Something for Everyone (1970)

          Turns out playing the conniving Mrs. Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) isn’t the only great villainous turn in Angela Lansbury’s filmography. The beloved British actress, best known to many for the kindhearted characters she has played in later life, lends a gleefully craven quality to Something for Everyone, an obscure black comedy that marked the cinematic debut of the great Broadway director Harold Prince. Yet Lansbury’s character isn’t the true antagonist of this elegantly made picture—she’s an accomplice of sorts to an even greater monster, played by leading man Michael York. Together, they energize the film’s acidic commentary on the dark side of human nature.

          Set in Bavaria shortly after World War II, the picture opens on Konrad (York), a stranger who drifts into a small village with eyes on the nearby castle, which is occupied by Countess Herthe von Ornstein (Lansbury) and her small household staff. To be more specific, the Countess lives in a small residence on the castle grounds because her wealth has diminished so greatly she can’t afford to maintain the castle. Konrad charms and schemes his way into an audience with the Countess, eventually securing a job as a chauffeur. Meanwhile, he attracts romantic attention from Lotte (Jane Carr), the Countess’ unglamorous daughter; Helmuth (Anthony Higgins), the Countess’ closeted gay son; and Annaliese (Heidelinde Weis), a beautiful young heiress whose family travels through the village at an opportune moment.

          Determined to achieve social stature and wealth by whatever means necessary—while also indulging his considerable appetites—Konrad becomes Lotte’s adversary, Helmuth’s lover, and Annaliese’s fiancé. Yet only two people see the full scope of Konrad’s machinations, one of whom is the Countess. She’s amused and somewhat aroused by Konrad’s naked ambition, both complimenting and criticizing him by labeling Konrad “shameless, outrageous, and utterly immoral.” The Countess tacitly endorses Konrad’s plotting because she envisions various outcomes by which his success could also be her success.

          Based on a novel by Henry Kressing and nimbly adapted by screenwriter Hugh Wheeler, Something for Everyone benefits from magisterial presentation. In addition to luxuriant costuming and locations, the dexterous score by Broadway great John Kander amplifies the story’s caustic aspects. (Two years later, York starred in Bob Fosse’s astonishing movie Cabaret, based on the stage musical by Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb.) Although York has the most screen time, Lansbury dominates with her gracefully disdainful presence, especially when spewing such world-weary lines as, “There are no men anymore—just facsimiles.” The movie goes to so many dark places that some viewers may find it distasteful, so it’s unsurprising that Something for Everyone was not a success during its original release and now remains, at best, a minor cult favorite. For those who enjoy the film’s very specific mixture of elements, however, Something for Everyone is lush homage to pure evil.

Something for Everyone: GROOVY

Lost Horizon (1973)

          Despite the commercial failure of its 1937 adaptation, which was directed by Frank Capra, Columbia Pictures took another shot at bringing James Hilton’s 1933 novel Lost Horizon to the screen. The bloated 1973 version, featuring twee songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, fared just as poorly at the box office as its predecessor. Key among the 1973 movie’s problems is the way the songs clash with everything else onscreen. For instance, the first properly sung-through number doesn’t appear until nearly an hour has elapsed, which has the effect of suddenly changing the picture from a straightforward drama to a ridiculous musical spectacle. The remaining 90 minutes of Lost Horizon boast such attributes as an inherently compelling storyline and some vivid performances, but it’s impossible to take the movie seriously.

          Lost Horizon begins with diplomat Richard Conway (Peter Finch) fleeing a war-torn country in the Far East, accompanied by several other refugees. The group’s getaway plane is hijacked by a mysterious stranger, who crashes the vessel in the snowy peaks of the Himalayas. Soon afterward, Richard’s party is rescued by the enigmatic Chang (John Gielgud), and then escorted to the glorious realm of Shangri-La. Despite its storm-tossed surroundings, Shangri-La is a tropical utopia where people live in seemingly perfect harmony. Friction divides Richard’s party. Some, including Richard’s swaggering brother, George (Michael York), want to leave Shangri-La in order to resume their old lives. Others, including troubled reporter Sally (Sally Kellerman), embrace the chance to start anew. Meanwhile, Richard is introduced to Shangri-La’s spiritual leader, The High Lama (Charles Boyer), who explains that Richard has the opportunity to fulfill a special role in Shangri-La.

