1980 Week: Prom Night & Terror Train

          John Carpenter’s seminal Halloween (1978) cast a long shadow over the 1980s, providing not only the template for the so-called “slasher movie” subgenre but also introducing a new shock-cinema star in Jamie Lee Curtis, the second-generation actress previously stuck in a middling TV career. Although Curtis soon transitioned to a successful run in big- and small-screen comedy, she reached her fright-flick peak during 1980, starring in two shockers and playing a supporting role in Carpenter’s The Fog. Produced in Canada and released in August 1980, Prom Night continues the Halloween trope of setting bloody stories on holidays and/or special occasions. Prom Night also borrows the basic structure of Halloween, with the survivor of a gruesome childhood incident wreaking havoc years later.

          Specifically, the movie begins with an effective prologue of children playing a nasty version of hide-and-seek inside an abandoned school. The game leads to an accidental death. Six years later, the children associated with the incident have become teenagers, and a vengeful killer stalks them on the night of their high-school prom. Prom Night has an attractive look and a fairly rational approach to characterization. Curtis is not only appealing and confident in her leading performance, but she’s also quite sensuous, foreshadowing her ascension to sex-symbol status a few years later. Unfortunately, Prom Night has significant problems. The filmmakers spend a good hour setting up the characters and story, then devolve into repetitive chase scenes and murders. Curtis’ character doesn’t really do anything, at least not until the final showdown, and top-billed actor Leslie Nielsen disappears from the movie about halfway through. One’s ability to enjoy Prom Night also depends on one’s tolerance for disco (Curtis has a big dance number) and for dubious twist endings. All in all, Prom Night is better than the usual slasher fare, but that’s not saying much.

          Released in October 1980 and also produced in Canada, Terror Train is in some ways a quintessential slasher film, simply because it hits so many familiar tropes. The shocking prologue. The confined setting. The endless string of attractive teens who die while attempting to have sex. The weird killer with a twisted agenda and a thing for outlandish costumes. The wizened mentor/protector character played by a familiar Hollywood veteran. And, naturally, the final-girl standoff. It’s all quite dull, except perhaps for the digressive scenes featuring real-life stage magician David Copperfield as an illusionist. The setup goes something like this. One night on a college campus, pranksters led by arrogant med student Doc (Hart Bochner) trick a dweeb named Kenny (Derek McKinnon) into believing he’s about to get lucky with hot coed Alana (Curtis). Instead, Kenny ends up in bed with a corpse. He freaks out so badly that he lands in an asylum.

          Years later, Doc, Alana, and their classmates celebrate their final year in school by hiring a train for a nighttime excursion through snowy wilderness. Carne (Ben Johnson) is their friendly conductor. One by one, partygoers are killed in horrific ways, so Alana realizes that Kenny must have escaped to seek revenge. Set entirely at night, Terror Train has more atmosphere than logic, but the acting is adequate and the finale is exciting. There’s also quite a lot of eye candy. (Watch for future Prince protégé Vanity as a scantily clad coed.) Make no mistake, Terror Train is often grotesque, repetitive, and stupid—but at least it has a fair amount of action.

Prom Night: FUNKY

Terror Train: FUNKY

1980 Week: Ruckus

          Essentially a dunderheaded precursor to First Blood (1982), this silly action picture falls midway through the cycle of ’70s and ’80s movies about PTSD-addled Vietnam veterans, both in terms of chronological release and quality. Written and directed by onetime stuntman Max Kleven, Ruckus avoids the sleazy extremes of some PTSD flicks, because it doesn’t edge into kinky sex stuff or linger on violence. Unfortunately, by taking the genteel approach, Ruckus ends up seeming cartoonish, a problem exacerbated by Kleven’s genuinely terrible screenplay. Characters in Kleven’s world do things simply because they’re convenient for the story, or because some similar character took a similar action in another movie. Nothing here rings true. Kleven’s direction isn’t much better than his writing, and he regularly slips into unintentional goofiness, as during the spectacularly dumb dirt-bike scene (more on that later). In the first-time filmmaker’s defense, he did not land top-shelf actors for the leading roles. He got Dirk Benedict and Linda Blair.

          The story starts the usual way, with a drifter ambling into a small town. Locals hassle him simply because he’s different. The drifter is Kyle Hanson (Benedict), who for reasons that are never explained has thick mud caked onto his face. While eating lunch at a roadside stand, Kyle encounters Sam Bellows (Ben Johnson), a rich guy whose son is an MIA soldier. This explains why Kyle finds a receptive audience when, later, he breaks into Sam’s home and meets Sam’s voluptuous daughter-in-law, Jenny (Blair). She helps Kyle hide from the locals who are chasing him. Eventually, Ruckus becomes a weird survival story because Kyle occupies a small island and uses guerilla tactics, martial arts, and stolen explosives to rebel invaders.

