Elvis (1979)

          Predictably, a TV movie dramatizing Elvis Presley’s eventful life emerged not long after the King’s August 1977 death. In February 1979, ABC broadcast Elvis, starring former Disney child star Kurt Russell and directed by, of all people, John Carpenter, whose breakthrough film Halloween (1978) had been completed but not yet released at the time he shot this gun-for-hire project. A sanitized overview of the title character’s life through 1969, when Presley completed a major comeback by returning to the live concert stage, Elvis doesn’t reveal much that casual fans don’t already know about the subject matter—Elvis was sweet on his mama, Gladys (Shelley Winters); he fell hard for a young woman named Priscilla (Season Hubley); and he gave his manager, Col. Tom Parker (Pat Hingle), too much leeway—but the story unfolds smoothly.

          Key events depicted onscreen include Elvis’ childhood fixation on his stillborn twin brother, the singer’s excitement at scoring his first recording contract, Elvis’ bumpy transition to acting, and the King’s descent into isolation and paranoia once he reached unimaginable heights of fame. Because this project treats Presley’s image gingerly, there’s no Fat Elvis excess, and a scene of the King shooting a television is about as deep as the filmmakers go into depicting Presley’s eccentricities. Despite its homogenized vibe, the movie boasts an energetic, Emmy-nominated performance by Russell, whose boyish persona captures young Elvis’ aw-shucks appeal. That Russell mostly overcomes the distraction of the dark eyeliner he wears throughout the picture—as well as the inevitable problems of imitating Elvis’ iconic sneerin’-and-struttin’ persona—speaks well to the sincerity of his work.

          Acquitting himself fairly well, Carpenter complements the project’s workmanlike storytelling with a minimalistic shooting style, and whenever he lets fly with a lengthy master shot or a slick tracking move, he does a lot to maintain the flow of his actors’ performances. Most of the time, however, one must struggle to spot signs of Carpenter’s distinctive cinematic style. That said, it’s interesting to watch Elvis and realize how quickly Carpenter and Russell locked into each other’s frequencies, because just a short time later they embarked on a great run with Escape from New York (1981), The Thing (1982), and Big Trouble in Little China (1986).

          Incidentally, this project was a family affair for Russell, because his dad, Whit Russell, plays Elvis’ father, and Russell later married his onscreen bride, Hubley. (They divorced in 1983.) As for the film’s accuracy, Priscilla Presley reportedly vetted the script, which might be why Elvis often feels like a hero-overcomes-adversity hagiography with musical numbers. (Instead of the vocals from Presley’s original recordings, singer Ronnie McDowell’s voice is heard on the soundtrack whenever Russell lip-syncs.) FYI, a truncated version of Elvis was released theatrically overseas, though the original two-and-a-half-hour cut that was broadcast on ABC is still widely available.

Elvis: GROOVY

Charley and the Angel (1973)

          Ostensibly adapted from a 1971 novel by Will Stanton but in most respects a shameless clone of the Frank Capra-directed classic It’s a Wonderful Life (1945), this harmless live-action comedy from Walt Disney Productions takes place in a generic Midwestern city during the Depression. Uptight hardware-store proprietor Charley (Fred MacMurray) focuses so much on work that he’s become alienated from his three kids. Meanwhile, his long-suffering wife, Nettie (Cloris Leachman), longs for the adventure of visiting the World’s Fair in Chicago. One day, Charley escapes a series of near-fatal accidents and then encounters an angel (Harry Morgan), who explains that he’s been tasked with collecting Charley’s soul. Charley begs for time in which to settle his affairs, and you can guess what happens next—the brush with morality makes Charley realize how much he has to live for, so he becomes a better father, husband, and person, thereby improving his chances of earning a celestial reprieve. Whereas It’s a Wonderful Life goes dark and deep with themes of self-doubt and suicide, Charley and the Angel goes shallow and soothing by suggesting that any individual who makes a sincere effort can dramatically improve the circumstances of his or her life. If only that were so.

          In some ways, Charley and the Angel is quite palatable. The storyline is coherent and linear, even with the goofy subplot about Charley’s sons inadvertently becoming bootleggers. Production values are excellent, despite the rickety process shots during car scenes; there’s even a certain hokey charm to the old-school FX used during scenes of the angel floating through the air and moving objects while invisible. As helmed by the reliable Vincent McEveety, the picture moves along briskly, lingering on important emotional moments just long enough for skilled actors to imbue their characters with humanity. Unsurprisingly, Morgan is the standout because he gets most of the jokes, and his cranky/sweet vibe is appealing. Leachman does respectable work in a thankless role, while Kurt Russell, playing a boy who courts Charley’s daughter, provides bland earnestness. As for MacMurray, he lends a somewhat bewildering energy—or rather a somewhat bewildering lack of energy. He’s so calm, even when insane things are happening, that he nearly becomes a caricature of the unflappable Disney dad archetype.

