Le Magnifique (1973)

          How silly is Le Magnifique, a comedic French/Italian riff on the secret-agent genre? A description of the opening scene should answer that question. First, a man steps into a phone booth. Then villains in a helicopter use giant pincers to lift the booth. Next the villains drop the booth into open water, where it settles next to a cage containing a shark. Divers install a chute connecting the booth to the shark enclosure, then release the shark to attack the guy in the booth. A charitable reading of Le Magnifique would denote that scene as a droll satire on the absurdly baroque violence in secret-agent stories. A less charitable reading? Childish inanity. While Le Magnifique eventually manifests a secondary storyline that is more palatable than dopey spoofery, viewers have to power through lots of tomfoolery in order to enjoy stronger elements.

          Jean-Paul Belmondo stars as both Bob Saint-Clar, a lethal stud in the James Bond tradition, and François Merlin, the shlub who writes quickie novels about Bob Saint-Clar. The Bob storyline involves the usual battle against a ruthless nemesis with an army of henchmen. The other storyline tracks François’s growing disenchantment with his pulp-writer lifestyle, plus his involvement with beautiful neighbor Christine (Jacqueline Bisset). She’s working on a degree in sociology and she’s intrigued by the popularity of schlock novels. As the movie progresses, François uses an in-progress manuscript to lampoon aspects of his real life, so Christine becomes Bob’s adoring companion and François’s condescending publisher morphs into the villain who makes Bob’s life difficult. The most imaginative bits of Le Magnifique jump back and forth between the everyday world and the realm of François’s aspirational fantasies. Because the movie’s premise is that François knows his novels are ridiculous, there’s no limit to how outrageous Bob’s exploits can become. At various times, this results in over-the-top gore, leering shots of Bisset running in slow motion, and broad-comedy slapstick.

          Le Magnifique is the kind of lighthearted movie that tries to get by on density and pace—so many noisy things happen in such quick succession that viewers are discouraged from thinking too deeply about characterizations and narrative logic. This frenetic approach works occasionally, but the fantasy scenes get so goofy and repetitive they lose their charm more rapidly than the “real” scenes. Naturally, one’s tolerance for this sort of material depends on one’s familiarity with and/or affection toward the secret-agent genre (spoofs of which were hardly in short supply by the time Le Magnifique was made). Yet the picture boasts enough colorful production design and inviting location photography to provide a candy-coated veneer, and both leading actors understood the assignment. Bisset is dazzlingly pretty even as she struggles to surmount the degrading aspects of her role, and Belmondo has a blast sending up his Mr. Cool image. Le Magnifique also has a solid behind-the-scenes pedigree: writers Philippe de Broca (who directed), Jean-Paul Rappeneau, and Francis Veber all earned Oscar nominations during their careers.

          FYI, this picture is only tangentially related to the prior Broca/Belmondo collaboration That Man from Rio (1964), another spoof of spy flicks; presumably Le Magnifique was retitled That Man from Acapulco in some markets to piggyback on goodwill toward the earlier movie.

Le Magnifique: FUNKY

The Spiral Staircase (1975)

          Tolerable only because of midlevel star power and solid production values, this inert UK thriller squanders a workable premise thanks to shoddy scripting and a directorial approach that prioritizes baroque visuals over compelling dramaturgy. Nearly everything in The Spiral Staircase feels contrived and false, so only a handful of violent scenes have anything resembling energy. Yet the truly confounding aspect of this picture is that it should have worked, seeing as how it’s a remake of the respected 1946 movie starring Dorothy McGuire. (Other versions of Ethel Lina White’s 1933 novel Some Must Watch include a pair of telefilms both titled The Spiral Staircase, one from 1964 starring Elizabeth Montgomery and one from 2000 starring Nicolette Sheridan.) The possibilities arising from a woman-in-peril story about a protagonist rendered mute by past trauma would seem to be nearly limitless, but this picture gets mired in dull domestic drama and presents suspense scenes with such clumsy obviousness that virtually no tension percolates. One is left with little to watch beyond leading lady Jacqueline Bisset’s beauty and costar Christopher Plummer’s unique brand of patrician haughtiness.
          Helen (Bisset), who lost the ability to speak after witnessing a tragedy, works as a caregiver for the elderly matriarch of a wealthy family that includes brothers Joe (Plummer) and Steven (John Phillip Law). Meanwhile, a local serial killer preys upon women with disabilities, triggering fear that Helen might be next on the hit list. Instead of focusing on that intrigue, screenwriters Chris Bryant and Allan Scott (wisely hiding behind a shared pseudonym) and director Peter Collinson lumber through aimless scenes about a drunk cook and a love triangle comprising the brothers plus comely secretary Blanche (Gayle Hunnicut). Most of this material is insipid, nonsensical, or both, and dopey sequences involving mysterious figures scuttling about in nighttime rain provide only brief reprieves from tedium. The Spiral Staircase finally gets down to business in the last 40 minutes or so, with attacks and chases and killings, though it’s pointless trying to track or understand the behavior of anyone onscreen. Still, Bisset is suitably alluring and Plummer is suitably pompous, so at least the movie delivers for fans of those actors. Similarly, Collinson and cinematographer Ken Hodges render lively compositions full of ominous foreground objects and shadowy background spaces, so The Spiral Staircase has the look of a passable shocker.

