1980 Week: The Stunt Man

          To grasp the unique power of The Stunt Man, one need merely examine the impact that it had on the career of Richard Rush, who cowrote, produced, and directed the picture. The Stunt Man curried enough favor for Rush to earn twin Oscar nominations, for direction and screenwriting—but the movie also flopped so badly that it helped derail Rush’s filmmaking career. He didn’t step behind the camera again for 14 years, and his would-be comeback was the notorious bomb Color of Night (1994), an execrable erotic thriller starring Bruce Willis. That’s The Stunt Man in a nutshell: It’s simultaneously a pretentious misfire and a visionary masterpiece. The same extremes that make The Stunt Man beguiling and memorable also make the movie deeply frustrating. Continuing this duality, The Stunt Man is both a dark mystery/thriller and a vicious satire about Hollywood filmmaking. Rush’s movie is not for everyone, but it’s a singular experience.

          Based on a novel by Paul Brodeur and adapted for the screen by Rush and Lawrence B. Marcus, The Stunt Man takes place almost exclusively in and around the opulent location shoot for a World War I-themed action movie. At the beginning of the picture, mystery man Cameron (Steve Railsback) flees the police and stumbles onto the shoot at the same moment a stunt man dies in a helicopter crash. The director of the movie-within-the movie, Eli Cross (Peter O’Toole), senses a unique opportunity. A domineering and manipulative sociopath, Eli discovers that Cameron feels responsible for the accident, so he offers to let Cameron assume the stunt man’s identity, thereby hiding from the police. Energizing the Faustian metaphor that runs through the film, Eli uses blackmail to leverage Cameron’s soul. The director goads Cameron into performing a series of dangerous stunts, leading inevitably toward a gag so risky that Cameron becomes convinced Eli is willing to kill Cameron for a spectacular scene.

          As all of this is unfolding, Cameron becomes romantically involved with the leading lady of the movie-within-the-movie, Nina (Barbara Hershey). Yet Eli’s thirst for control extends to Nina, as well, and the psychological abuse that Eli heaps upon Nina is horrific.

          The Stunt Man is a flamboyant piece of work, with Rush aiming for fireworks on every level. The story is frenetic and grandiose. The performances are unrelentingly intense. The camerawork is wild, because Rush and cinematographer Mario Tosi employ crowded compositions, operatic movements, and rich colors to create a larger-than-life style. Even the music, by Dominic Frontiere, virtually screams. Given the voluptuousness of Rush’s cinematic attack, it’s surprising that the most resonant moments in The Stunt Man are intimate.  Specifically, the movie’s best scene involves Cross’ ultimate humiliation of Nina, because O’Toole’s Oscar-nominated performance reaches a peak of sadism at the same time Hershey incarnates vulnerability.

          To a certain degree, Railsback is the odd man out, partially because the nature of the story requires his character to be a cipher, and partially because it’s hard to shake the indelible link between Railsback and Charles Manson, whom the actor unforgettably portrayed in the TV movie Helter Skelter (1976). Yet this, too, works in Rush’s favor—the title character of The Stunt Man seems more like a pawn on a chessboard than a human being. Fitting its title, The Stunt Man offers impressive stunt work, particularly a long foot chase across the rooftop of a beautiful hotel. And that reflects another strange irony—for all of its quasi-literary aspirations, The Stunt Man is fundamentally an action movie. Which begs the question—is The Stunt Man a confused endeavor at war with itself, or a brilliant fusion of disparate elements? Yes.

