The Late Great Planet Earth (1979)

          I’ve made no secret of my boundless affection for ’70s schlockumentaries that use highly questionable pseudoscience as the jumping-off point for creepy “what if?” scenarios, so I freely acknowledge my predisposition toward junk on the order of The Late Great Planet Earth. Even though the film essentially says the world will end in the year 2000, an assertion that most would agree has proven untrue, I still enjoyed watching this irresponsibly provocative compendium of doomsday theories extrapolated from Biblical prophecies. Much credit goes to Orson Welles, who appears onscreen as host and provides voiceover narration. Although this was undoubtedly a quick paycheck gig that meant nothing to Welles, his unique speaking style, all melodic gravitas and poetic timing, makes the malarkey sound magical. Similarly, big props to composer Dana Kaproff, who contributes a hugely dramatic score suitable for a big-budget horror movie. Together, Kaproff and Welles give The Late Great Planet Earth scale and style. Make no mistake, this is a genuinely bad movie, 90 minutes of outrageous bullshit thrown onscreen by way of silly Biblical re-enactments, stock footage, and talking heads. But if you go for this sort of thing, as I do, you’ll find much of The Late Great Planet Earth darkly entertaining. That is, whenever the movie doesn’t slip into one of its periodic, sleep-inducing lulls.

          The dude behind this ridiculous project is self-proclaimed Biblical historian Hal Lindsey, who is the main on-camera interview subject and also the co-author of the successful nonfiction book upon which the film is based. (Originally published in 1970, The Late Great Planet Earth reportedly sold over 25 million copies.) According to Lindsey, the fact that many prophecies expressed in the Bible have come true means that every prophecy in the Bible eventually will come true. The red flags this sort of sketchy logic raises are countless, so it’s best to simply groove on The Late Great Planet Earth as a paranormal thrill ride. Lindsey’s big move involves claiming that the formation of Israel in 1948 was the first in a chain of events foretelling the arrival of the antichrist. He and the filmmakers then create a laundry list of “signs” the end times are a-comin’. Somehow, computers, famine, killer bees, pollution, processed food, and recombinant DNA all meet the criteria, as does the spread of cults, Eastern religion, and Wicca. To illustrate these points, the filmmakers raid the stock-footage vaults, throwing everything from volcanoes to various shots of sunbathing women onscreen. The top of the picture is fun, with creepy Biblical vignettes, and the climax is wonderfully excessive with its Dr. Strangelove-style montage of mushroom clouds. In between is a whole lot of silliness, some of it laughably colorful and some of it laughably drab.

The Late Great Planet Earth: FUNKY

The Night That Panicked America (1975)

          Clever, exciting, and suspenseful, The Night That Panicked America tells a quasi-fictionalized version of the events surrounding Orson Welles’ notorious 1938 radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ sci-fi novel The War of the Worlds. Broadcast when radio was America’s primary form of home entertainment, Welles’ show was so immersive and persuasive that thousands upon thousands of listeners believed invaders from Mars had actually landed on Earth and commenced a hellacious assault. This highly enjoyable made-for-TV movie was adapted from the play Invasion from Mars, which was written by Howard Koch, the author of the script for the Welles broadcast. Yet arguably the most important contributor to this project was the gifted novelist and screenwriter Nicholas Meyer, credited with writing the screen story and cowriting (with Anthony Wilson) the teleplay. A literate fantasist adept at injecting new life into familiar characters (Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes, the crew of the starship Enterprise), Meyer was ideally suited for transforming a historical event into old-fashioned pulp fiction.

          The movie cuts deftly between the scene at a CBS radio studio in New York City and various places around the country where people listen to the broadcast. In the studio scenes, Paul Shenar plays Welles like a demonically possessed orchestra conductor, determined to see his complex vision realized no matter the obstacles. One of the best creative choices made by the team behind The Night That Panicked America was eschewing psychoanalysis of Welles—simply presenting his determination implies plenty. The studio scenes are realistic and vivid, celebrating the gifts of voice actors and the resourcefulness of technicians. (The sound-effect subplot involving a bathroom is quite droll.)

