Goin’ Coconuts (1978) & The Great Brain (1978)

          Made to squeeze a few extra bucks from fans who couldn’t get enough of singing siblings Donny and Marie Osmond by watching the devout Mormons’ weekly variety show on TV, Goin’ Coconuts is an anemic comedy/thriller featuring the Osmonds playing themselves. While traveling to Hawaii for a gig, Marie meets a priest who gives her a necklace as a gift, only it turns out the priest is a gangster in disguise, and the necklace is a valuable artifact. Upon arriving in Hawaii, Marie and her brother Donny are chased by various goons who want the necklace, even though it takes the Osmonds some time to figure out why they’ve been targeted. While all of this unfolds, Donny tries to spark romance with a pretty blonde named Tricia (Cystin Sinclaire), whom the audience knows is merely trying to get the necklace, and the Osmonds struggle to fulfill their performance obligations.

          The movie also features interminable scenes of the bumbling crooks seeking to acquire the necklace. The crooks are portrayed by such Hollywood als0-rans as Ted Cassidy (best known as “Lurch” from the ’60s Addams Family series) and Harold Sakata (who played henchman “Odd Job” in the 1964 James Bond movie Goldfinger). Additionally, gifted comic actor Kenneth Mars embarrasses himself by recycling his Nazi accent from The Producers (1967) and his fake-arm shtick from Young Frankenstein (1974) to play one of the villains. Only Herb Edelman, playing the Osmonds’ long-suffering manager, renders a credible comic performance, though he’s stuck with atrocious dialogue. Goin’ Coconuts is shot in the flat style of bad ’70s television, and every punch line is delivered with an eye roll, a wink, or a long pause to accommodate expected laughter. Donny and Marie do little to diminish their reputations as hard-working entertainers, and they grind through musical numbers with their usual all-smiles professionalism. Still, there’s a reason why they failed to expand their reach into movies, and that reason is Goin’ Coconuts.

          The same year that Donny and Marie made their big-screen play, younger brother Jimmy Osmond starred in a movie of his own, The Great Brain. Based on a book by John D. Fitzgerald (actually the first in a long series of novels), The Great Brain is a bargain-basement rip-off of Tom Sawyer, with moon-faced Jimmy Osmond cast as Tom Fitzgerald, a preteen swindler living in a Utah frontier town circa the 1890s. Episodic and flatly directed, the movie slogs through sad and/or whimsical events that teach Tom the error of his self-serving ways. In a typical lighter moment, he concocts an intricate deal to sell the puppies that a friend’s dog is about to deliver and manages to make anyone who questions his motives feel guilty. In a typical heavier sequence, Tom helps a friend find a new purpose in life after the friend loses a leg to a gangrene infection.

          The underlying material is okay, if a bit preachy, but the execution is deadly. The camerawork is dull and mechanical, the performances by child actors range from mediocre to stiff, and Jimmy Osmond lacks any special flair except in one scene when he’s convincingly furious. The main problem, however, is the crushing familiarity of the piece, since every single element—from the cornpone narration to the wild schemes that the lead character invents—borrows from the Mark Twain playbook and pales by comparison with the master’s style. Unsurprisingly, The Great Brain marked the beginning and the end of Jimmy Osmond’s big-screen acting career.

Goin’ Coconuts: LAME

The Great Brain: LAME

Desperate Characters (1971)

          Juxtaposing the countless slights that unhappily married people inflict upon each other with a sociopolitical backdrop comprising petty crime and vandalism, the relentlessly downbeat character study Desperate Characters strives for a very specific mood of oppressive malaise. More often than not, producer-writer-director Frank D. Gilroy, who adapted the movie from a novel by Paula Fox, hits his target. From start to finish, Desperate Characters is intelligent, mature, and severe. The film also benefits from strong performances—something of a must since the cast includes only five major characters—and leading lady Shirley MacLaine demonstrates admirable restraint while portraying a woman at sea in her own life. That said, Gilroy’s dialogue borders on pretentiousness in nearly every scene, and the lack of tonal variety makes the picture a bit of a drag.

