Rabbit, Run (1970)

          Adapted from John Updike’s celebrated 1960 novel about an American everyman whose existential crisis leads him to flee the confines of an unsatisfactory domestic situation, Rabbit, Run is undoubtedly an example of how things get lost in translation when a project leaps from one medium to another. The filmmakers depict the protagonist’s irresponsible behavior without clearly articulating the reasons why he can’t build lasting connections with other people. (One presumes that Updike’s novel was more successful than the film at delineating the leading character’s psyche.) When the movie begins, Harry “Rabbit” Engstrom (James Caan) reaches a breaking point in his marriage to alcoholic Janice (Carrie Snodgress), even though the couple has one child and another is on the way. Following an argument, Harry leaves home and tracks down his former coach, Marty (Jack Albertson), who is now a sad old drunk. Marty introduces Harry to a hooker, Ruth (Anjanette Comer), with whom Harry falls in love. Meanwhile, an overbearing priest, Rev. Eccles (Arthur Hill), encourages Harry to return home. (Meandering subplots involve Harry’s golf games with the priest, as well as Harry’s sexual tension with the priest’s alluring wife.) Betrayals, tragedies, and twists ensue. By the end of it all, Harry’s the same perplexed individual he was at the beginning of the story, even though he’s caused and suffered a lot of pain.

          Caan’s casting is a major detriment. Although he looks the part of a former athlete and unquestionably possess formidable dramatic abilities, his innately macho quality clashes with the role of a sensitive character who is intimidated by life’s petty humiliations. Caan excels at playing men who fight, which means that seeing him portray a man who runs strikes a false chord. In fact, “false” is a suitable adjective for most of this film’s content. From the stilted dialogue to the weird sex scenes (in which footage is optically rocked back and forth while fuzzy guitars and pounding drums reverberate on the soundtrack), nearly all of the stylistic touches that producer/screenwriter Howard B. Kreitsek and director Jack Smight employ are contrived and ineffective. Other than implying that men are entitled to pursue anything they want in life, no matter the circumstances, and that women who fail at motherhood are loathsome, it’s hard to know what the filmmakers meant to say here. Worse, the way they chose to put across their murky thematic statements isn’t especially compelling to watch.

Rabbit, Run: FUNKY

The Pursuit of Happiness (1971)

          The Pursuit of Happiness is yet another middling drama about angst-ridden ’70s youth culture that ends up feeling less like a sensitive tribute to a thoughtful generation and more like a condescending satire of mixed-up kids. Gangly Michael Sarrazin plays William Popper, a New York City college student from a privileged family. He lives with hippie activist Jane Kauffman (Barbara Hershey), and he uncomfortably straddles her world of ideals and his family’s world of Establishment values. Driving in the rain one night, William accidentally hits and kills an old woman who steps into traffic. He’s arrested. William’s sensitive father, artist John Popper (Arthur Hill), arrives on the scene to help William through his legal troubles, but the family’s stern lawyer, Daniel Lawrence (E.G. Marshall), drips contempt for William’s screw-the-man attitude.

          Ignoring Daniel’s advice to keep his mouth shut, William makes a scene during his first hearing—he gives a naïve speech about how the legal system isn’t interested in empirical truth—and gets thrown into prison. All of this confirms William’s impression that society is broken; as William whines at one point, “There’s a nervous breakdown happening in this country, and I don’t want to be part of it if I don’t have to.” Also thrown into the mix is William’s loving but racist grandmother (Ruth White), the personification of small-minded Old Money.

          Based on a book by Thomas Rogers and directed by Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird), this picture means well but undercuts itself. William isn’t truly an idealist; rather, he’s a slacker uninterested in committing to anything. Thus, when William breaks out of prison and tries to flee the country, his actions don’t seem charged with us-vs.-them significance. Sure, the filmmakers communicate the central idea that William resents the game he’s being asked to play (feign adherence to Establishment values, and you can get away with anything), but William is so passive that he’s the least interesting person who could have taken this journey. Sarrazin’s perfunctory performance exacerbates matters, as does the blunt screenplay. The movie also leaves several promising storylines unexplored, so characters including a crusty detective (Ralph Waite), an imprisoned politician (David Doyle), and a mysterious pilot (William Devane) pass through the story too quickly. Each of them, alas, is more interesting than the protagonist.