Charley and the Angel: FUNKY

1980 Week: Used Cars

          During the early years of his career, before he discovered the joys of motion-capture effects and ponderous drama, Robert Zemeckis was an expert manufacturer of zany comedy. He made his directorial debut with the zippy I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), about crazed Beatles fans, and he cowrote Steven Spielberg’s over-the-top World War II farce 1941 (1979). Yet Zemeckis’ next project arguably marked the apex of his cinematic apprenticeship. Used Cars, which Zemeckis cowrote and directed, is an adrenalized super-comedy filled with wall-to-wall action, jokes, plot twists, and youthful energy. The movie is gleefully crass and merrily overwrought, but for viewers who encounter Used Cars in the right mood, it’s a total blast.

          Conceived as a broad satire linking consumerism with politics and salesmanship, Used Cars stars Kurt Russell as salesman Rudy Russo. Working at decrepit New Deal Used Cars, which is run by amiable geezer Luke Fuchs (Jack Warden), Rudy decides to run for a state Senate seat. Meanwhile, Luke’s twin brother, the dastardly Roy Fuchs (also played by Warden), schemes to put Luke out of business by opening Roy L. Fuchs Pre-Owned Automobiles directly across the street from New Deal. Eventually, Rudy finds himself in the middle of war between the brothers—even though Luke dies fairly early in the movie’s running time, and even though Luke’s daughter, Barbara (Deborah Harmon), emerges as both a challenging X-factor and Rudy’s potential love interest.

          As they later demonstrated with their Swiss-clock script for Back to the Future (1984), Zemeckis and longtime writing partner Bob Gale were highly adept at creating outrageously complicated storylines. The writers juggle literally dozens of major elements in Used Cars, from a superstitious mechanic (Gerrit Graham) to a pair of sleazy video pirates (played by Michael McKean and David L. Lander, better known as “Lenny and Squiggy” from TV’s Laverne & Shirley). The storyline also features Jimmy Carter, a live-TV wardrobe malfunction, a Mexican car salesman, professional football, and student drivers. Much of what happens onscreen is clever, and much of what happens onscreen is juvenile. It all coalescences into a jubilant brand of high-octane comedy, and gentle pokes at real-world issues keep the movie from becoming pointlessly silly.

          Russell is fantastic, blending oily charm with dunderheaded confidence; his character comes across as a reprobate version of a Frank Capra hero. Warden is wonderful, too, portraying Luke with avuncular likeability and Roy with devilish intensity, while Costar Graham is endearingly maniacal, freaking out whenever he realizes he’s near a red car. Zemeckis never pushed the boundaries of good taste this far again, opting for a family-friendly style in Back to the Future and other pictures, so the R-rated Used Cars remains his most grown-up yukfest, which is ironic given that so much of the film’s content is deliberately infantile. At its best, Used Cars is like a manic Warner Bros. cartoon, only with cursing and T&A.

Used Cars: GROOVY

Fools’ Parade (1971)

          A weird adventure story depicting the exploits of three ex-cons traveling through Depression-era West Virginia, Fools’ Parade features such a delicate combination of eccentric characterizations and literary contrivances that it would have taken a director of tremendous artistry to pull the pieces together into a coherent whole. Alas, Andrew V. McLaglen is not such a director. Because he presents the story with the same brisk, unvarnished style with which he made several entertaining action films, the peculiar nuances of Fools’ Parade end up feeling completely false. So while the movie is watchable thanks to the novelty of familiar actors playing offbeat scenes, Fools’ Parade isn’t satisfying—the execution is too straight for fans of idiosyncratic cinema, and the storyline is unlikely to thrill people who prefer conventional narratives.

