Pound (1970)

          Perhaps the best way to wrap one’s mind around the weirdness of Pound is to accept that the counterculture era of the late ’60s and early ’70s was a time of experimentation fueled by sociopolitical dissatisfaction. Seen in that light, the wild central notion of Pound makes a twisted kind of sense—by employing an ethnically diverse group of human actors to portray dogs who occupy a large cage while awaiting adoption or euthanasia, writer-director Robert Downey Sr. makes an oblique statement about the way society discards unwanted citizens. All these characters want is the right to run free—and, of course, to get laid, since Downey devotes a fair amount of screen time to canine carnality. Based on Downey’s 1961 play The Comeuppance, this picture is far too avant-garde and vulgar to “work” in any conventional sense. It’s a hip statement for hip audiences. Considered on its own bizarre and satirical terms, however, the movie has gravitas, integrity, and purpose.

          After a dog is abandoned outside a New York City animal shelter, the matron on duty transports the animal to a large holding pen filled with other canines. Then, with a brisk cut, Downey replaces the dogs with human actors, many of whom have obvious visual signifiers relating to the dogs they represent. Boxer (Stan Gottleib) wears a pugilist’s robe and trunks. Greyound (Antonio Fargas) wears a track suit, since he’s a racing animal. The sole feline in the bunch, Siamese Cat (Ching Yeh), is depicted as an Asian man with a long beard. And so on. Once he establishes the contrivance of humans-as-animals, Downey begins a sort of existential melodrama, with the animals lamenting their certain doom while rhapsodizing about the lives they enjoyed before imprisonment. In a sequence that sympathetic viewers undoubtedly find poignant, a Puppy (played by the director’s five-year-old son, future movie star Robert Downey Jr., in his screen debut) arrives at the pound and is adopted almost immediately because of his cuteness.

          The interplay among the dogs touches on themes pertaining to hippie culture, race relations, and other progressive concerns. There’s also an element of bedroom farce, related to the unlikely presence in the pound of a penguin. (Don’t ask.) Downey hits certain satirical targets more squarely than others, and his penchant for profanity-strewn dialogue gives the film an unhelpful quality of puerility. (The abundance of sex talk, as well as discreetly filmed sex acts, earned the picture an X rating.) Every so often,  Downey’s insouciance gains focus, as in musical montages set to fierce rock tunes featuring with-it lyrics (e.g., “So I went for a bummer in the pound/on the baddest shit I ever found”).

          Yet the whole enterprise is acted and filmed with great precision, so Pound never spirals into random weirdness; quite to the contrary, the film is a textbook example of deliberate weirdness. It is also, allegedly, a comedy, though the combination of grim subject matter and strange presentation will render the experience of Pound quite humorless for some viewers, this one included. A challenge for those who can’t groove with the central joke and presumably a wicked delight for those who can, Pound is arguably Downey’s most audacious movie, though he gained wider attention for the racially themed Putney Swope (1969) and the religiously themed Greaser’s Palace (1972).

Pound: FREAKY

Starsky and Hutch (1975)

          The pilot movie for the TV series Starsky and Hutch is roughly equivalent to low-budget theatrical features about cops from the same era, thanks to a pulpy mix of attitude, automotive fetishism, intrigue, and sleaze. Among other enjoyable qualities, the pilot movie—which is meatier than the average episode of the ensuing series—takes place in an overcast, trash-strewn vision of downtown Los Angeles, rather than the antiseptic, sun-drenched version of the city that dominates most vintage screen representations.  Starsky and Hutch opens with a wonderfully creepy scene. As a young couple makes out in a red-and-white Gran Torino, hitmen Cannell (Michael Conrad) and Zane (Richard Lynch) casually stroll up to the car and shoot the lovers to death. Cut to our heroes, LAPD detectives Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson (David Soul) and Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser), the latter of whom drives a Gran Torino just like the one at the murder site. This connection is the first in a series of clues revealing to Starsky and Hutch that they’ve been targeted for murder. The cops scour the underworld for information, allowing writer William Blinn to showcase the detectives’ extensive stool-pigeon network and their willingness to get tough with bad guys even as they display a soft touch with hard-luck cases.

