Who Killed Mary Whats'ername? (1971)

          An offbeat mystery set in one of New York’s seedier neighborhoods, Who Killed Mary Whats’ername depicts the unlikely adventures of a diabetic ex-boxer who investigates the death of a hooker. The reasons why he embarks on this dangerous odyssey are somewhat opaque, though lip service is given to the notion that he feels morally compelled to pick up the slack when the NYPD lets the case go fallow; furthermore, the hooker lived in the same building as the ex-boxer, so there’s a vague connection. Still, this paucity of emotional/logical grounding creates a challenge for viewers trying to groove on the movie’s immersive downtown atmosphere, because not being unable to understand the basic premise of a picture is like having an itch you can’t scratch.

          That nettlesome problem aside, Who Killed Mary Whats’ername is interesting because it’s so bleak and grimy, and because the film places a familiar type of story within an unfamiliar milieu. Adding to the unusual nature of the piece is the presence of actor Red Buttons in the leading role. Although primarily known as a comedian, he gave a number of credible dramatic performances, such as his turn in the picture that immediately precedes this one on his filmography, the grim dance-marathon saga They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). Buttons brings an appealing combination of toughness and vulnerability to Who Killed Mary Whats’ername?, so even when it’s tricky to fully grasp (or believe) what’s happening onscreen, it’s possible to empathize with and root for his character.

          A retiree with health problems, Mickey (Buttons) lives in a sketchy neighborhood where he easily makes both friends and enemies. He clashes with bullies and bonds with honest folks. Among Mickey’s acquaintances is Christine (Sylvia Miles), a blowsy hooker whom he rescues from an assault. She offers him a freebie and he politely declines, accentuating the impression that he’s something of an inner-city white knight. After Christine’s friend Mary is murdered, Mickey decides to solve the crime, enlisting aid from a motley crew including Christine, seemingly decrepit barfly Val (Conrad Bain), aspiring filmmaker Alex (Sam Waterston), and even Mickey's own daughter, Della (Alice Playten). The idea seems to be that when authorities fail them, these fringe-dwellers form their own makeshift society, bringing justice—and with it a sort of dignity—to a lawless place.

          Befitting its muddled storyline and themes, Who Killed Mary Whats’ername? has a queasy vibe. The photography is clunky and grainy, all harsh lighting and jarring zooms, while the jazzy score has the quality of melancholy lounge-lizard music. Combined with the declassé setting and subject matter, these stylistic flourishes give Who Killed Mary Whats’ername? a certain peculiar credibility. This picture lives in the gutters and shadows where polite films fear to tread, even though the execution is fairly tame by ’70s standards. Ultimately, it’s hard to know for whom this movie was made, since the film isn’t edgy enough for the grindhouse crowd, even though it’s far too skanky for mainstream viewers. Given the givens, Who Killed Mary Whats’ername? is a moderately interesting hybrid of high and low narrative aspirations.

Who Killed Mary Whats’ername?: FUNKY

Zero to Sixty (1978)

A noisy action comedy with distasteful implications of romantic attraction between a 16-year-old girl and a man old enough to be her grandfather, Zero to Sixty wastes a spirited performance by versatile film/TV leading man Darren McGavin on a wispy plot. Some might find the picture borderline watchable because it features lots of cartoonish characters and car chases, but the combination of pointlessness and stupidity is hard to overcome. The film’s setup is convoluted and questionable. Briefly, McGavin plays an everyman who loses his home and his job following a nasty divorce, then falls in with a motley car-repossession crew. He’s teamed with Larry (Denise Nickerson), an obnoxious teenaged girl who lives in a trailer, and they cruise Los Angeles trying to reclaim cars from deadbeats. A typical scene involves Larry seizing a motorcycle from a biker gang, the members of which pursue her until McGavin’s character shows up to pretend he’s a cop and wrangle Larry free from danger. The movie also supports a gruesome subplot inspired by the Jimmy Hoffa story, because the protagonists discover the body of a murdered labor leader in the trunk of a car. McGavin gives the kind of exasperated, frenetic performance that one might expect to find in a Disney movie, but none of the other performers match his deft style. Nickerson is so loud and overbearing that she's unpleasant to watch, and the same can be said of supporting players Joan Collins (as a glamorous deadbeat) and Sylvia Miles (as the boss of the repo crew). Adding to the film’s death-by-a-thousand cuts vibe, Lyle Waggoner shows up for one scene as a bartender whose flirty patter sends McGavin’s character into a gay panic, and the awful musical score waffles between dopey stings and disco-inflected muck.