          None of this makes sense, but Kleven bombards viewers with colorful images. At his worst, he loses his grip on what should be a serious tone—witness the bizarre spectacle of Jenny and Kyle doing coordinated dirt-bike jumps in slow-motion as if they’re Mr. and Mrs. Evel Knievel. Benedict is quite bad, too big in unhinged scenes and too small in quiet scenes, while Blair is blandly sweet and Johnson phones in a non-performance. Only Richard Farnsworth, playing a seen-it-all sheriff, hits the right notes. Incidentally, it’s fun to survey the film’s various posters, seeing as how this picture was marketed as everything from a laugh-a-minute lark to an ultraviolent shoot-’em-up. Alternate titles include Big Ruckus in a Small Town, Eat My Smoke, The Loner, and Ruckus in Madoc County.

Ruckus: FUNKY

Something Big (1971)

          Jammed with entertaining actors and powered by plot elements that worked better in other movies, the comedic Western Something Big is a slog to watch because it’s episodic, phony, and unimaginative. It says a lot about the picture that the protagonist repeatedly proclaims that he wants to achieve “something big” during his lifetime, but the exact nature of that something is withheld from the audience until the final act. Turns out it’s merely an armed heist. Myriad other films have been predicated on the very same threadbare premise, so why all the obfuscation? The solution to this mystery is as elusive as answers to other questions, like why this would-be comedy contains so few actual jokes. If nothing else, Something Big explains why director Andrew V. McLaglan spent most of his career making manly-man action flicks, because a comic genius he is not.

          Dean Martin, looking quite bored, stars as Joe Baker, an Easterner who fled to the West in search of adventure. After years pursuing an outlaw lifestyle, he’s fallen far short of achieving legendary status, so when he learns that his long-estranged fiancée is on her way to collect him, he decides it’s time for a grand scheme. Baker learns that a local thug named Cobb (Albert Salmi) can get his hands on a Gatling gun, so Baker makes a deal. In exchange for the gun, Baker will furnish Cobb with a woman. Baker then attacks passenger wagons until he finds a suitable candidate, Mary Anna Morgan (Honor Blackman). He kidnaps Mary Anna but doesn’t believe her when she says she has powerful allies. She ain’t lyin’. Her husband, Colonel Morgan (Brian Keith), is the commandant of the local U.S. Army fort. And so the contrived plot goes—Baker contemplates trading Mary Anna for the gun even as he falls for her, and Mary Anna grows to respect Baker even though she knows Baker’s fiancée is en route. Lost amid this romantic silliness is Baker’s grand scheme, which should have been the focus of the movie. Worse, Something Big wastes time servicing goofy subplots, notably the one about two horny frontier dames.

          Set to obnoxiously bouncy music by Marvin Hamlisch, Something Big lurches from one disconnected vignette to the next, the appeal of each scene dependent upon the actors present in the scene. By far, the bits featuring Keith as a blustery military officer and Ben Johnson as a gruff scout are the most rewarding. Conversely, the movie squanders the presence of Robert Donner and David Huddleston, who have tiny roles, and the filmmakers give too much screen time to Blackman, Martin, and Joyce Van Patten, all of whom give pedestrian performances. Despite its title, Something Big offers only small pleasures, at best.

Something Big: FUNKY

The Last Picture Show (1971)

          While the career of novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry overflows with great accomplishments, there’s a special magic to the 1971 film The Last Picture Show, the screenplay for which McMurtry and director Peter Bogdanovich adapted from McMurtry’s semi-autobiographical novel. The elegiac film represents a magnificent fusion of two gifted storytellers, with Bogdanovich’s precocious classicism providing the perfect frame for McMurtry’s beautifully sad vision of a small Texas town in decline. The director provides elegant cinematography, taut dramaturgy, and vital performances; the author/screenwriter gives the piece its soul. The result of this combined effort is a wrenching little masterpiece about alienation, betrayal, disillusionment, loss, maturation, and sex. Shot in evocative black-and-white by master cinematographer Robert Surtees, The Last Picture Show is one of the highest accomplishments in screen art from any American studio in the ’70s.
          Based loosely on McMurtry’s memories of growing up in Texas during the postwar era, the film takes place in tiny Anarene, Texas, circa the early ’50s. Although it’s basically an ensemble piece, The Last Picture Show focuses on high school buddies Duane (Jeff Bridges) and Sonny (Timothy Bottoms). At first, Duane seems to have the world by the tail, because he’s a good-looking, popular jock who dates the prettiest girl in town, Jacy (Cybill Shepherd). Conversely, Sonny seems like a lost soul as he breaks up with his high-school girlfriend and commences an affair with Ruth (Cloris Leachman), the desperately lonely wife of his football coach. Yet as the months drag on, it becomes clear that Duane’s future isn’t so rosy; Jacy is a manipulative striver willing to do nearly anything to achieve her goal of marrying into money. Partially as a result of his entanglement with Jacy, Duane discovers not only his own personal limitations (culminating in a rueful instance of impotence) but also the bleak realities of the larger world.

          As they stumble from adolescence to adulthood, watching the town around them decay from neglect and population shifts, the boys occasionally receive life lessons from an older friend named Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson), owner of the local movie theater. The ways in which Sam and his beloved business suffer the ravages of time reveal profound metaphysical concepts that Duane and Sonny must come to understand. Bogdanovich and McMurtry weave a complex tapestry in The Last Picture Show, because the story also involves significant characters played by Ellen Burstyn, Clu Galager, Randy Quaid, and—most heartbreakingly—Sam Bottoms, the real-life younger brother of costar Timothy Bottoms. The irony that a story about a small town is densely populated provides just one of the literary nuances permeating The Last Picture Show. The film is also rich in allegory, metaphor, and subtext.