          Narratively and thematically, this is fascinating stuff, even though pundits have spent years parsing political (and even racist) messages from the source material. Ironically, the strength of the storyline is what makes the intrusion of songs so absurd. Had the songs added anything, the result would have been different. Alas, the tunes merely express infantile notions, as when Kellerman and costar Olivia Hussey warble the line “different people look at things from different points of view” during the spirited duet “The Things I Will Not Miss.” As for the movie’s performances, they’re all over the place, an issue compounded by the use of professional singers to lip-sync vocals for many of the actors. Finch is expressive and regal; leading lady Liv Ullmann is luminous, within the constraints of an underwritten role; York is impassioned; and dignified costar James Shigeta is as welcome a presence as ever. Boyer and Gielgud acquit themselves well despite outrageous miscasting. Hussey, Kellerman, and costar George Kennedy, however, play their roles so melodramatically that the actors come across as cartoonish.

          On a technical level, director Charles Jarriot and cinematographer Robert Surtees shoot the movie quite well, providing scope and splendor even if their presentation of singing-and-dancing nonsense feels indifferent. In the end, Lost Horizon is a bizarre mess, though patient viewers can conceivably power through the musical sequences and latch onto the dramatic scenes, which are vastly superior. FYI, the screenplay for Los Horizon is a minor credit for the important writer Larry Kramer, whose activism and creativity coalesced in his iconic play The Normal Heart (1985), which was endured through celebrated revivals and an Emmy-winning 2014 television adaptation.

Lost Horizon: FUNKY

Conduct Unbecoming (1975)

          “Gentlemen do not question the honor of other gentlemen,” the imperious Col. Strang tells a cheeky subordinate at a British military base in colonial India, circa the late 19th century. The colonel’s declaration gets to the heart of Conduct Unbecoming, a solid courtroom drama predicated on the Old World notion that persons of good social standing should be considered beyond reproach. Adapted from a play by Barry England, the story revolves around Lieutenants Drake (Michael York) and Millington (James Faulkner), both of whom are new arrivals at Strang’s base. Drake is a proper soldier who comfortably defers to authority and tradition, whereas Millington is an arrogant dilettante who hopes to conclude his national service as quickly as possible. Upon arrival at the base, the lieutenants are inundated with rules about proper conduct, including the strange instruction to avoid the flirtations advances of Mrs. Scarlett (Susannah York), the widow of a beloved officer. Yet during a party, Millington makes a pass at Mrs. Scarlett, who is subsequently attacked.

          With Millington the obvious suspect, Strang’s junior officers—led by the officious Captain Harper (Stacy Keach)—empanel an unofficial court-martial tribunal, hoping to keep the scandal private. Millington asks Drake to serve as defense counsel, and Drake assembles evidence that might exonerate Millington. Unfortunately, Drake soon discovers that the regiment plans to railroad Millington whether he’s guilty or not, simply for the sake of expediency and propriety. Therefore, the story ends up exploring two equally relevant dramatic questions: Who really attacked Mrs. Scarlett, and what dirty secrets about the regiment will Drake’s investigation reveal?

          Smoothly directed by Michael Anderson (who reteamed with York the following year for the sci-fi classic Logan’s Run), Conduct Unbecoming is unapologetically melodramatic, but the crisp dialogue and skillful acting make the piece quite watchable. (Howard, Keach, and costars Richard Attenborough and Christopher Plummer give especially lusty performances.) On the minus side, the movie’s sound mix is muddy, and the final plot twist is both silly and tawdry. Nonetheless, the central theme of upper-crust people using social position as a shield for depravity has the desired impact, and key technicians (notably cinematographer Robert Huke, editor John Glen, and music composer Stanley Myers) contribute sterling work.

