Red Sky at Morning (1971)

          An earnest coming-of-age story that wears its literary origins proudly, Red Sky at Morning offers an interesting mixture of artifice and authenticity. Produced by Hollywood veteran Hal Wallis, the picture has a gentle and old-fashioned style, even though explorations of race and sex reflect somewhat contemporary attitudes. In other words, the picture surrounds modern thought with a thick shell of Capra-esque hokum. Yet the script, adapted by Margeurite Roberts from Richard Bradford’s novel, is methodical and sensitive in its portrayal of a young man forced by circumstances to embrace a larger world than the one he’s known. That the film contains Richard Thomas’ first leading performance is significant, because for all his limitations as a young actor, Thomas demonstrated a tremendous gift for expressing the confusion of adolescence.

          The picture begins in Alabama, where Frank Arnold (Richard Crenna) prepares for Naval service in World War II. A middle-aged businessman, he enlisted because of patriotism. Before shipping out, Frank escorts his fragile Southern-belle wife, Ann (Claire Bloom), and their teenaged son, Joshua (Thomas), to the family’s second residence in New Mexico, planning for them to live quietly in the Southwest until his return from the war. After Frank leaves, Joshua goes through the predictable difficulties of forming social connections at a new school. He bonds with a misfit intellectual named Marcia (Catherine Davidson) and an extroverted Greek nicknamed “Steenie” (Desi Arnaz Jr.). The trio’s extracurricular adventures include a gross-out test of nerves involving a dead cow. Concurrently, Joshua gets into a hassle with local thugs and watches with alarm as his mother’s sleazy cousin, Jimbob (John Colicos), arrives with designs on taking the absent Frank’s place.

           The plot is dense and rich, sometimes to a fault, but the end result is that Red Sky at Morning takes viewers on a tonally varied journey. Although some supporting characters get such short shrift that removing them entirely would have been advisable, even the peripheral people in Red Sky at Morning generate interesting moments. Ultimately, the story is about Joshua’s growth. His experiences constitute a greatest-hits collection of adolescent milestones, from confronting a parent to losing his virginity, so Thomas gets to play an incredible spectrum of emotions. He mostly serves the material well, as do Bloom, Burns, and Crenna. Arnaz, despite earning a Golden Globe nomination for his work, is forgettable, easily overshadowed by a miscast Harry Guardino and an even-more-miscast Nehemiah Persoff. (Born in Jerusalem, he plays a Latino.) Also strong is Gregory Sierra’s lived-in performance as a local cop.

          Red Sky at Morning gets lost in the wilds of its own storyline at regular intervals, so it’s an unruly piece of work. Nonetheless, the same intricate layers of backstory and characterization that contribute to murkiness give Red Sky at Morning its appealing immersiveness. The film has a strong sense of time and place, and the centrality of Thomas’ character provides a clear point of view.

Red Sky at Morning: GROOVY

Doctors’ Wives (1971)

          Pure trash that’s bearable only because of the lurid storyline and the presence of many skilled actors, Doctors’ Wives is a melodrama about the problems of wealthy surgeons and their long-suffering spouses. Somewhat improbably, the movie revolves around a murderer’s elaborate scheme to escape police custody and flee to Europe. And if that makes you think that perhaps a thoughtful examination of the medical community is not the real goal of this movie, then congratulations, you’ve cracked the code. Even with two lengthy surgery scenes that integrate bloody documentary footage, this movie’s about the healing arts in the same way that the 1980s TV show Dynasty was about big business. The nominal milieu is nothing but an excuse for depicting people with too little compassion and too much money.

