Death on the Nile (1978)

          The all-star period mystery film Murder on the Orient Express (1974) was such a commercial and critical success that another big-budget Agatha Christie adaptation was sure to follow. And while Death on the Nile is far less posh than its predecessor, it’s still quite enjoyable—more so, perhaps, than the stolid Orient Express. Clever and intricate though they may be, Christine’s books are not high art, and the makers of Death on the Nile treat the source material as pulp, whereas director Sidney Lumet and his Orient Express collaborators took the dubious path of treating Christie as literature. In any event, Death on the Nile plays out like a quasi-sequel to the earlier film, since both pictures feature Christie’s beloved Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. Albert Finney played Poirot in Orient Express, but Peter Ustinov assumes the role in Death on the Nile, marking the first of six films in which he essayed the character.

          As per the usual Christie formula, the narrative follows a large number of interconnected characters, all of whom eventually land in the same place—a steamer churning down the Nile River in Egypt—for a long voyage filled with intrigue and murder. The picture begins in England, where penniless Jacqueline (Mia Farrow) begs her rich friend, Linnet (Lois Chiles), to provide employment for Jacqueline’s fiancée, Simon (Simon MacCorkindale). Linnet steals Simon from her friend, marries him, and embarks on a honeymoon trip through Egypt. Yet Jacqueline chases after them, taunting the newlyweds with threats of revenge. Eventually, Linnet and Simon encounter the vacationing Poirot, requesting his assistance in dispatching the nettlesome Jacqueline. Various other characters enter the mix, and before long it becomes clear that everyone except Simon and the neutral Poirit has a grudge against Linnet.

          It’s giving nothing away to say that she dies about an hour into the 140-minute film—after all, the story can’t be called Death on the Nile without a corpse—so the fun stems from Poirot’s ensuing investigation. The pithy detective performs a thorough review of all the possible suspects, even as more people are killed, finally unraveling the true killer’s identity during a Christie staple—the final scene of Poirot gathering all the suspects in a room and then explaining, with the help of elaborate flashbacks, how he connected clues. It’s all quite far-fetched and formulaic, but there’s a good reason why Christie is considered the queen of the whodunit genre. It also helps that Anthony Shaffer, the playwright/screenwriter behind the intricate mystery film Sleuth (1972), did the script, and that director John Guillermin provides a brisk pace and a sleek look.

          As for the performances from the huge cast, they’re erratic. On the plus side, Ustinov is droll as Poirot, David Niven is urbane as his sidekick, and the best supporting players (Jane Birkin, Jon Finch, Olivia Hussey, I.S. Johar, Maggie Smith) provide the varied textures asked of them. However, some players are badly miscast (Jack Warden as a German?), and some deliver performances that are too clumsy for this sort of material (Chiles, Farrow, George Kennedy). That leaves Bette Davis and Angela Lansbury, both of whom treat their parts like high camp; neither tethers her characterization to human reality, but both fill the screen with palpable energy.

          By the end of the picture, one does feel the absence of Lumet’s sure hand, since he did a smoother job of unifying his Orient Express cast members than Guillermin does here. Nonetheless, in the most important respects, Death on the Nile delivers Christie as pure silly escapism, which seems about right.

Death on the Nile: GROOVY

Hurricane (1979)

          The romantic epic Hurricane received a poor reception from audiences and critics during its original release, and its stature has not grown during the intervening years. Yet while the picture definitely has major problems, it also has interesting virtues. Extensive location photography in the South Pacific, complete with onscreen appearances by natives from islands in the area, gives certain scenes the texture of a National Geographic documentary. The underlying storyline, extrapolated from a 1936 novel, dramatizes a culture clash that speaks to issues of imperialism and intolerance. The final 30 minutes of the picture, during which producer Dino De Laurentiis unleashes a massive storm by way of intricate special effects, is genuinely spectacular. And giving the whole piece an elegant patina that it may or may not deserve is luminous and naturalistic imagery generated by cinematographer Sven Nykvist.