          As for the pandemonium scenes, they’re more pedestrian but still quite effective. Borrowing a page from the disaster-movie playbook, the filmmakers present people who are either caught up in personal troubles or stupidly oblivious, with their reactions to impending doom revealing their personalities. The most compelling thread involves Hank Muldoon (Vic Morrow), a beleaguered family man contemplating leaving his wife, Ann (Eileen Brennan), and their children. When the Welles broadcast convinces the Muldoons the end is near, Hank takes extreme measures leading to a harrowing climax. (One can’t help but wonder whether Frank Darabont saw this telefilm, as the conclusion of the Muldoon supblot anticipates a key scene in Darabont’s 2007 Stephen King adaptation The Mist.)

          Directed by the reliable Joseph Sargent and featuring solid supporting actors—Tom Bosley, Michael Constantine, Cliff De Young, Will Geer, John Ritter—The Night That Panicked America may include a high quotient of artistic license, but isn’t using every possible means to put on a good show very much in the spirit of the Welles broadcast?

The Night That Panicked America: GROOVY

Start the Revolution Without Me (1970)

            Stupidity reigns in Start the Revolution Without Me, a goofy riff on the French Revolution—and not just because the movie’s version of Louis XVI is a dolt preoccupied with his clock collection. Directed by Bud Yorkin and produced by Norman Lear—the formidable combo behind several big-budget comedy movies but especially known for their spectacular success in television (All in the Family, etc.)—Start the Revolution Without Me features a frenetically paced combination of farce, satire, slapstick, and verbal comedy. Most of the humor is broad, gentle, and obvious, more on the order of second-rate Carol Burnett Show gags than the kind of inspired lunacy that took root in movie comedies a few years later, following the ascent of Mel Brooks and the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker collective.

          Among other weak devices, Start the Revolution Without Me employs chaotic fight scenes filled with pratfalls, crude jokes about effeminate men, self-reflexive narration, silly gags predicated on mispronounced words, sped-up photography, and tawdry scenes of men groping and/or ogling women. Most of this stuff was already considered old-fashioned in the vaudeville era. Some scenes in Start the Revolution Without Me almost work, simply because the skills of the performers trump the shortcomings of the material, and the movie boasts amazing production values in terms of costumes, locations, and props. Plus, of course, the movie has Gene Wilder at the height of his powers, as well as an enthusiastic but miscast Donald Sutherland.

          The stars play two sets of twin brothers. In the convoluted narrative, one pair of brothers is raised poor, and the other is raised wealthy. Upon reaching adulthood, both pairs are drawn to intrigue surrounding the French Revolution. Naturally, the poor brothers get mistaken for the rich brothers, and vice versa, leading to trouble as the poor brothers exploit their newfound position in Louis XVI’s court, and as the rich brothers try to escape service in the rebel militia. There’s also a lot of bedroom comedy involving a character loosely modeled after Marie Antoinette, as well as a wink-wink framing device during which modern-day Orson Welles (playing himself) introduces the movie and “tells” the story to the audience.

          Costar Hugh Griffith scores some points playing Louis XVI as a nincompoop, Victor Spinettii contributes a fun villainous turn in the Harvey Korman mode, and Billie Whitelaw is alluring as the Antoinette character. Yet Wilder, naturally, has most of the best scenes—as well as many of the worst—because of his no-prisoners approach. He’s infinitely better playing the rich brother, since that role allows for Wilder’s signature psychotic slow burns, and the early running gag about the rich brother’s affection for the dead falcon he wears on his arm is pleasantly absurd. Alas, even though Start the Revolution Without Me has its partisans—the script, by Lawrence J. Cohen and Fred Freeman, earned a Writers Guild nomination—the movie gets awfully tiresome after a while. The higher your tolerance for brainless humor, the longer you’re likely to stay engaged.

