Mean Dog Blues (1978)

         Mean Dog Blues gets off to a decent start. After the AIP logo (always a promising sign), Fred Karlin’s smooth lounge-rock score accompanies credits that include these heartening words: “Scatman Crothers as Mudcat.” Shortly afterward, shaggy-haired protagonist Paul (Gregg Henry) abandons his useless car on the side of a desert road near a stand of Joshua trees by saying, “Goodbye, Old Paint,” then wanders off to his next adventure carrying only his guitar and a suitcase. By this point, viewers have learned that the cast includes George Kennedy, Kay Lenz, Tina Louise, and William Windom. As the saying goes, you had me at hello. Although it’s not exactly downhill from there, Mean Dog Blues never builds the desired head of steam. Nonetheless, it’s enjoyable in a disposable sort of a way. (Sadly, it's also homophobic, par for the course in B-movies of this vintage.)

          After dumping his car, Paul hitches a ride with Victor (Windom) and his wife, Donna (Louise). Things get tricky a few hours later, when Donna hits on Paul while Victor gets drunk at a roadside diner. Imprudently, Paul remains in their car afterward, so he’s a witness when Victor hits a 10-year-old kid. Politically connected and wealthy, Victor claims Paul was behind the wheel at the time of the accident, so Paul gets slapped with a one-to-five stretch at a prison work farm. Predictably, the commandant, Captain Omar Kinsman (Kennedy), is a sadistic redneck who cares more about the welfare of his favorite bloodthirsty Doberman, Rattler, than he does about the health of the convicts under his supervision. Paul decides the best way to survive his prison term is to take a dangerous job as a “dog nigger” (seriously, that’s the phrase used through the movie), so his work involves running through wilderness while guard dogs chase him for training exercises. Meanwhile, Paul’s wife, Linda (Lenz), agitates for his release.

          So much of the picture comprises scenes of Paul getting chased by the dogs that everything else gets pushed to the sidelines. Lenz, for instance, is barely in the movie except for a sequence during which a creepy guard bedevils her during a prison visit. The great Crothers has even less screen time. Of the film’s many underused supporting players, Louise probably comes off best because one doesn’t usually expect an adequate performance from the Artist Forever Known as Ginger. Kennedy is Kennedy, growling and stomping his way through scenes, while Henry, later a strong character actor, makes an ineffectual lead. 

Mean Dog Blues: FUNKY

White Line Fever (1975)

          Drive-in pulp with a smidgen of substance, this one combines all sorts of lurid elements—blue-collar rebellion, high-octane chase scenes, deadly revenge, rednecks, shootouts, smuggling, truckers, a Vietnam veteran, and, just to put the cherry atop the whole tasty treat, a colorful cast including R.G. Armstrong, Kay Lenz, Slim Pickens, Don Porter, and Jan-Michael Vincent. In other words, if White Line Fever doesn’t get your blood pumping, then the repertoire at the grindhouse of your dreams is far different than the one at mine. White Line Fever has so many cool attributes that whether the movie’s actually “good” is quasi-irrelevant—therefore, the fact that the picture is somewhat respectable as a piece of low-rent drama becomes a bonus.

          Vincent stars as Carrol Jo Hummer (seriously, that’s the character’s name), a good ol’ boy who returns from Vietnam intent on driving an independent big rig and living happily with his sexy young wife, Jerri (Lenz). In order to get the cash to buy his truck, Carrol Jo borrows money from disreputable types who expect Carrol Jo to pay off his debt by smuggling illegal goods. Once Carrol Jo realizes what he’s gotten into, he uses the court system, threats, and finally violence to declare his independence. That leads to beatings, hassles, intimidation, and, eventually, deadly results for those around Carrol Jo. The movie climaxes with Carrol Jo striking a highly symbolic blow against his enemies, because Our Hero uses his souped-up truck, which bears the name “Blue Mule,” as an instrument of working-man’s justice.

