Ravagers (1979)

          There’s no good reason for sci-fi thriller Ravagers to be as dull as it is. Even setting aside the lively cast—more on that in a minute—the picture features a serviceable postapocalyptic storyline, in which gangs of violent people called ravagers prey on settlements of vulnerable people to steal food and other supplies. The underlying premise holds that something poisoned the world’s water, making it nearly impossible to grow new food, so everyone still alive competes for resources. Though hardly new, shouldn’t these concepts be enough for a passable mixture of pulpy adventure and social commentary? Before you answer that question, let’s get back to the cast: Ravagers stars Richard Harris, and supporting him in much smaller roles are Ernest Borgnine, Art Carney, Seymour Cassel, Anthony James, and Woody Strode. That lineup explains why Ravagers isn’t a total waste of time, even though the actors are squandered as badly as the potential of the storyline.

          Set in the near future, Ravagers begins with Falk (Harris) bringing precious food back to his companion, Miriam (Alana Hamilton), who dreams of someday finding a place called Genesis, where food is rumored to grow. Alas, ravagers led by a vile leader (Anthony James) followed Falk to his hiding place, so they rape and murder Miriam, leaving Falk for dead. He survives and exacts some revenge, then flees into the countryside with the ravagers in pursuit. Falk meets assorted benevolent people until stumbling across an installation supervised by Rann (Borgnine), who clashes with Falk over strategies for holding the outside world at bay.

         Some of the film’s episodes are more interesting than others, but the pacing is glacial and the movie is nearly over before Rann appears. Yet the shape of the narrative isn’t the worst problem plaguing Ravagers. In nearly every scene, actors stand still with their faces blank, as if they’re waiting for director Richard Compton to give them something to do or say. The movie’s script is so enervated that character development is nonexistent, with people defined by their situations instead of their personalities. This sort of one-dimensional approach can work in fast-paced movies, but it’s deadly for slow-paced movies like Ravagers. Adding to the onscreen lethargy are vapid turns by Stewart and nominal leading lady Ann Turkel. Ravagers is more or less coherent, but as goes Harris’ performance—a wispy suggestion of what he might have done with a proper screenplay—so goes the whole disappointing picture.

Ravagers: FUNKY

The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun (1970)

          An American/French coproduction plainly designed to evoke Hitchcock’s style of intricate mystery/suspense plotting—as well as his affinity for kinky sexual undercurrents—The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun is as labored as its title. Adapted from Sébastien Japrisot’s novel by a cabal of writers, The Lady in the Car spins its web methodically, presenting one bizarre event after another until both the protagonist and the audience have good reason to worry about going mad. This means it’s hard to track the narrative from one scene to the next, and even harder to parse character motivations. That the film concludes with an Agatha Christie-style explanation sequence rightly indicates how far out of control the plot spins before the conclusion. Yet the movie is not without its charms, not least the presence of formidable costar Oliver Reed.

          Ad-agency secretary Danielle “Dany” Lang (Samantha Eggar) works for the stern Michael Caldwell (Reed), who asks her to visit his home for last-minute work on an urgent proposal. Since Dany knows that Michael’s wife, Anita (Stéphane Audran), will be home, she doesn’t expect anything out of sorts to occur, and excepting some catty exchanges with Anita, the visit is strictly professional. That is, until Dany retires to her room for the evening, Michael’s private study—positioned next to the bed is a nude photo of Anita. Awkward! Things get complicated once Dany drives Michael and Anita to the airport for a getaway, accepting the use of Michael’s fancy car for several days as payment for above-and-beyond services. Dany’s long trip to a resort town includes strange run-ins and, at one point, an inexplicable episode during which Dany badly injures her hand without any memory of how the injury happened. And so it goes from there, inevitably spiraling toward suspicion and terror and violence.

          Not much of what happens in The Lady in the Car makes sense, and only some of it is interesting. So even though Eggar provides an alluring presence and channels anxiety effectively, the movie overall is quite opaque, perhaps deliberately so, and frequently pretentious. (Try not to titter when Reed delivers this line: “That, as they say, Dany, is life.”) Happily, the movie gets better as it goes along, and the last half-hour provides not only plentiful scenes of Reed being anguished and/or menacing, but also a welcome dash of Hitchcockian kinkiness. Is The Lady in the Car anything more than a distraction, forgotten the instant it’s over? Probably not. But in its best moments, the movie aspires to a kind of literary elegance, and there’s some merit in the attempt. Incidentally, Japrisot’s novel was remade in 2015 as a French film, again called The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun.

The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun: FUNKY

Bloomfield (1971)

          Midway through his long acting career, emphatic Irish thesp Richard Harris made an unimpressive directorial debut with this soccer-themed drama, a UK/Israel coproduction for which Uri Zohar shares directing credit. (Harris took over when Zohar left during production.) Harris portrays an aging English footballer who plays for a team in Tel Aviv, and the picture explores his anguish upon realizing that his playing days are nearly over. The sloppy script, to which Harris made contributions, employs a contrived device whereby the player has a meet-cute with a 10-year-old fan, then spends most of the day preceding his final match sharing adventures with the boy. Interspersed with this material are scenes involving the protagonist and his long-suffering girlfriend, a sensitive sculptor.