          The main characters are Dr. Brennan (Richard Crenna) and his estranged wife, Amy (Janice Rule); Dr. Gray (Carroll O’Connor) and his self-loathing wife, Maggie (Cara Williams); Dr. Randolph (Gene Hackman) and his embittered wife, Delia (Rachel Roberts); and Dr. Dellman (John Colicos). In the opening scene, Dr. Dellman’s horny wife, Lorrie (Dyan Cannon), announces her plan to sleep with all of the doctors in order to report back to the women on each man’s sexual failing. When Dr. Dellman catches Lorrie in bed with a surgeon, he shoots her dead, wounding the surgeon in the process. Dr. Dellman confesses and surrenders to the police, but then he contrives a plan. He uses dirty secrets to blackmail his fellow doctors for getaway money, and when he’s asked to perform emergency surgery on a boy who requires Dr. Dellman’s specialized services, Dr. Dellman makes arrangements to slip out of the hospital, avoiding the cops who are watching him. Also thrown into the mix is a tawdry subplot about Dr. Brennan’s extramarital affair with an African-American nurse, Helen (Diana Sands), as well as a separate subplot about a doctor’s wife stealing his meds in order to feed her appetite for morphine.

          Suffering from one-dimensional characterizations and trite dialogue, Doctors’ Wives is so generic that even the best actors in the cast operate, no pun intended, while handicapped by the material. O’Connor and Sands wring some pathos out of key scenes, but otherwise everyone is stuck delivering obvious lines amid predictable scenarios. At least the flmmakers keep things moving along quickly, so viewers never have to linger on any particular scene very long. It says a lot that Cannon, the liveliest actor in the cast seeing as how Hackman is hamstrung by the limitations of a small secondary role, disappears from the movie after the first 10 minutes. When a movie that’s largely about sex loses its principal sexpot early, that’s a sure sign of trouble.

Doctors’ Wives: FUNKY

The Wrath of God (1972)

          Not to be confused with the amazing German film Aguirre: The Wrath of God, which was also released in 1972, this American production is a routine action picture starring the venerable Robert Mitchum as a gun-toting con man wreaking havoc in South America during the 1920s. Notwithstanding Mitchum’s top billing, the lead character is actually portrayed by workaday Scottish actor Ken Hutchison. He plays Emmet, a ne’er-do-well European stranded in a dingy Latin American nation. Emmet reluctantly accepts a job from corpulent gringo crook Jennings (Victor Buono) to drive a truck filled with illegal liquor to the U.S. Along the way, Emmet meets an amiable priest named Father Van Horne (Mitchum). Next, Emmet gets into a hassle while preventing banditos from raping a native woman, Chela (Paula Pritchett). Unexpectedly, Van Horne comes to his new friend’s aid—by unleashing the machine gun hidden in his luggage. Yet somehow, the storyline gets even more random after that turn of events.

          A powerful military official, Colonel Santila (John Colicos), recruits Emmet, Jennings, and Van Horne for a suicide mission to depose Thomas De La Plata (Frank Langella), the crazed aristocrat controlling a small town, so the movie’s climax involves a violent showdown between the “heroes” and De La Plata’s ruthless gang. Featuring all of these disparate elements plus other incidental flourishes, like Rita Hayworth’s tiny role as De La Plata’s mother, The Wrath of God is diffuse in the extreme. Produced and directed by the proficient Ralph Nelson, the movie can’t decide on a consistent tone or a main character: The picture vacillates between black comedy and bloody action while the Emmet and Van Horne characters compete for prominence. Nonetheless, some of what happens is mildly exciting, and some of the actors deliver enjoyably florid performances. Buono’s sardonic volatility complements Langella’s over-the-top intensity, for instance, although Mitchum is Mitchum, to the degree that he sometimes seems as if he wandered in from another movie. Poor Hutchison gets lost in the shuffle, particularly since his character’s motivation seems to change with every scene. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

The Wrath of God: FUNKY

Scorpio (1973)

          The overcooked but diverting Cold War-era espionage thriller Scorpio stars Burt Lancaster as Cross, a CIA agent marked for extermination because his superior believes he’s turned double agent for the Soviets. The “Scorpio” of the title is Cross’ onetime apprentice, Frenchman Jean Laurier (Alain Delon), a suave killer the CIA uses to ice foreign enemies the company can’t “officially” eliminate. Cross’ nefarious boss, McLeod (John Colicos), hires Laurier to kill his former mentor, but Cross realizes he’s been targeted and escapes from his home base in Washington, D.C., to Europe. This sets the stage for cat-and-mouse intrigue set in Paris and Vienna, some of which is quite zippy, like a lengthy shootout at a construction site.

