Adam’s Woman (1970)

          Offering an interesting look at sociopolitical dynamics impacting Australia during the era when the island nation was used by the British empire as a penal colony, Adam’s Woman tells the eventful story of a convict offered land and a dowry in exchange for marrying a “fallen” woman. Extrapolated from historical events but heavily fictionalized, the picture depicts a humanistic British nobleman, Sir Philip MacDonald (John Mills), serving as Australia’s governor. Through an experimental rehabilitation program, he offers property to hardy prisoners as a means of compelling them to abandon criminality. Not unimportantly, the program also serves the crown’s goal of colonizing remote areas. Adam Beecher (Beau Bridges) is an American serving a two-year term on assault charges, and his incarceration gets extended by seven years following an escape attempt. Sympathetic to Adam’s claim that he was innocent of the original crime, Sir Philip selects Adam for the dowry experiment, giving the inmate his pick of several jailed women. He chooses Bess (Jane Merrow), a willful convict from Ireland. They establish a homestead in a rugged valley, but conflict emerges with gangs of criminals seeking to exploit and terrorize the homesteaders.

          Had Adam’s Woman been written with more care and sophistication, the picture would have been a valuable piece of historical fiction, using the dowry system to explore myriad aspects of this complicated chapter in Australia’s history. Alas, the filmmakers simultaneously attempt too little and too much. Characterizations are thin, and the politics are mostly reduced to easily digestible slogans. More problematically, the narrative has an epic sprawl despite a running time of just 115 minutes; to properly service all the subplots and themes on display, three hours would have been a more ideal duration. The picture bursts with provocative ideas, and the production values are generally excellent, but everything feels rushed and superficial. Regarding the performances, Merrow and costar Andrew Keir (who plays a merciful prison guard) are the standouts, melding grit with heart. Mills is as mannered as usual, though he speaks beautifully, and Bridges applies more blunt-force intensity than precision or skill. Adding to the movie’s ho-hum quality are the fruity folk songs on the soundtrack, such as the opening-credits number that overdramatically describes harsh sentences given to prisoners exiled from Britain to Australia.

Adam’s Woman: FUNKY

Your Three Minutes Are Up (1973)

          Strong acting elevates Your Three Minutes Are Up, a tonally confused dramedy about a straight-laced dude who tries to emulate his carefree buddy, leading to catastrophe. Beau Bridges plays the uptight guy well, articulating how his character envies his friend’s ability to change sexual partners daily and live beyond his means through various financial scams, while Ron Leibman is terrific—which is to say maddening—as the loudmouth swinger leaving a trail of bad debts and hurt feelings in his wake. The point seems to be that the uptight guy could use a little of his pal’s looseness, and the swinger could use a little of his friend’s social responsibility. Unfortunately, both characters come across as jerks. The uptight guy torments his fiancée by disappearing for an adventure, and the swinger is an outright liar and thief. That being the case, it’s hard to know whether viewers are meant to feel excited or repulsed when, say, the guys stiff two young girls with the check for an expensive meal or scam a payoff from an unlucky motorist by deliberately causing a fender-bender. Is this a bummer morality tale or a kicky thrill ride?

          At the beginning of the movie, Los Angeles working stiff Charlie (Bridges) is the typical movie schmuck, the sort of character Jack Lemmon played a zillion times for Billy Wilder and other directors. He slaves away at a soul-sucking job, endures constant criticism from his betrothed, Betty (Janet Margolin), and watches wide-eyed whenever Mike (Leibman) scores with a busty Scandinavian or some other sexpot. Then Mike’s life hits a wall. His bank account runs dry, his car is repossessed, and his unemployment benefits are cancelled because he’s lied about pursuing work. Mike asks Charlie for a lift to the airport, and that leads to an endless drive up the California coast, with mischievous idylls in Santa Barbara and the Bay Area. Charlie has a blast partying with hookers and running scams, though he knows his real life will eventually catch up with him, whereas Mike seems oblivious to the idea of consequences.