          Bloomfield—released in the US as The Hero—is so schematic that every heavy-handed note signifying the protagonist’s fall from grace is complemented by an equally heavy-handed note signifying the boy’s innocence or the sculptor’s promising future. While the picture is not without insight, subtle nuances are in short supply. Virtually no explanation is given for why the story takes place in Israel, so the viewer must assume that Eitan (Harris) had a celebrated career in European football before getting recruited to goose attendance at Tel Aviv’s Bloomfield Stadium. Similarly, very little emotional backstory is provided, so the viewer must assume that Eitan is a lifelong competitor who let other aspects of his personality go fallow while pursuing athletic glory. In lieu of helpful context, Eitan comes across as a narcissistic whiner, bitching about opportunities that others would relish, such as the offer of a lifetime coaching contract.

          The familiar extremes of Harris’ acting style don’t help, because it’s barely 13 minutes into the movie before Harris embarks on one of his signature screaming rages, punctuated by pained moans and ominous glares. The directors of his best films found ways to channel Harris’ alternately incendiary and sullen persona into effective drama, but that doesn’t happen here—and the failure to make Eitan sympathetic weakens other aspects of storytelling. For instance, Romy Schneider’s turn as Eitan’s girlfriend  feels bogus because it’s hard to accept that a woman so self-assured would tolerate his bullshit. Worse, Harris and Zohar regularly lose their grip on the movie’s tone. Most scenes are played for intense drama, but periodically the movie shifts to lighthearted lyricism for musical montages.

Bloomfield: FUNKY

Golden Rendezvous (1977)

 

          Adaptations of Alistair MacLean’s pulpy adventure novels emerged regularly throughout the ’70s, though none achieved the stature of The Guns of Navarone (1961), the most successful movie yet derived from a MacLean story. Watching Golden Rendezvous offers a quick reminder of why so many of these pictures failed to generate excitement. An action saga set on the waters of the Caribbean, Golden Rendezvous has a little bit of everything—bombs, double-crosses, fist fights, gambling, gun fights, hijacking, knife fights, murder, sex, and so on. The overarching story makes sense once all the pieces fall into place, but the character work runs the questionable gamut from iffy to one-dimensional, and the gender politics belong to an earlier era. In other words, Golden Rendezvous is regressive macho silliness so determined to avoid depth and substance that whenever it seems like a moment of true human feeling is about to appear onscreen, the filmmakers introduce some element of danger and/or violence. And if there’s any meaning or theme being served here, then it’s only because the filmmakers failed in their efforts to keep such things at bay. Golden Rendezvous is pleasant enough to watch for the action scenes, and the cast is plenty colorful, but you’ll forget having watched the thing before the end credits finish rolling.

          Richard Harris stars as John Carter, first officer on a boat that hauls cargo but also includes a high-end casino. When criminals led by Luis Carreras (John Vernon) hijack the ship, Carter springs into action, forming covert alliances with trustworthy crewmen and passengers while also using sneaky tactics to eliminate thugs one by one. The plot becomes more ridiculous with each passing scene, so by the end of the picture, Golden Rendezvous involves not just the hijacking but also a blackmail scheme and even a nuclear bomb. MacLean was a whiz at generating suspenseful situations, but credibility was never his strong suit. Still, Harris is enjoyable here, all lanky athleticism and roguish charm, and several solid actors support him. Besides Vernon’s reliable villainy, the picture offers, in much smaller roles, John Carradine, David Janssen, and Burgess Meredith. As for leading lady Ann Turkel, one can’t blame Harris for trying to help his then-wife build an acting career—this was the third of four Harris movies in which she costars. As went their marriage, alas, so too did her run in big-budget movies.

Golden Rendezvous: FUNKY

Gulliver’s Travels (1977)

          Interesting mostly for its mixture of animation and live action, this lightweight adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s classic fantasy novel should actually be titled Gulliver’s Travel, singular, since the only adventure depicted onscreen involves the title character’s time in the land of Lilliput, which is inhabited by miniscule people. Since the tale is familiar to most audiences, suffice to say that gigantic and good-hearted Gulliver is perceived by the tiny Liliputians as a god, a hero, a monster, and a political pawn while Swift cycles through various elements of satire and whimsy. Flesh-and-blood Richard Harris plays Gulliver while cartoons are used to represent the diminutive persons with whom Gulliver interacts. Meanwhile, backgrounds and props are a mixture of live-action and cartoons. Yet the meshing of these elements is far from seamless.

          Gulliver’s Travels was made in the days before dimensional shading was a regular feature of mainstream animation, so the hand-drawn characters feel flat, even during scenes when only animated characters are onscreen. Occasionally, the filmmakers achieve a decent effect—for instance, a nighttime scene during which silhouetted cartoon characters drag a giant cart bearing live-action Harris—but for the most part, the whole enterprise looks cheap and unfinished. (This is especially true of fully animated scenes, which suffer from limited animation and unimaginative character design.) The integration of a sticky-sweet song score is equally problematic. Following a brief prologue in England, which is shot entirely live-action, the movie transitions to a title sequence featuring a chirpy song performed by a chorus. Then, later, tunes appear at random intervals, culminating with the predictable upbeat number that Gulliver sings while beguiled by Liliput’s charms. As such, Gulliver’s Travels is not a proper musical, since songs do not drive the plot.