          Yet the movie is just as impressive in terms of cinematic technique. Bogdanovich shoots street scenes in a style heavily influenced by John Ford, so every dirty window and every wind-blown scrap of garbage says volumes. Similarly, the director films interiors with meticulous care, often framing one character prominently in the foreground, with others situated a distance behind, thereby accentuating the inability these people have to form real connections. And the performances! Johnson and Leachman both received Oscars, and rightfully so. Longtime screen cowboy Johnson unveils a lifetime of repressed feeling in his climactic monologue, and Leachman etches a poignant image of longing. Meanwhile, Timothy Bottoms conveys an unforgettably soulful quality, Bridges tempers his signature exuberance with hard-won wisdom, and Shepherd effectively illustrates the cost Jacy pays for her avarice. Fitting the bittersweet tone of McMurtry’s best writing, The Last Picture Show also features one of the most meaningful downbeat endings of the ’70s. Imprudently, most of the principals returned to the material for the 1990 sequel Texasville (again based on a McMurtry novel), but the follow-up is merely adequate, a faint echo of the original’s thunder.

The Last Picture Show: OUTTA SIGHT

Grayeagle (1977)

Among the more intriguing participants in the assembly line that fed the ’70s drive-in circuit was Charles B. Pierce, a Hollywood set decorator who moonlighted as an auteur of schlocky low-budget features. His work generally comprised rural horror and Westerns, and while Pierce evinced a measure of cinematic skill—for instance, his compositions are almost always pleasing to the eye—his storytelling ranged from the basically competent to the hilariously inept. Grayeagle, one of several Pierce-helmed Westerns with a Native American theme, falls on the “hilariously inept” end of the spectrum. A shameless copy of John Ford’s classic The Searchers (1956), only with a more sympathetic point of view on the Indian psyche, Grayeagle is dull, melodramatic, silly, and turgid. For instance, Pierce awkwardly attempts to generate operatic levels of emotion, so whenever he lingers in slow motion on a “significant” event, the picture slips into self-parody. It doesn’t help, of course, that two of the film’s most crucial performances are outrageously awful. The story  concerns trapper John Colter (Ben Johnson), who lives in the wilderness with his adult daughter, Beth (Lana Wood). One day, Cheyenne brave Grayeagle (Alex Cord) kidnaps Beth, so John and his trusty Indian sidekick, Standing Bear (Iron Eyes Cody), begin an epic rescue mission. Grayeagle is presented as a noble warrior, so, predictably, Beth develops affection for her captor. Eventually, all the plot strands converge in a maudlin twist ending that transforms Grayeagle from an action saga to a would-be tearjerker. Johnson and fellow screen vet Jack Elam, who plays a supporting role, deliver their usual professional work. Cody, best remembered for his role in an iconic anti-pollution commercial, contributes little. As for Cord and Wood, however, yikes. Cord, an Italian, is both miscast and terrible, preening in every shot while issuing dialogue with a comic-book version of plains stoicism. It’s hard not to laugh every time he appears onscreen. Wood, the younger sister of screen legend Natalie Wood, is worse. Screaming idiotically whenever she’s not forming goofy facial expressions, the actress is undeniably sexy but otherwise unwatchable. On the technical front, cinematographer/editor James W. Roberson generates attractive shots of the film’s Montana locations (though his cutting is sloppy at best), and Pierce lends texture with his usual eye for physical detail.

Grayeagle: LAME

Junior Bonner (1972)

          Although it’s a horrible cliché to say that Hollywood success is a double-edged sword, the sentiment is apt when considering Junior Bonner, a lovely dramatic film that probably would have enjoyed broader acceptance had the reputations of the film’s director and star not created inappropriate expectations. The director is Sam Peckinpah, who made this soft-spoken movie as a reprieve from the violent action sagas for which he was famous, and the star is Steve McQueen, whose most popular films involve glossy escapism. As the quiet story of an aging rodeo champ who returns to his hometown with an eye toward resolving longstanding family strife, Junior Bonner is probably the last thing anybody anticipated from Peckinpah or McQueen. Combined with the near-simultaneous release of several other movies about rodeo riders, the disconnect between what audiences wanted from the people behind Junior Bonner and what the picture actually delivers helped ensure a rotten performance at the box office. Happily, critics and fans have elevated the movie to greater notoriety in the years since its original release, because Junior Bonner represents a nearly pitch-perfect collaboration between director and star. (It’s also a damn sight better, in terms of resonance and substance, than the duo’s hit follow-up, 1974’s The Getaway.)

