Victory at Entebbe (1976) & Raid on Entebbe (1977)

          One of the Me Decade’s most startling real-life events occurred on July 4, 1976, when Israeli commandos raided an airport in Uganda to rescue more than a hundred hostages from Palestinians who hijacked a passenger plane. Filled with larger-than-life individuals, notably crazed Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, the story of “Operation Thunderbolt” helped define the era during which international terrorism first took root. Almost inevitably, Hollywood pounced on this material, with the first screen dramatization reaching American airwaves six months after the rescue, and a second version airing a month later. Both telefilms feature big-name casts.

          First to air was Victory at Entebbe, a rushed and schlocky melodrama that mostly focuses on dynamics among hostages during their tense incarceration in Uganda. Filmed by director Marvin J. Chomsky with garish lighting and unimpressive production values, Victory at Entebbe suffers badly for the choice to shove the biggest names possible into various roles, no matter the results. Good luck figuring out the genetic math by which parents Kirk Douglas and Elizabeth Taylor produce daughter Linda Blair—and have fun scratching your head while Anthony Hopkins plays Israeli Prime Minister Ytzhak Rabin opposite Burt Lancaster as his Minister of Defense. Helmut Berger does forgettable work as lead terrorist Wilfried Böse, and those playing the other hijackers stop just short of twirling moustaches.

          Portraying key passengers, Theodore Bikel, Severn Darden, Helen Hayes, Allan Miller, Jessica Walter, and others do what they can with florid dialogue and overwrought dramaturgy. Way too much screen time is devoted to Blair’s alternately cutesy and whiny performance as a young hostage, the Douglas/Taylor scenes feel like clips from a bad soap opera, and Julius Harris looks cartoonish playing Amin thanks to an ill-advised fat suit. Scenes set in Israel are better, though it’s hard to buy doughy Richard Dreyfuss as fierce commando Yoni Netanyahu. Worse, the Israeli scenes focus on procedural matters, mostly sidelining political ramifications. A final strike against Victory at Entebbe is the use of stock footage for airplane scenes, which greatly diminishes verisimilitude.

          Although the star power of Raid on Entebbe is not quite as impressive as that of the preceding film, the performances are much better. Martin Balsam, Charles Bronson, Horst Buchholz, Peter Finch, John Saxon, Sylvia Sidney, Jack Warden, and others deliver restrained work, letting the story speak for itself. Only a few players—including Tige Andrews and Stephen Macht—succumb to melodramatic excess. More importantly, Raid on Entebbe has Yaphet Kotto. He’s  dazzling as Amin, conveying the madman’s grandiosity, moodiness, and narcissism. Directed by the versatile Irvin Kershner with docudrama simplicity and the occasional subtle flourish—a sleek camera move here, a dramatic lighting pattern there—Raid on Entebbe unfolds methodically. The opening scene depicts the hijacking without sensationalizing events, and thereafter the movie cuts back and forth between Israel, where officials plan their response, and scenes involving hostages and their captors.

          Eventually, the film resolves into three parallel narratives. The first involves Rabin (Finch) rallying support for military intervention, despite his government’s propensity for endless debate. The second involves the hostages, of whom Daniel Cooper (Balsam) is the unofficial spokesman, watching their fates transfer from the hands of religious zealots to those of an unpredictable tyrant. The third involves units of the Israeli military—under the command of Generals Gur (Warden), Peled (Saxon), and Shomron (Bronson)—figuring how to achieve the impossible. The level of detail in Barry Beckerman’s teleplay is extraordinary, so despite its lengthy running time (two and a half hours), Raid on Entebbe is interesting and thoughtful from start to finish. Better still, the presence of marquee-name actors never eclipses the solemnity of the narrative. (Special note should be made of Finch’s fine performance as Rabin, because this was his last project. He died a week after Raid on Entebbe aired.)

          Yet another dramatization of these historic events emerged soon after the dual telefilms, this time from Israel. Directed by Menaham Golan, Operation Thunderbolt features a mostly Israeli cast, although the intense German actor Klaus Kinski plays Böse and the voluptuous Austrian starlet Sybil Danning costars. Operation Thunderbolt received an Oscar nomination as Best Foreign Film.