          Although the filmmakers clearly meant to imbue Your Three Minutes Are Up with humorous elements, very little of what happens is funny. Bridges’ character seems more depressed than pathetic, and Leibman’s is so obnoxious it’s hard to enjoy his rapscallion excesses. Yet if the movie is viewed a melancholy character study or as a critique of the carefree swinger lifestyle, Your Three Minutes Are Up is somewhat effective. One more thing: The Oscar-winning 2004 dramedy Sideways bears such a remarkable resemblance to this picture that it’s likely Rex Pickett, author of the novel upon which Sideways is based, saw Your Three Minutes Are Up and never forgot the experience.

Your Three Minutes Are Up: FUNKY

Hammersmith Is Out (1972)

A misguided black comedy that bounces between crude farce and silly satire, Hammersmith Is Out loosely retells the legend of Faust, which concerns a man who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for success. As ineptly written by Stanford Whitmore and clumsily directed by Peter Ustinov, Hammersmith Is Out concerns an ignorant slob named Billy Breedlove (Beau Bridges), who works as an orderly in a mental hospital. Billy agrees to free a psychotic patient named Hammersmith (Richard Burton), who in turn agrees to kill people on Billy’s behalf, thereby imbuing Billy with the victims’ money and power. Along for the ride is greasy-spoon waitress Jimmie Jean Jackson (Elizabeth Taylor), whom Billy enjoys screwing until her vapidity becomes annoying. The narrative of Hammersmith Is Out moves at awkward rhythms, sometimes lingering on scenes as if they’re pieces of theater, and sometimes rushing through important ones by way of perfunctory voiceover. The tone of the picture is inconsistent, complementing sly verbal jokes with a crass gag about flatulence. Bridges gives an exaggerated turn playing an irredeemable scumbag, and Burton dubiously opts for icy restraint, which makes him seem bored. Taylor is awful—all cartoonish artifice—though in her defense, she’s grossly miscast as a salt-of-the-earth type. Given these wholly unsympathetic characters, it’s a drag to watch Hammersmith Is Out, because the flick is a would-be laugh riot about killing and maiming people for no reason other than greed. Furthermore, it’s hard to cut the movie slack as a spoof of 1972-era society, seeing as how Ustinov’s idea of a witty joke is showing an all-female rock band called “The Tits” performing topless. By the time the movie stops dead so La Liz can deliver an interminable monologue, gifting her character with previously unknown soulfulness, Hammersmith Is Out has degraded into pointless sludge.

Hammersmith Is Out: LAME

The Runner Stumbles (1979)

          The final film directed by self-appointed cinematic moralist Stanley Kramer, this peculiar drama presents a sensationalistic story in a manner that ranges from absurdly lighthearted to absurdly overwrought. To be fair, most scenes occupy a palatable middle ground of rationality and restraint. Nonetheless, the extremes define this piece, as does the suffocating artificiality that permeates every scene, whether the scene in question is bad, good, or indifferent. To get a sense of why this picture is simultaneously respectable and ridiculous, The Runner Stumbles stars jovial song-and-dance man Dick Van Dyke as a middle-aged priest suspected of not only sleeping with a pretty young nun, but also of murdering her—not exactly “Chim Chim Cher-ee” territory. And when Ray Bolger, the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz (1939), shows up to represent the full weight of religious authority, The Runner Stumbles approaches self-parody.