Start the Revolution Without Me: FUNKY

Waterloo (1970)

          Making elaborate historical epics is often a lose-lose scenario. Not only do these films require such enormous budgets that a high degree of financial risk is involved, but the slightest deviations from historical facts can invoke the ire of experts. All it takes is a few highly vocal naysayers to endanger the success of a massive commercial enterprise. And here’s the kicker—even when filmmakers strive to get most of the important details right, there’s a hazard of losing the mainstream audience, because nobody buys a ticket on a Friday night to experience the equivalent of dry textbook. Given these realities, it’s no surprise that film history is filled with middling movies along the lines of Waterloo. Easily one of the most expensive films ever made at the time of its original release (costing a reported $35 million), Waterloo failed at the box office, received zero Oscar nominations, and subsequently slid into quasi-obscurity. Ironic, then, that the picture depicts one of history’s most infamous military defeats.

          Set in 1815, the picture begins with French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (Rod Steiger) being driven from power after enemy forces reduce his domain from all of Europe to just a small part of France. Napoleon accepts defeat bitterly, and then returns from exile less than a year later with a small army of 1,000 loyal soldiers. His attempt to regain power infuriates leaders across Europe during a period referred to by historians as “The Hundred Days.” This period culminates in the Battle of Waterloo, where British commander Arthur Wellesley (Christopher Plummer), otherwise known as the Duke of Wellington, pulverizes Napoleon’s insurgent forces. Nearly half the movie’s running time comprises the battle itself, including preparations, preliminary fights, and the ultimate clash.

          Produced by Dino de Laurentiis in one of his more dignified moments, Waterloo features truly awesome production values. According to the lore surrounding the film, 17,000 Russian soldiers were used as extras during principal photography in the Ukraine (subbing for Waterloo’s real location in Belgium). Wide vistas during fight scenes are spectacular, with columns of men trailing to the horizon, and it’s exhausting just to imagine how much work went into costuming, organizing, and training this many people. Cowriter/director Sergi Bondarchuk and his collaborators strove for accuracy in the areas of formations, techniques, uniforms, weapons, and such—so, from a technical standpoint, the combat scenes are nearly unassailable.

          However, the movie’s dramatic scenes are not as effective. Juicy story threads regarding the shifting allegiances of France’s Field Marshal Ney (Dan O’Herlihy) and the political machinations of French King Louis XVIII (Orson Welles) are undernourished, while a silly romantic subplot involving a British officer adds nothing to the narrative. The filmmakers try to parallel the psychological states of Napoleon and Wellington, but the gimmick never quite works; while Steiger contributes a characteristically overripe performance (envision lots of howling in pain), Plummer is chilly and remote. That said, the debonair Plummer is at his best when delivering such absurdly aristocratic lines as, “Commanders in battle have something better to do than shoot at each other.”

          Ultimately, Waterloo is an unsatisfactory hybrid. It’s not elevated enough to reach the level of cinematic literature (read: David Lean), and yet it’s too educational and mechanical to qualify as pulp entertainment. Even acknowledging that history buffs will find more to enjoy here than general audiences, it seems fair to say that Waterloo’s shortcomings are as prominent as its virtues.

Waterloo: FUNKY

Necromancy (1972)

During the post-Rosemary’s Baby boom, countless filmmakers generated schlocky thrillers mixing sex with the supernatural, although only a few of them actually generated movies worth watching. More typical of the trend is this bland offering from director Bert I. Gordon, best known for silly monster movies including The Food of the Gods (1976) and Empire of the Ants (1977). Featuring a campy plot that’s almost entirely predicated on the heroine being an idiot, Necromancy tells the story of an evil Satan worshipper who wants to harness a young woman’s occult powers in order to bring his deceased son back from the grave. In principle, this concept should be strong enough to support an acceptable frightfest. In practice, however, Gordon makes poor storytelling decisions at every single turn, creating a movie that lacks momentum and overflows with moments that either don’t make sense or fail to engage interest. Even with scenes of all-nude rituals and human sacrifices, Necromancy is dull. Lovely Pamela Franklin, who fared better in later ’70s horror movies—including the creepy theatrical feature The Legend of Hell House and the kitschy telefilm Satan’s School for Girls (both 1973)—stars as Lori, a young woman who moves to the small town of Lilith with her husband, Frank (Michael Ontkean). Upon arrival, Lori discovers that Frank’s employer, Mr. Cato (Orson Welles), is a Satanist with a messianic sway over all of Lilith’s permanent residents. Then Lori learns that she and Frank are expected to join Mr. Cato’s coven, which engages in debauchery and witchcraft. But does Lori, who is already tormented by the loss of a baby, leave town? No, she hangs around until she’s roped into a murder/suicide scenario. Whether she escapes is of zero consequence, because the characters in Necromancy are as forgettable as the storyline. To its credit, Necromancy has quasi-atmospheric photography, a tasty electronic score that’s akin to the sort of mood music later featured in John Carpenter’s movies, and a couple of trippy dream/hallucination sequences. Yet these elements aren’t nearly reason enough to watch the movie, especially since the slumming Welles gives an absurd performance complete with a ridiculous fake nose and an unidentifiable accent. The only magic this movie contains is the ability to put viewers to sleep.

