1980 Week: Night of the Juggler

          The harshness of life in ’70s New York City inspired countless film and TV projects—after all, what better setting for pulp-fiction stories than a gritty metropolis filled with corrupt cops, frustrated citizens, petty criminals, and violent street gangs? Consider Night of the Juggler, an otherwise forgettable thriller starring James Brolin and Cliff Gorman. Out of context, it’s a silly action/suspense flick about a lunatic who accidentally kidnaps an ex-cop’s daughter in a failed extortion scheme. In context, the picture speaks to the same paranoia that gave rise to Death Wish (1974), The Warriors (1979), and so many other projects. Brolin stars as Sean Boyd, a divorced Californian now working as a truck driver to help support his daughter, Kathy (Abby Bluestone), who lives with her mother. One day, unhinged Gus Soltic (Gorman) snatches Kathy from a park, mistaking her for the daughter of a corporate tycoon. Sean witnesses the crime and nearly rescues his daughter, but Gus gets away and plunges Sean into an ordeal. Sean also clashes with authorities including Sgt. Otis Barnes (Dan Hedaya).

          As directed by the prolific and versatile Robert Butler, who spent most of his career in TV, Night of the Juggler moves along at a terrific pace, with Brolin’s character almost constantly in motion, whether he’s battling an opponent, hassling someone with information, or fleeing those who seek to impede his search. The movie ventures into many of New York’s dodgiest areas, from the sex palaces of pre-Giuliani Times Square to the ravaged war zone of the Bronx, so Night of the Juggler has atmosphere to spare. (As for the iffy title, Gorman’s character delivers this dialogue: “I’m gonna juggle the books my way and it’s gonna balance out for me!”). This is almost laughably shallow material, and more than a few ugly stereotypes find their way into the mix, as when Sean calls a Latino gang “a mean bunch of chili peppers.” Still, Night of the Juggler offers minor pleasures. Brolin gives one of his stronger performances, Gorman infuses his creepy character with a pathetic quality, and some of the supporting turns are juicy—beyond the always-entertaining Hedaya, watch for Godfather guy Richard Castellano as a cop and Mandy Patinkin as a Puerto Rican (!) cab driver.

Night of the Juggler: FUNKY

The Boys in the Band (1970)

          At the time of its release, The Boys in the Band was groundbreaking for the simple reason of containing only gay and/or bisexual characters—so it’s no surprise the movie has been praised and vilified in equal measure. This ability to generate controversy is a credit to Mart Crowley, the writer-producer of the movie and the author of the play upon which it is based. In crafting a tense ensemble drama with nine characters representing various archetypes of gay American males, Crowley essentially wrote a referendum on being homosexual at the end of the ’60s, exploring camp, denial, gamesmanship, lust, promiscuousness, regret, self-loathing, and other hot-button issues. The Boys in the Band is emotional and humane, but it’s also deliberately provocative. Further complicating the discourse around the movie is the fact that The Boys in the Band was directed by a straight man, William Friedkin. All of this behind-the-scenes tsuris suits the material, since The Boys in the Band is—in its own vernacular—a story about queens at war.

          The entire picture takes place in the Greenwich Village apartment of Michael (Kenneth Nelson), a self-confident professional who’s throwing a birthday party for his old friend Harold (Leonard Frey), to which all of their buddies are invited. Among the guests are mincing Emory (Cliff Gorman) and stoic Hank (Laurence Luckinbill); their wildly different styles of self-presentation are pivotal to the story. The evening’s X factor is Michael’s old school friend, Alan (Peter White), who shows up in New York the night of the party and insists on seeing Michael. Interpersonal fireworks explode the minute Alan arrives, especially when Michael becomes a mean drunk and Harold reveals himself as a vengeful monster.

          Most of the drama revolves around the question of how gay men live in a homophobic world. Emory flaunts his identity in order to hide insecurity; Hank lives a double life, splitting his time between a boyfriend and a wife; Michael exists openly but hates himself; and Harold uses booze and sex to obscure reality (“I’m a 32-year-old, ugly, pockmarked Jew fairy,” he moans at one point). Crowley strikes an effective balance between leaving these anguished characters adrift and providing narrative closure, so the theme of people living under cultural siege comes through strongly. At its best, the film is harrowing, though it’s a good 20 minutes too long.

          Friedkin uses intricate editing and meticulous pacing to accentuate the performance rhythms of the strong cast, which was directly transposed from Broadway. Frey gets all the best lines, entering the story late and delivering grade-A bitchery from behind tinted glasses. He’s ferocious. Nelson plays a huge range of moods well, even when he’s forced to articulate the story’s themes in overly explanatory dialogue. Gorman, meanwhile, delivers the movie’s lightning-rod performance, straddling the line between camp and caricature.

          The Boys in the Band is a fascinating document of an era that’s long gone in some parts of the US—even as the same fear and prejudice that inspired Crowley’s story remain in force elsewhere. FYI, the behind-the-scenes drama of this project was explored in a feature-length documentary, Making the Boys (2011), which features remarks from Crowley and Friedkin, among others.

The Boys in the Band: GROOVY

Cops and Robbers (1973)

          A lighthearted crime thriller unwisely marketed as an out-and-out comedy, Cops and Robbers features a clever plot, flavorful ’70s atmosphere, and exuberant performances by a pair of actors not customarily cast as leads. The movie has significant tonal inconsistencies, and (like all heist movies) raises the question of why we should care about people who steal, but it’s so brisk and watchable that it’s worth investigating. Joe (Joseph Bologna) is a New York City beat cop exasperated by his inability to get ahead financially. So, one evening, he walks into a liquor store in full uniform and robs the place. Afterward, Joe tells his plainclothes-detective buddy Tom (Cliff Gorman) how easy it is to exploit the power of the badge. Determined to stage a major heist so he and Joe can retire into luxury, Tom approaches mid-level mobster Pasquale Aniello (John P. Ryan) for advice. Amazed at the policeman’s hubris, Aniello says that if Tom and his partner steal $10 million in bearer bonds from Wall Street, he’ll pay the cops-turned-crooks a cool $2 million.

          Written by crime novelist Donald E. Westlake, Cops and Robbers scores on two levels. The central crime is just weird enough to jibe with reality, and the straightforward motivation of the lead characters speaks to universal frustrations with the slow pace of making an honest buck—even though it’s hard to actually like Joe and Tom, since they flagrantly violate the public trust, it’s easy to see what pushes them toward criminality. Westlake also does a clever job of illustrating that everyone in the system is ripping off everyone else (brokers are robbing from brokers, crooks are robbing from crooks), creating the illusion of a victimless crime. In that context, the fun of the movie is watching Joe and Tom work out the particulars of their crime, even as a hundred things go wrong on the big day. The heist scene is meticulously paced and staged, with all sorts of nerve-jangling complications, and the offbeat climax takes place in Central Park on “Bicycle Day.”

          Editor-turned-director Aram Avakian predictably does best in action scenes, when he’s able to shape varied footage into taut vignettes, though he doesn’t quite succeed in coaxing his actors toward matching the jaunty tone of the script. As a result, Cops and Robbers is a bit too serious for its own good, which is compounded by a downbeat score featuring the frequently repeated R&B theme song “A World of Cops and Robbers.” It also feels like a couple of dramatic beats are missing, with characters making confusing leaps forward, and Bologna and Gorman, though both very skilled at expressing their characters’ frustrations, aren’t exactly the most charismatic performers. Nonetheless, more goes right than wrong in Cops and Robbers, and the cast features a slew of interesting Noo Yawk supporting players, like Joe Spinell and Dolph Sweet.

Cops and Robbers: GROOVY