The Spiral Staircase: FUNKY

Stand Up and Be Counted (1972)

          In what should be a standout moment during the feminism-themed comedy Stand Up and Be Counted, ladies meet for a rap session about their encounters with sexism. Participants include Dr. Joyce Brothers (as herself), future Jeffersons star Isabel Sanford, and a nun. Alas, comedic sparks never fly, because like the rest of this flat-footed studio picture written and directed by men, the scene devolves into oversimplifications and slogans. Progressive-minded producer Mike Frankovich and his collaborators, director Jackie Cooper and screenwriter Bernard Slade, seem as if they perceived the women’s-lib movement as a whimsical fad. To a one, the feminists in this movie are portrayed as shrill whiners whose only real accomplishment is alienating the men in their lives. The picture ends on a fairly hip note, so it’s not quite as dunderheaded an affair as the preceding remarks might suggest. Nonetheless, there’s a reason Stand Up and Be Counted is not remembered as a milestone in Equal Rights Amendment-era propaganda.

          Jacqueline Bisset stars as Sheila, a fashion reporter assigned to do a magazine story on the burgeoning women’s movement. To do so, she flies to her hometown of Denver. (The script pathetically explains Bisset’s English accent by saying she spent time in London.) During the flight, Sheila rekindles her romance with an ex, Elliot (Gary Lockwood). In Denver, Sheila discovers that her mother is part of a “Senior Women’s Liberation” organization, and that her ultra-feminist younger sister, Karen (Lee Purcell), wants to hire a man to impregnate her. Torn between new and old ideas about gender roles, Sheila moves in with Elliot, only to discover he’s a patronizing chauvinist. Other threads involve a housewife rebelling against her domineering husband, and a trophy wife demanding respect for the work she does at her husband’s bra factory.

          Stand Up and Be Counted is one of those bad movies that isn’t really a bad movie. In its clumsy way, the film means well, but problems compound problems. Sheila is a hopelessly passive character, thus draining the movie of momentum, and supporting players deliver livelier work than Bisset, causing her presence to seem ornamental. (She’s simultaneously breathtaking and uninteresting.) Lockwood’s performance is lifeless, Purcell is feisty but underused, and minor turns by comic pros including Hector Elizondo, Steve Lawrence, Loretta Swit, and Nancy Walker offer only fleeting relief from the overall mediocrity. FYI, although Helen Reddy’s anthem “I Am Woman” plays during the closing credits, it was not composed for the picture. After releasing the tune a year before, Reddy re-recorded “I Am Woman” for Stand Up and Be Counted, and the second version became a hit.

Stand Up and Be Counted: FUNKY

Believe in Me (1971)

          Released a few months after Jerry Schatzberg’s harrowing The Panic in Needle Park, this slickly produced drug drama tells roughly the same story, even though the films couldn’t be more different in terms of execution. Whereas The Panic in Needle Park is loose and nihilistic, Believe in Me is linear and tame. Despite its arty excesses, The Panic in Needle Park is something akin to a straight shot of ugly reality. Conversely, Believe in Me is a diluted dose, with the mandates of palatable Hollywood artifice compelling everyone involved to pull their punches. Believe in Me isn’t a rotten movie, per se, and neither does it slip into self-parody, which often happens when mainstream filmmakers try to explore street culture. Nonetheless, it’s way too safe and tidy to have the desired impact, and only one of the film’s two leading actors approaches the necessary level of commitment.

          Lanky and wide-eyed Michael Sarrazin stars as Remy, a young doctor who feels the world too deeply, so he pops a pill every time he’s touched by the plight of a patient, whether a diminished senior or a sick child. Setting aside the major plot point that Remy made an incredibly poor career choice, the movie continues when Remy meets Pamela (Jacqueline Bisset), the sister of a fellow physician. She’s working as an assistant editor on children’s books, but she’s a bit lost in life, so she’s susceptible to Remy’s charms. They move in together, and she soon learns that his drug use is spiraling out of control. She catches him snorting speed, and she lets him spin the fantasy that it’s okay for him to self-medicate because his medical degree allows him to safely manage his intake. Rather inexplicably, Pamela remains with Remy even after he escalates to shooting speed intravenously, and she ignores red flags like the periodic appearances of slimy dealer Stutter (Allen Garfield), who all but directly says he’d like to turn Pamela out as a prostitute. Inevitably, Rmy pulls Pamela into his world of addiction, and that’s when the movie loses its way.

          Not only is Pamela’s embrace of hard drugs dubious from a narrative perspective, but at this stage in her development, Bisset lacked the range to credibly dramatize the leap from buttoned-up city girl to strung-out junkie. Toward the end of the picture, she looks like she’s playing dress-up with her raccoon eyes and stringy hair. For his part, Sarrazin in his prime was so gaunt that he looked somewhat like a junkie anyway, and he was also a deeper actor than Bisset was during her ingénue years. His work here isn’t good enough to fully overcome the picture’s flaws, but he easily eclipses his costar. Adding to the general fakeness of Believe in Me is the gooey score by Fred Karlin, which is punctuated by a tender theme song that Lou Rawls sings, and the sometimes distractingly elegant imagery created by cinematographers Richard C. Brooks and Richard C. Kratina. In other words, good luck believing in Believe in Me.