          The rarified vibe of Desperate Characters is epitomized by an early scene, during which someone innocently asks MacLaine’s character how she feels. “Fatigue, anemia,” she responds. “All the symptoms of irreversible loss.” It’s true that the people in Desperate Characters are all affluent, hyper-educated intellectuals. Still, one wishes that Gliroy—who earned fame as the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of The Subject Was Roses—had dug deeper into his bag of tricks, since the times when he relies on visual metaphors instead of simply articulating everything through dialogue add tremendously to the film.

          MacLaine and Kenneth Mars play Sophie and Otto Brentwood. She’s a book translator between projects who has too much time on her hands, and he’s a lawyer in the midst of a separation from his business partner. Over the course of the film, the couple deals with emotional distance, the lingering effects of an affair, startling encounters with gutter-level crime, and the heavily metaphorical presence of a bite from a stray cat that may or may not be rabid. Gilroy presents the film somewhat like a stage play, with extended dialogue scenes in tight settings. As a result, much of the picture is quite arch. When Otto declares, without any evidence to support his statement, that the aforementioned cat is not rabid, Sophie retorts: “The American form of wisdom—no room for doubt.” Otto: “Do you hate cats?” Sophie: “No, I hate you.” A very long vignette involving Sophie’s older friend and the friend’s love/hate dynamic with an ex-husband makes for even slower going.

          All in all, however, Desperate Characters basically works. At its best, the picture captures what happens when people fall out of sync with each other, and the visual motif of New York City in decline parallels the ennui pervading the story. It’s also interesting to see a solid dramatic performance from Mars, whom most moviegoers know for his comic work in Mel Brooks’ The Producers (1968) and Young Frankenstein (1974).

Desperate Characters: GROOVY

What’s Up, Doc? (1972)

          Although many ’70s filmmakers brilliantly modernized the film-noir genre of the 1940s and 1950s, most ’70s attempts to revive the “screwball comedy” style of the 1930s fell flat. Part of the problem, of course, is that screwball comedies are inherently fluffy, a tonality that creates an inherent dissonance when juxtaposed with the realism to which viewers gravitated in the ’70s. Plus, for better or worse, film comedy had grown up since the ’30s, so the idea of a gentle farce predicated on silly misunderstandings seemed archaic. Yet somehow, wunderkind director Peter Bogdanovich managed to turn an unapologetic throwback into a major success—in every possible way, What’s Up Doc? is an homage to yesteryear. After all, the deliberately confusing storyline swirls several frothy subplots around the even frothier main plot of a fast-talking misfit trying to win the heart of a bumbling scientist.

          There’s no denying Bogdanovich’s craftsmanship, because he clearly studied the work of everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Howard Hawks in order to analyze the construction of repartee and sight gags. As a clinical experiment, What’s Up Doc? is impressive. Furthermore, Bogdanovich benefited from the contributions of smart co-writers, namely Buck Henry and the Bonnie and Clyde duo of Robert Benton and David Newman, and the talent represented onscreen is just as first-rate, with one notable exception. Leading lady Barbra Streisand is terrific as she blasts through thick dialogue, somehow making her overbearing character likeable. She also looks amazing, oozing her unique strain of self-confident sexiness. Comedy pros lending their gifts to smaller roles include Madeleine Kahn (appearing in her first movie), Kenneth Mars, Michael Murphy, and Austin Pendleton.

          The aforementioned exception, however, is leading man Ryan O’Neal, who comes across like a beautiful puppet—in addition to being far too fit, handsome, and tan to believably play a cloistered researcher, O’Neal evinces no personality whatsoever. One gets the impression that his every gesture and intonation was massaged by Bogdanovich, so O’Neal’s performance has a robotic feel. Similarly, the movie’s elaborate physical-comedy set pieces are so mechanically constructed that they seem more focused on showcasing production values than on generating laughs. For instance, the finale, during which the heroes soar down San Francisco streets inside a Chinese dragon parade float—and during which characters keep just missing a sheet of plate glass that’s being delivered across a roadway—is exhausting to watch instead of exhilarating. (Even the movie’s rat-a-tat dialogue has an overly rote quality. At one point, O’Neal says, “What are you doing? It’s a one-way street!” Streisand shoots back, “We’re only going one way!”)