          Set in a remote part of Michigan circa 1911, and based loosely upon a true story, the picture begins with Father Rivard (Van Dyke) fetching his parish’s latest addition, fresh-faced Sister Rita (Kathleen Quinlan), from a transit station. They strike sparks immediately, because she’s challenging and curious while he’s a bundle of conflicts—on one hand, he’s a stickler for rules and tradition since he’s tired of fighting the church establishment, and on the other hand, he’s a passionate freethinker who once imagined a more important destiny for himself. Rita’s attitude represents a bracing change from the two sickly older nuns she was hired to assist, and Rita soon raises eyebrows by teaching secular songs to local children. Later, when the older nuns contract tuberculosis, Rivard suggest that Rita move into his residence, thereby separating her from contagions. This scandalizes everyone involved, from Rivard’s devout housekeeper, Mrs. Shandig (Maureen Stapleton), to the monsignor with authority over Rivard’s parish, Nicholson (Bolger). The fraught scenario climaxes in a noisy final act comprising a fire, illicit sex, and a trial shot through with venomous accusations. Framing the main storyline is a recurring courtroom sequence featuring Rivard—incarcerated on suspicion of murder after Rita’s body is discovered—receiving counsel from his inexperienced young lawyer, Toby Felker (Beau Bridges).

          Excepting Bridges’ loose and naturalistic work, everything about The Runner Stumbles is old-fashioned and sterile. Quinlan plays her role like Shirley Temple with mood swings, utterly failing to make Rita’s dangerous instability seem credible. Van Dyke is equally stiff in many scenes, though he paints colors of bitterness and rage with surprising skill. Unfortunately, Van Dyke is so broad and theatrical during the film’s crucial trial scene that he undercuts his few good moments elsewhere. That’s why the abrupt and unsatisfying ending doesn’t really matter: It’s just one more false note in an atonal symphony.

The Runner Stumbles: FUNKY

The Christian Licorice Store (1971)

          Neither exceptional nor terrible, The Christian Licorice Store is perhaps most interesting as a compendium of New Hollywood affectations. Telling a downbeat story about an egotist who becomes a self-destructive asshole, and employing gimmicks ranging from self-referential material about cinema to stylized visual distortions, the movie epitomizes the adventurous and indulgent qualities shared by a whole generation of filmmakers. The picture celebrates its own artificiality even as it strives for heavy “realness.” Some viewers may find this sort of stuff impossibly dated, but for devoted ’70s fans, The Christian Licorice Store contains many small pleasures. And if the sum is less than the parts, so what?

          Beau Bridges stars as Franklin, a fast-rising professional tennis player who enjoys the perks of his job—fat paychecks, a loose lifestyle, and plentiful adoring women. At first, Franklin seems a bit lost but generally sincere, learning life lessons from his coach, suave former tennis star Jonathan (Gilbert Roland). Attending a painfully superficial Hollywood party one evening, Franklin meets beautiful photographer Cynthia (Maud Adams), and they travel to her house for a tryst. The evening blossoms into a relationship, even though Franklin still has eyes for other women. Just when it seems everything’s going well, however, Franklin suffers an existential crisis.

          Written by Floyd Mutrux—an iconoclast whose filmmography includes everything from the grungy drug saga Dusty and Sweets McGee (1971) to the insipid teen comedy The Hollywood Knights (1980)—The Christian Licorice Store is deliberately opaque. Among the film’s many pretentious elements is the title, which is never explained, although folksinger Tim Buckley appears in one scene and performs a song with lyrics containing the odd title phrase. On a deeper level, Mutrux and director James Frawley never illuminate what drives Franklin to excess, beyond the perfunctory remarks that Franklin makes about a withholding father. As in many I-gotta-be-me downers of the same vintage, the takeaway seems to be, “It’s the ’70s, man—just go with it.”

          Within this constrained space, Bridges gives an adequate performance, capturing something about Franklin’s toxic blend of narcissism and self-loathing. Adams, largely decorative, shines during a party scene in which she delivers a murderous put-down to a sleazy producer. Onetime “Latin Lover” Roland was a peculiar casting choice, and it’s strange that legendary French filmmaker Jean Renoir basically takes over the movie for several minutes by playing himself, chatting up Adams’ character because she’s taken portraits of him. What does it all mean, especially in the context of the grim ending? It’s the ’70s, man. Just go with it.