Believe in Me: FUNKY

 

The Grasshopper (1970)

          How campy is the sexualized melodrama The Grasshopper? In one memorable scene, bereaved heroine Christine Adams (Jacqueline Bisset), still dressed in black from a loved one’s funeral, demands that her limo driver pull to the side of the road and pick up two scraggly-looking hitchhikers. Once the longhairs are inside the limo, Christine screeches, “Are you holding? Do you have any shit?” By the next scene, Christine is unconscious from an overdose, and the movie still has another half-hour to go. Based on a novel by Mark McShane and written by the unlikely duo of Jerry Belson and Garry Marshall, whose most famous collaboration was the 1970-1975 sitcom The Odd Couple, this fast and furious soap opera charts the spiritual decay of a wholesome Canadian girl who tumbles into a degrading cycle of drugs, prostitution, and tragedy. Yet because the Belson/Marshall script is peppered with quippy dialogue and because director Jerry Paris films the whole story with the bright visual style of, say, a Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedy, The Grasshopper is impossible to take seriously. Plus, with all due respect to the fine acting skills that she later developed, Bisset plays the leading role with a kind of sunny vapidity, smiling blankly through some scenes and unpersuasively mimicking anguish in others.

          When the movie begins, 19-year-old Christine drops out of college and flees her home in British Columbia to join her boyfriend, who has already begun his working life in Los Angeles. Along the way, Christine has car trouble and is given a ride by Danny Raymond (Corbett Monica), a Las Vegas nightclub comedian. Although Christine declines Danny’s sexual overtures, she’s dazzled by Sin City while staying overnight there. So when Christine grows bored with her quietly domestic life in LA, she ditches her boyfriend and returns to Vegas, where she gets a job as a showgirl. Eventually, she becomes romantically involved with Tommy Marcott (Jm Brown), an ex-NFL player now working as the manager of a cheesy football-themed restaurant. For a few moments depicting the heyday of the relationship between Christine and Tommy, The Grasshopper is energetic and fresh—addressing miscegenation without sensationalism, the movie draws a connection between two people who wish to be appreciated for more than just their bodies. Alas, Christine’s chance encounter with a horny, Mob-connected businessman (Ramon Bieri) triggers violence, which in turn begins the spiral leading to Christine’s drug problems and sex work. By the end of the picture, when Christine is juggling relationships with an aging sugar daddy (Joseph Cotten) and a craven young stud (Christopher Stone), the lurid aspects of The Grasshopper have spun out of control.

          From start to finish, the presentation of The Grasshopper is slick but garish, epitomized by Christine’s showgirl costume of a blue wig, a sparkly leotard complete with built-in pasties, and giant feather wings. Meanwhile, the soundtrack features absurdly on-the-nose songs explaining the heroine’s emotional state. Brown elevates his scenes with the casual cool he brought to all of his screen work, and some of the supporting players are excellent, particularly Ed Flanders as a sleazy hotel manager. Nonetheless, The Grasshopper is unrelentingly artificial, a cautionary tale without credibility, and a jokey treatment of bleak subject matter.

The Grasshopper: FUNKY

Secrets (1971)

          A psychological drama that’s neither psychologically revelatory nor dramatically interesting, the European-made Secrets might never have reached American screens, because it’s hard to imagine U.S. viewers getting excited about 92 minutes of poorly written and sloppily filmed ennui. However, British actress Jacqueline Bisset unexpectedly transitioned from decorative starlet to full-fledged sex symbol thanks to The Deep (1977), a box-office hit that prominently featured the voluptuous Bisset wearing a wet T-shirt. Secrets, which was originally titled Adultery, features Bisset nude in one scene, so the film’s producers unleashed the film on the American market in early 1978, bogusly marketing the picture as erotica. Bisset, understandably, was not pleased. Cowritten and directed by Englishman Philip Saville, the picture stars Bisset as Jennifer Wood, a bored housewife whose husband, Allan (Robert Powell), is a failed actor reluctantly pursuing an office job. While Allan trudges through an all-day job interview, Jennifer ditches their preteen daughter, Judy (Tarka Kings). Then Jennifer wanders around a city park and mopes, eventually meeting a wealthy middle-aged man named Raoul Kramer (Per Oscarsson). He talks Jennifer into visiting his nearby home.

          Turns out Raoul is a widower, and Jennifer is a doppelganger of his dead wife. As the afternoon unfolds, Saville tediously cuts back and forth between the activities of Allan, Jennifer, and Judy. Allan fumbles the interview but flirts with his interviewer, Beatrice (Shirley Knight). Jennifer dresses up like Raoul’s dead wife and sleeps with him. Judy hangs out with a neighbor, who gives her a plant. Except for some pretentious dialogue and voiceover, that’s all that happens in Secrets, and even the heavily marketed nude scene is underwhelming. Bisset is indeed exposed and glorious, but the scene comprises tame postcoital cuddling, and it’s unpleasant to watch the 17-years-older Oscarsson manhandle Bisset. Secrets isn’t smut, but Saville’s filmmaking is so inept—and the portrayals are so trite—that the movie is deeply boring. Worse, the knowledge of how Bisset’s participation was misrepresented gives the movie a distasteful quality; what the actress undoubtedly presumed to be grown-up drama somehow morphed into lurid exploitation.