          Previously filmed in 1937 by legendary director John Ford, the James Norman Hall-Charles Nordoff novel Hurricane tells the story of an island king who falls in love with an American woman but then runs afoul of the American legal system; the titular storm provides both an action-adventure climax and a tidy metaphor representing the whirl of events surrounding the characters. As interpreted by De Laurentiis, screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr., and original director Roman Polanski—who developed the project until legal troubles made his continued involvement impossible—the 1979 version of Hurricane unfolds as a melodrama about star-crossed lovers.
          In 1920s Pago Pago, U.S. Navy officer Captain Bruckner (Jason Robards) is the regional governor, overseeing natives under the control of the U.S. government. One stormy night, Bruckner’s adult daughter, Charlotte (Mia Farrow), arrives for a visit. She’s immediately taken with the Captain’s native servant, Matangi (Dayton Ka’ne), who is handsome, insolent, and proud. When Matangi becomes chief of his tribe through hereditary succession, he immediately asks Captain Bruckner to release several natives who are being held for infractions of American law. Meanwhile, Charlotte and Matangi become lovers even though he’s betrothed, by way of an arranged marriage, to a native woman. These and other plotlines converse during the film’s elaborate climax, which involves chases and fights and tragedies amid the monstrous storm.

          Hurricane looks great from start to finish, because Nykvist eschews the glossy look usually associated with romantic epics. However, tonal dissonance is a recurring problem. Ka’ne gives a terrible performance, since he was obviously cast for his looks, and Farrow isn’t much better—the lack of chemistry between the stars is stupefying. Screenwriter Semple doesn’t do them any favors by periodically lapsing into his signature jokey style. During the most cringe-inducing scene, a wide-eyed Charlotte and a shirtless Matangi stand in the rain, staring at each other. “I see you are getting very wet,” he says. “No wetter than you,” she replies. In another scene, Farrow has to spit out the awful line, “Don’t ask me to marry you—just love me!” Director Jan Troell, who replaced Polanski late in the development process, fails to pull performance styles together, and while composer Nino Rota contributes many regal themes, the work of regular De Laurentiis composer John Barry is badly missed. Too often, the movie strives for operatic intensity and instead achieves soap-opera silliness.

Hurricane: FUNKY

The Public Eye (1972)

          This refreshing British romance was adapted by the venerable Peter Shaffer from his own play (originally titled The Private Ear and the Public Eye), and directed by the enduring Carol Reed, of The Third Man fame. Featuring a trio of highly capable actors ripping through reams of sophisticated dialogue, this is a tasteful production from top to bottom, which makes it all the more interesting that the story is so peculiar. Michael Jayston (star of 1971’s Nicholas and Alexandra) plays an uptight London accountant named Charles, and Mia Farrow plays his wife, a freethinking young American named Belinda. Although Belinda pulled Charles from his shell during their courtship, he has retreated into stuffy traditionalism, so they’re drifting from each other. Fearful that she’s become unfaithful, Charles hires a detective agency to follow Belinda, and an unconventional investigator named Julian Christoforou gets the assignment.

          Played by one-named Israeli star Topol with the same vivaciousness he brought to his famous stage and screen role in Fiddler on the Roof, Julian is a voluptuary in love with love. Most of the story comprises one long dialogue scene between Charles and Julian, during which Charles describes the history of his relationship with Belinda and during which Julian explains the details of his surveillance; these incidents are depicted through extensive flashbacks. In the story’s main twist, Charles learns that Belinda remained faithful to him—until she noticed this peculiar Greek fellow shadowing her day after day. Turns out Belinda and Julia have enjoyed a platonic and wordless courtship, attending cultural events each afternoon. Charles is infuriated by this discovery, so the remainder of the movie explores how the triangle gets resolved.

          Fanciful and stylized, Shaffer’s story is more of a romantic fable than a realistic narrative, and the magical style is elevated by John Barry’s haunting music, which includes the frequently repeated song “Follow, Follow.” Shaffer’s dialogue is as resplendent as usual, though he occasionally lapses into self-indulgent loftiness, and the character work is sharp. Topol easily steals the movie, while Jayston invests his role with repressed humanity, and Farrow endeavors to come across as more than just a flighty hippie. The movie also benefits from the extensive use of evocative London locations, and the climax is genuinely surprising.

The Public Eye: GROOVY

The Great Gatsby (1974)

          While this much-maligned adaption of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic Jazz Age novel is highly problematic, it’s not the disaster its reputation might suggest. And while the movie’s biggest shortcomings are indecisive direction and poorly conceived leading roles, it must be acknowledged that the source material’s inherent ambiguity prevents easy translation to the cinematic medium.

          The basics of the movie’s storyline are intact from the novel. In 1920s Long Island, carefree young socialite Daisy Buchanan (Mia Farrow) endures a financially comfortable but loveless marriage to the abusive and adulterous Tom Buchanan (Bruce Dern). One summer, Daisy’s life is brightened by the arrival on Long Island of a favorite cousin, comparatively penniless Nick Carraway (Sam Waterston). Nick resides in a small cottage next to the palatial estate of Jay Gatsby (Robert Redford), a mystery man who throws lavish parties that he doesn’t attend.

