was another escapist winner. McLaglen and Moore are aided an efficient supporting cast, led by Anthony Perkins as the main hijacker—with typical aplomb, he weaves humor and perversity into a woefully underwritten role, and the dirty looks he and Moore exchange in their fleeting moments together are worth the price of admission. James Mason adds gravitas as the military official supervising ffolkes’ team of frogmen, while B-movie fave Michael Parks appears as Perkins’ principal henchman.

ffolkes: GROOVY

Someone Behind the Door (1971)

          Actor Charles Bronson tended to play it safe, bouncing between the only slightly varied genres of lighthearted action movies and violent action movies. However, he occasionally slipped an oddity into the mix, like this clever psychological thriller featuring Bronson as an amnesiac exploited by a ruthless shrink. However, big air quotes should be placed around the word “clever” since the plot of Someone Behind the Door falls apart on close inspection, with convenient twists and narrative inconsistencies leaving scads of questions unanswered. Nonetheless, the movie zips along at a strong pace, there’s a thick air of menace surrounding everything that happens, and costar Anthony Perkins thrives in his comfort zone as a tweaked smartypants using his wits to plan the perfect murder.

          The story takes place in France, where American-born doctor Laurence Jeffries (Anthony Perkins) specializes in brain surgery and memory loss. Leaving the hospital one evening, he spots an amnesiac man (Bronson) whom fishermen found wandering on a local beach. Offering the stranger a place to stay and free psychiatric services (under the auspices of helping with a research project), Jeffries brings the man home and helps the stranger piece together clues about his past based upon circumstantial evidence and items Jeffries finds in the man’s garments. Or at least that’s what Bronson’s character thinks. In reality, Jeffries is deluding the stranger into thinking he’s married to Frances (Jill Ireland), who is in fact Jeffries’ adulterous wife; Jeffries’ devious scheme is to push the stranger toward killing Frances’ lover so Jeffries can off a romantic rival and pin the murder on the stranger.

          Perkins runs the show from start to finish, his insinuating line deliveries and wily glances capturing an insidious type of blue-blooded villainy. For his part, Bronson makes a decent scene partner by demonstrating more excitability than usual. The movie gets a bit drab when it veers away from these two sharing the screen (Ireland is her usual vapid self), and some viewers may find the plot glitches too distracting. However, Someone Behind the Door is consistently tense, and the charisma of its leading players makes it worth examination.

Someone Behind the Door: FUNKY

Winter Kills (1979)

          By the end of the ’70s, conspiracy thrillers had started to evolve from provocative political thrillers to wild escapist romps, because as fictional conspiracies grew more outlandish, the derring-do required to survive them grew to equally unbelievable proportions. For instance, consider the credibility gap separating the best-known adaptation of a Richard Condon conspiracy novel, 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate, and the least-known adaptation of a Richard Condon conspiracy novel, 1979’s Winter Kills. Whereas the former is a chilling story about political assassination made just before the real-life death of John F. Kennedy, the latter is a whimsical oddity made at the end of a decade during which the public overdosed on real-life political corruption. In fact, Winter Kills somehow manages to be both a conspiracy movie and a spoof of conspiracy movies, delivering a narrative so preposterous that it provides sardonic commentary on the whole premise of searching for wheels within wheels while scrutinizing the body politic.

          An obvious riff on the Kennedy clan’s woes, the picture follows directionless young blueblood Nick Kegan (Jeff Bridges), the younger brother of assassinated U.S. President Timothy Kegan. Nearly 20 years after the killing, Nick meets a dying man who claims to have pulled the trigger, which starts Nick down an investigative road that reveals how deep the roots of political murders reach. As written for the screen and directed by the clever William Richert, the picture follows Nick into a quagmire involving a crazy millionaire with a private army (Sterling Hayden), a tweaked behind-the-scenes power-monger who operates out of a computerized secret lair (Anthony Perkins), and other strange characters who are all vaguely connected to Nick’s super-rich father, Pa Kegan (John Huston), a modernized doppleganger for legendary patriarch Joseph Kennedy. Nick also gets involved with a mysterious woman (Belinda Bauer) who may or may not be a femme fatale, and he spends plenty of time getting assaulted, shot at, and threatened by various bad guys.