Victory at Entebbe: FUNKY

Raid on Entebbe: GROOVY

1980 Week: The Competition

          An old saying holds that directing is 90 percent casting. The trick, however, is casting the right actor in the right role at the right time. Consider The Competition, a glossy romantic drama about two pianists who fall in love while participating in a contest that will grant the winner instant access to a career performing classical music at top venues. Richard Dreyfuss plays the leading role of Paul Dietrich, a young man who has outgrown his child-prodigy years and yet not fully realized his promise as an adult. With his arsenal of off-putting sneers and uptight tics, Dreyfuss is completely the right performer for this role. Unfortunately, because he was in his early 30s when he made the picture, it’s an impossible accept him as a character who is presumably in his early 20s, especially since Dreyfuss had already played several roles with gray hair and a paunch. Director Joel Oliansnky and his collaborators try every trick they can to put across the desired illusion—Dreyfuss wears distracting makeup beneath his eyes, and other characters comment upon his “premature” receding hairline—but these feeble efforts only make the issue more noticeable. And so it goes, alas, for the rest of the picture, which boats intelligence and wit but feels artificial and contrived in nearly every possible way.

          The story, which Oliansky cowrote with producer William Sackheim, is simple. Paul decides to enter one last competition before giving up his dreams of musical glory for a day job. Upon arriving in San Francisco for auditions, he encounters pretty Heidi Joan Schoonover (Amy Irving), and they strike romantic sparks. Despite his determination to remain focused, Paul falls for Heidi. She, in turn, finds his earthiness refreshing since she comes from an insular, privileged background. Oliansky interweaves the love story of these two characters with subplots about other competitors, plus another subplot about Greta Vandemann (Lee Remick), Heidi’s piano teacher, herself a former competitor.

          Inexplicably, Oliansky lets The Competition sprawl across a bloated running time of more than two hours, even though the material is paper-thin. Much of the excess happens during performance scenes, since Oliansky seems determined to show off the way his actors learned to mimic complex fingering. There’s also a general languidness to the pacing, especially when actors stand in perfect three-point lighting to deliver monologues that, one presumes, were envisioned as Oscar clips. For a movie with a decent sense of humor, The Competition takes itself awfully seriously. Still, the film is not without its emotional peaks, even if Oliansky’s tendency toward overwritten schmaltz undercuts every sincere thing that his actors try to accomplish. Oh, and fair warning: If you’re among those who find Dreyfuss impossibly precious and smug, watching The Competition will not change your opinion.

The Competition: FUNKY

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974)

          Noteworthy as the most commercially successful Canadian film in history, at least at the time of its initial release, and as the vehicle for Richard Dreyfuss’ first leading role in a movie, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz both merits and suffers under close inspection. A briskly paced blend of comedy and drama, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz represents a thoughtful inquiry into the soul of a character. Furthermore, the movie—like its source material, Mordecai Richler’s novel of the same name—comprises a rumination on what it meant to be Jewish in North America during the 1940s. Yet while the project’s intentions are noble, the execution is erratic.
          Adapted for the screen by Lionel Chetwynd and directed by the nimble Ted Kotcheff, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz has a peculiar texture. The movie feels rushed, since the filmmakers obviously wanted to include as much of the novel’s plot as possible; many scene transitions are abrupt, with optical wipes and/or sudden bursts of music shifting the tone from droll to dour in jarring ways; and the filmmakers seem unclear about their perspective on the protagonist. The title character (played, obviously, by Dreyfuss) is a born hustler who uses lies and schemes and tricks to move up the economic ladder, leaving broken friendships (and worse) in his wake.
          At times, the filmmakers seem highly judgmental of Duddy, presenting him as a callous prick who’ll do anything for money; at other times, the filmmakers seem amused by Duddy, as if he’s a playful scamp to be admired for his manic single-mindedness. Similarly, the filmmakers can’t decide whether they’re making a comedy with an undercurrent of pathos or a drama with an undercurrent of frivolity. Nearly every scene in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is interesting in some way, but the whole enterprise comes across like the highlight reel for a larger, more coherent endeavor. Set in World War II-era Montreal, the movie tracks Duddy’s slow rise from high-school graduate to self-made businessman.
          The son of a humble cab driver (Jack Warden), Duddy begins his working life with a job as a waiter at a resort. Quickly discerning that strivers who grease the moneyed class with special treatment do well, Duddy out-maneuvers his peers, making fair-weather friends of various swells. Duddy then embarks on a long romantic relationship with a Catholic girl, Yvette (Michceline Lanctòt), and hatches the idea to buy a lake upon which he can build an empire of hotels and other businesses. Clever and relentless, Duddy commences his next outrageous business venture by hiring an alcoholic ex-Hollywood film director (Denholm Elliot) to make bar mitzvah and wedding movies for wealthy Canadian Jews. And so it goes until a series of reversals—including brushes with criminality and a horrific traffic accident—halt Duddy’s ascension.
          That the preceding description includes only some of the movie’s plot should indicate how densely the film is packed. If not for the skill of the principal actors, in fact, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz simply wouldn’t work, since the hurried pace leaves so little time to linger on individual moments. Dreyfuss, whose acting style is fairly manic anyway, keeps pace with the movie’s frenetic momentum, adroitly charting Duddy’s progress from innocent to cynic to battle-tested survivor. (Dreyfuss’ innate amiability is also the only thing that keeps Duddy from coming across as a complete asshole.) Warden fills his own scenes with energy and warmth, while Randy Quaid provides folksy counterpoint in a supporting role as a young American who enters Duddy’s orbit. Joe Silver (as one of Duddy’s patrons) and the always-entertaining Elliot are similarly strong. Alas, while The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is filled with highly watchable elements, it’s ultimately a bit of a mess—as demonstrated by the picture’s final scene, which wobbles indecisively between tragedy and whimsy.