The Stunt Man: GROOVY

Diamonds (1975)

          A dreary heist thriller noteworthy for its eclectic cast and for having been coproduced by American and Israeli companies, Diamonds comprises 108 very long minutes of anonymous people doing inconsequential things. Even with four big-name actors playing the leading roles, the picture is a chore to watch and offers no special rewards at the end of the journey. Only those deeply interested in the careers of the stars and/or those determined to see every heist movie ever made need bother. It’s not hard to determine where the blame for this picture’s lifelessness should fall, since producer/director Menahem Golan spent most of his career making schlocky movies for the international market; although he occasionally produced (or executive produced) a quality picture, nearly everything that Golan directed was substandard. Diamonds, therefore, is par for the course. The great Robert Shaw, clearly participating only for the paycheck, stars in dual roles, and Golan’s reliance on the old gimmick of one actor playing twins is not a good omen. Shaw’s main role is that of Charles Hodgson, a British millionaire with the resources and time to indulge in dangerous hobbies. For instance, in one early scene Charles stages a private martial-arts exhibition, fighting against his mustachioed brother, Earl Hodgson. The siblings often take their competitiveness to ridiculous extremes, hence the movie’s silly storyline.

          Charles recruits career criminal Archie (Richard Roundtree)—as well as Archie’s sexy girlfriend, Sally (Barbara Hershey)—to help him rob millions of dollars worth of diamonds from a vault in Tel Aviv. Once Archie, Charles, and Sally reach the Middle East, they separate in order to prepare different components of their robbery scheme. This middle section of the picture, which comprises a good hour of running time, is deadly boring. About the only interesting sequences involve Charles trying to avoid an obnoxious American tourist, Zelda (Shelley Winters). Myriad scenes occur without any of the top-billed actors present, because interchangeable Israeli actors play cops and guards and thugs in dull vignettes. Worse, Hershey virtually disappears from the movie for a solid 40 minutes. Toward the end, Golan rallies for a proper break-in/escape sequence, which allows Roundtree and Shaw to share a few intense scenes filled with the kind of clear dramatic conflict that’s missing from the rest of the picture. Ultimately, however, the picture is a slow crawl toward a predictable ending. For viewers who enjoy napping during movies, Diamonds is passable. For everyone else, only disappointment and tedium await.

Diamonds: FUNKY

The Baby Maker (1970)

          James Bridges, the eclectic but sensitive filmmaker whose cinematic career peaked with The China Syndrome (1979), marked his directorial debut with this intimate drama about a hippie chick who becomes a surrogate mother for an affluent but childless couple. Even within the confines of its small story, the picture is a bit too ambitious for its own good, trying to situate the lead character within the zeitgeist of the ’60s/’70s counterculture. Nonetheless, nuanced performances and sincere curiosity about the emotional lives of the characters make the movie worthwhile. Plus, since a huge aspect of the counterculture involved people discarding old inhibitions about sexuality, the notion of a freespirited young woman exploring various dimensions of her reproductive identity represents a fresh approach to familiar subject matter. More specifically, The Baby Maker exists a world away from the myriad ’60s/’70s pictures about May-December romances between hippies and straights (Breezy, Petulia, etc.); this picture is tender instead of tawdry.

          Barbara Hershey stars as Tish, an upbeat flower-child type who lives with her stoner boyfriend, Tad (Scott Glenn). He makes handcrafted leather goods, but he’s prone to losing time on drugs and parties. Through a broker, Tish arranges to carry a child for Jay (Sam Groom) and Suzanne (Collin Wilcox-Horne). They’re a loving couple, but Suzanne is infertile. Some of the best scenes in The Baby Maker are the early ones, which have the feel of a procedural: the first meeting and initial negotiation, the dinnertime conversation during which Jay and Suzanne learn about Tish’s background, the laying out of concerns and expectations. (It’s worth noting that Bridges handles the actual conception scene with restraint.) Adding a layer of unspoken tension to these early scenes is the possibility of Tish falling in love with the unborn child and reneging on her promises. Another effective trope involves Tish’s steadily deteriorating home life with Tad. At first, he accepts her choice and even indulges himself with some of the money that she’s paid in advance. But later, jealousy and old-fashioned notions of gender roles make Tad bitter—a believable repercussion for men in Tad’s unique situation.