Conduct Unbecoming: GROOVY

The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977)

          Best known in the U.S. for his hilarious performance as Igor in Young Frankenstein (1974), odd-looking Englishman Marty Feldman was an accomplished comedy writer before he started acting, so it’s not surprising he used his mid-’70s visibility to launch a career as a feature filmmaker. Unfortunately, his directorial debut, The Last Remake of Beau Geste, is a dreary compendium of painfully obvious jokes with only a few flashes of real wit. As the title suggests, the picture riffs on a manly-man tale that was adapted for the screen several times previously, P.C. Wren’s 1924 novel about the French Foreign Legion, Beau Geste. The story concerns a pair of orphaned brothers, Beau and Digby, who are raised in an aristocratic French home. Once they reach adulthood, the brothers become suspects in the theft of a precious jewel, so noble Beau withdraws honorably to join the Foreign Legion. In Feldman’s version of the story, inept Digby gets thrown into prison while Beau is away, then escapes and joins Beau in Morocco for adventures that lead to the recovery of the jewel.

          Feldman assembled a great cast, with Michael York as Beau, Ann-Margret as the brothers’ conniving mother-in-law, and Peter Ustinov as the brothers’ psychotic Foreign Legion commander. (Feldman, of course, plays Digby.) Actors essaying cameos and minor roles include Henry Gibson, Trevor Howard, James Earl Jones, Roy Kinnear, Ed McMahon (!), Spike Milligan, Avery Schreiber, and Terry-Thomas. On the bright side, the picture has a few imaginative gags like an elaborate scene during which Feldman magically travels into footage from a 1939 version of the same story, resulting in a dialogue scene between Feldman and Gary Cooper. These kicky sequences demonstrate that Feldman had a deep knowledge of cinema devices and a vivid comic imagination.  More typical, however, is the bit depicting a commercial for a used-camel salesman whose slogan is “Let Harik hump you.” Ustinov is the only actor who really shines here, since he has a field day with physical gags like interchangeable peg legs. As for Feldman, sporadic funny moments cannot disguise how ill-suited he was for playing leading roles. (Available as part of the Universal Vault Series on Amazon.com)

The Last Remake of Beau Geste: FUNKY

Logan’s Run (1976)

          For many fantasy fans of a certain Gen-X vintage, Logan’s Run is the most beloved sci-fi film of the ’70s—with the notable exception of a certain George Lucas-directed blockbuster. Featuring a terrific premise, exciting action sequences, memorable production design, and a musical score filled with far-out electronic sounds, Logan’s Run has an intoxicating vibe. So even though the cheese factor is high, thanks to questionable special-effects miniatures and a generally dated aesthetic, the picture still works as stylish escapism.

          Based on a novel by George Clayton Johnson and William F. Nolan, the story introduces a 23rd-century society comprising a series of interconnected domes that contain climate-controlled luxury environments. By day, the society’s gorgeous young citizens perform easy jobs aided by pervasive technology. By night, they engage in culturally acceptable hedonism, trading sexual favors without emotional hang-ups. The only catch is that when each citizen reaches the age of 30, he or she must enter a violent arena called the Carousel, in which strivers who fail to reach the prize of “renewal” die on the spot.

          The citizens are so narcotized by their easy lives that no one questions their built-in expiration dates except “runners,” rebels who flee the domes to join a secret underground. Logan-5 (Michael York) is a “sandman,” a gun-toting cop employed by the city’s computerized overlords to hunt and kill runners as a means of maintaining order. When Logan discovers a clue about the runners’ hidden citadel, Sanctuary, his lifespan is abruptly abbreviated so he can go undercover as a runner—a harsh move that eventually turns Logan against his former superiors.

          Logan’s Run is filled with imaginative details, like the high-tech “New You” plastic-surgery salon that predicts laser-guided medical procedures (and features a sexy Farrah Fawcett-Majors as a receptionist). York and leading lady Jenny Agutter, who plays Logan’s fellow runner, make an attractive couple, their posh English accents lending the film a certain elegance, and Richard Jordan is frighteningly impassioned as Logan’s friend-turned-pursuer. Yet it’s the visuals that impress the most, because the filmmakers ingeniously converted a modernist shopping mall into the interior of the domed city, then created similarly vivid environments for the Carousel, the den of a group of animalistic street urchins called “cubs,” and even the ice-covered cavern of an overbearing robot called Box.