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz: FUNKY

Inserts (1974)

          The first hurdle to get over when approaching writer-director John Byrum’s strange little movie Inserts is trying to understand how the thing got made. Setting aside the presence of leading man Richard Dreyfuss, who was on the rise in the early ’70s thanks to American Graffiti (1973), everything about Inserts screams “uncommercial.” The piece unfolds like a play, with real-time interaction between a small set of characters sprawling across a single location for 117 minutes; the dense dialogue occasionally tips over into pretention; and the film is filled with sex on every level, so even though the depiction of physical encounters is not explicit, Inserts borders on porn just for the sheer amount of sexual content. (The MPAA slapped the picture with an X rating during its original release.) Put succinctly, Inserts is a North American movie that feels like a European art-house picture, and on top of everything else, it’s dark as hell. Therefore, asking how the movie came into being is futile. It was the ’70s, man.

          Byrum takes viewers on a unique journey, although chances are many viewers give up before the trip reaches its destination—the weirdness factor is undoubtedly a turn-off for some. That said, Inserts is full of intellectual and visceral rewards for those who lock into Byrum’s bizarre frequency. Inserts is a movie about movies, but it’s also about ambition, artistic hubris, emotional paralysis, manipulation, and power—all of which are viewed through the prism of carnal knowledge.

          Set in the 1930s, Inserts takes place in the mansion of Boy Wonder (Dreyfuss), a movie director whose career peaked in the silent era. Boy Wonder drove himself out of the film business with diva behavior, so now he makes his living by shooting stag reels in his own home—a nice arrangement, seeing as how Boy Wonder has become a virtual recluse. Then as now, the porn business attracts damaged souls, so Boy Wonder’s cast members for the shoot depicted in Inserts are Harlene (Veronica Cartwright), a heroin-addicted former mainstream movie actress, and “Rex, the Wonder Dog” (Stephen Davies), a dimwit stud with violent tendencies. Underwriting the whole affair is Big Mac (Bob Hoskins), a crude gangster who hits the scene accompanied by Cathy (Jessica Harper), an intense striver determined to break into movies no matter what it takes. As the story progresses, Boy Wonder plays mind games on his actors to get work out of them. Later, when tragedy strikes, Boy Wonder himself becomes the victim of mind games.

          Even though Inserts is in many ways a film of ideas, giving away too much of the plot would be a disservice to the piece, because the layers of character that get revealed with every plot twist add to the richness of Byrum’s deranged tapestry. Every character is a lost soul of some kind, so watching them grasp for solid ground makes for fascinating sport. Not everything in Inserts works, and the perverse nature of the material ensures that cynical viewers will find the piece more credible than optimistic ones. Still, this is singular work fueled by passionate acting.