          When the movie begins, Junior (McQueen) trots into Prescott, Arizona, after a grueling and unrewarding rodeo ride. While recuperating in preparation for another shot at the bull that threw him, Junior wades into the fraught relationship of his parents, hard-drinking carouser Ace (Robert Preston) and no-bullshit survivor Elvira (Ida Lupino). As Junior tries to help mend fences, he also must contend with the crass ambitions of his little brother, Curly (Joe Don Baker), who wants to raze old homes (including his parents’ house) in order to build a cookie-cutter development. The contrast between Junior’s old-fashioned independence and his brother’s ultra-modern avarice allows Peckinpah to channel one of his favorite themes—the passing of the West, and the values it represents—through the tidy narrative of Jeb Rosebrook’s screenplay.

          McQueen proves once again that there was more to him than just an impressive macho image, using precision of language and movement to express his character’s inner life as efficiently as possible. McQueen is loose when he needs to be, as during scenes of barroom rowdiness, and tight when he needs to be, as during vignettes illustrating subtle family tensions. Preston channels his charming boisterousness into the character of a loveable rascal, and Lupino is believable as a woman who’s been put through the wringer by a challenging marriage. Baker and costar Ben Johnson contribute two different types of manly energy, with Baker conveying winner-takes-all selfishness and Johnson tight-lipped toughness. For the most part, Peckinpah eschews his signature excesses—the trademark slow-motion shots are used sparingly—so Junior Bonner is a great reminder that before he was a provocateur, Peckinpah was a storyteller. If only by dint of lacking mythic characterizations and over-the-top violence, Junior Bonner is probably the simplest Peckinpah feature, and that’s a good thing.

Junior Bonner: GROOVY

Chisum (1970)

          A textbook example of movie-star ego riding roughshod over a potentially engrossing storyline, this latter-day John Wayne Western puts the Duke’s character at the center of a notorious real-life feud that involved dueling ranchers, out-of-control capitalism, and frenemies Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. Chisum has so many story elements that it feels like a highlight reel from a miniseries, but the centrality of a typical Wayne protagonist bludgeons interesting nuances, transforming Chisum into a flat story of he-man heroism. Making matters worse are such painfully old-fashioned flourishes as the corny songs that play over tedious montages. Chisum has many watchable passages, thanks to abundant action scenes, vibrantly colorful location photography, and zesty supporting performances, but the picture is something of a mess.

          Set in New Mexico circa the late 1870s, the movie revolves around a rivalry between noble cattleman John Chisum (Wayne) and his disreputable competitor, Lawrence Murphy (Forrest Tucker). Chisum owns huge tracts of land but treats people fairly, whereas Murphy is an avaricious creep willing to cheat, lie, and steal in order to expand his holdings. As Murphy’s greed becomes more rapacious, Chisum gathers colleagues including crusty sidekick Pepper (Ben Johnson), fellow gentleman rancher Henry Tunstall (Patric Knowles), and principled nomad Pat Garrett (Glenn Corbett). Also drawn into the good guys’ armada is semi-reformed outlaw William “Billy the Kid” Bonney (Geoffrey Dueul), who works for Tunstall but romances Chisum’s niece. Meanwhile, Murphy gathers a horde of snarling henchmen, played in cartoonish fashion by lively actors including Robert Donner, Christopher George, and Richard Jaeckel. The cast of Chisum is huge, and as a result, most of the actors get shortchanged in terms of character development and screen time.

          Written and produced by Andrew J. Fenady, Chisum attempts to tackle an epic story within the confines of a standard feature, which makes everything seem rushed and superficial. Plus, whenever the movie slows down for something pointless, such as Chisum’s meeting with an Indian chief—a scene that communicates nothing except the lead character’s principles, which have already been described ad nauseum—narrative momentum suffers. As for the performances, Wayne is Wayne, still quite virile and not yet inhabiting the late-life gravitas that made some of his subsequent ’70s Westerns elegiac, while old hands from Johnson to Tucker sprinkle their one-dimensional roles with charm. Unfortunately, the younger players incarnating the star-crossed lovers (any sensible viewer knows it won’t go well for Billy and Chisum’s niece) are bland, and the actors portraying secondary villains have nothing to do except strut around in filthy clothes and shoot likable people.

Chisum: FUNKY

The Sugarland Express (1974)

          An early Steven Spielberg feature that doesn’t get discussed as much as his breakthrough TV movie, Duel (1971), or his effects-driven blockbusters Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), this dark adventure arguably represents an instance of Spielberg tackling mature subject matter before he was ready to do so. Even though the film is highly watchable (and intermittently exciting), it’s easy to see how a director with a deeper worldview—and a different cast, for that matter—could have given the story even greater impact. The movie also has tonal problems, since it wobbles between lighthearted escapism and symbolism-drenched tragedy. Therefore, it’s a testament to Spielberg’s innate talent that the movie mostly overcomes its flaws. Especially during the finale, when Spielberg demonstrates his gifts for imaginative camerawork and meticulous pacing, The Sugarland Express packs a punch.

          Based on a real story about a Texas housewife who busted her husband out of jail and then led police on an epic chase in a reckless attempt to reclaim custody of her infant child, who was in foster care, the movie is a forerunner to Thelma & Louise (1991), the polarizing Oscar winner about two women on the run. Like Thelma & Louise, this movie asks questions about what rights women have in a male-dominated society while delivering an exciting yarn about a likeable antihero fleeing an army of cops. Goldie Hawn, taking a huge leap from the sexy-hippie roles that had dominated her career prior to The Sugarland Express, stars as Lou Jean Poplin, a poorly educated Texan married to a likeable petty criminal, Clovis Michael Poplin (William Atherton). Hawn was obviously eager to demonstrate dramatic range, and she’s fairly persuasive when called upon to embody Lou Jean’s turbulent emotions. Nonetheless, a more experienced actress—Ellen Burstyn, for instance—could have rendered a characterization with more dimension.