          Jay befriends Nick as a means of arranging a meeting with Daisy, whom we learn was in love with Jay prior to her marriage. The Daisy/Jay romance was originally thwarted by Jay’s poverty, so in the intervening period he acquired great wealth through dubious means. A dreamer mired in the past, Jay hopes to steal Daisy away from her unworthy husband and reclaim the idylls of yesteryear. Fitzgerald’s novel is a meditation on the blithe manner in which the rich trifle with the lives of the poor, and the book explores such rich themes as ambition, jealousy, self-delusion, and self-destruction.

          The screenplay, credited to Francis Ford Coppola but reportedly tweaked by director Jack Clayton and producer David Merrick, simplifies Fitzgerald’s story in hurtful ways, accentuating some of the novel’s least interesting aspects—the seductive glamour of Roaring ’20s clothing, the silly revelry of Prohibition-era parties, the trashy extremes of a subplot involving Tom’s déclassé mistress, Myrtle Wilson (Karen Black). Clearly, when the adaptation of a book famed for its internal qualities gets mired in surfaces, there’s a major disconnect on some level.

          Furthermore, it’s no coincidence that Clayton didn’t direct another Hollywood movie for nearly a decade after The Great Gatsby: His storytelling is so awkward that he sometimes contrives complex tracking shots that land in the wrong place, with a key character obscured while delivering dialogue, and Clayton gets completely lost during party scenes, lingering on unimportant details like the flailing hem of a flapper’s skirt while she’s doing the Charleston.

          The lead performances are similarly unfocused. Farrow is far too stilted to evoke Daisy’s signature quality of intoxicating carelessness, and Farrow’s clumsy reactions during the most dramatic scenes recall the over-the-top mugging of silent films. Redford fares better, nailing several important nuances, though he seems like he’s in a different movie from everyone else—he’s striving for quiet depth while other actors settle for loud melodrama. Waterston finds a comfortable middle ground between the extremes of Farrow’s and Redford’s performances, and the scenes between him and Redford are the movie’s best.

          Dern is very good, too, though he’s boxed in by a one-note characterization, and supporting player Scott Wilson is quietly moving in a key role. As for Black, there’s a reason a punk band bears the ironic name The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black—the operatic style she displays here is an acquired taste.

          The commercial and critical failure of this movie was enough to scare Hollywood away from Fitzgerald’s book for decades, as had happened previously with a reckless 1949 adaptation starring Alan Ladd; notwithstanding a bland TV version broadcast in 2000, Hollywood avoided The Great Gatsby until 2012, when flamboyant director Baz Luhrmann mounted a lavish new version (in 3D!) starring Leonardo Di Caprio as Gatsby.

The Great Gatsby: FUNKY

The Haunting of Julia (1977)

Slightly creepy in moments but deadly dull overall, The Haunting of Julia is yet another ’70s horror picture about a woman whose maternal instincts are tested by the presence of an evil child, complete with a starring performance by Mia Farrow, who became a star by appearing in the granddaddy of this particular subgenre, 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby. While the best creepy-kid movies follow a simple supernatural premise to its logical extreme, The Haunting of Julia awkwardly fuses two concepts, creating narrative confusion. Is the story about Julia Lofting (Mia Farrow) recovering from the death of her own child, or is the story about Julia getting spooked by the spirit of a dead little boy who once lived in her house? And which of these deceased kids, if either, is responsible for the string of grisly murders claiming the lives of people around Julia? Or is Julia insane and actually committing the murders herself? Answers to these questions may or may not be buried within The Haunting of Julia, but only diehard fans of either Farrow or the creepy-kid genre will have the patience to investigate. Most of the picture comprises dull montages of Farrow driving, moping, or sleeping, all scored with disquieting keyboard suites topped by eerie synthesizer flourishes. Composer Colin Towns works overtime to infuse the picture with atmosphere even when nothing’s actually happening, just like supporting player Tom Conti provides welcome comic relief as Julia’s easygoing best friend. Furthermore, because Farrow is palatable in the leading role, basically reprising her Rosemary’s performance, The Haunting of Julia has redeeming qualities. What it lacks is entertainment, even though a few characters die colorfully, and even though a nice run of disturbing scenes ensues when Julia investigates the death of the little boy. More material like that would have helped.