Necromancy: LAME

F for Fake (1973)

          By the ’70s, faded auteur Orson Welles seemed to embrace the vagabond quality of his career, throwing together haphazard film projects while making his primary income through demeaning acting jobs, cartoon voiceovers, and commercials. For instance, while appearing onscreen as the host/narrator of his documentary F for Fake, Welles explains that some of the footage comprising the brief movie was originally intended for other, never-completed projects. This revelation warns viewers that coherence should not be expected, and, indeed, F for Fake is completely scattershot.

          The movie is ostensibly an examination of pranksters that focuses on Welles’ European acquaintance Elmyr de Hory, an art forger, and Elmyr’s American-born biographer, Clifford Irving—who, in the course of this documentary’s protracted production, earned notoriety by publishing a biography of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes that turned out to be bogus. For the first hour of F for Fake, Welles and his editors jump around restlessly between interviews with Elmyr and Irving; footage of Elmyr painting; vignettes of Welles talking about Elmyr and Irving while Welles holds court at cocktail parties; scenes of Welles reviewing footage in an editing room; and other random bits, like cameos from Welles’ Hollywood pals Joseph Cotten and Laurence Harvey. Oh, and there’s also room in the movie’s undisciplined first hour for remarks about Welles’ notorious 1939 radio broadcast War of the Worlds, itself a famous example of fakery.

          After the Elmyr-Irving bit runs its course, Welles transitions to a lengthy dramatization of an encounter between European beauty Oja Kodar and legendary Spanish painter Pablo Picasso. (Welles’ filmmaking is particularly ingenious during this sequence, because he simulates Picasso’s presence through the use of still photographs and clever editing.) F for Fake is filled with fascinating ideas and inventive execution, but it’s maddeningly unfocused. The film never lands on solid narrative ground, and Welles often resorts to gimmicky motifs like recurring cutaways to spilled wine.

          As a result, it’s difficult to grasp just what Welles is trying to say here. Although he announces at the beginning of the film that F for Fake will be an examination of prevarication, it actually ends up being a celebration of elaborate lies by a man who relishes his own ability to twist the truth. F for Fake is highly watchable, but it also provides a sad reminder of the great work Welles could have been doing at this time of his life, instead of assembling unsatisfying pastiches like this one.

F for Fake: FUNKY

Bugs Bunny: Superstar (1975)

          You might think a fluffy documentary tracing the origins of a popular cartoon character could evade controversy. You’d be wrong. Although it only includes about 30 minutes of original material (the rest of the movie comprises full-length vintage cartoons), Bugs Bunny: Superstar managed to aggravate long-simmering tensions among the mad geniuses behind Bugs, Daffy, Elmer, Porky, and the other Looney Tunes mainstays. Watching the movie today, it’s not hard to see why—Bob Clampett, one of several prolific Looney Tunes directors, hosts the movie in scripted sequences that suggest he single-handedly oversaw the creation of every major character. Considering the equally important roles of animators including Tex Avery, Friz Freleng, and Chuck Jones, Clampett’s amiably megalomaniacal dominance of Bugs Bunny: Superstar is a major disservice to film history. However, if you can tolerate Clampett’s inexplicable narcissism, Bugs Bunny: Superstar is mildly entertaining.