          Richert’s script is brilliant in flashes but muddy overall, providing a number of memorable scenes even though the main narrative is unnecessarily convoluted. Still, the whole thing goes down quite easily thanks to splendid widescreen cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond, and thanks to a number of thoroughly entertaining performances. Bridges is exasperated and intense, desperately trying to prove his manhood while he’s digging for the truth, and Bauer is powerfully seductive (that nude scene!) in her first movie role. Huston, by this point in his career a seasoned pro at playing oversized villains, barks and growls in that special style of avuncular menace he did so well. The supporting players are just as good. Hayden is funny as a militaristic kook, recalling his role in Dr. Strangelove, while Perkins is slyly robotic, coolly delivering dialogue even as he withstands physical assault. As an added bonus, watch closely for Elizabeth Taylor, whose droll cameo is one of the movie’s sardonic highlights.

Winter Kills: GROOVY

Remember My Name (1978)

          After making a minor splash with Welcome to L.A. (1976), writer-director Alan Rudolph stepped out from under the shadow of his artistic patron, Robert Altman, with this unapologetically arty drama that focuses on behavior and mood instead of narrative clarity and momentum. So, while Welcome to L.A. feels like watered-down Altman with its myriad interconnected storylines, Remember My Name is purely and eccentrically Rudolph, a cryptic meditation on strange characters wading through a languorous haze of ennui and music.

          Rudolph favorite Geraldine Chaplin stars as Emily, a mystery woman who stalks a married couple while building an oddly itinerant lifestyle that involves camping out in a depressing apartment and working at a dead-end job as a general-store clerk. We eventually learn that she’s an ex-convict, and that the husband of the couple she’s stalking is her estranged ex-husband (Anthony Perkins), with whom she has some sort of unfinished business. And that’s pretty much the entire plot, because instead of revealing story points, Rudolph spends the movie showing Emily and the other characters living the mundane reality of their mundane lives: There are innumerable scenes of people driving to and from their homes and jobs; bringing home groceries and other household items; and making arrangements for doing things at later dates.

          As strung together by a soundtrack featuring blues songs performed by the forceful Alberta Hunter, Remember My Name has a distinct vibe but not very much energy. The last 30 minutes or so have a pulse because the story evolves rapidly once Chaplin confronts her ex, but until then, the leisurely pacing and opaque plotting are frustrating; it’s easy to envision some viewers getting caught up in the smoky atmosphere, but I’m among those immune to the film’s charms. Chaplin expresses the weird and needy aspects of her character effectively, and it’s a joy to watch Perkins play an ordinary character instead of a freak, but Berry Berenson (Perkins’ spouse in the movie and real life) is a blank slate, and Moses Gunn is underused as Chaplin’s policeman neighbor, so the performances don’t slot together comfortably. Helping matters somewhat are appearances by Dennis Franz, Jeff Goldblum, and Alfre Woodard in minor roles.

Remember My Name: FUNKY

The Black Hole (1979)

          By the late ’70s, a decade after Walt Disney’s death, the movie company bearing his name had lost the marketplace dominance it enjoyed during Walt’s heyday. Although the animation division remained adrift until 1989, Disney’s live-action unit began a brief but daring creative renaissance in 1979. That’s when the studio jumped onto the Star Wars bandwagon with The Black Hole, a dark sci-fi adventure story boasting opulent special effects and a memorably brooding music score by the great John Barry. The story involves a wonderfully absurd contrivance: In the year 2130, a deep-space exploration ship encounters a black hole and discovers that a long-lost spaceship, the Cygnus, is somehow locked in a permanent orbit over the mouth of the black hole. Our intrepid heroes enter the Cygnus and discover that megalomaniacal scientist Dr. Hans Reinhardt (Maximilian Schell) controls the ship with an army of robots. When Reinhardt tries to shanghai the heroes into participating in a mad scheme, they rebel and trigger a chain of events that sends all of the movie’s main characters plunging into the black hole.