         Co-writer/director Jonathan Kaplan, who spent the ’70s making well-crafted exploitation films before venturing into topical studio pictures (notably 1989’s The Accused) and then a long career in television that continues to this day, displays his signature touch for stirring up juicy narrative conflict. Predictably, however, logic takes a backseat to slam-bang spectacle. Like Kaplan’s enjoyable blaxploitation pictures The Slams (1973) and Truck Turner (1974), White Line Fever feels like a hard-edged comic book—when Vincent struts out of his hovel with a shotgun in his hand, then hops into the cab of “Blue Mule” hell-bent for vengeance while pounding music blasts on the soundtrack, the movie rises to a plane of intoxicating macho silliness.

          I freely admit to having an inexplicable affinity for Vincent’s lackadaisical screen persona, so chances are I watch this particular B-movie through forgiving eyes. I’m also sweet on Lenz, and I can watch Armstrong and Pickens in nearly anything. So take this praise for White Line Fever with the appropriate caveat: If you don’t groove to the idea of Jan-Michael Vincent playing an avenging trucker, then there’s probably only so much White Line Fever is going to do for you. But if you’re intrigued, strap in for a trashy good time.

White Line Fever: GROOVY

The Passage (1979)

          Yet another lurid adventure flick set in occupied Europe during World War II, The Passage is mildly fascinating for what it lacks—depth and restraint. The plot is so thin that it can be described in one sentence without excluding any significant details: Members of the French resistance ask a farmer living near the French-Spanish border to help an American scientist and his family reach safety while a psychotic SS officer chases after them. That’s the whole storyline, give or take a couple of incidental characters, and the preceding synopsis also describes nearly everything we learn about the characters. Especially considering that the script was written by a novelist adapting his own work—a gentleman named Bruce Nicolaysen—it’s astonishing to encounter a narrative this underdeveloped.

          Furthermore, director J. Lee Thompson, a veteran who by this point in his career seemed content cranking out mindless potboilers, lets actors do whatever the hell they want. In some cases, as with sexy supporting player Kay Lenz, this translates to bored non-acting, and in others, as with main villain Maclolm McDowell, the permissiveness results in outrageous over-acting. Alternating between bug-eyed malevolence and effeminate delicacy, McDowell presents something that’s not so much a performance as a compendium of bad-guy clichés; he’s entertaining in weird moments like his revelation of a swastika-festooned jockstrap, but it seems Thompson never asked McDowell to rein in his flamboyance.

          That said, The Passage is quite watchable if one accepts the movie on its trashy terms. The simplistic plot ensures clarity from beginning to end (notwithstanding the lack of a satisfactory explanation for the scientist’s importance), and Thompson fills the screen with energetic camerawork, nasty violence, and, thanks to Lenz, gratuitous nudity. It should also be noted that leading man Anthony Quinn, who plays the farmer, invests his scenes with macho angst, and that costar James Mason, as the scientist, elevates his scenes with crisp diction and plaintive facial expressions. (The cast also includes Christopher Lee, as a gypsy helping the fugitives, and Patricia Neal, as the scientist’s frail wife.) Even more noteworthy than any of the performances, however, is the gonzo finale, during which Thompson’s style briefly transforms from indifferent to insane—for a few strange moments, The Passage becomes a gory horror show. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

The Passage: FUNKY

Moving Violation (1976)

           The ’70s were filled with interchangeable action pictures about young rebels zooming across the countryside in hot cars while redneck cops chase after them, and only a few examples of the genre really stick in the memory—for instance, Vanishing Point (1971) is full of turbo-charged counterculture metaphors, and Grand Theft Auto (1977) is notable as Ron Howard’s directorial debut. Yet Moving Violation is probably as good an example of the genre as any other movie, simply because it lacks any distinguishing characteristics whatsoever: It is, quite literally, generic. Kay Lenz and Stephen McHattie costar as standard-issue mixed-up kids who fall into an adventure when they witness a corrupt sheriff committing a murder and then flee, so most of the picture comprises scenes of the duo driving fast while the sheriff and his cronies try to kill them. This results in lots of slo-mo crashes through things like haystacks and outhouses. Between chases, the kids stop to hang out with incidental characters and to have sex.

