A Walk in the Spring Rain (1970)

          Notwithstanding Anthony Quinn’s inexplicable casting as a Tennessee native and the unexplained presence of Ingrid Bergman’s Swedish accent, A Walk in the Spring Rain is a passable romantic melodrama. Both actors are strong enough to surmount their miscasting, and the combination of a relatively brisk storyline with resplendent location photography keeps the picture palatable. That said, deep problems permeate A Walk in the Spring Rain. For the first hour or so, the picture is almost completely bereft of dramatic conflict, meaning that the weight of the film falls on entirely on Bergman’s shoulders as she depicts the anguish of a woman torn between her fuddy-duddy husband and a charming stranger. Concurrently, Elmer Bernstein’s score is so chaotic that it ruins the efficacy of many scenes. During stable moments, Bernstein provides straightforward emotional string accents. Yet he also punctuates scenes with virile horn signatures better suited to an action movie, and he periodically employs strange juxtapositions of, say, organ chirps and unidentifiable honking noises. Had the film’s narrative been stronger, these musical excesses wouldn’t have been so noticeable, but sizable stretches of the picture comprise aimless montages and/or silly vignettes of (wait for it) Bergman drinking moonshine and/or imitating the bleating vocalizations of goats.

          The very thin basic story is as follows—when college professor Roger Meredith (Fritz Weaver) and his wife, Libby (Bergman), temporarily relocate from New York to Tennessee so Roger can write a textbook, Libby falls for rugged and upbeat handyman Will (Quinn), even though he’s married to the mousy Ann (Virginia Gregg). Predictable complications ensue, but not with enough frequency or impact. Among the underdeveloped tropes is the relationship between Libby and her daughter, Ellen (Katherine Crawford), who perceives Libby as nothing but a readily available babysitter for Ellen’s young son. Although there’s a smidgen of proto-feminist ideology buried inside A Walk in the Spring Rain, the movie is really about the novelty of middle-aged people experiencing romantic passion. Bergman finds abundant pathos and truth in the material, whereas Quinn toggles between cutesy shtick and overwrought melodrama. Writer-producer Stirling Silliphant, whose massive output for film and television includes as much hackery as it does serious endeavors, adapted the movie from a book by Rachel Maddux, and it’s hard to tell whether he envisioned a grown-up drama or a treacly soap. At various times, A Walk in the Spring Rain is both.

A Walk in the Spring Rain: FUNKY

Murphy’s War (1971)

          Blending elements of classic films including The African Queen (1951) and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), with a dash of Robinson Crusoe thrown in for good measure, the offbeat World War II drama Murphy’s War illustrates the madness that takes root once individuals personalize international conflicts. Specifically, the incomparable Peter O’Toole stars as Murphy, an Irish sailor who survives a U-boat attack on a civilian ship near the coast of Venezuela and finds refuge in a mission overseen by a British physician, Dr. Hayden (played by O’Toole’s real-life wife at the time, Sián Phillips). Desperate for revenge, even though radio reports indicate that the surrender of the German army is imminent, Murphy repairs a battered plane and then teaches himself to fly. Next, Murphy scouts the location of the U-boat and plans an attack involving makeshift weapons. What happens after this point in the story is surprising and tragic, because the U-boat’s commander, Lauchs (Horst Janson), turns out to be a formidable opponent.

          Adapted by slick Hollywood talent Stirling Silliphant from a novel by Max Catto, Murphy’s War tells such a simple story that it could have been presented in far fewer than 107 minutes (the film’s running time). Accordingly, some stretches of the movie feel dull and repetitive, particularly when Murphy argues the merits of violence with peacenik Dr. Hayden, or when he manipulates the emotions of his simpleton friend, Louis (Philippe Noiret), the operator of a cargo ship docked by the mission. Yet the virtues of Murphy’s War easily outweigh the shortcomings. Director Peter Yates, a versatile craftsman with a special proficiency for shooting action, makes the most of the picture’s jungle locations, creating a sweaty sense of atmosphere and maintaining tension throughout the most important scenes. (Regular cutaways to the interior of the U-boat, where German sailors wait out the end of the war with boredom and fatigue, add to the story’s credibility.) Yates also benefits from stellar work by cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, whose long-lens shots of Murphy’s plane zooming over South American rivers are deeply evocative.