          However, more interesting that the action stuff is the camaraderie Cross shares with his longtime KGB counterpart, Zharkov (Paul Scofield). Both men have outgrown ideological differences, and they recognize that their ambitious young superiors are more interested in political advancement than actual counterintelligence. Zharkov finds his old friend a hiding place in Vienna, clues him in to the movements of CIA operatives assisting Laurier, and talks shop over long drunken evenings. Watching these old lions debate the broad strokes of the Cold War is fascinating, even though their exchanges are muddied by occasionally pretentious dialogue.

          Scorpio is generally smart and tense, but it’s a difficult movie to follow—not because the story is overly sophisticated, but because the filmmakers often forget to give viewers key information. The biggest flaw in this regard is that we’re never told why McLeod believes Cross went rogue, which is pretty much the whole show. However, as directed by thriller veteran Michael Winner (who never let script problems get in the way of a violent action scene), the film zooms past narrative hiccups like a getaway car blasting over speed bumps. Lancaster works a world-weary groove that keeps his tendency toward macho preening in check (though he demonstrates still-impressive athleticism in action scenes), and Delon is perfectly cast as a cool professional with a soft spot for stray cats. Scorpio is far too long at 114 minutes, and there are so many plot twists that the movie eventually exhausts itself, but there’s a lot of interesting stuff along the way.

Scorpio: FUNKY

Breaking Point (1976)

Yet another in the endless stream of vigilante flicks that spewed forth after the success of Straw Dogs (1971) and Death Wish (1974), this Canadian actioner starring long-forgotten ’70s leading man Bo Svenson falls short in terms of characterization, drama, logic, and thrills. The last exploitation flick that eclectic director Bob Clark made before going mainstream with 1979’s Murder by Decree, the picture is competent to the point of utter homogenization, as if an editor threw pieces of similar films up in the air and then assembled the pieces in more or less the right order to create a Frankenstein hodgepodge of a vigilante movie. In other words, everything in Breaking Point was done better elsewhere. As is the norm in the genre, a decent man gets on the wrong side of bad people, then takes all he can take until he reaches his—well, it’s all in the title, isn’t it? Michael McBain (Svenson) is an unassuming judo instructor (convenient!) who witnesses a mob-related crime, then enters witness protection under the care of cop Frank Sirrianni (Robert Culp) while preparing to testify against the soldiers of crime boss Vincent Karbone (John Colicos). Predictably, Karbone’s people reach McBain where he’s most vulnerable, by violently harassing the people he loves, so soon enough McBain has to unleash some of his judo whup-ass on the villains. Lacking the psychological complexity of Straw Dogs and the relentless intensity of Death Wish—or even the go-for-broke excess of a self-respecting exploitation picture—this film offers all of the shortcomings of the vigilante genre and none of the cathartic jolts. Clark’s direction is indifferent, as if he had already left the grindhouse in spirit, and Svenson is believably tough but in every other regard forgettable. Thus, the only reason to watch Breaking Point is to discover how long it takes for you to reach your napping point.

Breaking Point: SQUARE

Battlestar Galactica (1979) & Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979)