          The only quasi-impressive scene in Gulliver’s Travels is the live-action storm sequence during which Gulliver gets caught in a shipwreck, because director Peter Hunt and his team nimbly combine shots of a main-deck set getting besieged by giant cascades of water with detailed miniature shots of a ship hitting rocks amid a turbulent sea. Since Gulliver’s Travels was made for children, however, it’s useful to concede that some young viewers might delight in shots of Gulliver tied to a beach in Liliput, or of Gulliver stomping through the streets of a Liiputian city like a rampaging giant. And, of course, the pacifist themes of the screenplay are admirable. Still, even with Harris delivering an endearingly restrained performance, nothing in this movie truly dazzles.

Gulliver’s Travels: FUNKY

Echoes of a Summer (1976)

          Were it not for the presence in the cast of two extraordinary actors, the pretentious tearjerker Echoes of a Summer would be of less than negligible interest. Adapted by Robert L. Joseph from his play The Isle of Children, this talkfest is filled with fanciful wordplay, whimsical contrivances, and preteens who speak with absurd eloquence. Joseph contrives a universe in which people articulate their feelings “poetically,” so the characters in Echoes of a Summer are as likely to express themselves through esoteric historical references as they are through meticulously crafted metaphors. And while Joseph occasionally hits the bull’s-eye with a line that conveys some simple emotional truth, getting there requires slogging through lots of florid nonsense. As a result, watching Echoes of a Summer quickly grows tiresome—unless one surrenders to the very different pleasures offered by the work of the two stars, Jodie Foster and Richard Harris.

          Foster plays a 12-year-old girl facing imminent death because of heart problems, and Harris plays her anguished father, a professional writer who buys a lake house so his daughter’s last summer on earth is peaceful. Foster, who was already a veteran child actor by the time she made this film, delivers confident and sensitive work that embellishes her status as one of the most impressive youth performers ever to work in Hollywood. Even though her character is preternaturally sophisticated, Foster makes the role feel as organic as possible by tapping into her own natural intelligence—and if her acting never tugs at the heartstrings, per se, that’s a compliment to the good taste she exhibits, since Foster never takes cheap emotional shots for schmaltzy effect. Harris, meanwhile, provides the opposite of realism, opting instead for grandiose romanticism. Brooding around the film’s lovely Nova Scotia locations while reciting poetry, singing, and spinning imaginative stories for the amusement of Foster’s character, Harris incarnates a Superdad who devotes his life to filling each of his little girl’s final moments with laughter and wonderment. Whether this characterization comes across as endearing or overbearing is entirely a matter of taste, but none would dispute the assertion that Harris attacks his role with gusto.

          Given the film’s focus on an intense father-daughter connection, it falls to poor costar Lois Nettleton, playing the mother of the story’s central family, to function as the de facto villain, a woman mired in denial and depression. The process of bringing Nettleton’s character around to grace (a word sprinkled liberally through the movie’s dialogue) is highly contrived, culminating in a silly final scene of a play-within-a-play presented for the benefit of the dying girl. Despite its sincere intentions, alas, Echoes of a Summer is ultimately as affected and trite as the awful theme song that plays over the opening and closing credits, written and sung (if that’s the right word) by Harris.

Echoes of a Summer: FUNKY

Cromwell (1970)

          While I must confess that historical stories about the British monarchy generally leave me cold, because I find it nearly impossible to track all the Byzantine relationships and rules, I dove into Cromwell with high hopes simply because of my affection for the actor Richard Harris, whom I find compelling in nearly any context. Alas, the cumbersome weight of the storyline makes Cromwell a tough sit. Ironically, it seems the filmmakers’ unsuccessful attempt to streamline the narrative had the deleterious additional repercussion of introducing a number of historical errors, so the film is neither entertaining nor purely factual. Worse, Harris simply isn’t very good here, opting for a numbing performance style that shifts back and forth between moping and screaming. In nearly every scene, he’s either too loud or too sullen. One is tempted to put the blame on director Ken Hughes for failing to calibrate Harris’ performance, since Hughes’ filmography is filled with mediocre movies, but whatever the reason, Harris fumbles an opportunity that his more disciplined contemporaries—Richard Burton, Peter O’Toole, and such—probably would have seized.

          Anyway, the subject matter is unquestionably worthwhile, because Cromwell tells the story of a brave aristocrat who, in the 17th century, toppled King Charles I from the English throne and thus ended a period of elitist monarchy. The picture presents Cromwell (Harris) as a reluctant hero who sets aside his desire to leave England (for a new life in the North American colonies), and concurrently presents Charles I (Alec Guinness) as an out-of-touch ruler who believes himself innately superior to his subjects. These are fascinating textures when placed in contrast with each other, and the best parts of the picture—aside from a few lively battle scenes—feature the main characters espousing their ideals. This being a historical drama, each main character is the head of a faction representing various interests, so there’s a lot of material related to the compromises Cromwell and Charles I make to keep their fragile alliances together. This is where the picture lost me, since I became exhausted trying to remember which character wanted which outcome for which combination of personal, political, and religious reasons.