The Pursuit of Happiness: FUNKY

Ordeal (1973)

Although its content couldn’t be simpler—a cuckolded husband gets abandoned in the desert by his wife and her lover, and the husband’s lust for revenge compels him to survive—Ordeal has a sweaty intensity that makes it a bit more charged than the average early-’70s telefilm. It’s also unrelentingly dark, since each character in the picture is an awful human being, so the movie’s morality is enjoyably gray. And if the piece sputters to a halt with the kind of unsatisfying non-ending that plagued many small-screen movies in the ’70s, so be it—a five-minute letdown shouldn’t completely erase 85 minutes of solid buildup. Arthur Hill, the veteran stage actor whose big-screen credits include The Andromeda Strain (1971), stars as Richard Damian, a domineering son of a bitch whose callous ways have sucked the life out of his marriage to the icily beautiful Kay (Diana Muldaur). One day, Richard and Kay head out for a desert getaway with greasy local Andy Folsom (James Stacy) as their guide, even though Richard really considers Kay excess baggage during his various macho adventures. Turns out Kay has seduced Andy, so when an “accident” leaves Richard stranded on a high cliff, Kay and her lover flee with no intention of sending help. Thereafter, the movie enters a long and surprisingly compelling sequence of Richard trying to withstand dehydration, exhaustion, exposure, and the various ailments stemming from a leg injury. Director Lee H. Katzin comes up with several enterprising camera setups to keep things visually interesting, and his focus on Richard’s desire for payback ensures the movie is consistently tense. Meanwhile, cutaways from Richard’s travails to scenes of Andy and Kay reveal the disintegration of their tenuous bond. Even without a potent climax, Ordeal is an edgy exploration of the ways people abuse each other.

Ordeal: FUNKY

The Andromeda Strain (1971)

          Long before contemporary virus-on-the-loose movies such as Outbreak (1995) and Contagion (2011), writer Michael Crichton explored the terror of a potentially unstoppable blight with his 1969 novel The Andromeda Strain, which provided the basis for this intense, Oscar-nominated movie. Built around the idea of a virulent alien entity brought to Earth by a returning space probe that crash lands in a tiny Southwestern town, Crichton’s tale spends very little time depicting the effects of the virus on the outside world. Instead, the bulk of his story takes place inside Wildfire, a massive underground complex designed for responding to viral threats. Accordingly, The Andromeda Strain is one of the most methodical thrillers in sci-fi history, favoring logic and reason over melodrama until the final act, which succumbs to silly ticking-clock story mechanics.

          Drawing on his background as a medical doctor, Crichton painstakingly envisioned the procedures that might be followed in such a facility, so the screen adaptation sometimes feels like a training film as it portrays disinfection baths, specimen analysis, and so forth. In fact, the challenges of adhering to scientific method inform the film’s character conflicts—the mastermind behind Wildfire, bacteria specialist Dr. Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill), repeatedly criticizes his people for succumbing to emotionalism. This cold-blooded approach irks Stone’s subordinates, including compassionate medical doctor Dr. Mark Hall (James Olson), avuncular pathologist Dr. Charles Dutton (David Wayne), and irritable microbiologist Dr. Ruth Leavitt (Kate Reid). These characters must overcome interpersonal friction as they unravel mysteries with apocalyptic implications.

          Director Robert Wise, whose previous contribution to the sci-fi genre was the chilling classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), mirrors the clinical subject matter by utilizing a restrained style. Most scenes are detailed and lengthy, revealing minuscule details about procedure and technology. Combined with the film’s spectacular production design—think smooth chrome surfaces hiding ornate infrastructure—Wise’s storytelling surrounds the characters with dehumanizing atmosphere. Composer Gil Melle’s freaky electronic music, comprising all sorts of mechanized beeps and screeches, jacks up tension considerably.

          The movie occasionally cuts outside Wildfire to depict the activities of military men appraising the contagion’s spread, but the real drama stems from watching the scientists expand their knowledge of the alien killer in their midst. Operating within the tight parameters of the movie’s icy style, leading actors infuse their characters with effective colorations. Hill incarnates a pure scientist capable of fully suppressing his emotions, while to varying degrees his costars let loose. Olsen vigorously attacks the thankless task of portraying the story’s bleeding-heart character, and Reid contributes subtly distinctive work as a woman hiding a secret. Some might find the picture’s approach too muted (the movie is rated G despite fleeting gore and nudity), but given that it spends 130 minutes dramatizing combat against an antagonist the size of a grain of sand, The Andromeda Strain is memorably smart and suspenseful.

The Andromeda Strain: GROOVY