          Writer-producer Glen A. Larson started developing the TV series that became Battlestar Galactica in the late ’60s, but didn’t get a green light until the success of Star Wars (1977) made space opera fashionable. To help recoup costs (reportedly $1 million per episode), Universal assembled chunks of early episodes into a theatrical feature, which was exhibited internationally beginning a few months prior to the series’ small-screen debut, then released in the U.S. less than a month after the series was cancelled. The feature is more than enough vintage Galactica for anyone but a hardcore fan, and devotees of the 2003-2009 Galactica reboot will find none of that series’ provocative psychodrama or topicality in the straightforward original. A pleasant overdose of goofy genre tropes, the 125-minute Galactica feature is filled with wooden actors playing stock characters amidst gaudy production design and Star Wars-lite battle scenes. 
          The story follows military commander Adama (Lorne Greene) as he leads a group of spaceships in flight from their devastated home worlds after a sneak attack by nasty aliens called Cylons. (The term “Cylon” refers to both robotic soldiers and their lizard-like overlords.) Various human characters struggle with food shortages, wartime trauma, and a host of other melodramatic crises, all while wearing action-figure-ready costumes. Enlivened by a fairly imaginative plot and the presence of polished guest stars including Ray Milland and Jane Seymour, Galactica moves along briskly, and some of the outer-space imagery is quite memorable, such as energetic scenes in which heroes launch their “Viper” spaceships out of tubes housed inside the titular warship. As for the stars, Greene and leading man Richard Hatch are painfully earnest, so Dirk Benedict fares much better as a swaggering pilot in the Han Solo mode, while John Colicos, who plays the main human baddie, chews scenery like a termite let loose in a lumberyard, making his performance a guilty pleasure. Although most of the scripting is clumsy and predictable, Battlestar Galactica never wants for spectacle.
          After Galactica was cancelled, Larson took another stab at televised sci-fi with Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, a retread of the old pulp/serial character. This time, Universal released a feature version of the pilot episode in the U.S. several months before the series debuted, generating a minor box-office hit in the process. Alas, the Buck Rogers movie is as tiresome as the Galactica movie is diverting. Gil Gerard plays the title character, a modern-day spaceman who falls into suspended animation until the 25th century, when he joins futuristic earth denizens in a galactic battle against a psychotic space princess and her various minions. As the princess, Pamela Hensley is all kinds of sexy, but the movie gets derailed by dopey flourishes including a campy dance sequence, horrible jokes, pervy costumes (must everything be skin-tight?), and a cutesy robot voiced by Mel Blanc. Whereas Battlestar aimed for the all-ages appeal of Star Wars by balancing cartoonish aliens and laser fights with grown-up sociopolitical themes (even if they were handled simplistically), Buck Rogers targets infantile viewers with incessant silliness. More than a few scenes make the viewer feel embarrassed for those responsible.

Battlestar Galactica: FUNKY
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: LAME

Drum (1976)

A quasi-sequel to the trashy hit Mandingo (1975), Drum has a doozy of a plot. New Orleans madam Marianna (Isela Vega) gets pregnant by a slave, so she pretends the resulting child, Drum, is that of her servant/lesbian lover. Twenty years later, muscle-bound Drum (Ken Norton) is a slave in Marianna’s whorehouse, where unsavory customer DeMarigny (John Colicos) forces him to brawl with another slave, Blaise (Yaphet Kotto), because DeMarigny gets off on sweaty black men. When Drum violently rebuffs DeMarigny’s sexual advances, Marianna protects her son from reprisal by selling Drum (and Blaise) to Hammond (Warren Oates), who runs a stud farm for breeding slaves. Hammond’s got headaches with his shrewish fiancée, Augusta (Fiona Lewis), who wants to reform her crass husband, and his horny daughter, Sophie (Cheryl Smith), who can’t keep her hands off male slaves. When Hammond discovers that Blaise dallied with his daughter, he threatens castration, so Blaise leads a bloody revolt. As the movie speeds toward its violent finale, there are countless nude scenes, brawls, and whippings, plus utterances of the n-word in every conceivable context. The trouble with critiquing a movie like Drum is that even though it’s awful because of its incessant bad taste, it’s entertaining for the same reason. Appraised solely as overwrought melodrama, Drum is a rousing success: Even while cringing at the movie’s political incorrectness, it’s hard to deny the guilty-pleasure value of a flick in which Norton utters the line “No white man could ever love you like I will!” Norton, an ex-boxer who also starred in Mandingo, looks great but can’t act, so others handle the heavy lifting—Oates is gleefully disgusting, Kotto gives the picture’s best performance with his signature intensity, and Colicos is spellbindingly terrible, matching campy mannerisms with a ridiculous French accent. It should come as no surprise that Dino de Laurentiis produced this lowbrow spectacle, which boasts one outrageous moment after another; watch for the bit during the boxing match when Norton pulls a Mike Tyson and chews on Kotto’s ear.

Drum: FUNKY