The Christian Licorice Store: FUNKY

Child’s Play (1972)

          Even if one looks solely at the films he made in the ’70s, Sidney Lumet may well possess the most eclectic filmography of any major American filmmaker of his generation. Among other things, he made both the definitive NYPD movie, Serpico (1973), and the head-spinning musical turkey The Wiz (1978). Plus, scattered between his failures and triumphs are such oddities as Child’s Play, a psychological thriller that has some elements of occult horror. While Lumet delivers the strange flick with his customary intensity and sophistication, the picture’s bait-and-switch narrative is irritating, and the way three characters jockey for prominence makes the piece feel like a rough draft, as if screenwriter Leon Prochnik (adapting a play by Robert Marasco) couldn’t decide which viewpoint served the material best. Set in a private boys’ school, Child’s Play begins when a former student, Paul (Beau Bridges), arrives to begin his job as the new gym teacher. Paul notes the existence of a long and bitter rivalry between two veteran teachers, Joseph (Robert Preston) and Jerome (James Mason); Joseph is the upbeat student favorite, and Jerome is the hard-driving taskmaster. Compounding the intrigue, students keep acting like masochists by allowing other students to beat and torture them. Jerome, an old man fraying at the edges, thinks everything bad that’s happening is part of a campaign by Joseph to drive him away, but Paul begins to suspect there’s Satan worship afoot.

          The first hour of Child’s Play is borderline interminable simply because it’s so unfocused, but the second half of the picture represents a considerable improvement, for the power struggle between emotionally fragile Jerome and supremely confident Joseph becomes weirdly fascinating. Much of the interest, of course, stems from the performances rather than the writing. Mason renders more emotion than in nearly any other of his ’70s films, sketching a man crumbling under the weight of age and stress, while Preston layers surprising menace beneath his usual extroverted affability. Bridges, predictably, gets lost in the shuffle, which is a problem since he’s ostensibly the protagonist; Bridges spends a good chunk of the movie watching Mason and Preston do interesting things while contributing precious little to the overall dynamic. Although the final scenes wrap up the various plot threads in an eerie fashion, getting to the ending of this picture is a slog, and some aspects of Child’s Play are surprisingly amateurish. Composer Michael Small, generally a top-notch purveyor of subtle atmosphere, goes big in a very bad way with an obnoxious score, and Lumet overdoes the shadowy-cinematography bit, as if he’s shooting a full-on horror movie instead of what really amounts to a dark two-hander about a feud.

Child’s Play: FUNKY

Norma Rae (1979)

          Gritty, heartfelt, and passionately political, Norma Rae is an old-fashioned message movie that could easily have slipped into the one-dimensional mediocrity one associates with generic TV movies. After all, it’s the fictionalized story of a real-life factory worker who risked her employment in order to unionize the workers in an oppressively conservative Deep South community. What elevates Norma Rae above the norm is the conviction of Martin Ritt’s filmmaking, the intelligence of the script by frequent Ritt collaborators Harriet Frank Jr. and Irving Ravetch, and, most importantly, the inspirational performance in the title role by Sally Field. After becoming famous on such dippy ’60s TV series as The Flying Nun and Gidget, Field demonstrated serious dramatic chops with the acclaimed telefilm Sybil (1976), but it took a few years for her to win a substantial role in a theatrical feature. She seized the opportunity with the same fervor that her character assumes her destiny as a labor leader. Downplaying her fresh-scrubbed prettiness (while still rocking an amazing figure in skimpy T-shirts and tight jeans), Field slips convincingly into the skin of a blue-collar working mom exhausted from trying to balance a job and a family.

          When we meet Norma Rae Webster (Field), she’s one of many put-upon drones in a cotton mill, though Norma Rae gives her thuggish superiors more lip than anyone else on the factory floor. One day, labor organizer Ruben Warshowsky (Ron Leibman) shows up to recruit workers interested in unionizing, and thus begins a sort of ideological courtship with Norma Rae. Although the two never become lovers—Norma Rae’s devoted to her decent but simple husband, Sonny (Beau Bridges)—Ruben opens Norma Rae’s eyes to the possibilities of the outside world. As a fast-talking Jew from New York, he seems like an exotic creature to Southern-bred Norma Rae, and the way he respects Norma Rae’s mind instills a newfound sense of intellectual pride. Empowered by Ruben’s friendship and driven by the desire to make the world better for her people, Norma Rae organizes a factory strike that has dangerous repercussions in her private and professional lives.