            At least in this first adventure, the differences between the leading characters aren’t particularly striking, although Starsky is a bit more slovenly than his pretty-boy partner. The stars’ performances draw crisper distinctions than their written characterizations, with Glaser doing a bit of a dese-dem-dose accent while Soul coos his lines smoothly. The most iconic scene from the pilot, at least in relation to the franchise’s kitsch value, is a bit during which Starsky and Hutch invade a gangster’s steam room, wearing only towels and shoulder holsters. To the credit of all involved, the moment is played completely straight. Also noteworthy is the relative lack of gunplay; Starsky and Hutch don’t engage in a shootout until the climax, relying instead on connections, endurance, and wiseass wit. Oh, and while the pilot includes future series regular Antonio Fargas in the familiar role of flamboyant hustler/informant Huggy Bear, the detectives’ boss, Captain Dobey, is played in the pilot by Richard Ward, rather than Bernie Hamilton, who assumed the role for the run of the series.  Although Starsky and Hutch (which later altered its title to Starsky & Hutch) ran only four seasons, leaving the airwaves in 1979, the franchise has lingered in pop culture; Hutch’s golden mane and turtlenecks, as well as Hutch’s knit caps and lumpy cardigans, resurfaced in the hit 2004 comedy movie Starsky & Hutch, starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson.

Starsky and Hutch: FUNKY

Foxy Brown (1974)

After scoring at the box office with Coffy (1973), writer-director Jack Hill and blaxploitation queen Pam Grier delivered more sexed-up crime drama with Foxy Brown, a nasty flick about a woman taking on the mob. Yet while Coffy has force and momentum, Foxy Brown gets mired in a murky storyline. It’s also much more unpleasant than the previous film, thanks to a gruesome sequence in which the heroine is bound, drugged, and repeatedly raped. The storyline gets off to a bad start, because it’s never clear what Foxy does for a living or how she came to know Michael (Terry Carter), her lawman boyfriend. Plus, how does Foxy balance her relationship with a cop and her tight bond with a drug-dealing sibling (Antonio Fargas)? For that matter, when the hell did she learn how to fly a plane? To cut Hill some slack, Foxy Brown apparently began life as a Coffy sequel, and the director was instructed to transform Foxy Brown into a stand-alone film so late in the game that he wasn’t able to properly reconfigure key elements. Notwithstanding these issues, Foxy Brown has built a huge cult audience over the years. Much of the appeal, of course, stems from Grier’s formidable physical presence. She looks fantastic, whether she’s glammed up in a silky wig and evening dress or down-and-dirty in a giant Afro and head-to-toe leather, and she’s a relentless killing machine. The moment when she coils a wire hanger into a claw and gouges out a scumbag’s eye is memorable, as is the bit when she introduces a thug to the business end of a plane’s propeller. Fargas is almost as entertaining as Grier, jive-talking through a campy performance, and Coffy costar Sid Haig shows up briefly to infuse the picture with a welcome burst of nutjob energy. Yet while some elements are watchable, the movie as a whole is distasteful, and the main villain is awful: Every scene featuring the startlingly amateurish Kathryn Loder, as conniving madam Miss Katherine, is excruciating.

Foxy Brown: FUNKY

Car Wash (1976)

Best known for the disco theme song by Rose Royce that became a No. 1 pop hit, Car Wash is a silly ensemble comedy about the goings-on among the African-American workers at a Los Angeles car wash, so the focus is on cartoonish jive talk, contrived slapstick, and meandering musical sequences. A steady stream of catchy funk/disco tunes fills the soundtrack (Motown Records hitmaker Norman Whitfield did the music), and the picture is so overstuffed with characters that things move along at a steady clip, but the storyline runs the gamut from juvenile to pedestrian. As written by Joel Schumacher, who later became the A-list director of such glossy piffles as The Lost Boys (1987), Car Wash tries to generate gags from such unlikely sources as a would-be revolutionary (Bill Duke) spewing militant aphorisms; a sassy drag queen (Antonio Fargas) exuding lascivious attitude; a disgruntled cab driver (George Carlin) trying to find the hooker who skipped out on a fare; and a fast-talking evangelist (Richard Pryor) strutting around with three female vocalists (the Pointer Sisters) literally singing his praises. This is the sort of movie in which the titular location functions as a conveyer belt for delivering one random character after another, which means the piece lacks anything resembling cohesion or dramatic drive. The script really shows its strain with idiotic recurring characters like the bitchy Beverly Hills mom (Lorraine Gary) whose son won’t stop puking, and the redneck car-wash worker (Jack Kehoe) who frets that he might have gotten VD. Car Wash has fleeting moments of interest, but whatever virtues the film has are overshadowed by groan-inducing moments like the scene in which characters argue about who has to clean dog excrement off the sidewalk. Sample dialogue: “Don’t gimme no lip, pick up the shit!”

Car Wash: LAME