1980 Week: The Competition

          An old saying holds that directing is 90 percent casting. The trick, however, is casting the right actor in the right role at the right time. Consider The Competition, a glossy romantic drama about two pianists who fall in love while participating in a contest that will grant the winner instant access to a career performing classical music at top venues. Richard Dreyfuss plays the leading role of Paul Dietrich, a young man who has outgrown his child-prodigy years and yet not fully realized his promise as an adult. With his arsenal of off-putting sneers and uptight tics, Dreyfuss is completely the right performer for this role. Unfortunately, because he was in his early 30s when he made the picture, it’s an impossible accept him as a character who is presumably in his early 20s, especially since Dreyfuss had already played several roles with gray hair and a paunch. Director Joel Oliansnky and his collaborators try every trick they can to put across the desired illusion—Dreyfuss wears distracting makeup beneath his eyes, and other characters comment upon his “premature” receding hairline—but these feeble efforts only make the issue more noticeable. And so it goes, alas, for the rest of the picture, which boats intelligence and wit but feels artificial and contrived in nearly every possible way.

          The story, which Oliansky cowrote with producer William Sackheim, is simple. Paul decides to enter one last competition before giving up his dreams of musical glory for a day job. Upon arriving in San Francisco for auditions, he encounters pretty Heidi Joan Schoonover (Amy Irving), and they strike romantic sparks. Despite his determination to remain focused, Paul falls for Heidi. She, in turn, finds his earthiness refreshing since she comes from an insular, privileged background. Oliansky interweaves the love story of these two characters with subplots about other competitors, plus another subplot about Greta Vandemann (Lee Remick), Heidi’s piano teacher, herself a former competitor.

          Inexplicably, Oliansky lets The Competition sprawl across a bloated running time of more than two hours, even though the material is paper-thin. Much of the excess happens during performance scenes, since Oliansky seems determined to show off the way his actors learned to mimic complex fingering. There’s also a general languidness to the pacing, especially when actors stand in perfect three-point lighting to deliver monologues that, one presumes, were envisioned as Oscar clips. For a movie with a decent sense of humor, The Competition takes itself awfully seriously. Still, the film is not without its emotional peaks, even if Oliansky’s tendency toward overwritten schmaltz undercuts every sincere thing that his actors try to accomplish. Oh, and fair warning: If you’re among those who find Dreyfuss impossibly precious and smug, watching The Competition will not change your opinion.

The Competition: FUNKY

1980 Week: Tribute

          Calling a dramatic theater production a “well-made play” carries derogatory implications, not just because the “well-made play” was a popular genre in the 19th century, but because the term implies a certain mixture of predictability, superficiality, and tidiness—nothing earns so much critical enmity as work designed to please everyone. Tribute, based upon Bernard Slade’s stage production of the same name, is very much a “well-made play” in the pejorative sense. Predictable, superficial, tidy? Guilty on all three counts. It’s hardly a coincidence that Slade found great success in the world of TV sitcoms, developing the ridiculous ’60s series The Flying Nun, in addition to writing such plays as Same Time, Next Year, which became the 1978 film of the same name starring Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn. Slade’s signature move as a writer is heading partway down the road toward some emotional place that’s potentially hurtful or meaningful, then tacking sideways with an evasive joke or a simplistic homily.

          Nowhere is this more evident than during Tribute, which plays onscreen as a 121-minute prelude to a cop-out. If the movie didn’t immediately reveal itself as an exercise in jokey sentimentality, it would be a highly frustrating experience. So why is Tribute watchable? The answer is Jack Lemmon, who received a Tony nomination for the stage version and an Oscar nomination for the screen version. He’s wonderful in Tribute, and the match between his character and his screen persona is nearly perfect. Lemmon was uniquely gifted at wriggling out of uncomfortable emotional places by making silly expressions and telling motor-mouthed jokes, so watching him play a man who avoids emotion through humor is satisfying on myriad levels.

