1980 Week: Inside Moves

          Although he’s best known for making such big-canvas escapist fare as Superman (1978) and Lethal Weapon (1987), Richard Donner has directed a couple of smaller movies over the years, generally to disappointing commercial and critical results. However, one of these intimate pictures, the offbeat redemption saga Inside Moves, is among the most affecting things Donner has ever made. A story about emotionally and physically handicapped individuals bonding in a seedy part of Oakland, California, the picture boasts playful humor, sensitive performances, and that most durable of themes: the triumph of the human spirit. Yes, Inside Moves is manipulative, saccharine, and unbelievable. For those wiling to follow where the film leads, however, it’s also quite touching.

          The story opens with the sort of spectacle for which Donner is deservedly famous: Depressed everyman Roary (John Savage) ascends to a top floor in a skyscraper, climbs out a window, jumps, and falls in slow motion until he crashes into a car with a horrible cacophony of broken bones and broken glass. Surviving the suicide attempt with major injuries, Roary takes a new path toward self-destruction, gravitating to a dive called Max’s Bar so he can drink himself into oblivion. The unexpected friendships that Roary forms at Max’s bring him back to life. Among others, Roary connects with Jerry (David Morse), the gentle-giant bartender whose promising basketball career was derailed by a bum leg, and Stinky (Bert Remsen), the amiable senior who participates in the bar’s ongoing card game event though he’s blind. Roary also begins a romance with Louise (Diana Scarwid), a barfly with personal demons of her own.

          Based on a novel by Todd Walton and written for the screen by the team of Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson, whose scripts together were distinguished by creaky plots and gentle character-driven humor, Inside Moves pivots on a highly improbable plot point: Charitable friends and innovative doctors fix Jerry’s leg, allowing him to resume his aborted basketball career. Thereafter, the question of the piece becomes whether Jerry will abandon the colorful characters who supported him when he was down, or whether he’ll join the rest of society in shunning “cripples.”

          Even though the story is absurdly contrived, the moment-to-moment flow of the movie is compelling. Morse gives the picture its heart, essaying a man who needs to reconcile ambition with compassion, while Scarwid, in an Oscar-nominated performance, incarnates a woman struggling to fix a damaged self-image. Savage is deeply present in every one of his scenes, though his performance is riddled with so many Method-actor tics that some viewers will find him more mannered than sympathetic; that said, his intensity never wavers, which helps sell the more bogus aspects of the narrative. As for Donner, he occasionally opts for easy uplift with pithy punchlines and tacky visual crescendos, but, generally speaking, he employs his skill for supervising loose and occasionally improvised acting, fusing the denizens of Max’s Bar into an appealing community. It’s also worth noting that Inside Moves has many fans within the disabled community. Given the picture’s subject matter, that seal of approval matters. 

Inside Moves: FUNKY

The Sister-in-Law (1974)

          Joseph Ruben, the capable director of escapist movies whose career peaked in the ’90s with glossy thrillers including The Good Son (1993), kicked off his movie career as the writer, producer, and director of this mediocre but occasionally interesting drama about betrayal between brothers. Despite the presence of such a heavy theme, the movie was crudely marketed by Crown International Pictures to emphasize erotic elements. Yet it’s not as if Ruben’s cinematic debut deserved classier distribution, because the filmmaker’s inexperience shows in every aspect of The Sister-in-Law. For instance, Ruben failed to construct a sufficiently complicated plot, so The Sister-in-Law is filled with aimless scenes that don’t move the story forward, including a number of dull montages set to twee folk songs that were composed and sung by the movie’s star, John Savage. A unique actor whose persona blends eccentricity with sensitivity, Savage could be extraordinary in the right context (notably 1978’s The Deer Hunter), but he’s never evinced a leading man’s charisma. In The Sister-in-Law, he gives what’s best described as a character actor’s performance, all moods and quirks instead of a strong presence.

