Thieves Like Us (1974)

          Watching Robert Altman’s ’70s movies, I often get the sense of a director who believed his own hype—to say nothing of a critical community and a fan base determined to attribute every move Altman made with great significance. Perhaps because his work on M*A*S*H (1970) hit such a sweet spot of political satire, supporters seemed determined to describe each subsequent Altman film as proof of his genius. For instance, Thieves Like Us has long enjoyed a solid reputation as an insightful character piece about Depression-era crooks whose lives are filled with despair, ignorance, and longing. On the plus side, the movie does indeed fit that description. On the minus side, Thieves Like Us arrived midway through a long string of similar movies, all made in the wake of Bonnie and Clyde (1967). So, while Thieves Like Us is unquestionably made with more artistry than, say, the average Roger Corman-produced Bonnie and Clyde rip-off, the subject matter and themes are so familiar that it’s mystifying why people make a fuss over Thieves Like Us. Because, quite frankly, if the most noteworthy aspects of the picture are Altman’s atmospheric direction and the spirited acting of the quirky cast, Altman did atmosphere better in other films (especially 1971’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller) and all of his pictures feature spirited acting by quirky casts. Oh, well.

          In any event, this beautifully shot but overlong and underwhelming drama follows three crooks who break out of a Mississippi prison and begin a bank-robbing spree. They are Bowie (Keith Carradine), a young romantic; Chicamaw (John Schuck), a hot-tempered thug; and T-Dub (Bert Remsen), an old coot with a big ego and a bad limp. Between jobs, the crooks try to build home lives, though everyone in the universe of these characters knows violent death is inevitable. Making the most of his time outside of jail, T-Dub inappropriately courts a much younger woman to whom he’s related. Meanwhile, Bowie romances Keechie (Shelley Duvall), the no-nonsense daughter of a fellow criminal. In his characteristically subversive fashion, Altman demonstrates only marginal interest in the actual criminality of his characters—most of the robberies happen off-camera, with Altman training his lens on cars and streets while the soundtrack features excerpts from old ’30s radio shows.

          This raises the inevitable question of why Altman bothered to make a movie about a subject he found boring, as well as the question of why it took three screenwriters (Altman, Joan Tewkesbury, Calder Willingham) to adapt Edward Anderson’s novel. And for that matter, why does a movie containing so little narrative material sprawl over 123 minutes? The answer to that last one, of course, is that Altman indulges himself on every level, letting scenes drag on endlessly and also including dozens of his signature slow zoom-in shots. That said, the performances are strange and vivid, with several Altman regulars (Carradine, Duvall, Schuck, Tom Skerritt) joined by Louise Fletcher and others. Each does something at least moderately interesting. Taken strictly on its story merits, Thieves Like Us is so threadbare that it’s best to accept the piece as an exercise in cinematic style. Whether you find the style infuriating or intoxicating will determine the sort of experience you have with Thieves Like Us.

Thieves Like Us: FUNKY

The Turning Point (1977)

          Making fun of The Turning Point requires little effort, since it’s such a consummate “chick flick” that it almost seems like it was designed to repel heterosexual males—the picture is a tearjerker about friendship in the ballet world starring two middle-aged women. And, indeed, the movie’s narrative is exactly as soapy as the premise might suggest. That said, The Turning Point is worthwhile in every important way. The acting is great, the cinematography is beautiful, the dancing is terrific, the direction is fluid, and the writing is intelligent. In short, The Turning Point is highbrow schmaltz—very much like The Way We Were (1973), another project that sprang from the pen of writer Arthur Laurents.

          The Turning Point tells the story of two lifelong friends who reconnect after a long period of estrangement. As young women, DeeDee (Shirley MacLaine) and Emma (Anne Bancroft) were both promising ballerinas in New York City. DeeDee chose family, hooking up with fellow dancer Wayne (Tom Skerritt) to set up housekeeping in Oklahoma, while Emma became a star. The picture begins with Emma arriving in Oklahoma for a performance, which occasions a reunion with her old friend after the show. As the women subsequently bond and clash, old differences manifest in harsh judgments about each other’s lives. The picture also tracks the ascendance of DeeDee’s daughter, Emilia (Leslie Browne), a promising young ballerina onto whom both older women project their dreams. The biggest subplot involves Emilia’s hot romance with Yuri, a ballet star played by (and modeled after) Mikhail Baryshnikov.

           The movie’s torrid narrative tackles such themes as age, ambition, betrayal, jealousy, regret, and, eventually, the gaining of wisdom through experience. Much of the film, of course, is devoted to dance, with long sequences of Bancroft faking her way through routines and of real-life dancers Baryshnikov and Browne strutting their stuff. Director Herbert Ross, himself a former dancer, clearly approached this film with great love—in fact, Browne was his godchild—and he generated both impassioned acting and lyrical imagery. Nobody phones in a performance for The Turning Point, and all four principal players—Bancroft, Baryshinkov, Browne, and MacLaine—received Oscar nominations. (The picture scored 11 nods in all, though it lost in every category.)