The Haunting of Julia: LAME

Avalanche (1978)

Once producer Irwin Allen became Hollywood’s master of disaster by cranking out spectacles like The Poseidon Adventure (1972), a slew of copycat titles seemed inevitable. Yet only a handful of disaster movies in the true Allen mode were made without his involvement, probably because the buy-in for ensemble casts of faded Hollywood stars and for extensive special effects daunted low-rent outfits. The inability to acquire proper production resources never daunted producer Roger Corman, however, so in 1978 the world was subjected to his nearly unwatchable production Avalanche, a pathetic attempt to mimic Allen’s style of meshing melodrama with mayhem. Suffice to say that the picture’s tacky mixture of bargain-basement FX and ski-resort stock footage doesn’t exactly create a persuasive illusion, and suffice to say that none of the actors involved distinguishes themselves. The big names slumming in this tedious flick are Mia Farrow and Rock Hudson, with B-movie stalwart Robert Forster and Hollywood veteran Jeanette Nolan along for the ride. Hudson plays, predictably enough, the irresponsible owner of a ski resort who rebuffs warnings that his facility is built on dangerous ground. Yes, it’s that sort of disaster movie, which doesn’t even pretend to be anything except a rote recitation of tropes from the Allen playbook. Offering nothing of interest in terms of action, character, drama, spectacle, or suspense, the movie isn’t even entertaining enough to satisfy ’70s disaster-movie completists, an undemanding population of which I am, for good or ill, a longtime representative. When a disaster movie makes Earthquake seem like a nuanced classic by comparison, you know it’s more of a disaster than a movie.

Avalanche: SQUARE

A Wedding (1978)

          By the late ’70s, director Robert Altman had found his stylistic sweet spot, blending downbeat irony and edgy social satire in seriocomic ensemble stories laced with semi-improvised acting. Actors clearly had a field day on Altman’s projects, because the director famously shot with long lenses and multiple microphones in order to capture everything—and then, during editing, the moment-to-moment focus went to whoever was doing the most interesting thing on camera at any given time. As a result, even middling Altman pictures like A Wedding have variety and vitality, with imaginative actors using Altman’s ambling storyline as a springboard for creating interesting behavior.

          The basic plot of A Wedding involves the union of Dino (Desi Arnaz Jr.), the son of an Italian businessman and his American heiress wife, to Muffin (Amy Stryker), the daughter of a self-made American entrepreneur and his dissatisfied wife. Taking place almost entirely at the posh reception held in the Italian’s mansion, the picture is a busy farce weaving together subplots about adultery, alcoholism, death, family secrets, illicit pregnancy, and youthful rebellion. Like most Altman pictures, subplots overlap with each other as the film bounces between short isolated scenes and long interwoven sequences. And like most Altman pictures, some of it works and some of it doesn’t.

          The standout performance is delivered by Altman regular Paul Dooley as the exasperated father of the bride, a corn-fed windbag so infatuated with his favorite daughter, Buffy (Mia Farrow), that he doesn’t realize she’s promiscuous and tweaked. Dooley’s ability to toss off tart dialogue while harrumphing through an uptight tantrum is a joy to watch. Howard Duff is fun as the perpetually inebriated family doctor who gropes every woman he “treats,” blithely shooting people full of feel-good injections. Carol Burnett, while perhaps working a bit too broadly for Altman’s sly style, provides her impeccable comic timing as Dooley’s lonely wife; her scenes of romantic intrigue with a balding oaf of a suitor (Pat McCormick) are silly but enjoyable. Screen legend Lillian Gish shows up for a sharp cameo at the beginning of the picture, adding charm and gravitas.

          Italian leading man Vittorio Gassman is less effective as the father of the groom, partially because his storyline is monotonously gloomy and intense; Altman frequently tried too hard to blend high comedy and high drama, and Gassman’s storyline in A Wedding is a good example of Altman veering too far into bummer psychodrama. Worse, some actors get completely lost—promising characters played by Dennis Christopher, Pam Dawber, Lauren Hutton, Nina Van Pallandt, and Tim Thomerson are introduced well only to fade into the chaos.

          Ultimately, however, the real problem with A Wedding is that it doesn’t go anywhere. Altman forces an ending through the introduction of a deus ex machina tragedy, but the story really just vamps in a pleasant manner for two hours until the narrative stops at a somewhat arbitrary point. Thus, while it contains many interesting things, A Wedding is like so many other second-string Altman pictures: a mostly well-executed trifle.

A Wedding: FUNKY