          Savage plays Bobby, an aimless young man who just completed a year and a half of wandering America. Returning to the Westchester, New York, mansion of his brother, successful novelist Edward (Will MacMilian), Bobby strikes up an affair with his sister-in-law, Joanna (Anne Saxon). Meanwhile, Edward has gotten mixed up in transporting illicit items for the Mob—it’s been a while since he made money off books—so Edward pressures Bobby into making a run across the Canadian border on Edward’s behalf. To sweeten the deal, Edward says Bobby can take Edward’s sexy young mistress, Deborah (Meridith Baer), along for the ride. Once Bobby discovers that he’s been duped into smuggling drugs, things go downhill quickly.

          On the plus side, the storyline has all sorts of potential for lurid and topical thrills. On the minus side, Ruben’s storytelling is so choppy that for the first half of the movie, it’s difficult to discern such simple facts as how certain characters are related to each other. Furthermore, Ruben expends so much energy delivering the B-movie goods (read: female nudity) that more important narrative considerations get short shrift. The piece comes together in the end, but it’s a bumpy ride. Somewhat compensating for the movie’s shortcomings, however, is a florid dialogue style that occasionally leaps from pretentious to surreal. Early on, Joanna hisses to Edward, “Every beast ought to lick his own wounds—so go off somewhere and lick.” Later, Edward says to Bobby, “You have more shame over a dollar bill than you do about your own penis.” Rest assured, context doesn’t make these lines any better, but at least the dialogue has more vitality than the rest of the movie.

The Sister-in-Law: FUNKY

Hair (1979)

          Seeing as how this disappointing film’s source material is, arguably, the quintessential counterculture musical, it’s impossible to say that making Hair was a wasted endeavor. After all, preserving the stage show’s energy on film, and spreading the stage show’s provocative messages to audiences who had not seen the musical in its original form, was both inevitable and worthwhile. The problem (or one of them, anyway) is that the translation process took too long. Once Hair hit cinemas, the milieu of the stage show—antiwar protests, hippies dropping acid and experimenting with free love, the Vietnam War claiming a sickening number of human lives—had slipped into history. As a result, Hair was already a museum piece even when it was new. Still, if one ignores the unfortunate nature of the film’s appearance within the public sphere, there’s a lot to enjoy in Hair, even though the film cannot be ranked among the most artistically successful stage-to-screen transpositions. The acting is heartfelt, the singing and dancing are powerful, director Milos Forman’s handling of material is imaginative and thoughtful, and the inherent humanism of the original stage show shines through. Thus, while the elements never cohere, something interesting happens in nearly every scene.

          That said, it’s tempting to castigate the filmmakers for making significant changes to the source material, such as altering characterizations and dropping songs (or pieces of songs). The movie’s story feels overly schematic, which, in turn, makes the final scenes come across as overly strident. Moreover, there’s a gigantic plot hole in the middle of the movie’s story, which makes the whole business of tinkering with success seem even more foolhardy in retrospect. In sum, had the filmmakers improved on the show, only purists would gripe, but that’s not the case here, because the movie’s narrative flaws are apparent to all viewers.

          In any event, the movie’s story revolves around Claude (John Savage), a straight-arrow Midwesterner who arrives in Manhattan on the way to an Army training camp. Claude meets a group of exuberant hippies, led by the charismatic George (Treat Williams), and Claude also becomes infatuated with a pretty New Yorker from upper-crust society, Sheila (Beverly D’Angelo). As the story progresses, Claude questions the legitimacy of the Vietnam War as he becomes entranced with the ideals and lifestyle of his new longhaired compatriots, but ironic tragedy eventually casts a dark cloud over the peace-and-love revelry. The movie bursts with extraordinary music, including the familiar hits “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” “Easy to be Hard,” and “Hair.” (The less said about “Good Morning Starshine,” the better.) Savage’s brand of twitchy sensitivity works fairly well, since he makes Claude seem uncomfortable in nearly every circumstance, but Williams easily steals the movie with his dark intensity, whether acting in straight dramatic scenes or singing in musical passages. Forman fills the screen with activity and color, employing dynamic choreography by Twyla Tharp, and the cast features such powerhouse singers as Nell Carter and Ellen Foley, so even if the leads sometimes underwhelm in terms of vocals, the overall musicality of the piece is impressive.