          Lenz, an interesting actor prone to delivering uninteresting performances when given substandard material, is sexy but lifeless, while McHattie unsuccessfully attempts a James Dean-type performance with all sorts of mumbling and sulking, coming across like a slovenly kid who wandered in front of the camera. Not coincidentally, McHattie played Dean in a TV movie around the time he made Moving Violation, so apparently he decided to get two movies out of the same performance. Because the leads are so drab, the movie is inert until old pro Eddie Albert shows up as the wiseass lawyer the kids hire to help unravel their situation; Albert’s charm and timing are easily the best things in the movie.

          Bearing all the penny-pinching hallmarks of product generated on the Roger Corman assembly line, Moving Violation is hampered by disjointed editing, so scenes don’t really start or end—they just blend together without any sense of the passage of time. The movie also bops chaotically from bleak scenes of youthful desperation to yee-haw road action accompanied by banjo music, so by the time the flick segues from its dark climax to the zippy Phil Everly-sung end-credits song “Detroit Man,” Moving Violation has committed nearly every movie violation imaginable.

Moving Violation: LAME

Breezy (1973)

          Clint Eastwood’s choice to direct this soft-spoken romantic drama was one of the first clues that he wanted his career to include more than just action pictures. Instead of the usual Eastwood tropes of cops and cowboys, the movie depicts May-December sparks between a teenaged hippy, Breezy (Kay Lenz), and her much-older Establishment paramour, Frank (William Holden). For viewers who can look beyond the skeeviness of a sexual relationship between a 19-year-old and a man three decades her senior, Breezy is pleasantly entertaining if a bit overlong and schematic. While Frank’s embarrassment at being perceived as a cradle-robber is one of several predictable plot complications, the intelligent script by Jo Heims tries to define the main characters as individuals instead of mere archetypes.

          Adding some much-needed edge, both characters acknowledge ulterior motives in the early days of the relationship, because Breezy needs a meal ticket and Frank’s excited by the prospect of a nubile partner. As her name suggests, Breezy is a breath of fresh air when she drifts into Frank’s life, because she’s as hopeful as he is cynical. Therefore it’s believable that their relationship falters whenever they venture into public—he lives by society’s rules, and she doesn’t acknowledge the existence of any rules at all. Holden, smartly cast because he was an aging matinee idol who could still believably appeal to a younger woman, delivers a characteristically professional performance; he hits all the right notes, but not with any extraordinary flair. Lenz is appealing, though she struggles with making her moon-eyed character seem like more than just a male fantasy, and there’s some irony in the fact that Lenz later found her groove portraying cynics.

          Employing long takes, gentle dissolves, and a few tastefully lyrical montage sequences, Eastwood shows his versatility by delivering the exact opposite of the stoic cinematic violence for which he was known at the time, so Breezy is most interesting as a transitional chapter in his titanic directing career: It’s the first movie that Eastwood directed without also appearing as an actor, notwithstanding a wordless blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo. Yet Breezy also merits examination as an awkward attempt to grapple with the early-’70s generation gap. Though the picture cops out in the end, it captures some things quite well, like the portrayal of Frank’s buddy Bob (Roger C. Carmel), whose midlife-crisis lust for young flesh speaks to a deeper bewilderment about what happens when the promise of youth fades into painful abstraction.