          Had Harris’ leading performance been as commanding as I expected—or had Guinness hit a broader range of notes than he does—it’s possible I would have found Cromwell more compelling, but, as I mentioned earlier, the material faced an uphill battle in terms of winning me over. I explain my reactions in detail not to fixate on my own experience, since I’m merely one viewer, but to explain that devotees of historical stories will undoubtedly regard Cromwell through very different eyes.

Cromwell: FUNKY

Juggernaut (1974)

          It’s tempting to lump Juggernaut in with the various disaster epics of the early ’70s, and, indeed, the movie is quite enjoyable if consumed as a thinking-person’s alternative to the campy escapism of, say, Irwin Allen’s mayhem-filled productions. Yet in addition to being a British film instead of a Hollywood picture, Juggernaut is really a terrorism thriller rather than a proper oh-the-humanity destruco-fest. For instance, the tragedy that the film’s heroes attempt to overcome is not a natural occurrence such as an earthquake or a tidal wave—it’s a bomb planted on an ocean liner. Accordingly, Juggernaut eschews the standard disaster-movie formula of introducing various characters whom the audience knows will later fall victim to capricious fate. The movie focuses almost exclusively on bomb-squad technicians and maritime officials.

          Set largely aboard the cruise liner Britannic, the picture begins when an unseen terrorist who identifies himself as Juggernaut makes phone contact with ship’s owner, Porter (Ian Holm). Juggernaut says he’s rigged the Britannic to blow unless he’s paid a hefty ransom. Soon afterward, the British government sends in a bomb squad led by the intrepid Fallon (Richard Harris). The rest of the film comprises parallel storylines—Fallon’s attempts to find and defuse bombs (turns out there’s more than just one), and endeavors by a police detective (Anthony Hopkins) to find Juggernaut’s hideout on the mainland. There’s a good deal of tension in Juggernaut, so even if you feel as if you’ve seen a million “Cut the blue wire!” scenes before, the care with which director Richard Lester executes the suspenseful passages is visible in every claustrophobic close-up and every nerve-rattling edit. Lester, though best known for his exuberant Beatles movies and his lusty Musketeers pictures, apparently joined Juggernaut late in the project’s development and then supervised a heavy rewrite. It’s therefore unsurprising that the final film is very much a director’s piece, with characterization and story taking a backseat to pacing and texture. Perhaps because of this focus on cinematic technique, Juggernaut is excellent on a moment-to-moment basis, but not especially memorable overall.

          That said, the movie promises nothing more than a good romp, and it delivers exactly that. Contained within its fleeting frames, however, is fine acting by a number of posh UK actors. In particular, Harris and David Hemmings have strong chemistry as bomb-squad teammates, with both actors articulating believable characterizations of men who face unimaginable stress in the course of their daily activities. The picture’s production values are exemplary, and the cinematography and music—by British stalwarts Gerry Fisher and Ken Thorne, respectively—contribute to the overall intensity and polish of the piece.

Juggernaut: GROOVY

Robin and Marian (1976)

          If you’ve never heard of this romantic fantasy starring Sean Connery as Robin Hood and Audrey Hepburn as Maid Marian, there’s a good reason why—instead of being the light adventure you might expect, Robin and Marian is a tearjerker about aging. Penned by the great playwright/screenwriter James Goldman, best known for his masterpiece The Lion in Winter (which was produced on the stage in 1966 and adapted into a classic 1968 film), Robin and Marian offers a unique blend of history, mythology, romanticism, and tragedy. From my perspective, this movie is a brilliant reimagining of a beloved fictional character, but chances are the downbeat storyline prevented Robin and Marian from reaching big audiences either during its original release or its home-video afterlife.

          Nonetheless, the movie’s pedigree is singularly impressive. Robin and Marian was directed by Richard Lester, who made the amazing Musketeers movies of the ’70s and knew how to view swashbuckler iconography through a modernist’s eye; the plaintive score was composed by five-time Oscar winner John Barry, maestro of the sweeping strings; and the film’s naturalistic cinematography was lensed by David Watkin, who shot the aforementioned Musketeers movies and brought the same level of persuasive historical realism to Robin and Marian. Plus, we haven’t even gotten to the supporting cast, which is one of the best ever assembled.

          The story begins in France, where a graying Robin (Connery) and his sidekick, Little John (Nicol Williamson), are soldiers for King Richard the Lion-Heart (Richard Harris). After defying a cruel order from the king, Robin and Little John briefly incur royal enmity—a twist that neatly affirms Robin’s commitment to moral justice over loyalty to any crown. Once extricated from that conundrum, Robin and Little John return to Sherwood Forest, only to discover that the nasty old Sheriff of Nottingham (Robert Shaw) is making trouble again. Meanwhile, Robin tracks down his estranged lover, Marian (Hepburn), who has become a nun. As the story unfolds, Robin falls into open combat with the Sheriff’s men and tries to rekindle his love affair with Marian.