          Carwright nails a poignant mixture of naïveté and world-weariness, while Harper presents a character who seems like a skin-trade riff on All About Eve’s Eve Harrington—the hungry young thing without a conscience. Hoskins is effectively boarish and frightening, while Davies personifies the confusion of a man unable to grasp the full dimensions of his own circumstances. As for Dreyfuss, he’s incandescent, the complicated and precise nuances of his performance mitigated only by the actor’s overpowering self-satisfaction. (Few stars seem to relish their own skills as obviously as Dreyfuss does, though a strong argument could be made that arrogance was the perfect choice of emotional though-line for Boy Wonder.) Overall, Inserts is a deeply odd movie, given the juxtaposition of its lofty literary style and its sleazy subject matter. Grim and insightful and macabre and stylish and surprising, it’s a high-wire act performed in a sewer.

Inserts: FREAKY

The Goodbye Girl (1977)

          Based upon a script that’s arguably the best original screenplay Neil Simon ever wrote, The Goodbye Girl became a massive feel-good hit and netted costar Richard Dreyfuss an Academy Award for Best Actor. And, indeed, though the movie’s title accurately identifies the leading character as a single mom who has become gun-shy about relationships, Dreyfuss dominates the movie with his enjoyably hyperactive performance. The simple story begins with thirtysomething New Yorker Paula McFadden (Marsha Mason) getting dumped by the actor with whom she and her young daughter have been living. Compounding his caddishness, the actor sublets his apartment to Elliot Garfield (Dreyfuss), a fellow thespian relocating from Chicago to New York.

          Arriving one rainy night and expecting entrée into his new abode, Elliot bickers with Paula until she lets him to crash in her daughter’s room so they can resolve their peculiar situation in the morning. Despite initially finding Paula shrewish, Elliot consents to let her use half the apartment (and pay half the expenses) while he rehearses for his off-Broadway debut in a new production of Richard III. This sitcom-style setup clears the way for an unlikely love story, with Paula lowering her guard every time Elliot demonstrates compassion, even though he’s narcissistic and overbearing.

          The movie’s most endearing contrivance is that Elliot develops a warmly paternal attachment to Paula’s precocious daughter, Lucy (Quinn Cummings), who finds his artistic quirks endearing. Using this plot device, Simon shows a surrogate family taking shape. Trite, to be sure, but winning nonetheless, thanks to Simon’s meticulous character work and rat-a-tat jokes.

          Director Herbert Ross, a former dancer, uses the main location (the apartment shared by the protagonists) like a dance floor. Actors flit in and out of rooms, glide from one space to the next, and generally move across the screen with such velocity that it seems like the story is progressing at lightning speed. Ross brings equal skill to absurd scenes set at theater rehearsals, so the bits in which an asshole director played by Paul Benedict instructs Elliot to play Richard III as a screaming queen are very funny.

          Some critics have rightfully lamented that The Goodbye Girl gets exhausting after a while, and it’s true that the movie’s energy level is pitched very high from start to finish. Furthermore, Dreyfuss delivers dialogue so quickly, and with such great intensity, that he literally gets red-faced from effort at regular intervals. However, his high-octane acting is complemented by Mason’s comparatively restrained work, and by Cummings’ guileless likeability. (Whether her characterization is believable is another matter, but old-before-their-years kids are a crowd-pleasing comedy staple.) Yet the most important virtue of The Goodbye Girl is the fact that the love story works: We see Elliot and Paula improve each other’s lives without altering their respective identities. Therefore, even if the movie sometimes tries too hard, one can’t argue with results.

The Goodbye Girl: GROOVY

The Big Fix (1978)

          The Big Fix attempts so many interesting things, and demonstrates such a high level of craftsmanship and intelligence, that it’s completely worthwhile despite significant flaws. Adapted by Roger L. Simon from his own novel, the movie introduces viewers to Moses Wine (Richard Dreyfuss), a former ’60s activist now settled into humdrum ’70s adulthood. A divorcé with two kids, Moses makes a sketchy living as a private investigator, mostly doing unglamorous stakeout work for corporate clients. Life is constantly humiliating for Moses until he encounters an old flame from college, Lila (Susan Anspach), who reminds him of the beautiful ideals they espoused in the ’60s.