          The story is goofy and turgid, and the clumsiest fingerprint of the Disney brand is the presence of cutesy robots including the wide-eyed V.I.N.CENT (voiced by Roddy McDowall). Furthermore, the acting and dialogue are laughably wooden, with unfortunate leading players Joseph Bottoms, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Forster, Yvette Mimieux, and Anthony Perkins effortlessly upstaged by Schell, who works a florid Bond-villain groove. (Flattening the overwrought performance styles of both Borgnine and Perkins is a dubious sort of accomplishment.) As a piece of dramatic art, The Black Hole is, well, a black hole. As a compendium of vivid sensations, however, the picture is memorable. Barry’s music is grandiose and malevolent, expressing the vastness of space in such a powerful way that many scenes are genuinely unnerving. Some of the old-school optical effects are breathtaking, with exquisitely detailed spaceship models faring better than inconsistent greenscreen work.
          The Black Hole also boasts one of the weirdest climaxes in mainstream sci-fi cinema—a grim, phantasmagorical sequence illustrating the trippy horrors hidden inside the titular phenomenon. To say there’s disharmony between cutesy robots and a 2001-style head trip is an understatement, but if you’re an imaginative viewer willing to pick and choose which parts of this movie to enjoy, you’ll discover many superficial pleasures, as well as a few surreal ones.

The Black Hole: FUNKY

Play It As It Lays (1972)

          A pretentious mood piece about a movie star experiencing and recovering from a mental breakdown, this adaptation of Joan Didion’s acclaimed novel is like a high-art version of a Jacqueline Susann novel: The only difference between Susann’s trashy showbiz stories and Didion’s take on sleazy Hollywood is that Didion examines the milieu from a sophisticated psychological perspective.
          Tuesday Weld, one of the fiercest actresses to ever grace the screen, tries valiantly to sculpt a complete character from the discombobulated narrative shards of an unnecessarily arty script by Didion and her husband, novelist John Gregory Dunne, but Weld is held back by the ponderous direction of art-house mainstay Frank Perry (The Swimmer). Similarly, a poignant performance by costar Anthony Perkins is squandered because the film is so preoccupied with European-style abstract editing and overt symbolism that it forgets to simply tell a story.

          Buried amid the auteur-ish muck is a standard-issue Hollywood tragedy about fragile actress Maria (Weld) suffering through a marriage to overbearing film director Carter (Adam Roarke). Maria’s traumas include an abortion; the mental problems of her young daughter, who is institutionalized; and her intense friendship with bisexual producer BZ (Perkins), a doomed drug addict.
          Didion’s book is highly regarded for capturing a moment when promiscuity, psychoanalysis, recreational drugs, and tremendous wealth allowed a generation of Hollywood professionals to indulge themselves to the brink of insanity, but even with Didion and her spouse penning the script, the film version lacks effective cinematic equivalents for Didion’s literary tropes. Therefore, scenes gasp for air while they’re being suffocated with “significance” that viewers can sense but not really understand; it’s easy to envision the sort of Bergman-esque angst that Perry was trying to capture, but he doesn’t have sufficient control over the material to hit that elusive target.

          Amid this slog of a movie, Weld comes off the best, since she has so many opportunities to reveal Maria’s inner demons, and Perkins runs a close second, personifying world-weary soulfulness. Roarke, a cult-fave actor known for offbeat flicks like Psych-Out (1968), gives a credible performance as a domineering artiste, but the script lets him down even worse than it does Weld and Perkins. Play It As It Lays is admirable for what it tries to accomplish, and deeply disappointing for how badly it fumbles the attempt.

Play It As It Lays: FUNKY

Lovin’ Molly (1974)

          Unlike the two celebrated Larry McMurtry adaptations that preceded it, the melancholy Hud (1963) and the wrenching The Last Picture Show (1971), Lovin’ Molly captures some of the author’s unique style but lacks any discernible narrative momentum. It doesn’t help that both the lead role and the director are miscast. Tart urbanite Anthony Perkins isn’t the least bit persuasive as a simple-minded Texas cowpoke, and diehard New Yorker Sidney Lumet has no idea how to shoot wide-open spaces, resulting in some of the dullest movie images ever made of Lone Star State locations. The rangy story spans 1925 to the mid-’60s, and the filmmakers unwisely use the same actors to play the protagonists in all of these time periods, leading to lots of clunky old-age makeup toward the end.