          Like a great old Jules Verne yarn, Logan’s Run is a fast-moving adventure that introduces one wild situation after another, and the whole story is anchored by Logan’s relatable journey from conformist to anarchist. Logan’s Run may be silly and stilted, but it’s also a great ride with a handful of resonant ideas thrown in for good measure. FYI, small-screen hunk Gregory Harrison slipped on the sandman spandex for a short-lived series adaptation, also called Logan's Run, which ran on CBS for most of the 1977-1978 season.

Logan’s Run: GROOVY

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977)

          H.G. Wells’ horrific story about a mad scientist who gene-splices animals with men on his own private island was first filmed in 1932 as the extraordinary Island of Lost Souls, which boasted disturbing atmosphere and a perverse performance by Charles Laughton as medical maniac Dr. Moreau. Four decades later, schlock merchants American International Pictures produced a remake with a lot more action but a lot less artistry. Directed with typical indifference by Don Taylor, The Island of Dr. Moreau stars Michael York as an English seaman who survives a wreck and washes ashore on the titular land mass. Burt Lancaster plays the not-so-good doctor, but his stilted intensity fails to capture the unhinged majesty of the Moreau character, and York isn’t much better, substituting eye-bulging breathlessness for convincing terror. In one of her first major films, Nicaraguan model-turned-starlet Barbara Carrera is sultry as York’s love interest, although her presence is purely ornamental. In all versions of the story, the jungle surrounding Moreau’s compound is filled with examples of the doctor’s experiments, animals converted into hirsute bipeds whose innate bloodlust is (barely) kept in check by Moreau’s brutally enforced laws; tension arises from wondering how long these “manimals” will tolerate Moreau torturing them in his lab, which the creatures refer to as “the House of Pain.”
          The team behind the ’70s version unwisely depicts the manimals through the use of waxy-looking masks that are filmed in garishly bright lighting, so the sight of genetic aberrations roaming through the jungle is mundane instead of horrifying. Making matters worse, the story frequently degrades into clunky thriller scenes, like chases through the jungle and comin’-at-ya monster attacks. This lowbrow approach is a hell of a comedown from Island of Lost Souls, but for those who’ve never seen the original version (or read the Wells novel), The Island of Dr. Moreau is passable escapist junk: The production looks and feels like bad episodic television from the ’70s, with blandly utilitarian camera setups and twinkling music straight out of a Fantasy Island installment, and the climax is amusingly overwrought, right down to the endless final duel between the surviving major characters and a persistent manimal. The picture’s epilogue, unfortunately, is a complete cop-out.

The Island of Dr. Moreau: FUNKY

Cabaret (1972)