          Jimmy Stewart stars as Mattie Appleyard, a recently paroled inmate who accrued $25,000 in back pay through 40 years of hard labor behind bars. Mattie has gathered a surrogate family of fellow ex-cons, including Lee Cottrill (Strother Martin), a nervous would-be storekeeper, and Johnny Jesus (Kurt Russell), a naïve youth. The trio’s goal of starting a business together hits a roadblock when they realize their former jailor, a psycho named “Doc” Council (George Kennedy), has conspired to prevent Mattie from safely cashing his $25,000 check. This circumstance precipitates a battle of wills between the ex-cons and their once and future oppressor, who chases after them with gun-toting henchmen. There’s also a subplot involving a blowsy madam (Anne Baxter) and a reluctant prostitute (Kathy Cannon), plus another subplot involving a corrupt banker (David Huddleston) who’s in cahoots with Council.

          Fools’ Parade was based on a book by Davis Grubb, who also wrote the source material for the 1955 cult classic The Night of the Hunter. This is arch material, but McLaglen plays the story straight, missing opportunities for irony, satire, and whimsy. Only the action scenes really work, at least in the conventional sense. Another issue is the clunky dialogue by screenwriter James Lee Barrett, much of which the normally excellent Huddleston is forced to deliver; Huddleston is little more than an exposition machine here.

          Despite these fatal flaws, Fools’ Parade is mildly arresting. Watching Stewart play a stately crook who does things like yank his glass eye from his skull in order to tell fortunes is bracing. Martin squirms through one of his signature performances as a Southern-fried oddball. And Russell plays every moment with the same gee-whiz sincerity he brought to myriad Disney flicks in the early ’70s. Yet Kennedy delivers the movie’s most extravagant performance. Wearing grime over his teeth and wire-rimmed glasses over his face, the bulky actor hunches over like a troglodyte and drags out utterances in the vocal style a tweaked country preacher. His acting is spectacularly bad. (Baxter almost matches him for over-the-top stagecraft, especially since she wears garish whore makeup.) It’s hard to imagine how or why Fools’ Parade got made, since it must have been nearly as strange on paper as it is on screen. After all, the climax features a sight gag involving a lovable dog fetching a stick of lit dynamite. However, these bizarre flourishes make Fools’ Parade a curio—one can only marvel that the movie exists.

Fools’ Parade: FREAKY

Elvis: That’s the Way It Is (1970) & Elvis on Tour (1972)

          By the late ’60s, rock legend Elvis Presley’s long run as a movie star seemed like it was over, as evidenced by the failure of Change of Habit (1969), a musical comedy the King made for Universal. Rather than accepting defeat, however, Presley’s home studio, MGM, tacked in a new direction by commissioning a documentary about the singer’s return to live performance after a seven-year hiatus. Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Denis Sanders, Elvis: That’s the Way It Is captures the King at the beginning of his self-parody period, introducing such tropes as the sequined jump suit, the exuberant karate moves, and the cheesy onstage patter (“Thank you, thankyouverymuch”). Yet for every example of excess—bloated arrangements, syrupy ballads—there’s something redeeming, like a flash of Presley’s thunderous vocal power every now and then. Therefore, this record of the King’s blockbuster residency at the International Hotel in Las Vegas is consistently compelling.

          In the best sequence (Presley rehearsing with his band), the singer is loose and playful, digging into killer grooves like a version of “Little Sister” that segues into a cover of the Beatles’ “Get Back.” And while there’s plenty of bad-Elvis sludge in That’s the Way It Is—Presley does a half-assed version of “Love Me Tender” as he trolls the lip of the stage and kisses female audience members—the film is a fascinating artifact. This is especially true of the re-edited version that premiered on Turner Classic Movies in 2000. Sanders’ original cut was derided for including pointless secondary material, such as interviews with fans and hotel workers. The 2000 version excludes the superfluous material, features a slightly different song list, and offers stronger momentum during the second and third acts, which simulate one full concert even though footage was cobbled together from six different evenings. Both cuts of That’s the Way It Is benefit from crisp, dramatic concert photography by the great cinematographer Lucien Ballard, who shot The Wild Bunch (1969) and other classics.

          After That’s the Way It Is did well, MGM commissioned a second concert documentary two years later. Elvis on Tour records Presley’s first concert trek in a decade. Although the movie drags at times—partially because Presley’s starting to look bored, heavy, and silly onstage, and partially because the filmmakers include drab offstage bits like shots of roadies moving cases around empty amphitheaters—Elvis on Tour has incredible moments. For instance, the movie shows Presley singing his last significant single, “Burning Love,” a song so new he reads lyrics off a sheet of paper. It’s striking to see an artist crafting a fresh hit almost 20 years after his first Number One song. Elvis on Tour also features a terrific gospel-music jam session between Elvis and his backup singers. This sequence lets viewers watch Presley enjoy his talent in a (mostly) private way. Elvis on Tour lacks the dramatic build of That’s the Way It Is, particularly since Presley’s climactic cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” appears too early, but it’s worth watching all the way through just to hear these immortal words: “Elvis has left the building.” Elvis on Tour was the last film of Presley’s career, and though he enjoyed one more showbiz triumph afterward—the famous TV concert Aloha from Hawaii (1973)—health problems took the King’s life in 1977.