Zero to Sixty: LAME

Trash (1970) & Heat (1972)

          Producer Andy Warhol and writer-director Paul Morrissey were prolific collaborators in the ’60s and ’70s, reaching the commercial zenith of their partnership with the campy gorefests Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) and Blood for Dracula (1974). More typical of the Warhol/Morrissey aesthetic, however is a trilogy of grungy docudramas about street people, all starring somnambulistic stud Joe Dallesandro. Typifying a certain downtown aesthetic, thanks to filthy locations, ramshackle storytelling, and unglamorous actors, Flesh (1968), Trash, and Heat offer unflinching looks at what straight-laced people would classify as deviant lifestyles. These are challenging pictures to watch, not only because so much of what’s shown onscreen is ugly but also because Morrissey mostly eschews tools that might help sustain interest, such as economy and suspense. As exemplified by Dallesendro’s tendency to perform scenes in the nude, these pictures are about letting it all hang out.

          Whereas Flesh tells the story of a low-rent gigolo, Trash is the tale of a zonked-out junkie. Dallesandro plays Joe, a perpetually bewildered New York City heroin addict who spends the movie drifting in and out of sexual situations, even though the only kind of scoring he wants to do involves getting dope. The style is set right in the first scene, because the opening image is a close-up of Dallesandro’s pimple-covered buttocks as he receives (offscreen) fellatio from a shapely dancer. Unable to get the desired response, the dancer then performs a striptease, but Joe merely lies on the couch, still unable to get an erection. Once this pointless vignette runs its course, Joe wanders into other situations, eventually spending most of his time with his undersexed girlfriend, Holly (played by female impersonator Holly Woodlawn). Various “highlights” of the picture include Joe shooting up on camera and Holly servicing him/herself with a beer bottle. Oh, there’s also a scene during which a young woman patiently extracts lice from Joe’s pubic hair.

          Trash isn’t quite as dull and puerile as this description might suggest, though Morrissey clearly savors real-time grotesquerie. The picture has a mildly satirical quality, sometimes poking fun at the slovenly excesses of street people and sometimes skewering the ridiculous behavior of wealthy dilettantes who slum for kicks. The sum effect of all this gutter-level camp is that Trash feels like a John Waters movie on downers. (Lest we forget, many of the characters in Lou Reed’s classic song “Walk on the Wild Side,” notably a certain transvestite named Holly, were inspired by members of Warhol’s clique.)

          Discovering the redeeming values in Heat is difficult. Set in Los Angeles instead of New York, but filled with the same downtrodden losers as the previous pictures in the trilogy, Heat stars Dallesandro as Joey, an opportunistic young man trading on his past fame as the teenaged costar of a TV series. Taking up residence in a typical LA apartment complex with a courtyard surrounding a pool, Joey makes a deal to have regular sex with the complex’s obnoxious, overweight landlady in exchange for discounted rent. He also encounters Jessica (Andrea Feldman), a deranged young woman living in the complex with her infant child—the product of a drug-addled one-night stand—and her lesbian lover. Jessica’s middle-aged mother, Sally (Sylvia Miles), is a faded actress who once appeared with Joey on his TV show, so Jessica hopes that Joey can help persuade Sally to cough up extra cash, seeing as how Jessica doesn’t work. Joey quickly gloms onto the lonely and neurotic Sally, becoming her lover and spending long stretches of time in the mansion she won in her divorce from a wealthy man.

          Everyone in Heat is a delusional striver, except perhaps for the simple-minded transvestite who wanders around the apartment complex while masturbating 24/7. Miles’ performance has some Shelley Winters-style grandiosity, but the rest of the acting is sloppy and unmemorable, just like Morrissey’s camerawork. Even more problematic is the derivative nature of the piece, since Heat is basically a thick-headed riff on Billy Wilder’s Sunset Blvd. (1950). So unless wallowing in human desperation is your idea of fun, Heat is too amateurish, contrived, and dreary to merit your attention.

Trash: FUNKY

Heat: LAME

The Hireling (1973)

          Telling the sad story of two souls who misunderstand the connection that they find with each other, British drama The Hireling energizes familiar class-system dynamics with a tight focus on characterization. Moreover, the near-perfect casting of the leading roles allows Sarah Miles to epitomize the plight of a fragile individual forced by birth to perpetuate the noblesse oblige of the upper class, while Robert Shaw, at his most animalistic, portrays a lower-class striver who temporarily forgets his station, causing ugly consequences. There’s a love story of sorts hidden inside The Hireling, though the filmmakers wisely present the quasi-romance as a tragedy illustrating what happens when people accept social boundaries as insurmountable and permanent. Intimate, loaded with well-chosen visual metaphors, and relentless, The Hireling achieves that rare thing in the dramatic arts—pure storytelling clarity—even though the lack of fully developed supporting characters renders the movie imperfect.