Secrets: LAME

Day for Night (1973)

          Easily one of the best movies ever made about the process of making movies, this Oscar-winning François Truffaut feature isn’t precisely the love letter to cinema that one might expect from a critic-turned-director. Rather, it’s a prismatic examination of the gypsy lifestyle shared by movie professionals, who form intimate bonds during the crucible of production only to separate when the shooting stops. Moreover, by giving equal screen time to the private lives of his characters, Truffaut playfully dramatizes the way artists weave illusion into their “normal” activities. For instance, Truffaut appears in the film as a director who is not named François Truffaut but who shares many qualities with his real-life avatar. The film character, Ferrand, is a partially deaf cineaste telling a story about a romantic triangle, and one of Truffaut’s early masterpieces—1962’s Jules and Jim—is a quintessential triangle story.

          In Day for Night, which is named for the practice of shooting daylight scenes with filters so they appear as if they were shot in the evening (a tidy metaphor representing the theme of illusion), Ferrand struggles to complete a movie called Meet Pamela. The movie-within-the-movie is a melodrama about a young man whose bride falls in love with her new father-in-law. Yet the interpersonal fireworks happening around the production are even more intense than those being captured by Ferrand’s camera. His leading lady, British actress Julie Baker (Jacqueline Bisset), is recovering from a nervous breakdown. His supporting players, Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Aumont) and Severine (Valentina Cortese) are former lovers whose reunion sends Severine into an emotional spiral. Ferrand’s young leading man, Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Léaud), is an impulsive romantic whose bed-hopping causes problems throughout production. And so on.

          In lesser hands, this material could have devolved into soap opera. Truffaut ensures that never happens, because he moves gracefully between farcical scenes of narcissistic tantrums, tender passages depicting sensitive people in crisis, and vivid vignettes illustrating the myriad things that go wrong (and right) on movie sets every day. The crowd shot botched by one wayward extra. The dialogue scene thrown off-kilter because a drunken actress can’t remember which door to use for her exit. The crew member who abruptly quits because his mother falls ill. Truffaut’s character sums up the magical madness with his voiceover: “Before starting, I hope to make a fine movie. The problems begin and I aim lower. I hope to make the movie . . . period.”

          Filled with amusing mishaps, believable emotions, painful complications, and precious moments capturing the joy of creation, Day for Night underscores the notion that it’s a miracle any film is ever finished, given the thousand distractions that arise along the way. Further, Day for Night is elegantly made and wonderfully acted. Bisset, who performs much of her role in French, gives a credible turn as a troubled soul, and she’s also at her most mesmerizingly beautiful. Cortese, who earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, is entertainingly overwrought, while Aumont has fun at the expense of movie-star vanity. And Truffaut, who occasionally acted in his own films (as well as the 1977 Steven Spielberg epic Close Encounters of the Third Kind), gives an unsurprisingly authentic turn playing a version of himself.

          Released in America both in dubbed and subtitled versions (the subtitled being preferable), Day for Night won the Oscar for 1973’s Best Foreign Film.

Day for Night: RIGHT ON

1980 Week: When Time Ran Out . . .

It’s hard to imagine a more fitting title for the final big-screen release from producer Irwin Allen, who became synonymous with the disaster-movie genre after making The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974). By the time this enervated flick hit cinemas with a resounding thud, time had indeed run out for Allen’s formula of jamming as many movie stars as possible into melodramatic epics about mass destruction. The disaster this time is a volcano that threatens to consume an island in the Pacific, so the usual Allen contrivances seem especially silly. For instance, tanned B-movie stud James Franciscus plays the requisite cold-hearted businessman who tries to convince island residents that the volcano’s not going to erupt. Really? Then what’s with all the lava and smoke, to say nothing of the corpses left over from scientists conducting tests in the mouth of the volcano? Similarly, the endless scenes of people climbing hills and crossing ravines—running from lava as if the stuff possesses malicious intent—are ludicrous. And while much of the cast comprises such second-stringers as Edward Albert, Barbara Carrera, Alex Karras, and (of course) Allen regular Ernest Borgnine, Allen clearly wrote big checks to get a trio of major stars involved. William Holden plays a hotel owner more concerned with his love life than his professional obligations, Paul Newman plays a heroic oil-rig boss who spots trouble that others can’t recognize (naturally), and Jacqueline Bisset plays the woman caught between them. Never mind that late-career Holden looks so desiccated from alcoholism that he seems more like Bisset’s grandfather than her would-be lover. Anyway, it’s all incredibly boring and shallow and trite, with any potential for excitement neutralized by indifferent acting, leaden pacing, and questionable special effects. Not even Bisset’s spectacular cleavage or Newman’s irrepressible charm can sustain interest. Instead of being a disaster movie, When Time Ran Out is merely a disaster.