Elvis: That’s the Way It Is: GROOVY

Elvis on Tour: FUNKY

The Barefoot Executive (1971)

Although it’s ultimately quite harmless, there’s little to recommend in The Barefoot Executive, a live-action Disney movie set in the world of TV-network corporate offices. A quick recitation of the plot explains why the movie is such a dubious proposition: Ambitious TV-network page Steven Post (Kurt Russell) discovers that his girlfriend’s pet chimpanzee has infallible instincts for picking which TV shows will get high ratings, so Steven pretends he’s actually picking the shows and thus climbs the network hierarchy. As penned by sure Disney hand Joseph L. McEveety, the script isn’t quite as insipid as the story suggests, since McEveety keeps things moving quickly and zeroes in on Steven’s moral conflict about lying to his bosses and exploiting his simian sidekick. That said, it’s a movie about a chimp picking TV shows, so there’s only so high up the ladder of quality a movie with this premise can ascend, particularly since McEveety doesn’t go far enough with the satire implied by the set-up. Russell, at this point just a few years away from aging out of juvenile roles, does fairly well in the emotional scenes, though he’s still operating inside the golly-gee-whiz confines of exuberant Disney-kid acting. Nobody else in the movie gets anything interesting to do, so Disney regular Joe Flynn overcompensates with his standard exasperated-nincompoop routine and the normally reliable Harry Morgan shouts his way through an uncharacteristically obnoxious performance. As Steven’s girlfriend, leading lady Heather North is forgettable, and as his main nemesis, future TV star John Ritter is enjoyably fussy if not in any way exceptional. The chimp is cute, though.

The Barefoot Executive: LAME

Superdad (1973)

          The live-action Disney comedy Superdad is awful but weirdly fascinating. Although the title promises one of the studio’s special-effects farces, Superdad is instead a misguided attempt at dramatizing the generation gap. Uptight father Charlie McCready (Bob Crane) frets that his daughter, recent high-school graduate Wendy (Kathleen Cody), is wasting the summer before college; she’s spending all her time with friends including her childhood sweetheart, Bart (Kurt Russell), while waiting to hear if she’s gotten a scholarship to her parents’ alma mater. Charlie’s jazzed about the scholarship possibility because attending the far-away college would separate Wendy from Bart and the gang. Watching TV one night, Charlie hears a pop psychologist suggest that parents should try getting hip to their teenagers’ lifestyles, so Charlie tags along for a disastrous day of beach volleyball and water-skiing. Disgruntled, Charlie slips back into control-freak mode and tricks Wendy into thinking she won the scholarship. Predictably, Wendy goes to pieces when driven away from her friends. At college, Wendy gets “engaged” to a counterculture artist, forcing Charlie (and Bart) to intervene.

          Tiresome in every respect, this movie about the generation gap is, inadvertently, a product of the generation gap—the clueless middle-aged Disney pros behind the camera depict teens as airheaded twits who do nothing but laugh and sing all day, making the kids seem like G-rated hippies. (The scene of the gang driving around while they warble an insipid song called “Los Angeles” against a backdrop of ugly process shots is particularly painful.) Oddly, the adults don’t come off looking much better, since Charlie is less of a Superdad and more of a Superdouche. He lies to his family, maligns the people Wendy loves, scowls at everything, and tries to dominate everyone he meets. It’s also difficult to accept Crane as a squeaky-clean Disney paterfamilias knowing that in his offscreen life, he was a sex addict who ran with a dangerous crowd. As for Disney stalwart Russell, it’s to his great credit that the romantic subplot comes across fairly well, especially since Cody is a bottle-blonde cipher, but his sincere performance belongs in a better movie.