          Yet the film ultimately rises and falls on the strength of O’Toole’s performance. The actor had been down this road before, since Murphy is something of a cousin to T.E. Lawrence, but O’Toole gets to shift into a different gear because Murphy is a working-class slob instead of an urbane officer. Spewing his lines through a crass Irish accent, O’Toole incarnates Murphy as a creature of pure id, given license and opportunity by circumstance to inflict his dangerous passions on others. Phillips counters O’Toole well, channeling rationality and warmth, while Noiret represents a sweetly nonjudgmental type of friendship. It’s a testament to all of the actors, and to Yates, that the physical apparatus of the picture—notably the plane and the submarine—never overwhelm the human elements. One could argue that Murphy’s War is too clinical, and that the unhinged emotions of Murphy’s mission never generate much of a rooting interest, but the film is so expertly made that it sustains interest intellectually, if not always viscerally.

Murphy’s War: GROOVY

The New Centurions (1972)

          This erratic but nervy film was released at a time when popular portrayals of policemen were mostly limited to extremes—the sanitized, such as the 1968-1975 TV series Adam-12, and the scandalous, such as the 1971 feature Dirty Harry. Based on the first novel by real-life former LAPD cop Joseph Wambaugh, The New Centurions occupies an unsettling place between these approaches. Characterizing policemen as victims of physical and psychological violence who are lucky to reach retirement alive—and sane—the movie is melodramatic and occasionally overwrought. Yet, when viewed as either an intense character drama or as a historical corrective to one-sided narratives about law enforcement, The New Centurions gains a certain degree of validity. It’s also quite well made, with excellent long-lens photography by Ralph Woolsey capturing the soulless textures of Los Angeles in a way that accentuates the desensitizing grind of police patrols.

          Furthermore, the movie contains a handful of vivid performances, from the showy leading turns by Stacy Keach and George C. Scott to colorful bit parts played by an eclectic roster of actors including William Atherton, Erik Estrada, Clifton James, Ed Lauter, Roger E. Mosley, Pepe Serna, James B. Sikking, and Dolph Sweet. And then there are the actors whose significant supporting turns complement the rhythms of Keach’s and Scott’s work—Jane Alexander, Rosalind Cash, and Scott Wilson, all three of whom deliver performances filled with palpable emotion. So even if screenwriter Stirling Silliphant and director Richard Fleischer let the story run amok at times, The New Centurions contains dozens of moments that connect.

          Although it’s essentially an ensemble piece, the movie focuses on Roy Fehler (Keach), a rookie cop who hits the streets right after the opening credits and is partnered with veteran Sergeant Kilvinski (Scott). At first, Fehler is a soft-spoken married man working his way through law school. As the movie progresses, he becomes a cynical adrenaline junkie who tanks his marriage with a combination of alcoholism and recklessness. Meanwhile, Kilvinski ages out of the force and confronts the depressing truth that he’s lost without a badge. This psychoanalytic approach to police drama is commonplace today, but it was innovative in 1972, which is why it’s easy forgive the filmmakers—and Wambaugh—for the excesses of the story, all of which serve useful metaphorical purposes. Every death in The New Centurions adds to the overall theme of the price that brave, crazy, and/or naïve men pay for doing a dangerous job.

          After all, who could be expected to keep their wits when faced with an endless cycle of new crooks and recidivists? “There’s always another asshole on the street,” Kilvinski says at one point. “You can’t stop ’em all.” And, as Fehler remarks in another scene, it’s not as if the public’s support for cops is overwhelming, because the film is set in a time when street justice was complicated by the rise of the suspect-rights movement: “Last year, everybody was screaming about the lack of freedom—this year, everybody’s screaming about the lack of control.” In other words, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

The New Centurions: GROOVY

Telefon (1977)

          Built around a fun premise but suffering from humdrum execution and lifeless leading performances, this Cold War thriller plays with the provocative notion of “sleeper” agents, international operatives brainwashed into acting like normal people until exposure to code words triggers their lethal training. Specifically, the story begins when KGB bad guy Nicolai Dalchimsky (Donald Pleasence) leaves the U.S.S.R. for America and brings along the codebook for a program called “Telefon.” Activating long-dormant killers who wreak havoc on U.S. targets, Dalchimsky is an anarchist bent on provoking a war. In response, Soviet overlords send KGB tough guy Major Grigori Borzov (Charles Bronson) to America, where he goes undercover to track down and stop Dalchimsky. Tasked with aiding Borzov is a Russian mole living as an American, codenamed “Barbara” (Lee Remick).