          Given its arrival in cinemas so long after the underlying subject matter was central in American life, it’s arguable whether Hair would have enjoyed greater impact if the filmmakers had delivered the stage show intact. Nonetheless, since so many of the changes are problematic, it’s important to remember that this movie is, ultimately, an adaptation rather than a direct recording. In other words, this Hair isn’t the Hair that captured the public’s imagination. For that, better to catch one of the stage show’s myriad revivals.

Hair: FUNKY

The Onion Field (1979)

          Former L.A. cop Joseph Wambaugh forged a new career writing fiction and nonfiction books inspired by his time in uniform, and the moment his debut novel was published in 1971, he started getting attention from Hollywood. Yet by the end of the decade, he was reportedly sick of the liberties filmmakers took in their adaptations of his work—so for The Onion Field, Wambaugh insisted on writing the script and working closely with the director. The result was a highly intelligent look at the unique emotional challenges of police life, shown through the prism of how one detective is scarred by his involvement in a killing.

          As directed by Harold Becker, whose best movies are filled with actual and metaphorical shadows, The Onion Field paints a bleak picture of modern law-enforcement: The policemen in this story are easy targets, while criminals armor themselves with the legal system. Based on a real case, the narrative takes place in the early ’60s, when newly minted Detective Karl Hettinger (John Savage) is assigned to work with slightly older partner Ian Campbell (Ted Danson). Hettinger is an oversensitive ex-Marine, and Campbell is a conflicted soul who plays bagpipes for relaxation and contemplates whether he should quit police work.

          Meanwhile, simple-minded thief Jimmy Smith (Franklyn Seales) has the bad luck to hook up with intense career criminal Greg Powell (James Woods) shortly after Smith’s release from prison. Powell’s a live wire who’s too smart for his own good, since his hodgepodge education leads him to misunderstand as many things as he comprehends. These duos from opposite sides of the law intersect when the criminals take the police officers captive. Soon, Campbell is dead in a roadside ditch near an onion field in the rural community of Bakersfield. Ettinger escapes captivity, though his real trauma has just begun. Haunted by guilt over what he might have done differently, Ettinger spirals into depression and petty crime, eventually losing his badge. He’s also forced to relive his worst moments again and again because after Powell and Smith are arrested, the hoodlums mount endless legal challenges.

          Wambaugh’s close attention to the psychological after-effects of crime ensures that every frame of The Onion Field is compelling, even though his handling of the story’s female characters is weak. Becker’s meticulous images accentuate Wambaugh’s dramaturgy, since Becker uses long lenses to isolate figures and, at other times, deep shadows to smother them.

          Woods’ performance dominates, not only because he’s got the showy role of a psychotic chatterbox, but also because Woods adds textures of deviousness, humor, intelligence, perversion, and self-loathing. (He received his first Golden Globe nomination for The Onion Field.) Savage is touchingly vulnerable, though he sometimes drifts into affected, Method-style twitchiness, and Seales displays wide-open emotion as a loser who stumbles into a situation he can’t handle. Danson is terrific in one of his earliest roles, putting across something memorably humane in just a handful of scenes.

The Onion Field: GROOVY

All the Kind Strangers (1974)

          Stories about malevolent rednecks were all the rage in the post-Deliverance era, but this made-for-TV thriller takes the redneck genre in an odd new direction. Furthermore, the picture features a slew of actors more frequently seen in big-screen features, plus smooth work by veteran director Burt Kennedy, who was just starting his drift back to the small screen after a solid run of theatrical features. Stacy Keach stars as Jimmy, a New York photojournalist trolling the backwoods of the U.S. for interesting stories. One afternoon, he spots an innocent-looking young boy, Gilbert (Tim Parkinson), walking down a rural byway with an armload of groceries. Jimmy offers to give the kid a lift home, which becomes a miles-long odyssey down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Jimmy is alarmed to meet Gilbert’s impoverished, sullen family, which is led by Gilbert’s twentysomething older brother, Peter (John Savage).