When Time Ran Out . . .: LAME

The Greek Tycoon (1978)

          There are at least three ways to watch The Greek Tycoon, a fictionalized take on the marriage of presidential widow Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. (Well, four ways, if you count the option of skipping the movie altogether.) Firstly, you can watch the film in abject horror at the crass exploitation of human tragedy. Secondly, you can experience the movie as a campy jet-set melodrama. And thirdly, you can cut the filmmakers a whole lot of slack by enjoying the piece as the downbeat character study of a larger-than-life individual whose money bought him everything except lasting happiness and social respectability.
          Released in 1978, just three years after Onassis’ death, The Greek Tycoon is among the most shameless cinematic endeavors ever “ripped from the headlines.” Most of the sensational aspects of the Kennedy-Onassis relationship are replicated here—the assassination of a president, the arrangement of a multimillion-dollar marriage contract, the luxury of life on a giant yacht, the controversial business deals. And for everything the filmmakers subtract from the source material (notably absent are stand-ins for Kennedy’s children), the team behind The Greek Tycoon adds in something just as salacious, because the movie features a conniving brother, a suicidal ex-wife, and a tempestuous mistress. It’s all exactly as glamorously trashy as it sounds, right down to the quasi-lookalike casting of Jacqueline Bisset as Kennedy and Anthony Quinn as Onassis. (Perpetually tanned movie/TV hunk James Franciscus appears, somewhat inconsequentially, as The Greek Tycoon’s version of JFK.)
          In the film’s storyline, Theo Tomassis (Quinn) first meets Liz Cassidy (Bisset) and her husband, James Cassidy (Franciscus), while James is a Congressman prepping a presidential campaign. Later, after Liz suffers a miscarriage while living in the White House, she leaves D.C. for a recuperative vacation with Theo in Greece. Then, a year after an assassin shoots and kills James, Liz accepts Theo’s marriage proposal, but with a slew of conditions—such as agreeing to share Theo’s bed only 10 nights each month.

          The Greek Tycoon is a cartoonish riff on history, but the production values are pleasant—cinematographer Anthony Richmond shoots the hell out of the film’s gorgeous Greek locations—and Quinn overacts with his usual operatic verve. Conversely, Bisset and costars Edward Albert (as Theo’s son), Charles Durning (as a U.S. politician), and Raf Vallone (as Theo’s brother) play the material straight, which is unwise. Versatile helmer J. Lee Thompson, who years earlier directed Quinn in The Guns of Navarone (1961), orchestrates the whole silly/tacky endeavor with his usual impersonal proficiency.

The Greek Tycoon: FUNKY

The Thief Who Came to Dinner (1973)

          Like its amiable leading character, The Thief Who Came to Dinner neither contributes much of anything to society nor aspires to do so—this is simply a lightweight caper flick with attractive leading players, an eclectic supporting cast, and a winning sense of humor. Ryan O’Neal stars as Webster McGee, a bored computer programmer who quits his job when he realizes that in a consumerist society, everyone’s stealing from everyone else—so why not just become an actual criminal? Targeting the jet set, people whom he figures can afford to lose some of their extravagant wealth, McGee starts breaking into homes, and the movie has fun demonstrating his not-always-successful methods—for instance, he carefully cuts a perfect hole in a second-story window, only to have the entire window shatter when he extracts the portion he’s cut.

          Eventually, Webster purloins incriminating documents from a corrupt executive (Charles Cioffi), and then blackmails the executive into introducing Webster to other wealthy people during a dinner party (hence the movie’s title). In addition to helping Webster target potential victims, this move connects Webster with Laura (Jacqueline Bisset), a gorgeous heiress. During one of the movie’s most enjoyable dialogue exchanges, Laura reveals that she’s just as impressed with Webster’s looks as he is with hers. “You’re too beautiful to be any good,” she says. “Any good at what?” he replies. “What else is there?” she retorts. Zing!

          Based on a novel by Terrence Lore Smith, The Thief Who Came to Dinner was scripted by Walter Hill, generally known for his terse action stories, and this is by far the best-realized pure comedy in his filmography. Rather than trying for big laughs, he opts for gentle situational humor and soft-spoken running gags, although his gifts for manly-man storytelling serve him well in terms of driving the narrative forward with ticking-clock tension. And even if the cat-and-mouse game that arises between McGee and an insurance investigator is rather trite, the playfulness of the storytelling and the grumpy charm of Warren Oates’ performance as the investigator make the subplot highly rewarding. Pulling all of these disparate elements together into a seamless whole is producer-director Bud Yorkin, a TV-comedy veteran best known as Norman Lear’s longtime producing partner; Yorkin employs unhurried pacing to showcase the ample charms of the cast and the screenplay.

          It helps that composer Henry Mancini gives the movie a smooth lounge-music patina with a jaunty score of the type he regularly generated for Blake Edwards’ Pink Panther movies. It’s also noteworthy that O’Neal gives one of his best performances, slipping comfortably into the skin of a man who refuses to get stressed out by life, and that Bisset complements her remarkable beauty with a deft touch for banter. Plus, any movie with the good taste to feature Ned Beatty, Jill Clayburgh, John Hillerman, Austin Pendleton, and Gregory Sierra in supporting roles is obviously doing something right.