          When the movie begins, free-spirited Texas girl Molly (Blythe Danner) courts two farm boys, Gid (Perkins) and Johnny (Beau Bridges). Meanwhile, she’s wooed by a third local, Eddie (Conard Fowkes). Molly makes no secret of the fact that she’s sleeping with all of them, which causes consternation for Gid and Johnny: They can’t decide which of them should propose, because neither wants to give up their open invitation to Molly’s bed. While the boys vacillate, Molly inexplicably marries Eddie. Yet even that change doesn’t crimp her style, because while married to Eddie, she conceives children with both Gid and Johnny. And so it goes throughout myriad long dialogue scenes and carnal vignettes, none of which do much to clarify the characters, because the narrative events in Lovin’ Molly comprise a long, monotonous march toward an inconsequential ending.

          The biggest problem is an ineffectual screenplay by Stephen J. Friedman, who produced not only this film but also The Last Picture Show. In his sole screenwriting endeavor, Friedman fumbles at trying to cinematically replicate the delicate rhythms and subtle emotional undertones of McMurtry’s storytelling. As a result, Lovin’ Molly starts awkwardly, since Friedman doesn’t give the narrative enough focus out of the gate, then ambles endlessly, because he doesn’t know how to define the importance of events relative to each other.

          Therefore the only rewarding elements of the film are the utterly authentic frontier jargon, presumably transposed wholesale from McMurtry’s book, and the acting. Despite his miscasting, Perkins puts across a strong petulant vibe that works more often that it doesn’t, and Bridges and Danner are both easy and natural. Among the film’s other players, the strongest is ’50s/’60s TV stalwart Edward Binns, who gives a muscular performance as Gid’s cantankerous father, especially when feasting on crisp monologues filled with crusty aphorisms.

Lovin’ Molly: LAME

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

 

          The praise lavished on this bloated Agatha Christie adaptation (including six Oscar nominations and one win) has always mystified me, because while Murder on the Orient Express is a handsomely made film with an intelligent script and an amazing cast, it’s still just a contrived and methodical whodunit. It appears that much of the picture’s novelty derived from the fact that it was a throwback not only to a beloved Hollywood genre, but also to a more sophisticated time in terms of diction, fashion, and manners; somewhat like the aesthetically pleasing accoutrements of the same year’s Chinatown, this film’s glamorous production values and swellegant ’30s costumes were a change of pace from the gritty realism that dominated early ’70s cinema. Furthermore, Murder on the Orient Express is that rare all-star jamboree in which each actor has something interesting to do, with several performers receiving impressive showcase scenes, and even elaborate subplots, during the course of the movie’s lumbering 128 minutes. One could never accuse Murder on the Orient Express of shortchanging the audience.

          As for the story, which screenwriter Paul Dehn adapted from Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel, it’s ingenious but not necessarily persuasive, and the lack of any real emotional heft means the experience of watching Murder on the Orient Express is all about luxuriating in production-design eye candy, piecing together clues, and savoring star power. Set in 1935, the movie finds Christie’s urbane detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney) riding the famous train mentioned in the title. Poirot becomes enmeshed with a group of people including wealthy American Samuel Ratchett (Richard Widmark), so when Ratchett gets stabbed to death early in the journey, Poirot and Signor Bianchi (Martin Balsam), an executive with the company that owns the train, join forces to determine which passenger was responsible for the crime. The gimmick, as per the Christie formula, is that everyone in a confined space is a suspect, so the closer the investigation gets to the truth, the greater the danger becomes for everyone involved. Despite the film’s posh trappings, this is not highbrow stuff.

          Worse, Murder on the Orient Express is tedious, at least from my perspective, and director Sidney Lumet’s overly respectful treatment is part of the problem. Treating Christie like Shakespeare is as absurd as, say, treating John Grisham the same way. There’s simply no reason for this empty spectacle to sprawl over such a long running time. Giving credit where it’s due, however, Murder on the Orient Express is a visual feast. The clothes, linens, and table settings make the titular train seem like a rolling four-star hotel, and cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth uses his signature haze filters to make everything look painterly—to a fault, because sometimes it’s hard to distinguish details. But the biggest selling point, of course, is the high-wattage cast. Beyond those mentioned, players include Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman (who won an unexpected late-career Oscar for her work), Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, and Michael York.

Murder on the Orient Express: FUNKY