          Hawn’s costar, Atherton, is similarly underwhelming. Although a fine character actor with a particular affinity for playing uptight assholes—witness his great work a decade later in Ghostbusters (1984) and Die Hard (1988)—he’s neither a natural leading man nor the right choice for portraying a Southern outlaw. And as for poor Michael Sacks, who plays the highway patrolman whom the Poplins capture for a hostage during their long trek across enemy territory, he barely registers, though much of the fault lies with an underwritten role. Rounding out the principal cast is Ben Johnson, who lends gravitas as the conscientious top cop trying to end the chase without bloodshed—a precursor to the role Harvey Keitel played in Thelma & Louise.

          Working from a superficial but well-crafted script by Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins, Spielberg plays to his strengths, as when he illustrates the reactions of normal people who elevate the Poplins to folk-hero status. It’s also worth nothing that the technical execution of the film is beyond reproach. Master cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond uses the hot Texas sun to sculpt images from long shadows, resulting in one beautiful panorama after another, and The Sugarland Express was the project with which Spielberg and genius composer John Williams began their legendary collaboration.

The Sugarland Express: GROOVY

The Train Robbers (1973)

Quite possibly John Wayne’s least distinguished ’70s Western, The Train Robbers is so enervated that easily one-quarter of the film’s brisk running time is consumed by aimless montages of posses riding across rough terrain. These sequences of horses and riders plodding across deserts or pounding through rivers are pleasant enough, with composer Dominic Frontiere’s lively music complementing lyrical imagery, but after a while it becomes apparent that writer-director Burt Kennedy failed to generate enough plot to sustain a feature film. The overall narrative of the picture is okay, a standard-issue quest involving rough men hired by a lady to recover stolen gold, and there are enough flashes of action and character interplay to more or less justify the movie’s existence. Yet it’s a measure of The Train Robbers’ shortcomings that the closest thing the picture has to a villain is poor Ricardo Montalban, who shows up every 20 minutes or so to glower at Wayne’s gang from a distance, puff on a cigar, and stand still while the image dissolves to another scene; Montalban doesn’t even speak until the very end of the movie. Equally malnourished is the flick’s love-story component, and not just because the gigantic, aging Wayne looks ridiculous when sharing the frame with tiny, young Ann-Margret. The flirtation between the leads comprises the Duke admiring Ann-Margret’s figure and spitfire personality (which is discussed but never really demonstrated) and Ann-Margret, in turn, batting her eyelashes during cringe-inducing interludes such as an unconvincing drunk scene. But, as with so many latter-day Wayne movies, The Train Robbers is really about mythologizing the Wayne persona. In one laughable moment, ornery sidekick Calhoun (Christopher George) is asked what’s wrong with Wayne’s character: Calhoun’s response, delivered with vaguely homoerotic glee? “Not a damn thing!” Alas, such a kind appraisal cannot be made of The Train Robbers, which, it should be noted, never actually features a train robbery. Even the presence of reliable cowboy-movie player Ben Johnson in a supporting role isn’t sufficient to make this one memorable.

The Train Robbers: FUNKY

The Getaway (1972)

          Beloved by many action-movie fans for its intense mixture of double-crosses, sexual intrigue, and violent showdowns, The Getaway was a significant box-office hit for director Sam Peckinpah and star Steve McQueen, both of whom were at commercial crossroads after indulging themselves with financially unsuccessful passion projects. The Getaway is not, however, among the best movies either man made. Convoluted, sleazy, and sluggish, the picture has a few memorable moments, but events on the periphery of the main storyline often distract from the principal narrative.

          McQueen plays “Doc” McCoy, a career criminal whom we meet while he’s imprisoned. Realizing he’s unlikely to earn parole, Doc asks his wife, Carol (Ali MacGraw), to contact Jack Benyon (Ben Johnson), a businessman/criminal with political connections. Benyon gets Doc released in exchange for Doc’s promise to pull an elaborate job. Predictably, the minute Doc performs the crime, Doc and Carol realize they’ve been set up, so the bulk of the film comprises their attempts to escape Benyon’s ruthless minions and exact revenge.

          Peckinpah stages action in his usual style, blending frenetic cuts with lyrical slow-motion interludes, so scenes of guns-a-blazin’ mayhem have power; furthermore, screenwriter Walter Hill, adapting a novel by crime-fiction legend Jim Thompson, keeps things terse. Yet it’s hard to settle into the rhythms of the movie, partially because the lead characters are awful people—when Doc finds out Carol slept with Benyon to expedite Doc’s release, for instance, Doc slugs her—and partially because Peckinpah gets distracted by nonsense. In particular, the director wastes a lot of screen time on a subplot in which one of Benyon’s goons, Rudy (Al Lettieri), kidnaps a veterinarian and his wife, then seduces the wife in full view of the veterinarian, thereby deriving erotic glee from humiliating a nobody. (The wife is played by Sally Struthers, of All in the Family fame, in a screechy performance.)