The Thief Who Came to Dinner: GROOVY

The Mephisto Waltz (1971)

          Despite falling well short of greatness, The Mephisto Waltz is an above-average supernatural-horror flick with evocative atmosphere, strong acting, and a unique hook—it’s built around the world of classical music. It should also be noted that the movie stars Jacqueline Bisset at her most ravishingly beautiful, so the eye-candy quotient is considerable. At the beginning of the movie, we meet angsty Myles Clarkson (Alan Alda), a mediocre pianist relegated to interviewing better players in his role as a music journalist. Accompanied by his wife, Paula (Bisset), Myles travels to a sprawling estate for an audience with Duncan Ely (Curt Jurgens), a legendary virtuoso. Although Paula gets a bad vibe off Duncan and his twentysomething daughter, Roxanne (Barbara Parkins), Myles quickly falls under Duncan’s spell—because Duncan claims he can train Myles to become a world-class pianist. It turns out the Elys are Satan worshippers, and Duncan has designs on U-Hauling his soul into Myles’ healthy young body, since Duncan is terminally ill but determined to preserve his genius.

          It’s not giving anything away to say that Duncan succeeds, because the real thrills begin when Paula starts to realize her husband isn’t her husband anymore. Produced by prolific TV guy Quinn Martin (whose output included The Fugitive and The Streets of San Francisco), the picture is capably directed by Paul Wendkos from a script by Ben Maddow (which was adapted from Fred Mustard Stewart’s novel). The execution is stylish even when the story gets convoluted and silly, and the film benefits tremendously from spooky music by composer Jerry Goldsmith. Additionally, the locations are consistently credible, especially the shadowy expanses of the Ely mansion. Yet it’s the acting that really propels the piece. Alda is poignantly narcissistic as Myles, and then appropriately aloof once Duncan’s spirit inhabits Myles’ body, while Jurgens makes a strong impression as a domineering diva during his few scenes. Parkins, whose dark beauty complements Bisset’s natural look, has fun playing a scheming witch, and Bisset lends a certain measure of emotional credibility to her various scenes of anguish and panic. Best of all, the movie twists and turns toward a perverse ending that almost justifies the movie’s overlong, 115-minute running time.

The Mephisto Waltz: GROOVY

End of the Game (1975)

          Ambitious, provocative, and thoughtful—but ultimately jumbled because its reach exceeds its grasp—End of the Game is a twisty whodunit that intertwines the resolution of an epic conflict between two aging enemies with the melodrama of young characters drawn into a scheme beyond their understanding. If that already strikes you as a confusing premise, then you’ve lit upon this highly admirable picture’s main problem: End of the Game tries to tell at least one story too many, and, as a result, all of its narrative elements get short shrift. The movie gets all sorts of points for trying to make a complex statement about morality, but the statement is neither clear nor forcefully expressed.

          Martin Ritt, appearing here as an actor but better known to audiences as a director of sensitive dramas, is appealingly rumpled as a veteran Swiss detective named Baerlach, who has spent decades trying to prove that a powerful industrialist named Gastman (Robert Shaw) once killed a woman. For cold-blooded Gastman, getting away with murder is the ultimate aphrodisiac, so he relishes watching his old adversary struggle with clues and evidence; furthermore, Gastman uses lethal force to protect himself whenever Baerlach gets too close to closing the case. After Baerlach’s aide (Donald Sutherland) dies mysteriously, the relentless investigator decides Gastman was responsible, so he sends an eager young cop (Jon Voight) after Gastman, which unexpectedly draws the young cop’s lover (Jacqueline Bisset) into the intrigue.

          End of the Game was directed by Austrian hyphenate Maximilian Schell, best known as a leading and supporting actor in international movies; unsurprisingly, the flamboyance of his performance style carries over to his directorial approach. (Schell co-wrote the script with German author Friedrich Durrenmatt, upon whose novel the film is based.) Attractive European locations enhance the theme, because it’s as if the “game” has been played since the ancient bridges and buildings surrounding the characters were first erected. More importantly, Schell put together a terrific cast, and the valiant efforts of his leading players make the picture consistently watchable—even when the story becomes impossibly convoluted, the actors ensure that individual scenes are credible and tense.

          The premise of aging adversaries using younger people as pawns is interesting, and the juxtaposition of wise older characters and reckless younger ones gives the picture an existential quality: Everyone in this movie seems to be grasping for the deeper meaning of his or her own life. So, even though End of the Game doesn’t ultimately make all that much sense, it’s worthwhile because what it’s trying to accomplish is so interesting from a psychological perspective.

End of the Game: FUNKY

Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978)

          In culinary parlance appropriate to the subject, Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? is a tasty trifle. The witty comedy offers neither great insights into the human condition nor even any real challenge to the audience (except the usual fun of a clever whodunit), but it’s thoroughly rewarding nonetheless. Featuring charming dialogue, an offbeat storyline, and playfully satirical characterizations, the film is the sort of cultured piffle that Audrey Hepburn made in her prime—which is not entirely coincidental, since the film’s screenwriter, Peter Stone, penned one of Hepburn’s most effervescent classics, Charade (1963).

          The plot is, appropriately, as light as a soufflé. Overbearing gourmand Maximillian Vanderveer (Robert Morley) writes an article for his influential culinary magazine, identifying the best chefs in Europe. One by one, the chefs are murdered, their bodies gruesomely cooked in the manner of their signature dishes. The only woman on the hit list, confectioner Natasha O’Brien (Jacqueline Bisset), understandably worries for her life, so she leans on her ex-husband, American fast-food entrepreneur Robby Ross (George Segal). He’s traveled to Europe to recruit a top chef as the spokesperson for his planned chain of omelet restaurants. Robby is also eager to rekindle things with Natasha, so investigating the murders becomes a grand romantic adventure. Based on a novel by Ivan and Nan Lyons, and directed by reliable journeyman Ted Kotcheff, the movie makes tremendous use of picturesque European locations (London, Paris, Venice), all photographed in a luminous classical style by John Alcott.