          Set in New York, the movie tells the story of Scottie Templeton (Lemmon), a onetime screenwriter now working as a press agent. Beloved by everyone he knows because he’s always quick with a joke and always capable of transforming life into a lighthearted adventure, Scottie has grown estranged from his college-aged son, Jud (Robby Benson), even though Scottie remains friendly with Jud’s mother. She’s Scottie’s ex-wife, Maggie (Lee Remick). Shortly before Maggie delivers Jud to New York for an extended visit, Scottie learns he has a terminal blood disease. Scottie endeavors to fix his relationship with Jud while he still has time, though of course he hopes to shield Jud from the truth lest Jud indulge Scottie out of pity. The complication, of course, is that Scottie doesn’t know the first thing about building real emotional bonds, so his idea of connecting with Jud is arranging for Jud to “meet” pretty young Sally (Kim Cattrall), a recent acquaintance of Scottie’s. The story’s title relates to a grand gesture that one of the characters makes in the final act.

          Directed with pace and polish by Bob Clark, Tribute benefits from fine supporting performances. Cattrall is endearing and Remick is elegant, while Colleen Dewhurst (as Scottie’s doctor) and John Marley (as Scottie’s business partner) add gravitas. Benson does what he can with an underdeveloped role, since his purpose is largely to reflect Lemmon’s light. Ah, but how bright that light is, with Lemmon swerving effortlessly from levity to pathos while stopping at various anguished and confused places in between. He’s reason enough to watch Tribute.

Tribute: GROOVY

A Delicate Balance (1973)

          Fun fact: When screenwriter Ernest Lehman earned an Oscar nomination for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), which was adapted from Edward Albee’s play of the same name, Albee was not amused. He lamented that all Lehman did was “typing” because the film incorporated so much text from the play. Perhaps that’s why Albee wrote the screenplays for the next two film adaptations of his own work, both of which were basically direct transpositions from stage to screen. Following the made-for-TV Zoo Story (1964), Albee helped bring his Pulitzer Prize-winning drama A Delicate Balance to movie theaters. Produced for the American Film Theatre and starring the venerable Katharine Hepburn, A Delicate Balance offers more suburban angst in the mode of Virginia Woolf. From start to finish, the movie is filled with sophisticated people unleashing fusillades of extravagant language to attack each other’s psyches. And while A Delicate Balance lacks the wow factor that Virginia Woolf achieved onscreen, it’s still a ferocious rumination on the anxieties of people whose luxurious lifestyles allow them to wallow in their entitled misery.

          Director Tony Richardson films the piece simply, letting his camera roam through the interiors of a grand house but often simply locking the camera down while masterful actors burn through lengthy exchanges and monologues. Albee’s verbal style is deliberately literary here, for even though he uses false starts and incomplete sentences to great effect, most of the play comprises perfectly crafted grammar tinged with sad poetry. As the character Claire remarks at one point, “We submerge our truths and have our sunsets on troubled waters.” Not exactly casual chit-chat.

          Hepburn and the great British actor Paul Scofield play Agnes and Tobias, wealthy New Englanders in late middle age. As bitter and caustic as they are with each other, Agnes and Tobias descend into outright hostility whenever they engage with their current houseguest, Claire (Kate Reid), Agnes’ alcoholic sister. Things get even worse when the couple’s best friends, neighbors Edna (Betsy Blair) and Harry (Joseph Cotten) show up unexpectedly one evening and announce they’re moving in with Agnes and Tobias because some unidentified fear has made their own home seem terrifying. And then Agnes and Tobias’ 36-year-old daughter, Julia (Lee Remick), arrives following the end of her fourth marriage, adding another set of emotional and psychological problems to the mix.

          A Delicate Balance explores many themes, including alienation, betrayal, detachment from reality, and the façades people create in order to tolerate life’s disappointments and indignities. Heavy drinking plays a role, as well. Characters talk about “silent, sad, disgusted love” and the “plague” that personal problems represent when introduced into new environments. Albee tackles this subject matter on a largely metaphorical level, with characters assaulting not just each other but also the qualities they represent. As Agnes says to Tobias in a particularly shrewish moment, “Rid yourself of the harridan—then you can run your mission, take out sainthood papers.”

          Whether all this gets to be a bit much is a matter of taste, though the quality of the piece is beyond reproach. Hepburn, Reid, and Remick incarnate the paradox of powerful women who make dubious life choices, while Cotten and Scofield portray emasculated men desperately trying to assert themselves. And while watching 133 minutes of humorless vitriol is not precisely fun, Albee’s extraordinary language and his keen insights make the experience rewarding intellectually, if perhaps not viscerally.