Superdad: LAME

Now You See Him, Now You Don’t (1972) & The Strongest Man in the World (1975)

          These follow-ups to the 1969 Disney hit The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes continue the adventures of Dexter Riley (Kurt Russell), a science major at fictional Medfield College who keeps stumbling upon formulas that give him amazing abilities. Unlike most live-action Disney offerings, the Medfield movies lack cutesy kids and syrupy sentimentality; instead, they’re brisk slapstick diversions featuring enthusiastic performances by teenagers and slickly professional turns by veteran comedy pros. Since all three pictures in the series recycle the same reliable storyline—Medfield is in financial trouble, and only Dexter and his pals can save the day—they don’t demand much of viewers, but they’re entertaining nonetheless. In The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, an accident gives Dexter a computer brain that gets exploited by local crime boss A.J. Arno (Cesar Romero), who uses Dexter’s skills to win big at the track. By far the best of the three pictures (admittedly, not the highest hurdle to vault), Computer sets up the world of the series, especially the comic relief of Medfield’s amusingly inept leader, Dean Higgins (Joe Flynn).

          In the second picture, Now You See Him, Now You Don’t, Dexter and his buddy Schuyler (Michael McGreevey) stumble upon a formula for invisibility. When bad old A.J. Arno (Romero again) buys up the lease on Medfield, the boys make themselves invisible and snoop on him, only to discover he plans to foreclose on the school and turn it into a casino. Investigative high jinks ensue, with a climax involving Arno and his hoodlum accomplice Cookie (Richard Bakalyan) becoming invisible and evading police in an invisible car. It’s all very cartoonish, of course, but the sight gags mostly work and the tone is consistently light and amiable. Now You See Him features a lot more Dean Higgins (still played by Flynn) than the first picture, and he delivers enjoyable buffoonery during two long sequences of playing golf, first spectacularly with help from an invisible Dexter and then abysmally without.

          Predictably, the series runs out of gas in the third picture, The Strongest Man in the World, the sci-fi hook of which is, as the title bluntly states, Dexter becoming super-strong. Russell, who is exuberant and likeable in all three pictures, is sidelined in Strongest Man, with Schuyler (still McGreevey) getting substantially more screen time. That’s not a good thing, nor is the too-prominent presence of old-school comics like Eve Arden and Phil Silvers. With grownups taking center stage, including returning players Flynn and Romero, there’s way too much bug-eyed overacting, and not enough of those gosh-darn crazy kids. Strongest Man is the first Medfield picture to feel padded, and it’s just as well Disney gave up on the series after such a lackluster third entry. Trivia buffs may enjoy noting that a young Ed Begley Jr. shows up briefly in The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes as a student at rival State University, then returns in Now You See Him, Now You Don’t as a star pupil at Medfield; this says a lot about the continuity, or lack thereof, between the pictures.

Now You See Him, Now You Don’t: FUNKY

The Strongest Man in the World: LAME

The Deadly Tower (1975)

          At their best, the “ripped from the headlines” TV movies of the ’70s gave viewers vivid re-creations of important events without excessive dramatization. The Deadly Tower is a great example of the genre’s possibilities. The picture depicts the horrific events that took place on the University of Texas at Austin’s campus on August 4, 1966, when troubled youth Charles Whitman (Kurt Russell) took a position atop UT’s tower and shot people until 13 were dead and 34 more were wounded. Police ended the siege by storming the tower and killing Whitman.

          With an unvarnished style that’s so much more chilling than the standard melodramatic treatment, The Deadly Tower meticulously tracks the steps of Whitman’s bloody last day, intercut with the progress during the same time period of the Latino cop (Richard Yniguez) who eventually took Whitman down. This ongoing contrast between insanity and normalcy is effective, especially because Russell’s disturbing portrayal of a mentally damaged automaton defines him as a seemingly impossible challenge for the ambitious but understandably terrified policeman.

          Russell’s casting was a clever choice, because in the mid-’70s the young actor was known for starring in frothy Disney comedies; his casting amplifies the idea that Charles Whitman was an all-American boy gone terribly wrong. Committing wholeheartedly to the role and yet underplaying in a way that deepens the film’s effect, Russell distinguishes himself so well that it’s a surprise it took him several more years after this project to completely shake his Disney image.

          Yniguez provides the movie’s heart as a decent man trying to overcome workplace prejudice in order to provide for his growing family; there’s real tension watching him dart between buildings on the campus as he dodges bullets to make his way into the tower. Ned Beatty adds sweaty Southern flavor as a bystander who inadvertently becomes part of the assault force heading after Whitman, and John Forsythe lends bleeding-heart warmth as a reporter trying to discover Whitman’s motivation before the shooter becomes a victim of his own rampage.

          Despite obvious budgetary limitations, everything in the picture comes together well, because it works as a clinical depiction of madness loosed on an unsuspecting public, and as a taut thriller in which the stakes couldn’t be higher. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

The Deadly Tower: GROOVY