          Perhaps the moment that best captures the excess of The Getaway is the bit during which Doc and Carol are dumped out of the back of a garbage truck—Peckinpah lingers on the image of two glamorous stars surrounded by junk as if it’s the height of cinematic irony. Were the entire movie not suffused with sludge, literally and metaphorically, this dramatic moment might have meant more; as is, it’s just one more unpleasant scene in a disposable movie. The Getaway was remade in 1994 with then-married stars Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger taking over the leading roles, but even with steamy sex scenes and a vivacious supporting performance by James Woods (as Benyon), the 1994 picture is no more a classic than the Peckinpah film.

The Getaway: FUNKY

Hustle (1975)

          An admirable but not entirely successful attempt at transplanting classic film-noir themes into a hip ’70s milieu, this downbeat detective thriller features the peculiar pairing of delicate Gallic beauty Catherine Deneuve and suave Deep South stud Burt Reynolds. The fact that these actors don’t exist in the same cinematic universe reflects the many clashing tonalities director Robert Aldrich brings to Hustle. After smoothly blending comedy and drama in an earlier Reynolds movie, The Longest Yard (1974), Aldrich tries to do too many things here, because Hustle aspires to be a tragedy, a whodunit, a commentary on sexual politics, and more. Since Aldrich was generally at his best making unpretentious pulp, with deeper themes buried below the surface, his striving for Big Statements is awkward—much in the same way that Deneuve’s cool sophistication fails to gel with Reynolds’ hot emotionalism, the high and low aspects of this movie’s storytelling collide to produce a narrative muddle.

          The picture begins with cynical LA detectives Phil Gaines (Reynolds) and Louis Belgrave (Paul Winfield) commencing their investigation into the murder of a young hooker. The victim’s father, Korean War vet Marty Hollinger (Ben Johnson), is sniffing around the crime as well, because he wants revenge. When clues identify lawyer Leo Sellers (Eddie Albert) as a possible suspect, things get tricky not only because Sellers has political influence but because Sellers is a patron of another hooker, Nicole (Deneuve)—who happens to be Phil’s girlfriend.

          The idea of a cop living on both sides of the law is always provocative, but in this case, Phil’s relationship with Nicole makes him unsympathetic. Tolerating her demeaning career paints him as a user, while pushing her to abandon her work suggests he’s a chauvinist; there’s no way for Reynolds to win. Nonetheless, the actor gives a valiant effort, while Deneuve struggles to elevate her clichéd role despite obvious difficulty with English-language dialogue. Inhibited by iffy writing and overreaching direction, the stars end up letting their physicality do most of the acting—Deneuve looks ravishing and Reynolds looks tough. But that’s not enough. Excepting Johnson, whose obsessive bloodlust resonates, most of the skilled supporting cast gets lost in the cinematic muddiness, and Aldrich does no one any favors by shooting interiors with ugly, high-contrast lighting. Still, Hustle gets points for seediness and for the nihilism of its ending.

Hustle: FUNKY

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)

Despite scoring a major hit on the drive-in circuit with his first movie, the Bigfoot-themed mockumentary The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972), low-budget auteur Charles B. Pierce dabbled in stories about Indians and moonshiners before returning to his comfort zone of Southern-fried horror. Once again flimflamming viewers by claiming that a highly fictionalized story was based on true events, Pierce’s The Town That Dreaded Sundown dramatizes the reign of terror that a real-life serial killer inflicted on a small Arkansas town during the 1940s. To give the story momentum, Pierce and his frequent screenwriter, Earl E. Smith, focus on a hard-driving Texas Ranger (Ben Johnson) who tries to capture the murderer. So far, we’re off to a good start—and, indeed, many aspects of The Town That Dreaded Sundown seem promising at first glance. The title is great, the poster is spooky, and the trope of a psycho appearing from darkness wearing a sack over his head while he wields a pitchfork is memorably disturbing. (A long sequence in which the so-called “Phantom Killer” stalks a woman played by Gilligan’s Island star Dawn Wells almost fulfills this gimmick’s promise.) Unfortunately, Pierce’s usual problems with maintaining a consistent tone and sustaining dramatic interest derail the film. Recalling the faux-newsreel style he used for Boggy Creek, Pierce presents most of the movie like a documentary, complete with narration and re-enactments, but he occasionally abandons the style to showcase long stretches of straight narrative. This doesn’t work. Furthermore, a comedy subplot about an inept policeman (played by Pierce) is beyond tiresome, and the murder scenes are so sadistic they feel out of character with the rest of the picture. In other words, enjoy the poster and skip the movie, otherwise you’ll say goodbye to 86 minutes that could have been spent more constructively.