          The Bob Fosse-directed masterpiece Cabaret is the quintessential musical for people who don’t like musicals, myself included. Not only does it tell a hard-hitting, provocative story instead of just delivering cheerful fluff, it’s a real movie that happens to have music instead of a contrived framework for musical numbers. Tunes arise naturally during moments in which characters believably break into song, like performances in the titular nightclub, so the numbers become a tool that Fosse employs, alongside brazen editing and meticulous camerawork, to take viewers into the minds of the characters.
          Adapted from a pair of musicals that were in turn based on autobiographical stories by the English writer Christopher Isherwood, who lived in Germany during the Third Reich’s rise to power, Jay Presson Allen’s Oscar-nominated script weaves the myriad threads of source material into a seamless whole, telling the story of how sexually confused Englishman Brian Roberts (Michael York) learns life lessons with, and from, crass but vulnerable American songstress Sally Bowles (Liza Minelli) during their eventful idyll in pre-World War II Berlin. Sally is the star attraction at the debauched Kit Kat Klub, and Brian is a new neighbor at her boarding house; after she draws him into her life with her overpowering personality, they enter into a complicated four-way psychosexual dynamic with wealthy Germans Maximilian (Helmut Griem), who is staunchly pro-Establishment, and Natalia (Marisa Berenson), who is Jewish.
          What unfolds is a disturbing story about people getting caught up in the momentum of insidious social change. Some become victims and some become villains, but none remain untouched by the world-shaking tragedy coming into focus around them. Tying all of these elements together are surrealistic scenes featuring the Kit Kat Klub’s unnamed Master of Ceremonies (Joel Grey), who functions as a perverse Greek Chorus complete with grotesque makeup and an immaculate tux.
          Fosse’s storytelling is astonishing from the first scene to the last, because he jumps from incisive subtlety to shocking directness at regular intervals, often in the same scene, and his legendary choreography skills infuse the film with a propulsive physicality. Whether he’s staging a comical number like “Two Ladies” or a quiet one like the moving “Maybe This Time,” Fosse adeptly integrates the themes of the musical interludes into the movement of the story, so Cabaret never feels like it’s stopping for a song. Yet even though the dancing is sensuous and spectacular, Fosse’s handling of quiet dramatic scenes is just as confident. Minelli and York have never been better than they are here, with Minelli blending soft colors into her brash persona, and York expertly depicting his character’s complicated mix of moral outrage and sexual longing. Grey is equally great, turning “Emcee” into one of the most enigmatically creepy characterizations of the early ’70s.
          The real star of the movie, however, is Fosse, and he doesn’t disappoint: His direction perfectly balances show-stopping impact and storytelling clarity, making the film as dazzling as it is insightful.

Cabaret: OUTTA SIGHT

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

 

          The praise lavished on this bloated Agatha Christie adaptation (including six Oscar nominations and one win) has always mystified me, because while Murder on the Orient Express is a handsomely made film with an intelligent script and an amazing cast, it’s still just a contrived and methodical whodunit. It appears that much of the picture’s novelty derived from the fact that it was a throwback not only to a beloved Hollywood genre, but also to a more sophisticated time in terms of diction, fashion, and manners; somewhat like the aesthetically pleasing accoutrements of the same year’s Chinatown, this film’s glamorous production values and swellegant ’30s costumes were a change of pace from the gritty realism that dominated early ’70s cinema. Furthermore, Murder on the Orient Express is that rare all-star jamboree in which each actor has something interesting to do, with several performers receiving impressive showcase scenes, and even elaborate subplots, during the course of the movie’s lumbering 128 minutes. One could never accuse Murder on the Orient Express of shortchanging the audience.

          As for the story, which screenwriter Paul Dehn adapted from Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel, it’s ingenious but not necessarily persuasive, and the lack of any real emotional heft means the experience of watching Murder on the Orient Express is all about luxuriating in production-design eye candy, piecing together clues, and savoring star power. Set in 1935, the movie finds Christie’s urbane detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney) riding the famous train mentioned in the title. Poirot becomes enmeshed with a group of people including wealthy American Samuel Ratchett (Richard Widmark), so when Ratchett gets stabbed to death early in the journey, Poirot and Signor Bianchi (Martin Balsam), an executive with the company that owns the train, join forces to determine which passenger was responsible for the crime. The gimmick, as per the Christie formula, is that everyone in a confined space is a suspect, so the closer the investigation gets to the truth, the greater the danger becomes for everyone involved. Despite the film’s posh trappings, this is not highbrow stuff.

          Worse, Murder on the Orient Express is tedious, at least from my perspective, and director Sidney Lumet’s overly respectful treatment is part of the problem. Treating Christie like Shakespeare is as absurd as, say, treating John Grisham the same way. There’s simply no reason for this empty spectacle to sprawl over such a long running time. Giving credit where it’s due, however, Murder on the Orient Express is a visual feast. The clothes, linens, and table settings make the titular train seem like a rolling four-star hotel, and cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth uses his signature haze filters to make everything look painterly—to a fault, because sometimes it’s hard to distinguish details. But the biggest selling point, of course, is the high-wattage cast. Beyond those mentioned, players include Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman (who won an unexpected late-career Oscar for her work), Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, and Michael York.