A Delicate Balance: GROOVY

Telefon (1977)

          Built around a fun premise but suffering from humdrum execution and lifeless leading performances, this Cold War thriller plays with the provocative notion of “sleeper” agents, international operatives brainwashed into acting like normal people until exposure to code words triggers their lethal training. Specifically, the story begins when KGB bad guy Nicolai Dalchimsky (Donald Pleasence) leaves the U.S.S.R. for America and brings along the codebook for a program called “Telefon.” Activating long-dormant killers who wreak havoc on U.S. targets, Dalchimsky is an anarchist bent on provoking a war. In response, Soviet overlords send KGB tough guy Major Grigori Borzov (Charles Bronson) to America, where he goes undercover to track down and stop Dalchimsky. Tasked with aiding Borzov is a Russian mole living as an American, codenamed “Barbara” (Lee Remick).

          Based on a novel by Walter Wager and written for the screen by highly capable thriller specialists Peter Hyams and Stirling Silliphant, Telefon should work, but the casting is problematic. Bronson is so harsh and stoic that it’s hard to accept him playing the romantic-hero rhythms of the Borzov role, and while it’s a relief that the leading lady isn’t Bronson’s real-life bride, Jill Ireland, who costarred in a large number of his ’70s movies, Remick seems highly disconnected from Bronson; any hope of chemistry between the leading characters probably ended the first time Bronson and Remick played a scene together.

          Another problem is that the film’s director, Don Siegel, was slipping into decline. After his respectable career in B-movies enjoyed a huge late-’60s/early-’70s boost thanks to a vibrant collaboration with Clint Eastwood, Siegel was apparently suffering health problems by the late ’70s. (It’s long been rumored that Eastwood did a lot of the directing on Siegel’s next picture, 1979’s terrific Escape from Alcatraz.) Whatever the cause, however, the result is the same—Telefon feels more like a generic TV movie than a big-budget feature, thanks to flat acting and perfunctory camerawork. So even though the twisty story has a few enjoyable moments, and even though Pleasence is weirdly beguiling as always, watching Telefon becomes a chore by the time the plot gets contrived toward the climax.

Telefon: FUNKY

Hustling (1975)

          Based on a nonfiction book by Gail Sheehy, who interviewed and spent time with a group of real New York City hookers, the solidly assembled telefilm Hustling offers a sober look at the world of prostitution. The movie focuses on a Sheehy stand-in, sophisticated journalist Fran Morrison (Lee Remick). Curious why working girls have become ubiquitous in Times Square, and why the police seem incapable of containing the problem, Fran zeroes in on tough-talking pro Wanda (Jill Clayburgh), who is stuck in city jail. Fran pays Wanda’s bail in exchange for information, so Wanda explains her relationships with johns, pimps, and other prostitutes. This leads Fran to discover the network of city officials and slumlords making money off the sex trade, transforming Fran’s article from a color piece about hooking to an exposé about corruption. Understandably, the deeper Fran digs into the prostitution business, the more pressure Wanda feels to stop talking.

          Hustling doesn’t shy away from the dangers of streetwalking—Wanda gets beaten and raped, and another prostitute commits suicide—yet the movie illustrates how some women can survive the business long enough to sock away cash and escape with their souls intact. Directed by reliable TV-movie helmer Joseph Sargent, who also made a handful of noteworthy features, Hustling moves along at a strong pace and boasts a great sense of atmosphere. There’s a documentary-style feel to the way Sargent’s cameras observe characters in dark alleyways, grungy coffee shops, and vile hotel rooms that rent by the hour. Sargent also benefits from vibrant acting.

          Remick seethes with a believable type of rich-liberal indignation, and the supporting cast features a number of ’70s favorites, including Paul Benedict, Melanie Mayron, Dick O’Neill, Alex Rocco, and Burt Young. However, the movie’s best/worst element is Clayburgh’s performance. Spewing a cartoonish Noo Yawk accent and strutting with seen-it-all attitude, Clayburgh is compelling from start to finish even though she’s unable to blend the strong and vulnerable aspects of her role into a believable characterization. However, if the worst shortcoming of a move is an actress investing too much effort, that’s a sign everyone involved is trying to create something worthwhile.