The Town That Dreaded Sundown: LAME

The Greatest (1977)

          As a keepsake depicting the heyday of one of modern sports’ most celebrated figures, The Greatest is priceless, because boxer Muhammad Ali plays himself in a brisk overview of his illustrious career’s most notable moments. As a movie, The Greatest is, well, not the greatest. Setting aside the issue of Ali’s amateurish acting, since he never claimed thespian skills among his gifts, the picture is so flat and oversimplified that it’s more of a tribute reel than an actual film. At its worst, The Greatest is outright ridiculous. For instance, the opening-credits montage features Ali jogging while George Benson croons a maudlin version of “The Greatest Love of All,” which was composed for this movie even though most people know the song as a Whitney Houston hit from the ’80s. The problem is that the main lyric, “Learning to love yourself/is the greatest love of all,” doesn’t really apply to the former Cassius Clay, whose bravado is as famous as his pugilistic skill; for this man, self-love was never in short supply.

          Nonetheless, it seems the goal of this picture was to portray Cassius/Muhammad as a simple man trying to find his identity while he clashed with racist white promoters and, during his Vietnam-era battle against being drafted into military service, the U.S. government. Unfortunately, the picture doesn’t dig deep enough to feel believable as an examination of the inner man, especially since most of the events depicted in the picture are familiar to everyone, from Ali’s friendship with Malcolm X (James Earl Jones) to his conversion to Islam. The movie’s credibility is damaged further by the filmmakers’ use of actual footage from Ali’s biggest bouts: The movie frequently cuts from shots of a well-fed 1977 Ali to clips of the same man looking leaner in earlier years, even though the disparate shots are supposed to be contiguous.

          Accentuating the cheesy approach are distracting cameo appearances by Jones, Robert Duvall, David Huddleston, Ben Johnson, and Paul Winfield, all of whom breeze in and out of the movie very quickly. (Ernest Borgnine has a somewhat more substantial role as trainer Angelo Dundee.) FYI, cult-fave director Monte Hellman provided uncredited assistance during post-production after the death of the film’s credited director, reliable journeyman Tom Gries; Hellman performed similar duties two years later on the misbegotten thriller Avalanche Express, joining that production after director Mark Robson died.

The Greatest: LAME

Breakheart Pass (1975)

          Though he spent most of the ’70s starring in ultraviolent thrillers, Charles Bronson also displayed a lighter touch in occasional escapist adventures. One of the most diverting of these efforts is Breakheart Pass, adapted by bestselling novelist Alistair MacLean from his own book. Breakheart Pass is a Western thriller gene-spliced with bits and bobs from the espionage and murder-mystery genres, set primarily on a passenger train barreling through the wintry wilds of the Midwest. Governor Fairchild (Richard Crenna) is on board the train to oversee the delivery of medical supplies to a fort that’s suffering an outbreak of diphtheria. During a routine stop in a frontier town, U.S. Marshal Pearce (Ben Johnson) talks his way into passage on the train, bringing along his prisoner, medical lecturer-turned-suspected murderer Deakin (Bronson). Once the train gets moving again, several passengers are mysteriously killed, so Deakin sniffs around and discovers that the diphtheria outbreak is a ruse invented to cover a heinous conspiracy to which the governor is party. So, in the classic mode, Deakin has to figure out whom he can trust as he smokes out the bad guys, all while racing the clock before the train arrives at a rendezvous with destiny.

          Breakheart Pass is enjoyably overstuffed with manly-man excitement: The picture has bloodthirsty criminals, fistfights atop moving trains, marauding Indians, revelations of secret identities, shootouts in the snowy wilderness, unexpected double-crosses, and even a spectacular crash. As with most of MacLean’s stories, credibility takes a backseat to generating pulpy narrative, so trying to unravel the story afterward raises all sorts of questions about logic and motivation. Still, Breakheart Pass is thoroughly enjoyable in a cartoonish sort of way. Veteran TV director Tom Gries keeps scenes brisk and taut, and he benefits from a cast filled with top-notch character players, including Charles Durning, David Huddleston, Ed Lauter, Bill McKinney, and others. As for the leading players, Bronson presents a likeable version of macho nonchalance, while Crenna essays his oily character smoothly. Predictably, the female lead is Bronson’s real-life wife, Jill Ireland, who costarred in a dozen of her husband’s ’70s pictures.

Breakheart Pass: GROOVY

Dillinger (1973)