          However, to Moses’ great disappointment, Lila has sold out to work on the gubernatorial campaign of a stuffy politician, and she needs help because someone is spreading rumors that her candidate associates with an Abbie Hoffman-esque radical named Howard Eppis. Moses reluctantly takes the case, but soon realizes he’s stumbled onto something heavy.

          The Big Fix is ostensibly a comedy, with gentle gags like the various explanations for the cast on Moses’ hand, and Simon provides appealing banter for Moses and the peculiar characters he meets. Yet the movie is also a detective thriller with a body count, and years before writer-director Lawrence Kasdan explored similar subject matter in The Big Chill (1983), this film asks why some ’60s activists joined the Establishment they once fought. In fact, the movie sometimes lurches awkwardly between light farce and murderous drama. What holds the thing together is Dreyfuss, who also co-produced the picture.

          Operating at the height of his considerable powers, Dreyfuss showcases Moses’ emotional journey—the character starts out bored and tired, gets jazzed by adventure, and ends up revitalized by the discovery that he hasn’t truly betrayed his old principles. Dreyfuss has many dazzling scenes, whether he’s hyperventilating after a shooting or demonstrating unexpected courage during an interrogation. It’s probably a better performance than the material deserves, but great work is always a joy to watch.

          Another strength of The Big Fix is the terrific supporting cast: F. Murray Abraham, Bonnie Bedelia, Jon Lithgow, Ron Rifkin, and Fritz Weaver each contribute something memorable and unique. Director Jeremy Paul Kagan moves the camera smoothly, shapes a number of good performances, and uses locations well, but as in most of his features, the pieces never fully cohere; The Big Fix is more a collection of enjoyable scenes than a well-told story. Nonetheless, the film’s virtues are many, and its offbeat take on the subject of ’60s counterculture is consistently interesting.

The Big Fix: GROOVY

Dillinger (1973)

          Action auteur John Milius couldn’t have picked better subject matter for his maiden voyage behind the camera. A gun nut with an astonishing gift for imbuing dialogue with macho poetry, Milius clearly found kindred spirits in the real-life figures of Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger and his relentless pursuer, FBI agent Melvin Purvis. Crafting one of his finest scripts (high praise, considering he wrote Apocalypse Now and Jeremiah Johnson), Milius deftly parallels Dillinger’s heyday as the scourge of the Midwest with Purvis’ methodical annihilation of public enemies. Milius depicts Dillinger as a flamboyant iconoclast doomed by his greed and his sociopathic rage, and he depicts Purvis as a patient lawman who never hesitates when he gets a crook in his crosshairs. So even as the film hurtles through exhilarating crime-spree passages, there’s a sense of impending doom that colors everything down to leading man Warren Oates’ animalistic performance as Dillinger. As a result, the whole movie feels like a slow burn leading to the legendary explosion of violence that happened in 1934 when Purvis came face-to-face with his elusive quarry outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater.
          Making the most of the minimal production resources available to this tightly budgeted American International Pictures production, Milius employs a spare visual style in order to focus on the Spartan elegance of his dialogue and the violent ballet of his expertly staged gunfights. Incisive lines permeate the picture, like Purvis’ plan of attack (“Shoot Dillinger and we’ll find a way to make it legal”) and a bystander’s rationale for why a group of strangers must be gangsters (“Decent folk don’t live that good”). Keeping his tendency for romanticism in check, Milius integrates ugly elements like Dillinger’s rough treatment of women, the excruciating deaths of gunshot victims, and the carnage visited upon innocent bystanders. So while the filmmaker clearly gets a charge out of the larger-than-life duel between Dillinger and Purvis, he can’t be accused of making the outlaw life attractive. Oates commands the screen, presenting a potent strain of dangerous charisma in every scene, and iconic Western actor Ben Johnson is a perfect complement as Purvis—Johnson’s stoicism sharply contrasts Oates’ hyperkinetic quality.
          Playing members of Dillinger’s gang are an eclectic bunch of actors, including Richard Dreyfuss, Steve Kanaly, Frank McRae, and John P. Ryan; the standout sidekicks are Geoffrey Lewis and Harry Dean Stanton, both of whom deliver funny, tragic performances. Cloris Leachman pops in for a tasty cameo as the infamous “Lady in Red” who accompanied Dillinger to the Biograph, and gorgeous pop singer Michelle Phillips (of the Mamas and the Papas) is unexpectedly good in her first real role, as Dillinger’s longtime girlfriend, Billie Frechette. FYI, a year after this feature was released, a TV pilot called Melvin Purvis: G-Man hit the small screen, with Dale Robertson taking over Johnson's role; Milius co-wrote the script and Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis was the producer-director. A second Robertson pilot, made by Curtis without Milius’ involvement and titled The Kansas City Massacre, appeared in 1975, but the proposed series never materialized.