Hustling: GROOVY

Hennessy (1975)

A methodical revenge thriller predicated on the tensions between Great Britain and Ireland during the worst of the Irish “troubles,” Hennessy more or less gets the job done. It’s not a particularly efficient or stylish film, but the central premise is dramatic enough to generate suspense, and the leading players all contribute intense performances. Rod Steiger, exercising an unusual degree of restraint, stars as Niall Hennessy, a pacificistic family man who steers clear of IRA involvement, even though his brother is a notorious IRA terrorist. When Hennessy’s wife and child are gunned down in a sloppy street fight between English soldiers and Irish protestors, Hennessy coldly determines to seek revenge by blowing up the British Parliament. The picture then becomes a cat-and-mouse game as the English police and the IRA detect Hennessy’s plan and try to stop him; the Bobbies want to prevent a tragedy, and the IRA fears violent reprisal. As directed by workaday helmer Don Sharp, Hennessy grinds along in a perfunctory manner, with all of the moving parts in all the right places but no special panache of execution. The supporting characters aren’t developed deeply, so a subplot involving Hennessey’s main pursuer, Inspector Hollis (Richard Johnson), lacks the intended impact. Also, because Hennessy has no real emotional ties to any living characters, he comes across as a bit of an automaton, despite his relatable motivation. (Hennessy’s relationship with his sister-in-law, played by Lee Remick, is just a trite suspense device in the Hitchcock mode.) So, while the danger and intrigue are basically fine, there’s no personal story to grasp. This isn’t a fatal flaw, but it keeps Hennessy from being anything more than a brisk diversion. On the plus side, watch out for a quick appearance around the 15-minute mark by a young Patrick Stewart—with hair! (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Hennessy: FUNKY

Sometimes a Great Notion (1970)

          Although author Ken Kesey famously distanced himself from the 1975 movie version of his book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, he apparently enjoyed the 1970 adaptation of his book Sometimes a Great Notion, even though nearly everyone else regards the film of Cuckoo’s Nest as a classic and the film of Notion as a minor work. Given Kesey’s proclivity for stories about people who resist authority at great personal cost, however, it follows that he wouldn’t line up with popular opinion. Setting the author’s stamp of approval aside, Sometimes a Great Notion, which stars and was directed by Paul Newman, is sometimes a great movie.

          Telling the story of the iconoclastic Stamper clan, a family of independent Pacific Northwest loggers who alienate their neighbors by refusing to support a labor strike, the picture has moments of great insight and sensitivity, plus a climactic scene that’s horrific and memorable. Yet the movie is diffuse and overlong, as if it can’t decide whether it’s primarily about ornery patriarch Henry Stamper (Henry Fonda); his heir-apparent son, Hank (Newman); his estranged child, Leeland (Michael Sarrazin); or the whole family. The movie’s indecisiveness about whose story is being told gets exacerbated by sloppy storytelling at the beginning of the movie, because it takes a while to grasp that the labor strike is the main plot device.

          Even with these frustrating problems, Sometimes a Great Notion is watchable and often touching. Fonda is a powerhouse as a self-made man who refuses to accept that he can’t live by his own idiosyncratic rules: There’s a reason Henry coined “Never Give a Inch” as the family’s motto. The movie expertly depicts how the deficiencies of Henry’s parenting have infected his kids, because Hank has managed to drain the life from his marriage to Viv (Lee Remick), and Leeland is a lost soul who can’t abide his family tradition of psychological abuse. In this fraught environment, only Henry’s simple-minded middle son, Joe Ben (Richard Jaeckel), really thrives, so it’s not a surprise when the narrative punishes Joe Ben for his unquestioning acceptance of God’s will (and Henry’s will).

          The film benefits greatly from vivid location photography, even if Newman lets montages of logging chores drag on a bit too long, and it’s fascinating to watch diehard lefty Newman tell the story of a character who disdains the idea of organized labor. Plus, as noted earlier, the film’s climax—a horrible on-the-job accident that shakes the whole Stamper family—results in an extraordinary sequence that consumes nearly the entire last half-hour of the picture. From the moment the accident happens to the instant the movie ends with a final gesture of defiance from the Stampers, Sometimes a Great Notion is riveting. (Available as part of the Universal Vault Series on Amazon.com)

Sometimes a Great Notion: FUNKY

The Medusa Touch (1978)

          One of the more unusual pictures to appear during the post-Exorcist boom in supernatural horror, The Medusa Touch is an imaginative thriller that quietly builds up a strong head of steam on its way to a genuinely frightening climax. Set in London, the movie begins when someone attacks British writer John Morlar (Richard Burton), leaving him in a coma; visiting French detective Brunel (Lino Ventura) is assigned to investigate. The case immediately seems out of the ordinary because even though Morlar should be dead after the beating he received, his brain activity reflects superhuman stamina. Deepening the intrigue, Brunel meets with Morlar’s psychiatrist, Doctor Zonfeld (Lee Remick), who reveals that Morlar believes himself capable of willing disasters to happen.