          Given its nature as an unlikely-hero parable, the ending of Norma Rae is a foregone conclusion, so one could easily complain that the dramatic stakes of the picture never feel terribly high. Then again, the purpose of a movie like this one is paying tribute to the sacrifices virtuous people are willing to make for worthwhile causes, and Norma Rae does indeed go through rough patches. It helps, tremendously, that Ritt and cinematographer John A. Alonzo shot the picture in a real factory and other genuine locations, so the texture of the piece feels real even when the dramaturgy gets schematic. The supporting cast is solid, featuring such reliable character players as Morgan Paull and Noble Willingham, and both Bridges and Leibman play their key roles with humanity and humor. Ultimately, of course, this one’s all about Field, who won an Oscar for her rousing work; Norma Rae also collected an Oscar for Best Original Song, the Jennifer Warnes-sung “It Goes Like It Goes.”

Norma Rae: GROOVY

One Summer Love (1976)

         Originally released under the title Dragonfly, this offbeat story depicts the unexpected circumstance by which romance helps a troubled individual recover from psychological trauma—and though the film obviously means well, major problems with character development undercut the intended impact. Beau Bridges plays Jesse, a tightly wound young man who has spent most of his life in a mental hospital. When the picture begins, he receives permission to exit the facility, though his doctor (James Noble) wonders whether Jesse will be able to handle the harshness of the outside world. Intent on finding the family that abandoned him after a mysterious childhood incident, Jesse treks to his hometown of Danbury, Connecticut, and, eventually, enters a movie theater. The theater’s pretty candy-counter clerk, Chloe (Susan Sarandon), discovers that Jesse has no place to stay, so she invites him home even though he’s clearly unwell.

          This single moment virtually undoes the entire movie, because it makes no sense that Chloe would take in a man whom she has already seen manifest symptoms of instability and volatility. Even the tender/tough dynamism of Sarandon’s performance isn’t enough to sell the story’s central contrivance, and producer-director Gilbert Cates—who often thrived telling stories about people with emotional problems—makes several tonal missteps, not least of which is scoring the movie with music so dark that One Summer Love occasionally feels like a horror picture. Unfortunately, Bridges’ performance hurts credibility, too; while he approaches individual scenes with appropriate levels of intensity and/or warmth, he’s unable to overcome the falseness of a character who lashes out in rage whenever it’s narratively convenient for such a thing to happen.

          The weakest section of the picture, however, involves Jesse seeking lodging with a hotel owner (Ann Wedgeworth) who all but rapes the younger man. If One Summer Love was, in part, meant to be a coming-of-age story, then a physical encounter between Chloe and Jesse would have added more soul to the film. Yet the picture recovers, somewhat, once Jesse finally tracks down family members, even though the movie’s final scene is a puzzler. One Summer Love isn’t a satisfying movie, by any stretch, but it is worth watching largely for Sarandon’s performance and for the gauzy atmospherics Cates uses to evoke the sleepy rhythms of small-town life. If logic is one of your cinematic priorities, though, take a pass on this one. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

One Summer Love: FUNKY

Two-Minute Warning (1976)

          The premise of Two-Minute Warning couldn’t be more appealing for fans of cheesy ’70s blockbusters: A sniper takes a position in the clock tower of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during a crowded football game, so cops led by Captain Peter Holly (Charlton Heston) must take the sniper out. Chuck Heston versus a psycho against a backdrop of tragic melodrama—pass the popcorn! Unfortunately, the title of Two-Minute Warning is itself a warning (to viewers), since virtually nothing exciting happens until the last two minutes of the game that provides the film’s narrative structure. Most of the movie comprises a long slog of “character development” in the superficial disaster-movie style, meaning Two-Minute Warning is nearly all foreplay with very little payoff.