          Set in the early 20th century and directed with admirable economy by Alan Bridges from a sensitive script by Wolf Mankowitz, the picture begins with the release of noblewoman Lady Franklin (Miles) from a sanitarium. We soon learn she had a nervous breakdown following the death of her husband. Hired to drive Lady Franklin home is Steven Ledbetter (Shaw), a rough-hewn commoner who puts on airs of crisp manners in order to grow his small chauffeuring business. In reality, Steven bitterly resents England’s class system, perhaps because he wasn’t able to rise above the rank of Sergeant Major while serving in the military during World War I. Steven addresses those with higher stations as “milady” and “sir,” but his anger at the limitations placed upon him by society is evident to anyone who looks closely enough—which, of course, members of the nobility never bother to do.

          Over the course of Lady Franklin’s reentry into normal life, she often hires Steven for driving and for companionship. He listens politely while she talks about her grief, and he accompanies her on outings and picnics. The reason Lady Franklin believes the time she spends with Steven to be appropriate is that he fabricates a story about being happily married with children. Secretly, however, Steven becomes infatuated with Lady Franklin and deludes himself into thinking she returns his affection. Reality shatters Steven’s world when an ambitious gentleman named Hugh Cantrip (Peter Egan) sets his sights on Lady Franklin’s fortune. A smug prick who served as an officer during the war (adroitly representing his “superiority” over Steven), Hugh seduces Lady Franklin even as he keeps a lover on the side. In his capacity as a driver-for-hire, Steven sees everything, leading to a wrenching confrontation.

          Although it’s easy to envision an Americanized remake of The Hireling with blood pumping closer to the surface—Miles’ performance is icy and Shaw’s portrayal eventually becomes quite brutish—the cruel machinations of the British class system are essential to the movie’s efficacy, because The Hireling is all about topics characters refuse to address because doing so wouldn’t be “proper.” As captured by Michael Reed’s beautifully moody photography, the characters in The Hireling are trapped because of the gaps between their personal identities and their social identities. As they say in the UK, mind the gap.

The Hireling: RIGHT ON

Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

          Highly regarded as one of the most faithful adaptations of a Raymond Chandler novel, Farewell, My Lovely is an oddity among the films that comprised the noir boom of the mid-’70s. Unlike, say, Chinatown (1974), which placed a contemporary cast in a period milieu to achieve a postmodern effect, Farewell, My Lovely stars an actor who appeared in several classics of the original late ’40s noir cycle: Robert Mitchum. And while Mitchum’s advanced age creates some storytelling hiccups, like the idea that his character is sexual catnip for a young beauty, his deep association with the genre and the hangdog quality that made him a good fit for vintage noir are used to great effect; Mitchum lumbers around Farewell, My Lovely like he’s the same poor bastard he played in Out of the Past (1947) after another 30 years of rough road.

          In addition to its well-cast leading man, the picture boasts a smooth script by David Zelag Goodman. The screenplay retains Chandler’s pithiest observations (via Mitchum’s world-weary voiceover) and lets the story spiral off into all the right murky tangents without losing narrative coherence. Describing a Chandler plot in the abstract does nothing to capture the story’s appeal, but the broad strokes are that a muscle-bound crook named Moose Malloy (Jack O’Halloran) hires private dick Philip Marlowe (Mitchum) to track down his long-lost girlfriend. This draws Marlowe into a web of hoodlums, politicians, and whores, so before long Marlowe’s been beaten, shot at, shot up, and generally put through the wringer. Along the way, he commences a torrid romance with a powerful judge’s fag-hag trophy wife, Helen Grayle (Charlotte Rampling). The movie gets seedier as it progresses, with Marlowe serving as the audience’s tour guide through the underworld.

          Director Dick Richards gets preoccupied with aping the visual style of classic noir flicks (lotsa neon and venetian blinds), so the more amateurish actors in the cast don’t get the attention they need, and Richards is pretty inept handling the sequence of Marlowe getting hopped up on dope. Nonetheless, the story is compelling—in Chandler’s universe, bad situations always get worse—and the supporting cast is colorful. John Ireland stands out as Marlowe’s policeman pal, the stalwart Detective Nulty, and Sylvia Miles received an Oscar nomination for her grotesque turn as a boozy ex-showgirl. Harry Dean Stanton, Joe Spinell, and Anthony Zerbe show up at regular intervals, and there’s even a brief appearance by a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone. Farewell, My Lovely is uneven, but its virtues are plentiful.

Farewell, My Lovely: GROOVY