Dillinger: RIGHT ON

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

          Steven Spielberg’s second career-defining megahit in a row, following 1975’s Jaws, is in some ways an even more extraordinary demonstration of his gifts than its predecessor, because for much of the film Spielberg has to create excitement around unseen phenomena. Utilizing an arsenal of camera tricks, sophisticated special effects, and pure storytelling wizardry, Spielberg manufactures a vivid sensation that something unprecedented is unfolding, which generates relentless tension as viewers wait for the payoff. And then, in the jaw-dropping finale, he unleashes an onslaught of visual spectacle so overpowering that it justifies all the intense foreshadowing. One of the few films for which Spielberg received sole screenwriting credit, Close Encounters grew out of the director’s fascination with the idea of extraterrestrial life, and more specifically the idea of what might happen upon first contact between humankind and beings from another world.

          Although this subject had already been explored in countless films and TV shows, Spielberg approached the concept with such reverence that Close Encounters remains the definitive movie of its type, even though it’s really just a feature-length prelude to an unknown adventure that happens after the closing credits. Abetted by a masterful production team, Spielberg shapes the story (to which writers including Hal Barwood, Matthew Robbins, and Paul Schrader made significant but uncredited contributions) to include meticulous detail extrapolated from reports of real-life UFO sightings, as well as a plausible illustration of how the world’s military and scientific communities might react in the event of “close encounter,” to say nothing of imaginative depictions of how aircraft flown by outer-space visitors might manifest.

          Tying the film together is the character of Roy Neary (Schrader’s invention, according to some reports), an everyman who becomes obsessed with finding the truth after his pickup truck has an astonishing run-in with an alien craft. Richard Dreyfuss plays Neary to wrenching effect, depicting how the character’s quest for facts is a desperate need to prove he hasn’t gone insane—and a search for personal identity greater than that of an anonymous working stiff. Melinda Dillon and Teri Garr, as the two women in his life, provide earnest counterpoint and sharp comic relief, respectively, while Bob Balaban and iconic French filmmaker Francois Truffaut stand out among the scientific types who cross Neary’s path. Close Encounters includes some of the most exciting scenes Spielberg ever filmed, like Dillon and Dreyfuss busting through a military barrier to reach the natural wonder of Devils Tower in Wyoming, and it also features some of the funniest, like Dreyfuss’ experiments with a mound of mashed potatoes. So while Close Encounters is not for every taste (some fret the ending doesn’t go far enough, others complain it goes way too far), it’s a remarkable experience for those who, like Neary, want to believe.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: OUTTA SIGHT

American Graffiti (1973) & More American Graffiti (1979)

          The most relatable picture in his entire filmography, American Graffiti offers an engaging riff on a formative period in George Lucas’ life, when being a kid on the verge of adulthood meant cruising for chicks in a great car on a cool California evening. The fact that Lucas once conceived and directed a story this full of believable characters makes it frustrating that so many of his latter-day projects lack recognizable humanity; it seems that once he departed for a galaxy far, far away, he never returned. Yet that frustration somehow deepens the resonance of American Graffiti, because just as the story captures a fleeting moment in the lives of its characters, the movie captures a fleeting moment in the life of its creator. Utilizing an innovative editing style in which brisk vignettes are interwoven to the accompaniment of a dense soundtrack comprising familiar vintage pop tunes, Lucas confounded his Universal Studios financiers but thrilled early-’70s moviegoers by conjuring the cinematic equivalent of switching the dial on a car radio. As soon as any given scene makes its statement, Lucas jumps to the next high point, repeating the adrenalized cycle until it’s time to call it a night.