          Segal is at the height of his rascally charm, projecting harmless bravado and sly innuendoes; given the highbrow epicurean milieu, it’s effective and funny that his character is a vulgarian who made his fortune feeding slop to the masses. Bisset, for once, gets to offer more to a role than just her considerable physical beauty, and what she lacks in crisp comic timing she makes up for in enthusiasm; she also has a great facility for withering put-downs, usually directed toward the incorrigible Robby. It’s Morley, however, who steals the show, spewing droll barrages of pompous windbaggery. So, while it’s true that the movie gets a bit fleshy in the middle as it churns through necessary plot machinations, the main course is a delight: The film’s elaborate climax, set in and around the taping of a food show, is simultaneously silly and sophisticated. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? GROOVY

The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)

          Screenwriter John Milius crafted this outlandish narrative from the real-life exploits of Old West eccentric Judge Roy Bean, integrating a series of impossibly colorful episodes featuring an albino gunslinger, a lascivious priest, a beer-drinking bear, a legendary stage actress, and frontiersman Grizzly Adams. As directed by the venerable John Huston, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean isn’t remotely believable, but rather so enthusiastically weird that it’s fascinating to realize the movie was released by a major studio.

          Paul Newman stars as Bean, a fanciful drifter who wanders into a bar in the wilds of Texas only to get bushwhacked by unsavory locals. After being nursed back to health by a sweet senorita (Victoria Principal), he returns to the bar and slaughters everyone inside, then establishes the bar as the headquarters of his Wild West fiefdom. Bean declares himself a judge (literally draping himself in the U.S. flag at one point), and makes it a hanging offence for those under his “jurisdiction” to do things like besmirch the good name of Lily Langtry, the actress whom Bean worships from afar. He also attracts a cadre of loyal followers, including pistol-packing “marshals” who enrich themselves by stealing loot from the myriad unlucky souls Bean executes.

          The story eventually becomes a battle of wills between Bean and an ambitious lawyer (Roddy McDowall) who wants to seize the judge’s holdings, but the film mostly comprises a string of strange vignettes. Stacy Keach plays the aforementioned albino gunslinger, strutting around in pasty makeup, an Edgar Winter fright wig, and a spangled cowboy outfit worthy of the Village People. Appearing onscreen as well as directing, Huston plays Adams as a grumpy wanderer who complains the law won’t allow him to die wherever he wants. And so it goes. Huston lets actors run amok with the absurd material, and they look like they’re having a blast; Newman in particular seems thrilled to play a grizzled old coot with a silver tongue and a colossally bad attitude.

          The cast is filled with interesting people, from assorted varmint types (Ned Beatty, Bill McKinney) to those playing random small roles (Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Zerbe). But the real star of this unique show is Milius’ outrageous dialogue, like this rant from Bean after he insults a group of fallen women: “I understand you have taken exception to my calling you whores. I'm sorry. I apologize. I ask you to note that I did not call you callous-ass strumpets, fornicatresses, or low-born gutter sluts. But I did say ‘whores.’ No escaping that. And for that slip of the tongue, I apologize.”

The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean: GROOVY

The Deep (1977)

          Few ’70s blockbusters had the far-reaching impact of Jaws (1975), which spawned not only countless substandard imitators but also a boom period for nearly everyone involved in the original picture. Both phenomena manifested in The Deep, a glossy thriller about oceanic peril based on a novel by the author of Jaws, Peter Benchley. With the additional exception of actor Robert Shaw’s participation, however, the similarities pretty much end there. Whereas Jaws is a robust adventure film with underwater horror, The Deep is a comparatively limp crime picture with underwater boredom. The movie has many noteworthy elements, all of which cheerfully pander to the public’s appetite for lurid sensation, but it’s also a 123-minute slog filled with meandering scenes that go on seemingly forever.

          The story begins when two young Americans who are vacationing in Bermuda discover a shipwreck during a scuba dive in the waters off the island. An artifact they recover catches the attention of a crusty deep-sea salvage expert (Robert Shaw) and a vicious drug dealer (Louis Gossett Jr.), because it turns out the shipwreck is filled with vials containing enough morphine to produce a huge amount of heroin. Accordingly, most of the picture comprises repeated dives to gather booty from the wreck, plus on-shore confrontations like the bit in which the Americans drive scooters while being chased by a truckload of bad guys. The thrills in The Deep are shameless, right down to the tepid running gag about a gigantic killer eel who lurks somewhere inside the shipwreck, and in fact the movie’s best-known element is its tackiest: Voluptuous costar Jacqueline Bisset’s long dive at the beginning of the movie certified her sex-symbol status because she spends the whole sequence in a nearly transparent white T-shirt.