          Goldman’s script cleverly defines Robin Hood as someone who either bravely faces conflict or recklessly instigates conflict, if not both. In so doing, Goldman underlines why a man like Robin expects a hero’s death—it’s the only fitting capstone for a hero’s life. Further, Goldman’s treatment of aging defines Robin and Marian as a grown-up fable; the movie is filled with funny/sad images like that of Robin and the Sheriff huffing and puffing through their climactic duel. Yet the graceful aspects of time’s passage become evident in quiet scenes between Robin and Marian—with the wisdom of age, the characters gain the sure knowledge that they are the loves of each other’s lives.

          Connery gives one of his finest performances, undercutting his 007 image by playing the role with a balding scalp and a thick gray beard. On a deeper level, the actor summons more emotional nuance here than in almost any other film. Hepburn, who ended an eight-year screen hiatus to appear in Robin and Marian, capitalizes on her screen persona to equally strong effect—seeing the dewy gamine of the ’60s replaced by the mature beauty of the ’70s is a bittersweet experience. She’s majestic here. And, of course, to say that Harris, Shaw, Williamson, and fellow supporting players Denholm Elliot and Ian Holm are all terrific should come as no surprise. Robin and Marian is not for everyone, with its occasionally flowery dialogue and perpetually grim subtext, but for this particular viewer (and, I hope, many others), it’s a high order of elgiac poetry.

Robin and Marian: RIGHT ON

99 and 44/100% Dead (1974)

          On paper, this action thriller about a hit man drawn into a web of underworld intrigue is completely pedestrian—the story features standard tropes like an antihero rescuing his innocent girlfriend from a fellow hit man in the employ of a mobster whom the antihero has alienated. However, simply describing the plot of 99 and 44/100% Dead doesn’t account for the batshit-crazy storytelling style that director John Frankenheimer uses from start to finish, or the surreal nature of the picture’s awkward attempts at black comedy. On some level, this movie aspires to blend elements of comic books, film noir, and satire into a singular approach—but since the elements clash with each other, and since the movie compounds this problem with dissonant flavors like amateurish supporting players and goofy music, the end result is an odyssey into inexplicable weirdness.

          Richard Harris, adorned with a strange Prince Valiant haircut and gigantic eyeglasses, plays Harry Crown, a hit man hired by gangster Uncle Frank Kelly (Edmund O’Brien) to settle a turf war in some unnamed American city. Uncle Frank wants Harry to rub out goons in the employ of Uncle Frank’s rival, Big Eddie (Bradford Dillman). Meanwhile, Harry is trying to build a life with saintly schoolteacher Buffy (played by vapid model-turned-actress Ann Turkel, Harris’ real-life companion at the time). Also mixed into the storyline are Tony (David Hall), a junior-level crook whom Harry adopts as a sort of apprentice, and Baby (Kathy Baumann), Tony’s voluptuous young girlfriend.

          Frankenheimer treats the whole movie like a comic strip, so gangsters wear stylized outfits—think pinstriped suits and wide-brimmed hats—while Harry brandishes a pair of matching pistols with pearl handles. The setting is a city seemingly populated only by warring gangsters, so gunfights and murders take place in plain sight, and violent scenes are “ironically” scored with upbeat music and cheerful whistling. Everything in 99 and 44/100% Dead is overwrought in the clumsiest way, so the tone of the picture is captured by a scene in which Harry’s arch-enemy torments Baby.

          The villain of the piece is hit man Marvin “Claw” Zuckerman (Chuck Connors), who is missing a hand and therefore carries around a briefcase filled with bizarre prosthetic attachments. Arriving in town and demanding a sexual plaything, Marvin is furnished with Baby, who wears a barely-there yellow dress so sheer her nipples seem as if they’re trying to achieve liftoff. While Baby watches, Marvin affixes whips and other prosthetics to his stump, scowling and threatening Baby with cartoonish dialogue. And so it goes from there—take the standard elements of a crime film, jack them up on crank, and you’ve got this very strange moment in the career of one of action cinema’s greatest directors. 99 and 44/100% Dead isn’t Frankenheimer’s oddest film—that honor belongs to 1996’s insane The Island of Dr. Moreau—but it’s close.

99 and 44/100% Dead: FREAKY

A Man Called Horse (1970) & The Return of a Man Called Horse (1976)

          Years before Kevin Costner played a Civil War-era soldier who bonded with Native Americans in Dances with Wolves (1990), Irish actor Richard Harris played a character on a similar journey in the harrowing A Man Called Horse series. Based on a 1950 short story by Dorothy M. Johnson, the first picture in the series, A Man Called Horse, was released in 1970. Although Harris was still relatively fresh from the success of the blockbuster musical Camelot (1967), he was quickly sliding into a rut of intense movies about men enduring physically and spiritually debilitating odysseys—for instance, A Man Called Horse was one of three early-’70s Westerns dominated by scenes of Harris suffering bloody abuse. (A shrink could have fun analyzing the actor’s career.)