          Action auteur John Milius couldn’t have picked better subject matter for his maiden voyage behind the camera. A gun nut with an astonishing gift for imbuing dialogue with macho poetry, Milius clearly found kindred spirits in the real-life figures of Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger and his relentless pursuer, FBI agent Melvin Purvis. Crafting one of his finest scripts (high praise, considering he wrote Apocalypse Now and Jeremiah Johnson), Milius deftly parallels Dillinger’s heyday as the scourge of the Midwest with Purvis’ methodical annihilation of public enemies. Milius depicts Dillinger as a flamboyant iconoclast doomed by his greed and his sociopathic rage, and he depicts Purvis as a patient lawman who never hesitates when he gets a crook in his crosshairs. So even as the film hurtles through exhilarating crime-spree passages, there’s a sense of impending doom that colors everything down to leading man Warren Oates’ animalistic performance as Dillinger. As a result, the whole movie feels like a slow burn leading to the legendary explosion of violence that happened in 1934 when Purvis came face-to-face with his elusive quarry outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater.
          Making the most of the minimal production resources available to this tightly budgeted American International Pictures production, Milius employs a spare visual style in order to focus on the Spartan elegance of his dialogue and the violent ballet of his expertly staged gunfights. Incisive lines permeate the picture, like Purvis’ plan of attack (“Shoot Dillinger and we’ll find a way to make it legal”) and a bystander’s rationale for why a group of strangers must be gangsters (“Decent folk don’t live that good”). Keeping his tendency for romanticism in check, Milius integrates ugly elements like Dillinger’s rough treatment of women, the excruciating deaths of gunshot victims, and the carnage visited upon innocent bystanders. So while the filmmaker clearly gets a charge out of the larger-than-life duel between Dillinger and Purvis, he can’t be accused of making the outlaw life attractive. Oates commands the screen, presenting a potent strain of dangerous charisma in every scene, and iconic Western actor Ben Johnson is a perfect complement as Purvis—Johnson’s stoicism sharply contrasts Oates’ hyperkinetic quality.
          Playing members of Dillinger’s gang are an eclectic bunch of actors, including Richard Dreyfuss, Steve Kanaly, Frank McRae, and John P. Ryan; the standout sidekicks are Geoffrey Lewis and Harry Dean Stanton, both of whom deliver funny, tragic performances. Cloris Leachman pops in for a tasty cameo as the infamous “Lady in Red” who accompanied Dillinger to the Biograph, and gorgeous pop singer Michelle Phillips (of the Mamas and the Papas) is unexpectedly good in her first real role, as Dillinger’s longtime girlfriend, Billie Frechette. FYI, a year after this feature was released, a TV pilot called Melvin Purvis: G-Man hit the small screen, with Dale Robertson taking over Johnson's role; Milius co-wrote the script and Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis was the producer-director. A second Robertson pilot, made by Curtis without Milius’ involvement and titled The Kansas City Massacre, appeared in 1975, but the proposed series never materialized.

Dillinger: RIGHT ON

Bite the Bullet (1975)

          There’s a major story problem at the center of this big-canvas adventure set in the afterglow of the Wild West era, so your ability to overlook the problem will determine whether you can enjoy the film’s many verbal, visceral, and visual pleasures. Here’s the problem. A macho adventure story about a brutal 700-mile horseback race across some of the southwest’s most unforgiving terrain, the narrative is predicated on the notion that competitors are willing to endanger their steeds in the hope of winning a significant cash prize. Fair enough. Yet the film’s hero, Sam Clayton (Gene Hackman), is consistently portrayed as such a devoted equine caretaker that he beats the tar out of anyone he observes abusing horses. Therefore, his choice to enter the race—even though his original role was merely to deliver a champion stallion to one of the competitors—makes very little sense. Seriously, is the most effective means of protesting an event that you consider to be inhumane participating in that event?

          As was often his wont, writer-director Richard Brooks pushes the story deep into the Myth of the American Man, which means that notions of heroism and legacy and pride often trump basic logic. That said, for viewers who can overlook the basic disconnect at the heart of the film’s principal characterization, Bite the Bullet is an exciting film.

          Predictably, the race attracts a colorful group of competitors. Clayton and Luke Matthews (James Coburns), are both veterans of Teddy Roosevelt’s famed Rough Riders. Sir Harry Norfolk (Ian Bannen) is an Englishman with high-minded notions of sportsmanship. Carbo (Jan-Michael Vincent) is a hotheaded kid looking to make a reputation as a tough guy, no matter the cost to animals or people. Miss Jones (Candice Bergen) is a prostitute eager to change her life. The oldest competitor (Ben Johnson), is a saddletramp with health problems who never shares his name—making him a surrogate for the countless anonymous adventurers whose labors helped birth the legend of the Old West.

          Brooks, an adept screenwriter who often wandered into strange narrative terrain, mostly stays focused in generating character-driven pathos and rip-roaring adventure, essentially recapturing the vivacious tone of his great film The Professionals (1966) while infusing the picture with a thread of melancholy. Much of this works. Brooks capably introduces the characters with pre-race vignettes, and then he follows groups and individuals during intimate scenes of adversity and bravery. Hackman hits consistently interesting notes by playing to his mean streak while also demonstrating compassion, Johnson hums the same elegiac melodies he performed so beautifully in The Last Picture Show (1971), and Vincent incarnates the arrogance of youth. Meanwhile, Bannen, Bergen, Coburn and fellow supporting player Mario Arteaga add important colors to Brooks’ palette.

         Speaking of palettes, the film looks terrific, with cinematographer Harry Stradling Jr. crafting just the right mixture of frontier grit and nostalgic beauty.

          Ultimately, the lingering image from this picture is that of horses moving in slow motion, sweat pouring out of their bodies in clouds of foam, as their riders push them beyond their limits. One imagines Brooks was after some sort of Big Statement here, so it’s a shame he didn’t find the right leading character to use as a prism. At best, the film’s Big Statement is hopelessly murky; at worst, the assertion is bewilderingly hypocritical. It doesn’t help, of course, that the film is quite long-winded, especially during a pair of endless monologues, one inflicted by Hackman and the other by Johnson.

Bite the Bullet: FUNKY