          The documentary bits, which are narrated by Orson Welles, feature Clampett in an office filled with artifacts like animation cels and character-model statues. He shares interesting trivia, such as the number of cels used in an average ’40s Looney Tune—10,000 drawings for seven minutes of screen time—and he introduces wonderful home-movie footage of the animators who kept “Termite Terrace,” the building on the Warner Bros. lot where the ’toons were made, lively. Clampett’s contemporaries, including Freleng and Jones, appear during brief interview clips, mostly spewing platitudes about how much they enjoyed the working environment at Termite Terrace, so Clampett—with his loud, patch-covered windbreaker and his helmet-like hairpiece—emerges as the only memorable non-animated figure. (Even voice actor Mel Blanc and music composer Carl Stalling, both of whom were crucial to the greatness of Looney Tunes, are relegated to sidekick status.)

          As for the shorts featured in the movie, they’re okay—although even mediocre Looney Tunes are entertaining, Clampett-directed work is favored to a fault. (Seriously, where are the Chuck Jones-helmed masterpieces including What’s Opera, Doc?) Anyway, while Bugs Bunny: Superstar wasn’t actually produced by Warner Bros., Warner Bros. built on the documentary’s minor success by making additional Looney Tunes anthologies, beginning with the 1979 release The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie, a compilation flick assembled by Jones; further anthology pictures were released in the ’80s. As for Bugs Bunny: Superstar, it’s best viewed today as an interesting museum piece, since various DVD bonus-feature docs produced by Warner Bros. in the 2000s tell the Looney Tunes story with greater accuracy.

Bugs Bunny: Superstar: FUNKY

Catch-22 (1970)

          Director Mike Nichols once described the “green awning effect” of becoming a successful auteur. By notching two huge successes in the late ’60s, Nichols convinced Hollywood he knew how to connect with audiences. To test his newfound power, Nichols pitched a movie about a green awning outside a building—the movie would simply show the awning so viewers could watch different people pass underneath. According to Nichols, some executives actually expressed interest in this awful idea because they were so hungry to be in the Mike Nichols business.

          The “green awning effect” helps explain why Paramount Pictures gave Nichols a then-massive $17 million budget to adapt Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel Catch-22. A dreamlike satire of military bureaucracy and the inherent madness of war, the book features a disjointed timeline and a large cast of characters, so Catch-22 is the quintessential “unfilmable” novel. Nonetheless, Nichols and his Graduate screenwriter Buck Henry took a crack at the material, imposing a linear narrative by focusing on the many attempts of Captain Yossarian (Alan Arkin) to escape his duty as a World War II bomber pilot stationed on an island in the Mediterranean.

          Specifically, the movie’s storyline explores Yossarian’s frustration with the length of his military tour and the “catch-22” rule that prohibits him from quitting. A “catch-22” is a guideline whose pretzel logic makes resolution impossible, so Yossarian can’t claim that bombing runs are driving him mad, because the Army declares that anyone capable of recognizing his own insanity must be sane and therefore suitable for combat.

          Unfortunately, the movie itself gets caught in a catch-22: Since the lack of a conventional structure is what makes Heller’s novel work, any attempt to align the book’s events into a straight-ahead progression inherently reduces the novel’s power. Worse, the movie of Catch-22 is a discombobulated mess from a tonal perspective, careering recklessly between absurdist jokes and somber tragedy. Yet Nichols’ massive ambition is not resigned to storytelling, because he also strives to outdo Orson Welles in terms of outlandishly complex tracking shots. Some of Nichols’ images are startling, like unbroken takes in which actors are synchronized with explosions and plane movements, but they make Nichols seem like a cocky show-off. For a director whose incisive focus on character is considered a key virtue, succumbing to auteur hubris is especially embarrassing.

          It doesn’t help that the “comedy” Henry and Nichols put onscreen is more strange than funny; in a typical scene, a military functionary laments that a particular soldier has been killed because it says so on a clipboard, even though the soldier is standing right next to him and repeatedly announcing that he’s alive. Given that Catch-22 came out the same year as the incendiary military satire M*A*S*H, this sort of Brechtian contrivance feels outdated.