          Harris stars as Lord John Morgan, a British aristocrat who is captured by a Sioux Indian band called the Yellow Hand while traveling in the American West. The sequence of his capture is typical of the picture’s disturbing vibe—Morgan is bathing in a river when Indians lasso him around the throat, yank him from the water, and then prod with spears while he tries to fight back, naked and vulnerable. Initially, Morgan’s captors treat him like property, and he learns about Yellow Hand culture and language from Batise (Jean Gacson), a fellow member of the tribe’s lowest caste.

          However, when an opportunity arises for Morgan to prove his worth in battle, he determines that he wants to become fully integrated into the Sioux Nation. Accepting the Indian name “Horse,” Morgan takes a Sioux wife and—in the film’s most famous sequence—endures a gruesome initiation ritual during which he’s hung from the roof of a giant tent by hooks dug into his pectoral muscles. (If you can watch that scene without feeling queasy, you’re a better man than I, Gunga Din.) Director Elliot Silverstein’s style is lurid and occasionally trippy, the otherworldliness of the piece accentuated by Native American music and a preponderance of dialogue spoken in the Sioux language. One can easily quibble with the film’s dramatic merits and historical accuracy, but it’s impossible to deny that A Man Called Horse possess a bizarre sort of cinematic power. Plus, while Harris was well on his way toward self-parody, given his penchant for operatic gestures and shouted dialogue, his commitment is unquestionable.

          Six years later, Harris reprised his role in the competent but unnecessary sequel The Return of a Man Called Horse, which replaces the original film’s grisly novelty with a ponderous narrative about the title character becoming a messiah for his adopted people. When the picture begins, Morgan has returned to England but regrets leaving the Sioux behind; subsequently, when he returns to America for a visit and discovers that the Yellow Hand were humiliated and relocated by white men, Morgan resumes his Horse persona and rouses his friends to a new chapter of accomplishment and purpose.

          Woven into this principal storyline is a thread of Morgan attempting to reclaim the spiritual fulfillment he felt while living among the Sioux, so the picture is filled with anguished speechifying, and, naturally, director Irvin Kershner presents yet another bloody initiation ritual. The Return of a Man Called Horse is handsomely made, but it suffers from bloat and humorlessness, so viewers may end up feeling as depleted as the protagonist by the time the thing runs its course. In 1982, Harris reprised the Morgan role one last time for The Triumphs of a Man Called Horse, but the focus of the threequel was actually Horse’s son, so Harris’ appearance in the substandard flick is really just a glorified cameo.

A Man Called Horse: GROOVY

The Return of a Man Called Horse: FUNKY

The Cassandra Crossing (1976)

          A runaway train meets a viral outbreak in the overwrought disaster flick The Cassandra Crossing, which has just enough florid acting and gonzo energy to remain lively for all of its 129 absurd minutes. Things get started when terrorists attack the headquarters of the International Health Organization because they’ve learned U.S. officers at the IHO are holding a sample of a deadly plague. Most of the attackers are killed, but one of the terrorists gets exposed to the toxin and escapes, slipping onto a train heading from Geneva to Stockholm. Soon after, the terrorist’s infection spreads to other passengers.

          The official tasked with containing the situation, U.S. Army Col. Stephen Mackenzie (Burt Lancaster), reroutes the train to Poland, where it will pass over a decaying bridge known as the Cassandra Crossing. Mackenzie’s civilian counterpart, Dr. Elena Stradner (Ingrid Thulin), realizes the colonel plans to collapse the bridge beneath the train, killing everyone aboard as a means of preventing the plague from reaching any major population centers, so she reaches out to one of the train’s passengers, neurologist Dr. Jonathan Chamberlain (Richard Harris), for help—because, of course, a super-genius scientist happens to be on board. With Stradner’s guidance, Chamberlain tries to quarantine victims so Mackenzie’s scheme can be halted.

          Director and co-writer George P. Cosmatos gooses this pulpy storyline with melodramatic subplots involving Chamberlain’s ex-wife (Sophia Loren), a larcenous May-December couple (played by Martin Sheen and Ava Gardner, if you can picture that peculiar combination), and other random characters. (Also populating the grab-bag cast are John Philip Law, Lee Strasberg, O.J. Simpson, and Lionel Stander.) Borrowing a page from Hollywood’s master of disaster, producer Irwin Allen, Cosmatos fills the screen with so much noise that viewers are constantly distracted by changes of scenery and tone. Thus, the movie capriciously flits between, say, torrid domestic squabbles involving a caustic Harris and a haze-filter-shrouded Loren, and grim command-center showdowns involving idealistic Thulin and merciless Lancaster. Interspersed with the dramatic scenes are handsomely mounted shots of the train zooming across the European countryside, and, of course, it all leads to a carnage-filled climax.

