The Marcus-Nelson Murders (1973)

          Significant as the first appearance of Telly Savalas’ popular TV crimefighter Lt. Theo Kojack, whose last name was altered slightly once the character earned his own series a few months later, The Marcus-Nelson Murders works well as a stand-alone story about the complexities of police work. Extrapolated from a real-life case that informed the Supreme Court’s famous Miranda ruling, The Marcus-Nelson Murders depicts the callousness with which the NYPD railroads an innocent man who makes an easy patsy for a high-profile crime. The Miranda ruling stipulated that suspects must be informed of their rights at the time of arrest, but the young man at the center of The Marcus-Nelson Murders gets arraigned on murder charges before he even realizes what’s happening. As written by the highly capable dramatist Abby Mann (an Oscar winner for 1961’s theatrical feature Judgment at Nuremberg), this adaptation of Selwyn Rabb’s book Justice in the Back Room has the flavor and toughness of Sidney Lumet’s myriad New York crime films, right down to the varied shadings of morality.

          The story begins with a mysterious attacker invading a Manhattan apartment. Two of the women who live there are brutally murdered during the home invasion. Public attention compels the police to throw enormous manpower onto the case. Among the investigators is Kojack. He mostly lingers on the sidelines for the first half of this long film, though director Joseph Sargent periodically features domestic interludes between Kojack and his on-again/off-again lover, Ruthie (Lorraine Gary). After cops in Brooklyn arrest a simple young black man, Lewis Humes (Gene Woodbury), on an unrelated charge, they become convinced Humes was responsible for the murders. The Brooklyn cops coerce a confession with a toxic combination of charm and violence. Kojack moves to the foreground after Humes is indicted, and the detective senses something isn’t right about the evidence incriminating Humes. What follows is the meticulous process by which Kojack and crusading lawyer Jake Weinhaus (José Ferrer) pursue the truth. Along the way, thorny issues (institutionalized racism, police procedure, unreliable eyewitness testimony) make it difficult for the heroes to see daylight, even as Humes rots in a cell.

          The Marcus-Nelson Murders covers a lot of ground, so at times it feels more like a miniseries than a movie. Some supporting characters resonate, including aggressive Brooklyn prosecutor Mario Portello (Allen Garfield), while others get lost in the shuffle. The picture also has false notes, such as casting B-movie stalwart Marjoe Gortner as a Puerto Rican. Nonetheless, the overarching theme—how the pursuit of justice intersects with the rights of the accused—comes through powerfully. Excepting the jaded narration he provides, Kojack is not the film’s most interesting element, so it’s no surprise producers overhauled the character for his weekly series, transforming the rechristened “Theo Kojak” from a principled observer to a wisecracking rulebreaker.

The Marcus-Nelson Murders: GROOVY

Just You and Me, Kid (1979)

          If you can overlook a premise that stretches credibility far past the breaking point, Just You and Me, Kid is a pleasant bit of fluff starring a charming veteran and a spunky newcomer. Nothing in the movie is remotely surprising, but star power keeps nearly every scene watchable. Eightysomething comedy legend George Burns, who was in the midst of one of Hollywood’s unlikeliest comebacks when he made this picture, stars as Bill Grant, a former vaudevillian now living alone in a Los Angeles mansion. Brooke Shields, the precocious teen model whose sexualized image in widely seen advertisements led to a wobbly acting career, costars as Kate, a street kid on the run from a thug named Demesta (William Russ). After fleeing Demesta’s place without clothes (don’t ask), Kate hides in the trunk of Bill’s vintage car and then threatens to accuse him of molesting her unless he lets her hide in his house.

          Absurd and salacious as this situation sounds, Just You and Me, Kid actually gets off to a decent start by focusing on vignettes of Bill’s eccentric daily life. He uses automated music recordings instead of alarm clocks, keeps traffic cones in his car so he can scam great parking places, peppers every conversation with tart one-liners, and so on. Burns floats through Just You and Me, Kid on a cloud of perpetual calm and perfect timing. Shields, meanwhile, adds spice to Burns’ salt by delivering all of her lines with more attitude than skill; she manages to come across as appealing even though much of the film’s dialogue relates to implications that older men are desperate to sleep with her. While it’s true that the storyline of Just You and Me, Kid goes exactly where you might expect—Bill and Kate discover they’re good for each other, because Bill needs someone to love and Kate needs a caretaker—director/co-writer Leonard Stern keeps things moving along briskly, and he organizes nearly every scene as a showcase for Burns’ amiably dry humor.

          That said, subplots involving Bill’s anxious daughter (Lorraine Gary) and Bill’s institutionalized best friend (Burl Ives) are woefully underdeveloped, and the whole business with Demesta is merely a half-assed plot contrivance. Plus, of course, placing a bachelor and a young girl in the same house for much of the picture is unavoidably suggestive, no matter how many times the filmmakers use jokes to keep viewers’ minds out of the gutter. Just You and Me, Kid is far from the best of Burns’ comeback-era vehicles, but considering how bad his pictures got just a few years later—here’s looking at you, Oh, God! You Devil (1984)—this movie ends up seeming relatively harmless.

Just You and Me, Kid: FUNKY

Car Wash (1976)

Best known for the disco theme song by Rose Royce that became a No. 1 pop hit, Car Wash is a silly ensemble comedy about the goings-on among the African-American workers at a Los Angeles car wash, so the focus is on cartoonish jive talk, contrived slapstick, and meandering musical sequences. A steady stream of catchy funk/disco tunes fills the soundtrack (Motown Records hitmaker Norman Whitfield did the music), and the picture is so overstuffed with characters that things move along at a steady clip, but the storyline runs the gamut from juvenile to pedestrian. As written by Joel Schumacher, who later became the A-list director of such glossy piffles as The Lost Boys (1987), Car Wash tries to generate gags from such unlikely sources as a would-be revolutionary (Bill Duke) spewing militant aphorisms; a sassy drag queen (Antonio Fargas) exuding lascivious attitude; a disgruntled cab driver (George Carlin) trying to find the hooker who skipped out on a fare; and a fast-talking evangelist (Richard Pryor) strutting around with three female vocalists (the Pointer Sisters) literally singing his praises. This is the sort of movie in which the titular location functions as a conveyer belt for delivering one random character after another, which means the piece lacks anything resembling cohesion or dramatic drive. The script really shows its strain with idiotic recurring characters like the bitchy Beverly Hills mom (Lorraine Gary) whose son won’t stop puking, and the redneck car-wash worker (Jack Kehoe) who frets that he might have gotten VD. Car Wash has fleeting moments of interest, but whatever virtues the film has are overshadowed by groan-inducing moments like the scene in which characters argue about who has to clean dog excrement off the sidewalk. Sample dialogue: “Don’t gimme no lip, pick up the shit!”

Car Wash: LAME