          Despite such massive problems, Catch-22 is never boring. The widescreen cinematography by David Watkin is beautiful, with abstract images like a horrific death scene immediately burning themselves into viewers’ brains. (Believe me, if you see the movie, you’ll know which scene.) Furthermore, the cast is impressive, even though actors drift in and out of the movie so randomly that they can’t deliver full-blooded performances.

          Among the most prominent actors, Martin Balsam plays a hard-driving commander, Bob Newhart plays a nervous subordinate, Anthony Perkins plays a compassionate chaplain, and Jon Voight plays a wheeling-and-dealing first lieutenant. Others in the sprawling ensemble include Richard Benjamin, Norman Fell, Art Garfunkel, Jack Gilford, Charles Grodin, Paula Prentiss, and Martin Sheen. Screenwriter Henry pulls double-duty by playing a supporting role, and the director in whose shadow Nichols walks, Orson Welles, shows up for a few scenes as a blustery general.

          Catch-22 is a fascinating case study in what happens when a director is given carte blanche, but despite consistently glorious production values and momentary flashes of brilliance, the movie can best be described as a beautiful disaster.

Catch-22: FREAKY

The Muppet Movie (1979)

          True story: When The Muppet Movie came out in 1979, I fell so completely in love with the film that I went to see it every day for a week. Admittedly, I was 10 and therefore just about the perfect age for the picture, but still, there’s a reason the first cinematic outing of Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, and the rest of Jim Henson’s Muppets got under my skin. Sweet but tart enough to avoid being cloying, the story unfolds like a classic Hollywood fable in the Frank Capra tradition—at the beginning of the picture, Kermit is just another frog playing a banjo in a swamp until a vacationing talent agent (Dom DeLuise) informs Kermit he could entertain millions of people if he went to Tinseltown.

          And that, right there, is what kills me about The Muppet Movie: It’s a story about the one noble reason for making films, which is using the cinematic medium to enrich the lives of others. As someone who has spent his entire professional life involved with movies, I lose sight of that beautiful idea every day, and I would never pretend that all of my reasons for embracing a cinematic existence are admirable. Nonetheless, somewhere inside me is the 10-year-old kid who connected with Kermit’s dream, and we could all do worse than remembering who we wanted to be before life made us who we actually are, with all of our petty flaws.

          If all of this sounds awfully high-minded since the subject at hand is a family comedy starring a bunch of felt puppets, it’s useful to explain that the surfaces of The Muppet Movie delighted my younger self as much as the heart of the film touched me. Brightly colored, fast-moving, sly, and tuneful, The Muppet Movie is a musical comedy alternating between charming dramatic vignettes (oh, Miss Piggy, the obstacles you place in your own path), silly comedy sketches (Gonzo taking a ride on a handful of balloons), and toe-tapping songs written by Paul Williams and Kenny Ascher. (As if penning the gorgeous main theme “Rainbow Connection” wasn’t enough, the duo also contribute fun numbers like the jaunty road anthem “Movin’ Right Along” and the Electric Mayhem’s funky jam, “Can You Picture That?”)

          The story about Kermit slowly gathering a surrogate family during his trip to Hollywood is fun (why wouldn’t Fozzie Bear drive a Studebaker?), and the stop-and-start romance between Kermit and Miss Piggy offers an amusing satire of overwrought romantic melodrama. The bad-guy business with evil restauranter Doc Hopper (Charles During) is genius, because what better nemesis for Kermit than a fast-food titan who operates a chain selling frog’s legs? (During is wonderfully flamboyant, and Austin Pendleton is a hoot as his morally conflicted sidekick.) The movie regularly drifts into loopy territory, like the climax in which Keith Moon-inspired muppet Animal plays a bigger role than usual, and on top of everything, the movie is stuffed with amazing cameos by comedy stars and other celebrities. Of special note are Mel Brooks as a nutjob German scientist, Steve Martin as an obnoxious waiter (“Oh, may I?”), and Orson Welles as a Hollywood mogul.

          Decades after my weeklong immersion in The Muppet Movie, I still find it as clever, entertaining, and heartfelt as ever—if not more so, since the intervening years have revealed how rare it is to find a genuine celebration of decency anywhere in the cinema. I doubt I’ll ever tire of listening to Henson’s deeply felt statement.