          Not everything works in the picture, with a jarring protest sequence and a too-long psychedelic lightshow scene contributing to the movie’s sluggish pacing. However, the pluses easily outweigh the minuses. Hershey has many luminous moments, conveying a sense of innocence tinged with sadness, and the supporting cast is excellent. (Glenn reteamed with Bridges years later to play a villain in the director’s 1980 movie Urban Cowboy.) More than anything, The Baby Maker strikes an effective balance between capturing the sociopolitical vibe of a historical moment and telling a specific story about individuals.

The Baby Maker: GROOVY

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

The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder (1974)

 

Vietnam-vet movies came in all shapes and sizes during the ’70s, but it’s nonetheless startling to realize that someone thought PTSD was a suitable subject for light comedy in 1974, when the war was still raging. The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder takes place primarily at a VA hospital in Los Angeles, where mischievously charming ex-soldier Julius Vrooder (Timothy Bottoms) lives in a mental ward with several other vets suffering from shellshock. Able-bodied but emotionally fragile, Julius spends his days cavorting around the hospital campus, pulling childish pranks on his doctors and flirting with sensitive nurse Zanni (Barbara Hershey). Accentuating just how disconnected Julius is from reality, he even has a secret underground lair that he’s created across the street from the campus, complete with electricity that he’s illegally siphoning from the city’s power grid. (Never mind the logical questions of how Julius got the equipment and free time needed to build his fortress.) As the story progresses, Julius tries to woo Zanni away from her other suitor—Julius’ uptight shrink, of course—and he tries to evade municipal authorities who want to find out who’s stealing their electricity. And that’s basically the whole movie, excepting a few inconsequential subplots. Among the film’s many problems is the fact that we’re supposed to sympathize with Julius’ unique plight even though he doesn’t seem especially unwell—he treats his hospital stay like a vacation from responsibility, faking seizures or sharing sad war stories whenever he wants sympathy. Were it not for Bottoms’ inherent likeability, Julius would be insufferable; as is, the character is merely uninteresting. Similarly, the fact that the shrink isn’t a formidable romantic rival precludes any tension in the love story—Zanni seems to worship Julius unconditionally, so the resolution of the triangle is a foregone conclusion. As directed by the efficient Arthur Hiller, The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder is too innocuous to dislike, but it’s also far too vapid to make a significant impression.

The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder: FUNKY

The Last Hard Men (1976)

          An enjoyable but forgettable Western thriller, The Last Hard Men combines a string of macho clichés. Circa the early 1900s, cold-blooded criminal Provo (James Coburn) is part of a prison labor crew until he stages a violent escape, enlisting several fellow convicts to form an outlaw gang. (Fans of cheesy TV will notice Larry Wilcox, later of CHiPs fame, as the youngest member of Provo’s gang.) Although Provo claims he wants to rob banks, his real motivation is hunting down the man who sent him to jail, square-jawed peacemaker Sam Burgade (Charlton Heston). Now a retired widower, Burgade is happily occupied with getting his beautiful daughter, Susan (Barbara Hershey), married off to her affectionate beau, Hal (Christopher Mitchum). Yet when Burgade learns about Provo’s escape and subsequent crime spree, he races to intercept the train on which Provo’s gang was spotted. Unfortunately, Provo arranged the train sighting as a decoy so he could kidnap Susan and draw Burgade out to the wilderness for a showdown. There’s a smidgen more to the story than this synopsis suggests, but The Last Hard Men is essentially a macho duel preceded by foreplay.
          Director Andrew V. McLaglen demonstrates his usual sure hand for this sort of material, keeping things moving at a steady pace and ensuring that the nastiest violence leaves a mark. However, at one point he awkwardly tries to channel Sam Peckinpah—late in the movie, as a means of provoking Burgade, Provo gives his thugs permission to rape Susan, and McLaglen stages the ensuing pursuit/assault in lurid slow-motion. Artsy flourishes don’t gel with McLaglen’s meat-and-potatoes style, so the scene feels weirdly dissonant and perverse. As for the movie’s acting, Coburn is genuinely frightening when his character gets crazed with bloodlust, but Heston is on autopilot. It doesn’t help that many of Heston’s scenes are designed to showcase supporting player Mitchum (son of Robert), whom various producers spent several years trying to transform into a star despite his lack of charisma. Hershey adds welcome toughness to an underwritten role, demonstrating how quickly she was outgrowing the ingénue style of her early-’70s performances.