The Cassandra Crossing: FUNKY

Man in the Wilderness (1971)

          The opening sequence of this strange Western is striking and memorable: A large expedition of fur trappers treks through the rugged American frontier, dragging a giant ship on wheels, the sea vessel’s towering mast dominating the skyline like a crucifix. Things only get weirder from there, and luckily for adventurous viewers, robust actors Richard Harris and John Huston deliver over-the-top performances that suit the bizarre material. Huston plays the expedition’s villainous leader, Captain Filmore Henry, an obsessed adventurer with a tentative grasp on reality and an almost utter lack of morality. With his black wardrobe, lanky frame, and phlegmatic voice, Huston personifies Captain Henry as a vision of sickly death. Harris is Zachary Bass, one of the captain’s trackers. Venturing away from the group at one point, Bass gets mauled by a bear, so Captain Henry orders him left for dead.

          Man in the Wilderness gets trippy after this turn of events, because vast wordless swaths of the movie depict Bass crawling through the woods as he tries to rebuild his strength, drifting in and out of delirious flashbacks all the while. This material exists somewhere on the border between fascinating and interminable, because Harris’ solo scenes are so repetitive and uneventful that at a certain point viewers become as disoriented as the character. Adding to the offbeat nature of the film are interludes of the expedition as it moves on from the site of Bass’ presumed demise; the superstitious trappers get the idea that Bass’ spirit is haunting them, so they guard the wheeled boat in shifts, waiting for some awful apparition to strike at them from the darkness of the forest. Huston goes to town in these sequences, depicting Captain Henry’s decline into guilt-ridden paranoia with gusto. By the time these two extreme characters reunite for their inevitable confrontation, Bass’ desire for revenge has, to a certain degree, become the audience’s desire as well.

          Harris spent much of the ’70s making violent Westerns about characters enduring horrible abuse, and Man in the Wilderness is the most surreal flick of the batch, which is saying something. The actor’s gift for portraying intense physicality makes the picture watchable in a masochistic sort of way, because his evocation of pain and suffering is excruciatingly vivid. With a characteristic lack of restraint, Harris plays to the cheap seats in every scene, even when he’s facedown in sludge, and that, too, adds to the effect: Harris seems like such a powerful force that it’s believable his character could survive an extraordinary ordeal. Therefore, despite the monotony and weirdness, the movie can’t be dismissed because of the fiery performances and because of the lushly textured widescreen images created by British cinematographer Gerry Fisher.

Man in the Wilderness: FREAKY

The Molly Maguires (1970)

          An old-fashioned morality tale somewhat in the vein of John Ford’s classic film The Informer (1935), The Molly Maguires offers a fictionalized take on a group of real-life Irish immigrants who worked in Pennsylvania’s coalmines during the late 19th century. When a group of fed-up miners led by Jack Kehoe (Sean Connery) lashes out at their oppressive employers through a covert campaign of bombings and murders, the police send an Irish-born detective, James McParlan (Richard Harris), to infiltrate and expose Kehoe’s group, causing McParlan to experience a crisis of conscience: The more he learns about the secret guerilla organization called “The Molly Maguires,” the more he sympathizes with them.

          As scripted by once-blacklisted Hollywood lefty Walter Bernstein and as directed by sensitive humanist Martin Ritt, The Molly Maguires takes an unusually nuanced view of radical politics. The picture lays out the reasons why the workers rebel—dangerous work conditions, a usurious pay structure in which the mining company withholds nearly all wages through outrageous “deductions”—yet the filmmakers don’t paint the Maguires as heroes. Instead, the Maguires are depicted as desperate men who resort to violence when pushed beyond reasonable limits.

          This distinction puts viewers squarely inside McParlan’s conflicted psyche, and the melancholy nature of Harris’ screen persona suits the story well. The actor is believable as a working-class bruiser and as a man who realizes he’s selling his soul for career advancement. The betrayal inherent to the story is accentuated by Connery’s tightly controlled performance, since the Kehoe character is acutely self-aware; especially toward the end of the picture, Connery does a strong job of demonstrating that Kehoe values his life less than the goal of making his oppressors understand his rage.

          Fittingly for a story about the Irish, there’s a darkly lyrical quality to The Molly Maguires; in particular, the tin whistles of Henry Mancini’s score and the lilting accents of the various players make the gloomy mines and rolling hills of Pennsylvania seem like lost colonies of the Emerald Isle. Several strong supporting players add muscle to the picture as well. Frank Finlay is odiously pragmatic as McParland’s superior officer, while Anthony Costello, Art Lund, and Anthony Zerbe are fierce as Kehoe’s accomplices. Female lead Samantha Eggar, making the most of an underwritten role, is quietly principled as the local girl who falls for McParland without knowing his true identity.

          Although too conventionally made and slow-moving to qualify as any sort of classic, The Molly Maguires is intelligent, sincere, and thought-provoking.

The Molly Maguires: GROOVY

The Wild Geese (1978)

          An old-fashioned adventure story that could have been made in the ‘50s or even earlier, if not for its focus on ’70s-era African politics, The Wild Geese is a rousing action thriller with just enough attention to characterization that its climax has an emotional punch. More importantly, the picture features a unique combination of larger-than-life Brits playing larger-than-life roles: Welshman Richard Burton, Irishman Richard Harris, and Englishman Roger Moore play a trio of aging mercenaries hired to rescue a revolutionary African leader from political imprisonment.