          Set in Lucas’ hometown of Modesto circa 1962, American Graffiti follows the adventures of four recent high school graduates trying to figure out the next steps in their lives. They interact with a constellation of friends and strangers during a hectic night of romance, sex, vandalism, and vehicular excess. Some of the characters and relationships have more impact than others, but the various threads mesh comfortably and amplify each other. For instance, the melodramatic saga of Steve (Ron Howard) and his girlfriend Laurie (Cindy Williams) resonates with the obsessive quest by Curt (Richard Dreyfuss) to find a mysterious dreamgirl (Suzanne Somers). Moody greaser John (Paul Le Mat) and tough-guy drag racer Bob (Harrison Ford) add danger, while precocious Carol (Mackenzie Phillips) and hapless Terry (Charles Martin Smith) add humor. With wall-to-wall tunes expressing the characters’ raging hormones, Lucas weaves a quilt of adolescent angst and teen longing that simultaneously debunks and romanticizes the historical moment immediately preceding John F. Kennedy’s assassination. It’s a testament to Lucas’ craft that audiences fell in love with the exuberant surface of the movie despite the gloom bubbling underneath. The picture’s success did remarkable things for nearly everyone involved, helping Howard land the lead in the blockbuster sitcom Happy Days (1974–1984) and giving Lucas the box-office mojo to make Star Wars (1977).

          More American Graffiti is a very different type of film. Written and directed by Bill L. Norton under Lucas’ supervision, the picture explores what happened to several characters after the events of the first film. Howard, Le Mat, Smith, and Williams reprise their roles, and Ford makes a brief appearance. (Dreyfuss is notably absent.) A dark, experimental, and provocative examination of the tumultuous years spanning 1964 to 1967, More American Graffiti would have been nervy as a stand-alone film, so it’s outright ballsy as a major-studio sequel to a crowd-pleaser. Norton follows three storylines, giving each a distinctive look. Scenes with Howard and Williams are shot conventionally, accentuating the everyday misery of a couple drifting apart. Scenes with Smith’s character in Vietnam are shot on grainy 16mm with a boxy aspect ratio (even though the rest of the picture is widescreen). Trippiest of all are scenes with Candy Clark (whose character in the first picture was relatively minor); set in hippy-dippy San Francisco, these sequences use wild split-screen techniques. LeMat’s character appears in an extended flashback to which Norton frequently returns, like the chorus of a pop song. Tackling antiwar protests, draft dodgers, drug culture, women’s liberation, and other topics, the film is a too-deliberate survey of ’60s signifiers. That said, More American Graffiti has integrity to spare, bringing the shadows that hid beneath the first movie’s shiny surface to the foreground.

American Graffiti: RIGHT ON

More American Graffiti: FUNKY

Suzanne (1973)

          The popular arts of the late ’60s and early ’70s were filled with hippy-dippy freakouts made by plugged-in youths who perceived themselves as explorers charting the outer edges of human consciousness, often aided by mind-altering party favors. And that’s about the only way to contextualize the impenetrable drama Suzanne. Jared Martin plays an insufferably self-important movie director whose newest project has something to do with Christ mythology, and he finds inspiration when he meets a moon-eyed blonde named Suzanne (Sondra Locke). Inexplicably drawn to her pompous new suitor, Suzanne dumps artist Leo (Paul Sand), a fragile soul who’s clearly one angst-ridden episode away from a nervous breakdown. The main thread of the movie concerns the director’s preparations to impale Suzanne with real nails so his crucifixion scene has the desired impact, but the movie also follows Leo’s descent into madness, and the hapless efforts of an Establishment newspaper columnist (Gene Barry) to investigate what sorta vibes the counterculture kids are groovin’ to these days.
          If any of these particulars make Suzanne sound interesting, be warned that the “story” is presented in weird, disassociated vignettes punctuated by arty montages of things like people in clown makeup dancing around in trippy fisheye-lens shots. By the time this movie was released in 1973, more interesting filmmakers had been doing this sort of thing for several years, so Suzanne was already a relic with its narrative opacity and obnoxiously collegiate dialogue. (Sample Suzanne chatter: “You are beauty. I need to stay away from you. It’s not anything you did, it’s just I don’t know what I do with what you are.”) The movie gets points for seeing its pretentious premise all the way through to the gruesome conclusion, and Suzanne also provides a load of interesting Hollywood footnotes: It was inspired by the Leonard Cohen song “Suzanne,” which appears several times on the soundtrack; Shaft creator Ernest Tidyman was a script consultant (even though the script ain’t too tidy, man); Performance editor Frank Mazzola assembled the montages; and the cast includes Richard Dreyfuss and future Wayne’s World director Penelope Spheeris.
          In case you’re wondering how a movie this strange gets made, Suzanne writer-director Michael Barry’s dad is actor Gene Barry, who played TV’s Bat Masterson in the ’50s; Papa Berry executive-produced (read: financed) the flick in addition to costarring.