The Last Hard Men: FUNKY

Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (1972)

          With its focus on low-level drug peddlers and “tune in, turn on, drop out” college culture, the lengthily titled Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues could easily have been made in the mid-’60s instead of the early ’70s, and the picture’s approach to characterization is so Spartan that the people in the movie feel like counterculture-era abstractions instead of flesh-and-blood individuals. That’s not a bad thing, however, since Dealing is like an injection of pure period vibe, from the pervasive theme of lawlessness to the happenin’ lingo to the potent male fantasy of a with-it hippie chick who grooves on the hero’s scene.

          Dealing isn’t deep or provocative, and it isn’t really about anything except the vague implications of a contraband-fueled adventure in the anything-goes ’70s, but it’s atmospheric, attractively shot, and loaded with far-out tunes (including drop-the-needle pop cuts and an eclectic score by Michael Small). Stripped of any aspirations to redeeming social value, the movie is like a sleek catalog of vintage textures.

          The story was adapted from a novel by “Michael Douglas,” the shared pseudonym for bestselling author Michael Crichton and his brother, Douglas Crichton. Peter (Robert F. Lyons) is a directionless Harvard law student not particularly interested in his studies. He regularly makes cross-country trips to fetch dope for his pal John (John Lithgow), an urbane drama teacher/dealer with a talent for coldly exploiting young people. In Berkeley for a connection, Peter meets pretty druggie Susan (Barbara Hershey), and before long, they get together in a recording studio, bonding over a few lines of coke and a bit of the old in-out. (He playfully introduces himself to Susan as “Lucifer,” having rocked out to the Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” on his Buck Rogers-looking stereo headset earlier in the movie.)

          Eventually, once Peter makes his way back to Boston, he persuades John to hire Susan for a run so she can join her new lover on the East Coast. The plan goes awry when Susan gets busted at Logan Airport by a corrupt detective, Murphy (Charles Durning), who swipes half her cargo. Realizing the cop stole drugs, John and Peter try to hustle Murphy in order to get Susan released, and this endeavor soon evolves into full-on intrigue: After John bails when the danger level gets too high, Peter finds himself stuck between corrupt cops and vengeful drug dealers in a violent showdown. The movie ambles through mellow situations until Peter’s predicament percolates, at which point a fair amount of suspense develops, and the big finish in a snow-covered nature preserve is exciting and weird.

          Although journeyman TV actor Lyons is a weak link, the stiffness of his performance is partially negated by the fact that his character is a cipher, and the rest of the cast is strong. Hershey comes across well in a mostly ornamental role; Durning is appropriately insidious; and Lithgow’s amusing characterization runs the gamut from perverse to pathetic. Adding considerably to the movie’s offbeat appeal is the complete absence of sympathetic characters—Peter and Susan are more appealing than the killers and sleazebags they encounter, but they’re still losers, which makes them unique choices to occupy the romantic center of a Hollywood movie. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues: GROOVY

The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970)

          The last movie directed by the great William Wyler, The Liberation of L.B. Jones is one of several nervy race-relations pictures made in the wake of In the Heat of the Night (1967). Like that Oscar-winning film, L.B. Jones is s a thriller exploring the dangers of a black man seeking justice in the South, only this time the protagonist is not a cop or even a lawyer, but rather an undertaker. In a small Tennessee community, L.B. Jones (Roscoe Lee Browne) is the most affluent black citizen, which generates grudging respect from well-to-do whites and seething resentment among poor whites. When Jones discovers that his years-younger wife, Emma (Lola Falana), is sleeping with a white cop, simple-minded redneck Willie Joe (Anthony Zerbe), Jones’ attempt to amicably dissolve his marriage unexpectedly triggers a fusillade of horrific violence.