Breezy: FUNKY

The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday (1976)

An idiotic farce set in the Old West, this embarrassing misfire stars two of cinema’s great offscreen drunkards, Lee Marvin and Oliver Reed. Yet while Marvin’s role as a frontier schemer is in the vicinity of his Oscar-winning Cat Ballou wheelhouse, Englishman Reed is embarrassingly miscast as an inebriated Indian, mugging his way through a cringe-inducing performance complete with grotesque body makeup. The overstuffed storyline involves con men Sam (Marvin), Joe (Reed), and Billy (Strother Martin) trying to strong-arm money out of their former partner in crime, Jack (Robert Culp), who hid his criminal past to begin a career in politics, but of course Sam, Joe, and Billy are too stupid to properly manipulate their slick confrere. Hardy-har. For no particular reason, Joe kidnaps a bevy of whores from the titular cathouse, including one he names Thursday (Kay Lenz), and for no particular reason, she falls for the decades-older Sam. The lecherous nonsense eventually leads to a protracted chase scene, with the heroes driving a jalopy across the desert while—oh, who cares? This is one of those “madcap” comedies in the vein of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), with incessant slapstick noise thrown at the audience instead of actual jokes; virtually everyone gets punched in the face at least once, even Elizabeth Ashley, who plays Culp’s wife. So rather than being amusing, The Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday provides the painful experience of watching actors who deserve better marking time in drivel. One hopes Marvin and Reed at least had fun imbibing their paychecks. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday: LAME

Satan’s School for Girls (1973) & The Initiation of Sarah (1978)

          Two of Hollywood’s favorite lowbrow fascinations intersect in these craptastic telefilms, both of which depict the troubles that befall coeds whose dorms are fronts for Satan-worshipping cults. College girls and cultists: Two great tastes that taste great together. Produced by schlockmeister Aaron Spelling, Satan’s School for Girls is the real howler of the pair, cramming all sorts of shock-cinema gimmicks and gobs of kitschy ’70s-ness into a runtime that barely reaches 80 minutes; everything about the movie is so goofy that Satan’s School for Girls is a hoot from start to finish. Unlucky student Elizabeth Sayers (Pamela Franklin) enrolls in a private school under an assumed name so she can investigate why her sister killed herself while attending the school, only to discover that sis was a victim of the headmistress and students, who, as the title suggests, shill for Satan. Two of Spelling’s most famous protégés, future Charlie’s Angels beauties Kate Jackson and Cheryl Ladd, are among the students enthralled by the Prince of Darkness, so despite shlocky production values, Satan’s School for Girls offers plenty of eye candy. The ending is also hilariously overwrought, going all the way down the bad-cinema rabbit hole.

          A few years later came The Initiation of Sarah, the story for which was co-written by future Fright Night guy Tom Holland. In this one, pretty coed Patty Goodwin (Morgan Brittany) and her “plain” adopted sister, Sarah (portrayed by the not-plain hottie Kay Lenz), get picked for different sororities, which have been locked in a bitter feud for decades. Patty joins the stuck-up babes at Alpha Nu Sigma, while Sarah ends up with the misfits at Psi Epsilon Delta. Copping plot devices from Stephen King’s then-recent novel Carrie, the story depicts Sarah’s discovery of telekinetic superpowers, then shows what happens when the beeyotches at Alpha Nu push Sarah too far. Meanwhile, PED’s housemistress, Erica Hunter (Shelley Winters), reveals her true identity as a nutjob cultist trying to use Sarah’s powers for revenge against Alpha Nu.

          Lenz’s sad-eyed sexiness and Winters’ gorgon routine are fun to watch, plus it’s enjoyable to see actor/producer Tony Bill and Airplane! guy Robert Hays in early roles. Icy sexpot Morgan Fairchild steals the show, however, with her villainous turn as the queen bee of Alpha Nu. A vision of uptight late-’70s comeliness with her feathered Farrah hairstyle and perfect alabaster skin, she’s entertainingly conniving. Both of these telefilms are unapologetically silly, but that’s exactly why they’re so watchable—and it’s probably why both got remade. The redux of Satan’s School for Girls (with Shannen Doherty!) hit the tube in 2000, and The Initiation of Sarah v.2.0 aired in 2006.

Satan’s School for Girls: FUNKY

The Initiation of Sarah: FUNKY