Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972)

Despite a few creepy flourishes and the presence of horror-cinema icon John Carradine in a minor role, Silent Night, Bloody Night is more like a lump of coal than a brightly wrapped Christmas present. Not to be confused with the slasher flick Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), which sparked controversy by featuring a murderer in a Santa Claus costume, Silent Night, Bloody Night is a discombobulated piece about tragedies occurring in a Massachusetts home that once served as an insane asylum. (The title refers to a Christmas Eve murder spree.) Clearly cobbled together during editing from scattershot footage, the picture uses the weak framing device of Diane Adams (Mary Woronov) moping around the central location while delivering somber voiceover about past events, thus triggering extensive flashbacks. According to Diane, the trouble began in 1950 when a man named Wilfred Butler died at the home. Amid questions about whether his demise was an accident or suicide, survivors honored Wilfred’s wish that the house remain abandoned. Thus, when Wilfred’s grandson Jeffrey (James Patterson) hires lawyer John Carter (Patrick O’Neal) to arrange the sale of the house, those tampering with Wilfred’s wishes meet the business end of an axe. Silent Night, Bloody Night takes quite a while to get going, and long stretches of dull conversation elapse between fright scenes. Worse, the slapped-together structure of the piece ensures confusion and tedium, problems compounded by indifferent acting and muddy photography. Some minor historical interest stems from the presence of actors with Andy Warhol associations (including Woronov), while pretty starlets including Astrid Heeren provide eye candy. However, if there’s anything genuinely interesting or unique about Silent Night, Bloody Night, it’s buried beneath lots of superficial atmospherics, and obscured by needlessly befuddling plot machinations.

Silent Night, Bloody Night: LAME

The Stepford Wives (1975)

           Novelist Ira Levin had a great knack for taking outrageous premises to their fullest extreme, so his books were adapted into the classic shocker Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and the campy but entertaining thriller The Boys From Brazil (1978). Released between those pictures was the Levin adaptation The Stepford Wives (1975), which explores a scheme by suburban men to transform their brides into compliant automatons. Featuring a zippy screenplay by William Goldman and several memorable scenes, The Stepford Wives should be a terrific little shocker, but it’s held back by an inert leading performance and lackluster direction. Nonetheless, the film’s slow-burn narrative is fun, and the conspiracy at the center of the picture is so creepy that problems of execution can’t fully diminish the project’s appeal.

          Katharine Ross stars as Joanna Eberhart, a beautiful young wife living in New York City with her attorney husband, Walter (Peter Masterson), and their two young kids. Much to Joanna’s chagrin, Walter abruptly relocates the family to the squeaky-clean suburb of Stepford, where the wives are all beautiful women preoccupied with housework and the sexual needs of their husbands. Joanna goes stir-crazy fast, bonding with fellow newcomer Bobbie (Paula Prentiss) and searching for signs of intelligent life in the Stepford universe. Meanwhile, Walter joins the mysterious Stepford Men’s Association, so Joanna and Bobbie investigate whether the association is behind the strange behavior of the Stepford wives. The story moves along at a good clip, with creepy hints of the truth peeking out through the shiny surfaces of Stepford life, and Joanna’s descent into desperation is believable.

          Some supporting characters, including sexy housewife Charmaine (Tina Louise), could have benefited from greater development, but the way the movie withholds details about enigmatic Stepford power-broker Dale Coba (Patrick O’Neal) adds intrigue. Still, the middle of the movie lags simply because the performances aren’t engaging. Ross, the delicate beauty of The Graduate (1967) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), delivers competent work but never gets under the skin of her character, while Masterson is forgettable and Prentiss is overbearing (though, in her defense, that’s a key trait of her character). Since the leads are  wash, the best performance in the picture is given by Nanette Newman, who plays the most weirdly submissive of the Stepford wives, Carol. Van Sant.

          Compensating significantly for the bland acting is the grainy cinematography by Owen Roizman, whose images give the plastic surfaces of Stepford a dark edge, and the tense score by Michael Small. Ultimately, the blame for The Stepford Wives’ failure to achieve its full potential must fall on director Bryan Forbes, a versatile Englishman who made a number of tasteful but unexceptional pictures; he presents the story clearly but without any panache or urgency. FYI, three sequels to The Stepford Wives were made for television—Revenge of the Stepford Wives (1980), The Stepford Children (1987), and The Stepford Husbands (1996)—before the original picture was remade in 2004, with Nicole Kidman starring.

The Stepford Wives: FUNKY

Corky (1972)

          One of the very best things that happened in American movies during the late ’60s and early ’70s was that filmmakers began telling stories about losers on a regular basis. Utilizing such unconventional leading players as Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, and Al Pacino, bold directors explored the complex life experiences of men living on the fringes of modern society, thus broadening the spectrum of what was considered acceptable in mainstream cinema. But, as the saying goes, you’ve got to break some eggs to make an omelete. So, for every groundbreaking story about an offbeat protagonist, there were plenty of failed attempts. Hence Corky, a bummer drama about an asshole who dreams of becoming a top racecar driver. As portrayed by the diminutive but volatile Robert Blake, Corky Curtiss is a foul-mouthed, ignorant, narcissistic redneck who abandons his family, endangers his coworkers, objectifies women, punches his friends, and eventually succumbs to sociopathic madness. And while there’s a school of thought that says any character capable of provoking strong reactions is inherently interesting, the problem with Corky Curtiss—and with Corky as a whole—is that the character’s behavior becomes so repetitive and ugly that, eventually, the only possible reactions are fatigue and indifference.

          The story gets off to a shaky start. Corky works in a garage and moonlights as a demolition-derby driver on the team run by the garage’s owner, Randy (Patrick O’Neal). Corky’s dangerous antics behind the wheel get him fired from both jobs, so Corky tells his wife, Peggy Jo (Charlotte Rampling), that he’s leaving town, ostensibly to make money on the racing circuit. Yet Corky spends all of his time away from home boozing, brawling, and gambling. Then, when he finally returns home (spoiler alert), he gets angry that Peggy Jo has moved on with her life and he goes on a shooting spree. Good luck finding anything edifying here, especially since key elements of the movie are maddeningly distracting: The music is gooey and weird; the intermittent flashbacks illuminate nothing; and Rampling, the epitome of icy European beauty, is laughably miscast as a barefoot-and-pregnant redneck housewife. Were one to strain in the effort to find something praiseworthy in Corky, it could be said that Blake’s commitment to his performance is impressive—but then again, wouldn’t Blake’s intensity have been more impressive if his character came across as sympathetic instead of merely repulsive?

Corky: LAME

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