The Muppet Movie: RIGHT ON

The Kremlin Letter (1970)

          Before venturing into the wilds of his fantastic ’70s character pieces, director John Huston punched the clock on this turgid espionage thriller, a half-hearted effort so overstuffed with plot twists and supporting characters that it’s borderline incomprehensible. One of those murky Cold War stories in the vein of John Le Carre’s books, The Kremlin Letter dramatizes efforts by American spies to recover a controversial letter in which a U.S. official agrees to help the Russian government derail China’s nuclear ambitions. The first half of the movie depicts the convoluted process by which the Tillinger Foundation, a front for the CIA, recruits a spy with a photographic memory to lead a covert op inside Russia; next comes the spy’s campaign to build a team of specialists for the mission.

          The unanswerable questions pile up immediately: Why isn’t a properly trained spy available? Why is a newbie entrusted with recruiting accomplices? Why can’t normal channels like bribes and double agents be used to recover the letter, especially since both tools are used for other purposes throughout the movie? The Kremlin Letter never solves any of these mysteries, and one gets the impression the filmmakers were so bogged down in the convoluted plot they barely understood which scene they were shooting on any given day. So as a story, The Kremlin Letter is a complete waste.

          As quasi-sophisticated entertainment, however, it has some amusing moments. Honey-voiced Orson Welles pontificates pleasantly about politics. Bitchy All About Eve star George Sanders plays a cranky old queen, right down to a scene performed in drag. Barbara Parkins essays a sexy thief who demonstrates her skills by opening a safe with her feet while dressed in a leotard. The movie also boasts some kinkiness; Max von Sydow, at his most unnerving, plays a sadistic Russian enforcer with a soft side for his crazed wife, a pain freak who likes rough sex with gigolos. (Cinematic footnote: Playing von Sydow’s wife is Bibi Andersson, his costar in numerous Ingmar Bergman movies.)

          None of this even remotely adds up at the end, and laconic leading man Patrick O’Neal seems far too bored with the material to have much of an impact, but some scenes are quite interesting to watch. The movie’s best element, by far, is onetime Have Gun–Will Travel star Richard Boone as Ward, the amiable overlord of the American operation. Gleefully blending bloodlust and chattiness, he presents the movie’s most interesting vision of a sociopathic spook.

The Kremlin Letter: FUNKY

A Safe Place (1971)

          The counterculture-savvy production company BBS made several great films in its short lifespan, including Five Easy Pieces (1970) and The Last Picture Show (1971). However the company also made A Safe Place, the debut feature of iconoclastic writer-director Henry Jaglom. Simultaneously impenetrable and interminable, A Safe Place feels like a bad film-school experiment expanded to feature length, because it seems as if Jaglom shot a handful of heavily improvised (but altogether uninteresting) scenes, then tried to cut them together in a manner that imposed a pseudo-structure without draining the individual pieces of their spontaneous “life.” In other words, the picture is 90 excruciating minutes of actors spewing whatever inconsequential nonsense comes to mind while Jaglom photographs them from pretentious angles, often with weird objects placed in the foreground to provide out-of-focus texture.

          The leading player in the picture is the potent Tuesday Weld, who tended to flower in well-scripted material but flounder when cast adrift; she’s so “real,” in the self-important Method sense of the word, that we end up watching her wander through her conception of an ordinary day in the life of her vaguely conceived character, which is as tiring to watch as it is to describe. Weld spews hippy-dippy nonsense, drifts in and out of pointless dialects, and, of course, goes on unmotivated crying gags.

          Jack Nicholson and Orson Welles, apparently friends of Jaglom’s, appear in stupid running cameos. Nicholson mostly makes out with Weld in a series of quick vignettes, and considering the fact that he probably worked on the picture for all of an afternoon, rolling around with his beautiful costar must have been a pleasant way to kill time. Welles appears in silly bits as a magician performing simplistic tricks in Central Park, and it’s sad to see him looking so bloated and bored. As for this snoozefest’s helmer, Jaglom returned to filmmaking a few years later with 1977’s Tracks, and he’s been quite prolific ever since, making scads of pictures in the same loose, improvisational vein.

A Safe Place: SQUARE