          That said, if you dive into the movie aware that it’s a slow burn, the combination of enterprising location photography and enthusiastic performances might be enough to keep you interested. The main relationship in the movie is between Captain Holly, who spends most of his time watching the sniper through a video feed originating in the Goodyear Blimp (!), and hotshot SWAT team commander Chris Button (John Cassavetes). Holly wants to remove the sniper without gunplay, whereas Button is itching for a shootout. Watching these alpha males clash provides a smidgen of macho entertainment, though one wishes the filmmakers had found a way to make their conflict more dynamic. The lack of strong leading characters lets supporting players run away with the picture. Brock Peters stands out as a Coliseum maintenance man who tries to be a hero, and Beau Bridges has some sorta-affecting moments as an unemployed dad fighting with his wife and kids in the stands, unaware of the danger lurking behind the end zone.

          Two-Minute Warning hews so closely to the disaster-movie paradigm that the story also includes an aging pickpocket (Walter Pidgeon), a football-loving priest (Mitchell Ryan), and a bickering couple (played by David Janssen and Gena Rowlands). Yes, it’s the old “Who’s going to live, who’s going to die?” drill. Director Larry Peerce rounded out the cast with his then-wife, Marilyn Hassett, the star of his maudlin The Other Side of the Mountain movies, although casting his missus appears to be as close as he got to emotionally investing in this trifling potboiler. Since the Coliseum figured prominently in ’70s pop culture (it was used for Heaven Can Wait, North Dallas Forty, and innumerable TV episodes), the venue provides as comforting a presence as any of the name-brand actors, and Peerce shoots the location well. Overall, however, Two-Minute Warning is a missed opportunity given all the possibilities suggested by the premise. Fumble!

Two-Minute Warning: FUNKY

The Landlord (1970)

          Following his glorious run as an innovative film editor in the ’60s, hippie artiste Hal Ashby graduated to directing with The Landlord, an overly ambitious but thoroughly admirable comedy-drama about race relations. Beau Bridges, effectively blending innocence and impetuousness, plays Elgar Winthrop Julius Enders, a 29-year-old gentleman of leisure living on his wealthy family’s estate just outside New York City. Half-heartedly deciding to form an identity separate from his blueblood clan, Elgar buys an apartment building in a ghetto neighborhood on the verge of gentrification, imagining he’ll boot out the black tenants and create a groovy bachelor pad. Yet upon discovering the tenants’ vibrant community, Elgar becomes more interested in bonding with his new acquaintances than evicting them.

          So begins a sensitive exploration of a dilettante’s journey through white guilt—after recovering from the shock of seeing how poor African-Americans live, Elgar gets involved with two different black women. Elgar’s mystified by the life experiences of Lanie (Marki Bey), a light-skinned exotic dancer ostracized for not being “black enough,” and he’s bewitched by Franny (Diana Sands), a gorgeous hairdresser married to hot-tempered activist Copee (Louis Gossett Jr.). Even as Elgar juggles these romances, however, there’s underlying tension because everyone recognizes that Elgar can escape the troubles of the inner city any time he wants by returning to the comfort of his family’s estate.

          Written by Bill Gunn from a novel by Kristin Hunter, The Landlord is filled with knowing moments, although the story sprawls in such a way that the main themes become somewhat diffused. For instance, the movie spends a great deal of time developing the character of Elgar’s mother, Joyce (Lee Grant), and the most dynamic scene in the picture is Joyce’s drunken lunch with one of Elgar’s tenants, no-bullshit fortune teller Marge (Pearl Bailey). Clearly, Joyce is meant to represent the out-of-touch Establishment against which Elgar is rebelling, but Joyce’s scenes feel tangential.