          Based on a novel by Jesse Hill Ford, who co-wrote the script, the picture’s tricky plot weaves together nearly a dozen major characters, each of whom reflects a facet of racism or its impact. The formidable Lee J. Cobb plays Oman Hedgepath, the white lawyer Jones hires to handle the divorce; Hedgepath tries to resolve the matter outside of court by working angles with Willie Joe and the town’s do-nothing mayor (Dub Taylor), but he only makes matters worse. Lee Majors, of all people, plays Oman’s idealistic nephew, a clean-cut voice of reason whose words are drowned out by pervasive prejudice. And in the picture’s linchpin role, a very young Yaphet Kotto plays Sonny Boy, an angry young black man who has returned to his hometown after a long absence because he wants revenge against the racist white who beat him as a child. Barbara Hershey pops up in a tiny role as Majors’ wife, and dancer Fayard Nicholas, of the famed Nicholas Brothers, appears as well, in his only dramatic performance.

          Amazingly, The Liberation of L.B. Jones doesn’t feel overstuffed, although some actors are left gasping for screen time; the clockwork script allocates time wisely, sketching characters just well enough for viewers to understand why people choose their paths. Wyler orchestrates the various elements so that when things get ugly, horrible events explode like the stages of carefully coordinated fireworks display. Not everything that happens in the picture is credible, and the material portraying Emma as a capricious nymphomaniac is stereotypical, but The Liberation of L.B. Jones is filled with memorable nuances. It’s also filled with memorable acting, because the film’s cast offers a spectrum of performance styles. Browne is elegant and nuanced; Cobb is fiery and intense; Zerbe is wonderfully squirrely and perverse; and Kotto bounces between sweet and menacing, effectively portraying the wounded boy within the dangerous man. As for Falana, she’s so sexy that it’s easy to see why the men in her life are driven to distraction. (Available through Columbia Screen Classics via WarnerArchive.com)

The Liberation of L.B. Jones: GROOVY

Boxcar Bertha (1972)

          An exploitation flick whose importance to film history far outweighs its cinematic values, Boxcar Bertha is famous because it’s the movie that turned Martin Scorsese into a professional director. Prior to shooting this low-budget Bonnie and Clyde rip-off for producer Roger Corman, Scorsese’s film experience included studying and teaching at NYU as well as making a grimy black-and-white indie feature. Watching Boxcar Bertha, it’s easy to see the growing pains that Scorsese experienced once he was let loose with experienced actors and a proper camera crew. The story isn’t of particular interest, especially because the screenplay is so thematically formless and sloppily paced, but the gist is that after Depression-era drifter Bertha Thompson (Barbara Hershey) falls in love with outlaw union organizer Bill Shelly (David Carradine), they form a band of robbers with several other misfits. This sets the stage for assorted repetitive run-ins with the agents of a corrupt railroad magnate, H. Buckram Sartoris (John Carradine). There’s plenty of nudity and violence (to say nothing of cloying old-timey music), but there isn’t much coherence or fun—it’s all way too episodic and nasty.
          Former NFL player Bernie Casey stands out among the cast, because he makes credible leaps from amiability to intensity as the lone African-American in Bertha’s motley crew. And while David Carradine and Hershey are both earnest and somewhat invested, they’re held back by the script’s inconsistent characterizations; their characters are alternately crusaders and victims. The real interest for movie fans, of course, is in parsing the movie for glimmers of Scorsese’s filmmaking style. Aside from the director’s onscreen cameo (he’s one of Bertha’s whorehouse clients), his signature is most clearly evident during the ultraviolent finale, when Scorsese goes way overboard with religious imagery and experiments with inventive ways to photograph people getting killed. It’s also interesting to note the various scenes punctuated by seemingly random cutaways of static objects, since those shots reflect early attempts at a device for building physical environments that Scorsese perfected by the time he made Taxi Driver a few years later. Ultimately, however, Boxcar Bertha is a bit of a jumble, because its artiness undercuts its value as drive-in trash, and it trashiness undercuts its value as art.

Boxcar Bertha: FUNKY