         For good or ill, that sequence is indicative of The Deep’s ample lowbrow appeal. In the same vein, leading man Nick Nolte was at the apex of his handsomeness and youthful intensity, so he’s enjoyable even when he’s chewing the scenery. Shaw, basically delivering a toned-down version of his Jaws performance, is thoroughly entertaining even though he’s saddled with trite material. Gossett is effective as a crook hiding a killer’s heart behind a winning smile, and Eli Wallach adds campy flavor as the old sea dog who helps the heroes on their dives. The Deep falls apart toward the end, resorting to all sorts of tacky fake-outs to ensure a highly improbable happy ending, and fans expecting sea-critter action on the order of Jaws will be disappointed. Still, with its whatever-works mishmash of brazen titillation and luxurious underwater photography, The Deep is enjoyably shallow.

The Deep: FUNKY

St. Ives (1976)

          Charles Bronson’s ’70s filmography is not only massive (23 movies between 1970 and 1979!), but also surprisingly eclectic, with projects ranging from his signature meat-and-potatoes shoot-’em-ups to occasional character-driven thrillers. St. Ives is in the latter mode, with a light drizzling of comedy, so it would be heartening to report that it’s a lost gem. Alas, such is not the case, even though Bronson plays against type as Raymond St. Ives, a crime-book author who moonlights as a courier for assorted disreputable types. Since the character is a suave tough guy instead of the usual Bronson savage, it is painfully apparent the producers conceived this movie for Steve McQueen and settled for Bronson without tweaking the material accordingly. Bronson also neglected to adjust his style for this atypical character, which exacerbates the problems of an illogical and uneventful script. As a result, the picture never achieves liftoff. Helmed by regular Bronson collaborator J. Lee Thompson with blunt force when a sly Hitchcockian approach was needed, St. Ives could have been a pithy mystery complete with a smart-ass hero and a smoldering mystery woman (Jacqueline Bisset), but instead, it’s a dull action movie filled with ineffective dialogue scenes.

          The movie starts promisingly, providing interesting details about the protagonist (he used to be a crime reporter, justifying his nonplussed attitude toward crooks), but once the story gets humming, St. Ives gets stuck in the machinations of a murky plot, endangering the lead character in ways that don’t have much credibility or impact. St. Ives swans in and out of adventures indifferently, and it feels as if he could walk away at any point without consequences. The story has something to do with St. Ives being hired by a wealthy eccentric (John Houseman) to recover stolen ledgers containing incriminating evidence, although the filmmakers never properly explain why the eccentric hires an outsider for a simple job. For a while, it’s novel to watch Bronson get into a different kind of trouble (following clues instead of simply annihilating everyone in sight), but soon enough St. Ives falls into the actor’s usual violent groove. Worse, the movie implodes when it tries to present a complex pattern of double-crosses that kills momentum and muddies the narrative. So even though the cast is filled with enjoyable performers (Dana Elcar, Dick O’Neill, Maximillian Schell, even a young Robert Englund), and despite the fabulously dated but spunky jazz-disco score by Lalo Schifrin, St. Ives is a dud.

St. Ives: LAME

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

 

          The praise lavished on this bloated Agatha Christie adaptation (including six Oscar nominations and one win) has always mystified me, because while Murder on the Orient Express is a handsomely made film with an intelligent script and an amazing cast, it’s still just a contrived and methodical whodunit. It appears that much of the picture’s novelty derived from the fact that it was a throwback not only to a beloved Hollywood genre, but also to a more sophisticated time in terms of diction, fashion, and manners; somewhat like the aesthetically pleasing accoutrements of the same year’s Chinatown, this film’s glamorous production values and swellegant ’30s costumes were a change of pace from the gritty realism that dominated early ’70s cinema. Furthermore, Murder on the Orient Express is that rare all-star jamboree in which each actor has something interesting to do, with several performers receiving impressive showcase scenes, and even elaborate subplots, during the course of the movie’s lumbering 128 minutes. One could never accuse Murder on the Orient Express of shortchanging the audience.

          As for the story, which screenwriter Paul Dehn adapted from Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel, it’s ingenious but not necessarily persuasive, and the lack of any real emotional heft means the experience of watching Murder on the Orient Express is all about luxuriating in production-design eye candy, piecing together clues, and savoring star power. Set in 1935, the movie finds Christie’s urbane detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney) riding the famous train mentioned in the title. Poirot becomes enmeshed with a group of people including wealthy American Samuel Ratchett (Richard Widmark), so when Ratchett gets stabbed to death early in the journey, Poirot and Signor Bianchi (Martin Balsam), an executive with the company that owns the train, join forces to determine which passenger was responsible for the crime. The gimmick, as per the Christie formula, is that everyone in a confined space is a suspect, so the closer the investigation gets to the truth, the greater the danger becomes for everyone involved. Despite the film’s posh trappings, this is not highbrow stuff.

          Worse, Murder on the Orient Express is tedious, at least from my perspective, and director Sidney Lumet’s overly respectful treatment is part of the problem. Treating Christie like Shakespeare is as absurd as, say, treating John Grisham the same way. There’s simply no reason for this empty spectacle to sprawl over such a long running time. Giving credit where it’s due, however, Murder on the Orient Express is a visual feast. The clothes, linens, and table settings make the titular train seem like a rolling four-star hotel, and cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth uses his signature haze filters to make everything look painterly—to a fault, because sometimes it’s hard to distinguish details. But the biggest selling point, of course, is the high-wattage cast. Beyond those mentioned, players include Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman (who won an unexpected late-career Oscar for her work), Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, and Michael York.

Murder on the Orient Express: FUNKY