Murder on the Orient Express: FUNKY

The Three Musketeers (1973) & The Four Musketeers (1974)

          Though previously known for the irreverence of, among other things, the invigorating movies he made with the Beatles, Richard Lester revealed great gifts as a director of adventure films with this epic adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ deathless novel The Three Musketeers, which producer Ilya Salkind cleverly divided into two movies (more on that in a moment). Telling the enduring tale of how enthusiastic bumpkin D’Artagnan (Michael York) finds his place amid a group of elite 17th-century swordsmen, then inadvertently helps uncover a conspiracy within the French ruling class, Lester’s sprawling project mixes lowbrow comedy and sophisticated intrigue to great effect.
          The silly stuff includes lots of slapstick and Benny Hill-ish bedroom farce, and the derring-do features everything from preposterous stunts to genuinely frightening swordfights. The tonal variety is unusual, nimbly replicating the breadth of Dumas’ narrative by toggling between the ridiculous and the sublime. Lester’s effervescent approach to film editing—which accentuates his loose, observational shooting style—is as consistently dazzling as the project’s sumptuous production design and costuming. The Musketeers movies are never shy of energy, and the pictures overflow with entertaining performances.
          York is appropriately eager and awkward, while Oliver Reed’s haunted gravitas lends macho meaning to the bond between the trio of older Musketeers whom D’Artagnan joins; few filmmakers captured Reed’s offscreen combination of poetry and savagery better than Lester does here. Raquel Welch gives her best-ever performance in a mostly comic role (her epic cleavage is a character unto itself); Faye Dunaway and Christopher Lee provide elegant villainy; and Charlton Heston’s presence adds to the international flavor of the piece, though his casting as Cardinal Richelieu is laughable. And while some viewers may have justifiable quibbles with Lester’s whiplash tonal shifts, the herky-jerky alternation between campy schtick and intense melodrama keeps things lively.
          Originally shot as one lengthy film, the Musketeers saga was bifurcated by Salkind, much to the chagrin of the actors, who had been paid for just one movie. Legal shenanigans followed, though most audiences were none the wiser when the Lester movies unspooled to general delight. Salkind refined his methodology by shooting 1978’s Superman and 1981’s Superman II simultaneously with director Richard Donner, this time revealing to everyone beforehand that two movies were being made, but that didn’t work out perfectly, either; production of the second picture was halted partway through and then restarted, at a later date, with a replacement helmer—none other than Musketeers survivor Richard Lester.
          FYI, although the 1977 flop The 5th Musketeer is completely unrelated to the Salkind/Lester pictures, much of the original Salkind/Lester cast regrouped for 1989’s misbegotten official sequel Return of the Musketeers. The death during production of series comic foil Roy Kinnear cast a pall over the piece, and, sadly, helped expedite the conclusion of Lester’s illustrious career.

The Three Musketeers: GROOVY

The Four Musketeers: GROOVY

Zeppelin (1971)

In many respects a generic hybrid of military adventure and the disaster genre, Zeppelin is nonetheless quite watchable because of its handsome cast and impressive production values. Set during World War I, the picture concerns Geoffrey (Michael York), a Scotsman who grew up spending summers in Germany. His unique lineage leads him to become a double agent: He “defects” to Germany and joins the team developing a new airship capable of bombing enemies from high altitudes, but in reality he’s a plant for the British. In short order, the titular craft takes off for its maiden voyage, a brazen raid on British soil, and Geoffrey has to muck up the mission however possible. If the plot sounds exciting, don’t be fooled—much of the movie is chatty travelogue, and the storytellers never find a way to make their lead character the center of the action. On the bright side, the action bits are lively, especially during the finale; the well-conceived FX were cutting-edge at the time; and the filmmakers didn’t skimp on costumes, sets, or general visual grandeur. As for the acting, the energy level conjured by York and comely costar Elke Sommer is dangerously low, but Anton Diffing makes a great cold-blooded Nazi, and Marius Goring (years after his signature tortured-artist role in The Red Shoes) is effective as a conflicted scientist. Of special interest for fans of old-school FX, Zeppelin is Saturday-afternoon fun of the most undemanding sort. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Zeppelin: FUNKY