          Based on a novel by Walter Wager and written for the screen by highly capable thriller specialists Peter Hyams and Stirling Silliphant, Telefon should work, but the casting is problematic. Bronson is so harsh and stoic that it’s hard to accept him playing the romantic-hero rhythms of the Borzov role, and while it’s a relief that the leading lady isn’t Bronson’s real-life bride, Jill Ireland, who costarred in a large number of his ’70s movies, Remick seems highly disconnected from Bronson; any hope of chemistry between the leading characters probably ended the first time Bronson and Remick played a scene together.

          Another problem is that the film’s director, Don Siegel, was slipping into decline. After his respectable career in B-movies enjoyed a huge late-’60s/early-’70s boost thanks to a vibrant collaboration with Clint Eastwood, Siegel was apparently suffering health problems by the late ’70s. (It’s long been rumored that Eastwood did a lot of the directing on Siegel’s next picture, 1979’s terrific Escape from Alcatraz.) Whatever the cause, however, the result is the same—Telefon feels more like a generic TV movie than a big-budget feature, thanks to flat acting and perfunctory camerawork. So even though the twisty story has a few enjoyable moments, and even though Pleasence is weirdly beguiling as always, watching Telefon becomes a chore by the time the plot gets contrived toward the climax.

Telefon: FUNKY

Circle of Iron (1978)

          A strange blend of martial arts and philosophy that can’t be discounted because of its craftsmanship and sincerity, and yet can’t be taken seriously because much of the picture is patently ridiculous, Circle of Iron has an interesting backstory. The legendary Bruce Lee conceived the movie in the late ’60s, and he originally intended to co-star in the flick with his friend James Coburn. When the project got mired in development, Lee and Coburn moved on to other movies, and then Lee died. David Carradine, who by that point was a martial-arts icon thanks to starring in the TV series Kung Fu (1972-1975), took over Lee’s role in the project. More specifically, he took over Lee’s roles (plural), since Lee was originally slated to play the four parts that Carradine performs in the final film. It would be pleasant to report that all of this fuss was worthwhile, and that Circle of Iron is a great movie full of deep thoughts, but the film is instead a mixed bag.

          On the most superficial level, it’s a very silly adventure story set in a fantasy world that exists outside of time. Cord (Jeff Cooper) is a martial artist who wants to fight his way to the temple of Zetan (Christopher Lee), a wizard who possesses something called “The Book of All Knowledge.” During his travels, Cord meets and learns life lessons from a string of eccentric characters, many played by Carradine. The dialogue is pretentious (lots of Zen-lite aphorisms), the fights are exciting-ish, and the production design is goofy, so, as an action picture, Circle of Iron is weak. As an exploration of Lee’s philosophical beliefs, however, it’s interesting, even though the final screenplay is probably quite different from what Lee envisioned. (Lee, Coburn, and Stirling Silliphant wrote the story, Silliphant wrote the original script, and Stanley Mann wrote the final draft.)

          Many scenes in the picture are fanciful and provocative, like the vignette of Cord meeting the “Man-in-Oil” (Eli Wallach), a sad creature who has spent ten years sitting in a vat of oil in order to dissolve the lower half of his body and free himself from animal urges. Carradine is effective in his largest role as “The Blind Man,” a flute-carrying enigma who roams the land helping lost souls who don’t even know they’re lost. Unfortunately, Cooper is a non-entity whose campy costume, robotic performance, and surfer-dude looks add a distractingly comical element to the picture. Oddly, the picture explains nearly all of its mysteries with explanatory monologues during the climax; some viewers will find this clarification helpful and others will find it patronizing.

          Handsomely photographed by Ronnie Taylor and imaginatively edited by Ernest Waller (presumably under the supervision of director Richard Moore), Circle of Iron is far too well-made to dismiss as a standard B-movie, but when the story gets mired in segments like the fight scene during which Carradine is dressed as “Monkeyman,” it’s hard to see beyond the absurd visuals.

Circle of Iron: FUNKY