          Ultimately, however, the real problem with What’s Up, Doc? (at least for this viewer) is twofold. Firstly, it’s impossible to care about characters who exist only to trigger jokes, and secondly, it’s difficult to overlook the anachronism of ’70s actors playing situations borrowed from the 1930s. But then again, millions of people flocked to What’s Up, Doc? during its original release, putting the movie among the highest grossers of 1972. So, as the saying goes, your experience may differ.

What’s Up, Doc?: FUNKY

The Parallax View (1974)

          Starring Warren Beatty as a reckless reporter who stumbles into a nefarious scheme involving political assassinations and governmental cover-ups, The Parallax View is the quintessential ’70s conspiracy thriller. With its heavily metaphorical images of people dwarfed by gigantic structures, its insidious musical score that jangles the nerves at key moments, and its sudden explosions of violence, director Alan J. Pakula’s arresting movie set the template for decades of imitators. More importantly, it set the template for Pakula’s next movie, the exquisite journalism drama All the President’s Men (1976). Working with the same cinematographer (Gordon Willis) and the same composer (Michael Small) he used on Parallax, Pakula sharpened his conspiracy-thriller style to absolute perfection while telling the story of how reporters uncovered the Watergate scandal. In sum, The Parallax View is required viewing for anyone who wants to understand ’70s cinema, even though the picture is far from perfect.

          Based on a novel by Loren Singer and written for the screen by the formidable trio of David Giler, Lorenzo Semple Jr., and Robert Towne, the movie begins with an assassination inside the Seattle Space Needle, then continues with a grim scene of a Warren Commission-type panel issuing a “lone gunman” explanation for the killing—even though we, the viewers, saw more than one person collaborating in the murder. The movie then cuts three years ahead. Seattle-based Joe Frady (Beatty) is an unorthodox reporter with a nose for conspiracies. His friend Lee Carter (Paula Prentiss), who witnessed the Space Needle assassination, is terrified because she believes witnesses are being systematically killed. Joe is skeptical until Lee herself dies under questionable circumstances. Then Joe asks his editor, Bill (Hume Cronyn), for permission to investigate. The doubtful editor says okay, but gives Joe a short leash. Soon, however, Joe uncovers clues leading him to the Parallax Corporation, which appears to be in the business of recruiting assassins. Obsessed with following a hot story, Joe endangers himself and everyone he knows by trying to infiltrate Parallax.

          From start to finish, The Parallax View is exciting and tense. Pakula and Willis shoot the picture masterfully, using creative foreground/background juxtapositions, deep shadows, and long lenses to evoke disturbing themes. The movie also employs an effective trope of portraying villains as even-tempered men in suits, rather than hysterical monsters, and the notion of business-as-usual murder is chilling. The acting is uniformly great, with Cronyn a dryly funny standout among the supporting cast and Beatty putting the self-possessed diffidence of his unique screen persona to good use.

          All that said, the story hits a few speed bumps along the way. An extended sequence in a small town called Salmontail includes scenes one might expect to find in a Burt Reynolds romp, from a bar brawl to a comedic car chase, and some stretches of the movie are so subtle they’re actually difficult to parse. The finale, in particular, is clever but needlessly convoluted and sluggish. Throughout its running time, the movie waffles between taking itself too seriously and not taking itself seriously enough. Yet all is forgiven whenever The Parallax View hits the conspiracy-thriller sweet spot. For instance, consider this exquisite dialogue exchange between Brady and ex-spy Will Turner (Kenneth Mars). Turner: “What do you know?” Brady: “I don’t know what I know.” That’s the stuff.