Suzanne: LAME

Jaws (1975) & Jaws 2 (1978)

          The movie that turned director Steven Spielberg into a superstar, Jaws deserves every bit of its reputation as one of the best horror films of all time, but it’s also a wonderful adventure story and, by sheer happenstance, a charming character piece. The travails experienced by producers David Brown and Richard Zanuck as they tried to film Peter Benchley’s best-selling novel about a man-eating shark are legend, and myriad books and documentaries tell the fascinating behind-the-scenes story. As for the onscreen narrative, it begins when a great white shark starts snacking on swimmers off the coast of tourist trap Amity Island. Landlubber police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), high-strung scientist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and crusty sea captain Sam Quint (Robert Shaw) form an unlikely posse to save the day. Scenes of the three men chasing the big fish in their little boat—before getting chased by the big fish—are among the most exciting ever filmed.
          The mechanical shark the producers commissioned rarely worked, forcing Spielberg and his team to shoot character scenes and action details during downtime. In post-production, this extra material was spotlighted to compensate for the paucity of wow-factor shark footage. As a result, what could have been a silly monster movie became an engrossing yarn filled with interesting people doing interesting things. Scheider’s slow-burn edginess meshes wonderfully with Dreyfuss’ motor-mouthed arrogance, and when those qualities get complemented by Shaw’s wicked gravitas, the movie enters the realm of cinematic magic. The delightful scene of the three men comparing scars is a marvel of thoughtful writing, lived-in acting, and precise editing—especially because it tees up Quint’s iconic monologue about the sinking of the World War II warship Indianapolis. Even though the scene comprises little more than a man talking for several minutes, the monologue is one of the most riveting sequences in all of ’70s cinema.
          Holding the movie together are Verna Fields’ Oscar-winning editing and John Williams’ Oscar-winning score; Fields’ wizardly cuts fuse material from disparate sources to create a seamless whole, and Williams’ thrilling music includes so much more than the haunting dum-dum-dum-dum main theme. Orchestrating all of these powerful elements is Spielberg in full-on boy wonder mode; his imaginative camera angles and exuberant storytelling make each scene more vivid than the last. From the opening attack featuring a lone swimmer at night to the gruesome finale, Jaws delivers an unforgettable blend of illuminating character vignettes and rousing action sequences.
          The movie’s first sequel, Jaws 2, is generally relegated to footnote status because neither Dreyfuss nor Spielberg participated—and most fans of the first picture can live happy lives never experiencing Jaws 2. For viewers who can accept that recapturing the original’s magic was impossible, however, the sequel is acceptably dopey escapism. The threadbare plot comprises nothing more than a set of contrivances landing Brody on another boat to battle another shark, and many of the big scenes are laughable. (Bits involving a helicopter and accidental self-immolation are particularly goofy, and, man, does it get dull listening to teenagers scream while they’re stranded at sea.) Yet buried inside the schlock are some fine craft elements. John Williams is back as composer, the cinematography is a reasonable approximation of the first movie’s look, and Scheider adds melancholy new colors to the still-captivating Brody character, hinting at the idea the policeman suffers from a sort of PTSD following the events of the first film.
 
Jaws: OUTTA SIGHT
Jaws 2: FUNKY