          Compensating for The Landlord’s storytelling hiccups are terrific performances and a wonderful sense of atmosphere. Working with master cinematographer Gordon Willis, Ashby creates a loose, naturalistic quality in every scene; Willis ensures that the movie is both aesthetically beautiful and convincingly gritty. As for the actors, Bridges gets blown off the screen by costars at regular intervals, but in a way, that amplifies the movie’s message—the world beyond Elgar’s insular experience is so vibrant that he must grow as a person if he wishes to truly belong. The complex resolution of Elgar’s journey underlines that he still has a long way to go on the road to maturity even as the closing credits roll. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

The Landlord: GROOVY

The 5th Musketeer (1979)

          An unsuccessful attempt to piggyback on the success of Richard Lester’s joyous movies The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974), this lavish production is actually the umpteenth screen adaptation of The Man in the Iron Mask, the classic novel that French scribe Alexandre Dumas wrote as part of his ongoing Musketeers series. The storyline, of course, involves real-life French King Louis XIV and the fictional character Dumas invented—Louis’ twin brother, Philippe. (Both characters are played by Beau Bridges.) Upon learning of his twin’s existence, Louis and his underlings lock Philippe in a dungeon, his face hidden behind an iron mask, lest Philippe challenge Louis’ right to the throne. However, because Philippe was protected since childhood by the noble musketeers, the now-aging swordsmen come to their young friend’s rescue.

          There’s a lot more to the plot, such as the clash between Louis’ conniving mistress (Ursula Andress) and the Spanish aristocrat (Sylvia Kristel) set to join Louis in an arranged marriage, but as in all musketeer movies, the palace intrigue mostly exists to motivate thrilling swordplay. The best thing about the movie, by far, is the sumptuous imagery created by legendary British cinematographer Jack Cardiff. The picture looks great from start to finish, and the most attractive scenes—like a tense standoff between the musketeers and evil nobleman Fouquet (Ian McShane)—boast the visual depth of great paintings. Additionally, screen icon Olivia de Havilland adds dignity during her brief appearance as the Queen Mother, evoking the many Errol Flynn swashbucklers in which she costarred. But then there’s the problem of the movie’s half-hearted storytelling.

          The script, credited to David Ambrose and George Bruce, is humorless and turgid, while Ken Annakin’s direction is serviceable at best; were it not for the movie’s resplendent look, The 5th Musketeer would feel completely second-rate. Casting is another major problem. Bridges seems so modern (and so American) that he’s not believable in either of his roles; he also lacks the effervescence needed to thrill the audience while bounding across the screen with an exposed blade. The quartet playing his mentors is awkward, as well. Alan Hale Jr. (yes, the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island), Cornel Wilde, and José Ferrer all appeared in studio-era swashbucklers, so they more or less suit the milieu, but Lloyd Bridges, like his son Beau, is too contemporary for the period setting. Furthermore, none of them seems the least bit invested in the material. Kristel, better known for her lurid Emmanuelle movies, is pretty but forgettable, so only Andress and McShane set off (mild) fireworks in their cartoony bad-guy roles. As for the other noteworthy studio-era veteran in the cast, Rex Harrison, he’s a bored-looking non-presence.

The 5th Musketeer: FUNKY

The Other Side of the Mountain (1975) & The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2 (1978)

          The blockbuster success of Love Story (1970) reminded studios about the moneymaking potential of over-the-top tearjerkers, which explains why Universal put its muscle behind The Other Side of the Mountain, even though the bummer material seems more suitable for a TV movie. Based on the unfortunate experiences of real-life American skier Jill Kinmont, The Other Side of the Mountain depicts what happened to Kinmont (played by Marilyn Hassett) before, during, and after an accident that left her paralyzed from the shoulders down, ending her promising athletic career and confining her to a wheelchair. Adding to her woes, Kinmont became engaged to skier Dick “Mad Dog” Buek (played by Beau Bidges) after her accident, surmounting the many issues separating able-bodied persons from the disabled, but Buek died in a plane crash before they got married.