          The only adult in the ramshackle house is Carol Ann (Samantha Eggar), whom the kids call “Ma” but who clearly isn’t old enough to be the matriarch of the clan. It turns out the family’s parents died some time ago, so Peter invented a scheme of kidnapping adults to play the role of mother and father; as Jimmy soon discovers, those not suited to the role have been killed and disposed of in a nearby creek. Jimmy tries to escape several times with Carol Ann, but Peter and his faithful pack of dogs keep bringing the couple back to their weird prison. Since All the Kind Strangers was made for TV, some of the kinkier implications of the storyline go unexplored, and the movie wraps up somewhat abruptly in 74 minutes, making the whole thing feel like a bit of a cheat.

          Still, the caliber of acting is unusually high for this sort of thing, with Keach channeling rage and Eggar personifying terror while Savage provides compelling derangement and Robby Benson, playing his second-in-command sibling, lends an offbeat vibe of perverse masochism. (Benson also sings the movie’s twee theme song.) Even better, this creepy little movie is enlivened by vibrant location photography. In fact, had the story been given a bit more room to breathe in terms of edgier content and a longer running time, All the Kind Strangers would have made an interesting theatrical feature.

All the Kind Strangers: FUNKY

The Killing Kind (1973)

Director Curtis Harrington earned a decent reputation as a horror maven prior to transitioning into an unspectacular career helming episodic television, and watching The Killing Kind explains why his career trajectory makes sense. Though certain scenes have sadistic glee, the picture is so workmanlike that it could have been made by anyone; it’s as disposable as an episode of generic TV. John Savage, all Method-y shouting and twitching, stars as Terry, a troubled twentysomething just released from jail after a two-year stint for his role in a gang rape. From the moment we meet him, Terry comes across as an antisocial, sex-crazed voyeur prone to creepy intimacy with his mother (Ann Sothern) and erotic reverie when he kills animals. In other words, he’s such an obvious nutjob that it doesn’t make sense for anyone to spend time around him. Nonetheless, the movie installs Terry as the handyman at his mom’s boarding house, where stupid tenants like wannabe model Lori (Cindy Williams) remain in residence even after Terry tries to drown her in the pool one sunny afternoon. Savage’s id-gone-wild routine ends up being more tiresome than disturbing, and Sothern performs in the libidinous-gorgon style that kept Shelley Winters employed during this era, albeit with far less panache than the estimable Ms. Winters. So, even with some colorful kills, such as Terry forcing a woman to drink a paralyzing amount of liquor before setting her on fire, The Killing Kind is really just another crude Hitchcock rip-off, right down to the Rear Window­­-style shots of a neighbor spying on Terry with binoculars.

The Killing Kind: LAME

The Deer Hunter (1978)

          The winner of five Oscars and one of the best-remembered movies of the ’70s, The Deer Hunter has undeniable strengths. The acting is across-the-board great, with Christopher Walken earning an Academy Award for the film’s crucial supporting role; Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep were nominated for the male and female leading roles, respectively, and John Cazale and John Savage both contribute mesmerizing work. The film’s level of intensity, once the story kicks into gear, is so high that many find the film too painful to watch. On every technical plane, the movie is gorgeous to behold, with immaculate costuming and production design filling cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond’s Oscar-nominated imagery to create a rich visual experience. And, finally, since The Deer Hunter was one of the first big-budget movies to address the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder as a major issue for veterans returning from the Vietnam War, it has historical importance.