          The story unfolds in classic men-on-a-mission fashion. Nefarious banker Sir Edward Matherson (Stewart Granger) hires alcoholic ex-Army man Col. Allen Faulkner (Burton) to free African political prisoner Julius Limbani (Winston Ntshona) from an unnamed African country because Limbani is slated for execution. Distrustful of his new employer but in need of a paycheck, Faulkner recruits a team including pilot Shaun Flynn (Moore), strategist Rafer Janders (Harris), drill sergeant Sandy Young (Jack Watson), and displaced South African Pieter Coetzee (Hardy Kruger). The vignettes of Faulkner building his crew are breezily entertaining, though screenwriter Reginald Rose and director Andrew McLaglen layer ominous foreshadowing into the derring-do bits to lay the groundwork for what’s coming later.

          The rescue mission goes well, but then the group’s getaway plane takes off prematurely, leaving the mercenaries and the liberated Limbani alone in enemy territory. Damn that double-crossing Matherson! This juncture is when the picture gets really exciting, because the soldiers have to fight their way through a jungle filled with heavily armed troops in order to seize another plane and escape. The movie pays clumsy lip service to social consciousness when Coetzee becomes Limbani’s bodyguard, forcing a racist white man to learn grudging respect for a saintly black man, but The Wild Geese is less about politics and more about macho militarism: By the end of the movie, nearly every character has mowed down opponents to save his mates.

          With its corny musical score, which could have been lifted from an old RAF training film, The Wild Geese is unapologetically retro, and the storyline is so schematic that some will find it trite. Nonetheless, McLaglen’s sure hand with the action scenes, combined with the easy chemistry that the three leads have with each other and a surprisingly poignant climax, make The Wild Geese a fun romp with much more substance than the average shoot-’em-up.

The Wild Geese: GROOVY

The Deadly Trackers (1973)

This brutal Western began life as a project for writer-director Samuel Fuller, but the tough-guy auteur was reportedly canned after butting heads with leading man Richard Harris. Although Harris’ volatility produced his fascinating screen persona, the Irish-born actor’s out-of-control alcoholism and violent temper made him a monster of a collaborator during this era—and also more or less eliminated subtlety as a performance option. In other words, The Deadly Trackers is yet another picture in which Harris screams most of his role. The story concerns a sheriff (Harris) chasing the bank robbers who killed his family. Harris’ character is accompanied on his journey by a Mexican cop (Al Lettieri) who doesn’t share his bloodlust, and there’s quite a bit of chatter about Harris’ character being a pacifist. There’s also some attempt at exploring moral relativism by contrasting the righteous indignation of the Harris character with the rampant greed of the lead bank robber (Rod Taylor). What this thematic material was like in Fuller’s original vision is anybody’s guess, but in the final product, the pacifism element is merely an excuse for cheap slow-burn tension predicated on the question of how far Harris’ character will go for revenge. Since stories about gunfighters who don’t really want to draw their weapons are as old as the Western genre, there’s nothing here that viewers haven’t seen before, and as usually happens when directors are changed partway through production, the film lacks coherence and drive. So while there are a few intense confrontations and the picture has a handful of reliable B-movie supporting players (including the indestructible William Smith as an especially savage crook named “Schoolboy”), everything about this mean-spirited misfire is so trite that the picture disappears from the brain as soon as it’s over.

The Deadly Trackers: SQUARE

Orca (1977)

I’ve only been traumatized by two movies, both of which were horror pictures I saw when I was too young to handle them. Alien (1979) sent me running to the lobby when I first saw it at age 10; I didn’t get past the chest-burster sequence until I revisited the picture years later. Orca, on the other hand, messed me up so badly when I saw it at 8 years old that I’ve never had the nerve to watch it again. My memory of the picture is so vivid, however, that I can safely categorize the Dino De Laurentiis production as a nasty bit of post-Jaws fishploitation suitable only for the most masochistic of moviegoers. Richard Harris, well on the way to burning his career to a crisp, plays a whaler who yanks a pregnant female orca onto his boat, then watches in horror as she gives birth while suspended over his deck, dropping her offspring right in front of him. Harris shoves the dead baby whale into the waves while the daddy orca (the paterfishmalias, if you will) glowers at Harris. And so begins one of the most outrageous revenge tales in cinema history; rather like the execrable Jaws: The Revenge (1987), Orca asks viewers to believe that a fish will seek out people who matter to a particular human and then chomp those people out of spite. (One of the victims is a pre-“10” Bo Derek, whose lovely leg becomes a Shamu appetizer.) If memory serves, the climax of the movie involves Harris standing on an ice floe until the orca hits the thing with its tail, sending Harris sailing into the side of an iceberg. If you’ve got the stomach to watch this grisly flick in order to confirm or disprove my recollection, be my guest. As for me, I’m still trying to wash this deranged movie from my eyes more than thirty years later. Oh, and for the full-on post-Jaws De Laurentiis treatment, don’t deny yourself the equally bizarre experiences of King Kong (1976) and The White Buffalo (1977).

Orca: LAME