          The movie frames these sad events with a quasi-uplifting prologue and epilogue, showing Kinmont looking fulfilled in her second career as a schoolteacher, but the point of the movie is bludgeoning viewers with the particulars of Kinmont’s misery. As directed by feature/TV journeyman Larry Peerce, The Other Side of the Mountain is so perfunctory it occasionally borders on self-parody—every time Peerce shows the heroine smiling, it’s a sure sign something horrible is about to happen. Even Kinmont’s best friend, fellow skier Audra Jo Nicholson (Belinda J. Montgomery), suffers the whims of fate, losing full mobility in her legs after a bout of polio.

          The workaday nature of the picture is not aided by Hassett’s performance: Though sincere and wholesomely pretty, she alternates between extremes of sweetness and hysteria. Luckily, Bridges has fun with his daredevil role, and Montgomery lends sass whenever her character castigates Kinmont for self-pity. (The great comic actor Dabney Coleman appears in a minor role as Kinmont’s pre-accident coach.)

          Audiences gobbled up The Other Side of the Mountain, generating enough interest for a sequel that offers an uplifting change of course from its predecessor. The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2 shows Kinmont finding love again, this time with simple but soulful truck driver John Boothe (Timothy Bottoms). The sequel also delves deeper into Kinmont’s occasionally fraught relationship with her mother-turned-caretaker, June (Nan Martin). However, whereas the first picture moves briskly by jamming years of experiences into a single feature, the second picture feels padded and thin. Nonetheless, Bottoms is appealing, exuding vulnerability even though his acting sometimes lacks polish; in a strange way, he and Hassett make a potent screen duo because the strain of their respective efforts feels compatible.

          Taken together, these two movies are meant to be inspirational celebrations of Kinmont’s triumph over despair, but they also contain three and a half hours of almost relentless human suffering. So, if schadenfreude takes you to your (un)happy place, then a world of wonder awaits on you on The Other Side of the Mountain. (Available as part of the Universal Vault Series on Amazon.com)

The Other Side of the Mountain: FUNKY

The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2: 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

Greased Lightning (1977)

Easily mistaken for one of the myriad demolition-derby comedies that flooded theaters in the ’70s, Greased Lightning is actually a charming biopic about real-life stock-car racer Wendell Scott, a former bootlegger who rose through his sport in the ’50s and ’60s to become America’s first black stock-car champion. Made with an easygoing vibe and a strong pace by cult-fave director Michael Schultz, the picture stars Richard Pryor in one of his most amiable leading performances. While not completely suppressing his comic gifts, Pryor mostly plays it straight, combining the inherent exuberance of a thrill-seeker with the latent anger of a black Southerner busting through racial barriers prior to the Civil Rights era. The story begins just after World War II, when Wendell (Pryor) returns from the war to his tiny town of Danville, Virginia. He marries local girl Mary (Pam Grier), buys a taxicab, and starts a dodgy business driving the community’s mostly impoverished black residents to and from errands. Eager to make more money, Wendell joins his childhood buddy Peewee (Cleavon Little) running moonshine, soon becoming the scourge of local police with his prowess behind the wheel. When Wendell finally gets caught, he’s given a choice: rot in jail, or compete in a dangerous stock-car race where he’ll be a target as the only black competitor. Wendell chooses the race, thus beginning his storied racing career. Given Wendell’s colorful backstory, the movie loses a little of its novelty value once his racing career begins, but the picture is helped along by a solid cast. Grier is lovely and warm in one of her few non-sensationalized roles of the era; Little adds the same sharp timing he contributed to Blazing Saddles (1974); and Beau Bridges is amiable and loose as a good ol’ boy who unexpectedly joints Wendell’s pit crew. A major sequence about two-thirds of the way through the picture suffers because it’s mostly assembled from stock footage, and in general the movie streamlines Scott’s narrative to a fault, so everything plays out in the most sanitized and simplistic fashion possible. Nonetheless, the picture’s fundamentally interesting story and its thoroughly watchable cast make Greased Lightning a fun romp.

Greased Lightning: FUNKY