The Parallax View: GROOVY

The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) & The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979)

          Standard Disney live-action fare about cute youngsters getting into mischief, The Apple Dumpling Gang features skillful support from grown-up players Bill Bixby, Tim Conway, Don Knotts, Harry Morgan, and Slim Pickens. The Old West story concerns three young orphans whose varmint uncle dumps them into the care of an irresponsible gambler (Bill Bixby), who in turn tries to dump the kids onto someone else until the moppets discover gold in a mine belonging to their family. When assorted disreputable types try to rip off the gold, seeing the children endangered causes Bixby to grow a conscience. Television icons Conway and Knotts are the main attraction, working as a comedy duo for the first time, and they’re comfortably amusing even though their slapstick antics as a pair of inept outlaws are contrived and silly (typical bit: trying to steal a ladder from a firehouse and slamming the ladder into everything in sight). Earnest, old-fashioned, and beyond predictable, The Apple Dumpling Gang moves along at a pleasant clip, despite cloying music and rickety process shots, so the movie is innocuous entertainment for very young viewers; grown-ups should be able to swallow everything except perhaps the requisite warm fuzzies at the end and the cutesy theme song.
          Bixby and the kids were jettisoned for the sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again, in which Conway and Knotts try to go straight but end up running afoul of the army, a crazed sheriff, and a criminal gang, causing destructive mayhem along the way. The sequel’s storyline is a patchwork of Western clichés—the climax is a train robbery—so neither Conway’s deadpan delivery nor Knotts’ bug-eyed crankiness is enough to liven up the proceedings. And the less said about the scene they play in drag, the better. Harry Morgan returns in a different role than he played in the first movie, while Tim Matheson, Jack Elam, and Kenneth Mars add color to the cast. The overstuffed plot and the depiction of the “heroes” as complete morons makes the sequel far less palatable than its predecessor, but as a small mercy for those who take the plunge, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again runs its forgettable course in a mere 88 minutes.

The Apple Dumpling Gang: FUNKY

The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again: LAME

Young Frankenstein (1974)

          Astonishingly, comedy giant Mel Brooks managed to crank out his masterpiece, Young Frankenstein, less than a year after completing another outrageously funny spoof, Blazing Saddles. Yet while Blazing Saddles is an anything-goes romp that throws out narrative continuity whenever the opportunity for a gag arises, Young Frankenstein trumps its predecessor because in addition to featuring some of the funniest moments in cinema history, the picture also works as the bittersweet tale of a man, a monster, and the women who love them.

          Conceived by leading man Gene Wilder, who eventually had a falling-out with Brooks after he perceived Brooks as taking too much credit for this project, Young Frankenstein is a pseudo-continuation of the classic Universal Studios Frankenstein series that begin in the early ’30s. The picture is shot in glorious black-and-white to evoke a studio-era vibe, and the filmmakers even tracked down the original Kenneth Strickfaden-created props that appeared in Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory during the earlier films.

          The screenplay, by Wilder and Brooks, picks up a generation after the events of the older pictures, when Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Wilder) inherits the castle where his crazed grandfather, Victor, once conducted unholy experiments. Discovering his ancestor’s records, Frederick casts aside his nature as a rational modern scientist in order to stitch together body parts and make a monster all his own. Aided by a trusty hunchbacked accomplice, Igor (Marty Feldman), and a fetching local girl, Inga (Teri Garr), Frederick creates a lumbering Monster (Peter Boyle).

          Wilder and Brooks borrow and spoof famous bits from the Universal Pictures, leading to uproarious scenes like the Monster’s encounter with a blind man (Gene Hackman) whose desire to share a cigar turns disastrous, and Frederick’s hilarious run-ins with an officious policeman (Kenneth Mars), who lost a limb to the monster that Victor Frankenstein created long ago. There’s also room for Frederick’s uptight fiancée, Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn), and the mysterious Frau Blücher (Cloris Leachman), who knew Victor better than anyone suspects.

          Virtually every scene in Young Frankenstein is a comedy classic, from the opening bit of Fredrick experimenting on an elderly patient during a medical class to the climactic musical number, “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” which Wilder actually had to fight to keep in the movie because Brooks didn’t originally see the value of the scene. In addition to being riotously funny, Young Frankenstein is virtually note-perfect from beginning to end in terms of character and storyline. The acting is also consistently wonderful, with Boyle delivering a heartbreaker of a performance as the monster; his scene with Hackman is a perfect blend of pathos and whimsy.

          A career high point for everyone involved, Young Frankenstein showcases everything Brooks does well and features none of his often tiresome excesses, and it’s a triumph for Wilder as an actor and as a writer.

Young Frankenstein: OUTTA SIGHT