          In flashbacks depicting Morlar at different ages, we see him “cause” the deaths of his parents, his classmates at a boarding school, and many others who were unlucky enough to cross his path. As the story progresses, Brunel becomes more and more convinced that Morlar actually does possess otherworldly powers, and that Morlar is planning to cause his most horrific disaster yet because his brain still functions while his body is barely alive. Based on a novel by Peter Van Greenaway, The Medusa Touch is much more than just a creepshow—it’s also a provocative exploration of morality, asking the question of what responsible citizens must do if they become aware of a monster in their midst.

          The cadaverous appearance and contemptuous performance style that Burton possessed later in life suits The Medusa Touch well: Burton looks like a walking incarnation of death. By the end of the movie, just watching him is unnerving, especially when he locks into the deadly stare he uses when “willing” mayhem into being. Ventura, a stocky and weathered Frenchman, offers a terrific complement to Burton’s darkness; he seems vital and humane, though experienced enough to acknowledge the limits of his own understanding. Remick’s chilly beauty adds another interesting flavor to the mix.

          Elaborate pre-CGI special effects come into play toward the end of the picture, and the vaguely surreal quality of the effects accentuates the storyline’s enigmatic quality. So even though The Medusa Touch isn’t particularly subtle, the precision with which the narrative’s various threads are introduced and connected becomes steadily more impressive as the climax approaches, giving the last act real power. So, like all of the most effective movies about supernatural horror, The Medusa Touch is ridiculous when considered from a rational perspective, yet quite engrossing when taken at face value.

The Medusa Touch: GROOVY

The Omen (1976) & Damien—Omen II (1978)

          A massive box-office hit feeding the public’s post-Exorcist appetite for supernatural horror but opting for cartoonish violence over gut-wrenching realism, The Omen is fabulously entertaining nonsense. The film’s premise remains tantalizing even after years of underwhelming sequels and retreads, Jerry Goldsmith’s powerful score set the template for myriad lesser imitations, and some of the creatively staged deaths in the picture have entered the horror-cinema pantheon. So even though The Omen has undoubtedly lost much of its power to shock, the film’s shameless entertainment value survives. Like the previous year’s Jaws, the first Omen movie is a textbook example of pulp disguised as prestige thanks to glossy stars and impressive production values. (Among other parallels, Goldsmith acknowledged that the iconic score John Williams created for Jaws was an influence on his work for The Omen.) Yet while critical admiration for Jaws has only grown over the years, time has put The Omen in its proper place as a guilty pleasure.
          Here’s the backstory. Producer Harvey Bernhard saw dollar signs when a clergyman acquaintance pondered what might happen if the antichrist emerged in modern times, so Bernhard commissioned a script by David Seltzer and hired promising director Richard Donner (the success of this picture earned Donner a choice gig helming 1978’s Superman: The Movie). The story that Bernhard and his collaborators contrived involves American diplomat Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck), who adopts a mysterious infant after his own son is stillborn. The ambassador unwisely hides the truth from everyone, including his wife, Kathy (Lee Remick), but once young Damien (Harvey Stephens) reaches his seventh year, things get messy. People around the child die gruesomely, raising Thorn’s suspicions, and then a crazed priest tries to convince the ambassador his “son” is an inhuman beast sired by a jackal.
          The beauty of the premise, in terms of generating spooky excitement, is the implication that Satan has both an endless supply of minions and nearly limitless power. Furthermore, the biggest challenge to embedding the antichrist in society is the possibility that someone might take Damien out before he’s old enough to defend himself. That last bit creates a potent moral dilemma for Peck’s character.
          Even though the plot crumbles under scrutiny, the movie’s operatic death scenes are enjoyably preposterous (“It’s all for you, Damien!”), and the made-up mythology (e.g., “the seven daggers of Meddigo”) casts an engrossing spell. Peck anchors the picture with anguished determination, while Leo McKern is memorably intense as the dude who says Damien’s gotta die, David Warner adds an enjoyable presence as a conspiracy-minded photographer, and Billie Whitelaw is all kinds of creepy as Damien’s nanny. With respect to Donner, who manages pace and tone expertly, and DP Gilbert Taylor, who provides a master class in the use of filters, the movie’s VIP is Goldsmith. His Oscar-winning score uses eerie chants such as “Ave Satani!” (Latin for “Hail Satan!”) to infuse the picture with palpable menace. His music is the film’s dark heart.
          One could argue that the picture’s first sequel, Damien—Omen II, actually makes more narrative sense than its predecessor, inasmuch as teenaged Damien’s circumstances seem better suited to future global conquest; Damien (played in the follow-up by Jonathan Scott-Taylor) accepts his destiny while being raised by his uncle (William Holden), a corporate giant whose empire the antichrist stands to inherit. Alas, Damien is less exciting than the previous picture. It’s not as if Bernhard and co. suddenly decided to take the franchise seriously, but director Don Taylor lacks Donner’s crowd-pleasing flair and Holden, though always watchable, is very much in paycheck mode, whereas Peck committed to the silliness of The Omen. Having said that, the perfectly cast Scott-Taylor is quite disturbing as he grows more and more comfortable in his unholy skin, and the death scene involving an icy lake is genuinely frightening; the scene might even surpass the gruesome kills that made the first Omen notorious. One great scene, alas, does not make a great picture. Neither does behind-the-scenes turmoil. British director Mike Hodges was discharged partway through production and replaced with American journeyman Taylor.
          The original Omen series concluded with The Final Conflict (1981), a grisly installment featuring Sam Neill as grown-up Damien trying to prevent the Second Coming, although a quasi-related telefilm called Omen IV: The Awakening followed ten years later. The original film was pointlessly remade in 2006, and a dreary prequel, The First Omen, appeared in 2024.