          Having said all that, The Deer Hunter hasn’t aged well, and in fact its flaws were apparent to some discerning viewers back when the movie was new. First off, director and co-writer Michael Cimino’s storytelling is wildly undisciplined. The first hour of the picture, which introduces a group of male friends living in a Pennsylvania steel town, drags on endlessly. Although Cimino’s scheme of immersing viewers in mundane details of his characters’ lives before moving the story to Vietnam is sensible, Cimino ends up delivering the same information over and over again, resulting in tedium. In particular, the interminable sequence depicting the wedding of wide-eyed Steven (Savage) to his pregnant sweetheart unfolds in what feels like real time. Amid this narrative muck, De Niro’s character, Michael, emerges as the de facto leader of the group, an autodidactic tough guy whom the others fear and respect in equal measure.

          A long sequence of the male friends bonding for one last deer hunt before deploying to Vietnam has great visual poetry, but it’s jarring that the sequence was obviously shot in the Pacific Northwest (specifically, Washington state) even though it supposedly takes place in Pennsylvania. The movie really goes off the rails, however, after an abrupt mid-movie shift to Vietnam. For the remainder of the movie, the vicious game of Russian roulette becomes the dramatic focus, first when American POWs are forced to play the game by their animalistic captors, and then when Nick (Walken) becomes a champion Roulette player working the postwar Vietnamese underground. Michael is a kind of battlefield superhero during the POW scenes, and the manner in which he rescues his buddies stretches believability. Yet the story becomes even more audacious when Michael returns to postwar Vietnam in order to rescue Nick, who has become so traumatized, almost to the point of catatonia, that he plays Russian roulette for money.

          It turns out there’s a good reason why none of this hangs together particularly well. Producer Michael Deeley reportedly hired Cimino to expand a non-Vietnam script about Russian roulette into the story that eventually became The Deer Hunter. Perhaps reflecting this hodgepodge approach, the Russian roulette material is so overwrought, and so demeaning to the Vietnamese national character, that it completely derives the film of dramatic restraint and historical accuracy. Whether historical accuracy was ever the goal is another question, but The Deer Hunter ends up being an uncomfortable hybrid of incompatible narrative elements, and also a needlessly repetitive movie that slogs through 183 minutes of boredom and brutality. There are incandescent moments, mostly due to the valiant work of a remarkable cast, but in sum, The Deer Hunter is pretentious, sloppy, unpleasant, and not just a little racist.

The Deer Hunter: FUNKY

Bad Company (1972)

Continuing the groove of their previous scripts Bonnie and Clyde (1968) and There Was a Crooked Man . . . (1970), screenwriters Robert Benton and David Newman explore colorful crooks from yesteryear in Bad Company, a soft-spoken adventure following a pair of hapless young Civil War-era draft dodgers (Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown) who become outlaws in the wilderness that eventually became middle America. Benton also made his directorial debut with the picture, which is tasteful and understated almost to a fault. A very ’70s story about wandering losers who puff themselves up with bluster and pretense, the movie is gorgeously photographed by Gordon Willis (The Godfather) as a series of moody tableaux, and composer Harvey Schmidt links the film’s episodes with an old-timey score played on solo piano. Presenting the picture as a museum piece delivers sumptuous artistry but sometimes undercuts the wit of the storyline; moments with potential to explode into broad comedy, like a ridiculous brawl in a kitchen, play too seriously because of the gravitas of the photography and storytelling. Yet some funny bits connect just like they should, especially the scenes with priceless character player David Huddleston as the cranky leader of an incompetent criminal gang. Tonal peculiarities aside, Bad Company has many admirable qualities: The dialogue is appealing and authentic from start to finish; Bridges and Brown effectively inhabit their respectively arrogant and sensitive characters; and a very young John Savage appears as one of the heroes’ ill-fated cohorts. Somewhat randomly, Bad Company also contains a tart homage to legendary All About Eve writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who helmed Benton and Newman’s script for Crooked Man. As the capper to his final scene, Huddleston spouts a line that infamous cynic Mankiewicz often used to describe himself: “I’m the oldest whore on the block.” Like many things in Bad Company, the line is slightly out of place but nonetheless memorable.

Bad Company: GROOVY