The Omen: GROOVY
Damien—Omen II: FUNKY

The Europeans (1979)

          I’ve never forgotten a remark that Martin Scorsese made while addressing my class at NYU’s film school: Asked about Merchant-Ivory films, which were peaking in popularity at the time, Scorsese said the films reminded him of “Laura Ashley wallpaper.” Then and now, I couldn’t agree more. Even though the myriad literary adaptations created by director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant, and screenwriter Ruth Prawler Jhabvala are intelligent and tasteful, I find them so restrained as to induce catatonia. Case in point: the soft-spoken Henry James adaptation The Europeans, which set the somnambulistic template that Merchant-Ivory followed throughout ensuing decades.
          In the turgid drama, attractive actors play repressed upper-crust characters amidst gorgeous vintage clothing, location, and props. (There’s a reason a critic once characterized Merchant-Ivory pictures as “real estate porn.”) Lee Remick plays Eugenia Young, a spirited lady of leisure from the continent who shows up unannounced at the lush Massachusetts estate of her puritanical cousin, Mr. Wentworth. Eugenia and her brother, Felix, cause all sorts of tumult in the Wentworth household, because the patriarch’s adult offspring are fascinated by Eugenia’s seemingly liberated ways. And while that simple plot should be a springboard for effective culture-clash drama, the Merchant-Ivory team treats the material in a way that’s both painfully polite and painfully page-bound.
          Actors move slowly through static compositions, barely adjusting their facial expressions or vocal rhythms while speaking reams of perfectly grammatical dialogue, so the piece lacks almost any detectable excitement. In fact, Wentworth actually warns one of his daughters against getting excited, which makes sense for his character but explains why viewers craving stories about warm-blooded human beings should seek their cinematic fancy elsewhere. As Wentworth says, “We’re to be exposed to peculiar influences. We should employ a great deal of wisdom and self-control.”
          There’s no disputing the historical accuracy of that sentiment, but the dialogue demonstrates how little is done to translate James’ nuanced observations about class differences into actual dramatic conflict. Remick is solid, if a touch affected, and Lisa Eichhorn matches her spunk and luminosity, while Wesley Addy is effectively stern as Wentworth. Yet despite sincere acting and fine behind-the-camera craftsmanship, The Europeans is not a cause for (ahem) excitement.

The Europeans: FUNKY