          Yet even with such exemplary work, The Turning Point is not one of those niche-interest movies that surpasses its inherent limitations by speaking to universal themes. Viewers who don’t dig ballet or scenes of women talking about their feelings will find little to love here. Even the picture’s breakout star, Baryshnikov, is a treat for the ladies, because he’s charismatic, muscular, and sensitive—an exotic hunk in tights. So perhaps it’s best to regard The Turning Point as a beautifully made throwback to the studio era, when such powerful actresses as Joan Crawford and Bette Davis regularly starred in what are now pejoratively referred to as “women’s pictures.”

The Turning Point: GROOVY

Up in Smoke (1978)

          Since blazing doobies has never been one of my pastimes, it’s no surprise that most of the jokes in Cheech and Chong’s first movie, Up in Smoke, leave me cold—there’s a fine line between buzzed silliness and infantile stupidity, and I’m not hip enough to live on the plugged-in side of that line. So when I say that Up in Smoke is a brisk but forgettable compendium of lame gags, I acknowledge that the movie’s probably a different experience when consumed by folks who groove on the ganja. For instance, I’m sure some people find the movie’s ridiculous climax to be high-larious (emphasis on the high), because Cheech Marin dresses in a tutu and shreds an acid-rock guitar solo in front of a nightclub audience that’s wasted on pot fumes while, outside the club, narcs dressed as Hari Krishnas wrestle with epic munchies because they’re inhaling the same wafts of wacky tobacky. To each their own, man.

          Extrapolated from Cheech and Chong’s popular stand-up act about two laid-back stoners who get hassled by The Man, the movie’s plot has a certain amiable rebelliousness. Marin plays Pedro De Pacas, a wisecracking horndog who’s always looking for a good time. Tommy Chong plays Anthony “Man” Stoner, a rich kid-turned-wastoid who occasionally works as a rock drummer. The characters meet on a highway one afternoon, then get wasted and embark on a quest to score fresh weed. A mix-up gets the duo deported to Tijuana, where they find work driving a car back to the U.S. Unbeknownst to them, however, the car is built entirely of pot, so they’re muling for dealers. This puts our heroes in the crosshairs of Sgt. Stedenko (Stacy Keach), an absurdly uptight L.A. cop who’s jonesing to make a big drug bust. The main joke of the movie is that Pedro and Man are so loaded they never realize they’re in danger, and the whole goofy storyline climaxes with a battle of the bands at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip. Producer-director Lou Adler, Cheech and Chong’s longtime manager, owns the Roxy, and his music-biz background lends enjoyable authenticity to the picture’s concert scenes.

          As actors, neither Chong nor Marin is remarkable, though Marin has a likeable vibe and terrific timing, and the duo’s dynamic was quite smooth by the time they made Up in Smoke. Keach kicks the film up a notch by channeling his signature intensity into a cartoonish role, so it’s fun to see him playing juvenile scenes like reacting to someone pissing on his leg in a men’s room. (This actually happens twice, which gives a sense of how tired the jokes get.) Tom Skerritt plays a loopy cameo as a whacked-out Vietnam vet, and the film’s various supporting players lend exuberance if not necessarily great skill. The script, predictably, is an episodic collage of comedy bits, and Adler’s direction is competent, with blandly shot scenes juiced by a bouncy score built around the classic War jam “Low Rider.”

Up in Smoke: FUNKY

Fuzz (1972)

Although it’s confusing, dull, and unpleasant, the crime comedy Fuzz boasts ample star power, with Burt Reynolds playing the cranky leader of a group of undercover cops and Raquel Welch busting out of her sweaters as one of his colleagues; furthermore, the supporting cast features the laconic Tom Skerritt and the irascible Jack Weston playing cops, plus the stoic Yul Brynner as a villain. There’s even a big name behind the scenes, because screenwriter Evan Hunter adapted the story from one of the acclaimed “87th Precinct” novels he wrote under the pen name Ed McBain. However, even calling the narrative of Fuzz a story is exaggerating—to quote the Bard, this picture is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The main plot involves a deaf criminal (Brynner) murdering Boston city officials as a means of extorting payments from the government, but there’s also an ugly subplot about homeless people getting set on fire, and yet another subplot about a string of robberies. Additionally, the film offers a cursory nod to then-current Women’s Lib issues by having Welch’s character fend off horny suitors while trying to prove she’s as qualified to wear a badge as any man. In fact, it’s almost easier to list things that aren’t included in this overstuffed flick than to itemize its components. Worse, the excessive approach is exacerbated by whiplash-inducing tonal shifts. In certain scenes, Fuzz is horrific, as when people are burned alive, and in others, Fuzz is silly, as when Reynolds goes undercover in a nun’s habit despite sporting his signature moustache. Given screenwriter Hunter’s long history of writing police stories, either the serious version of Fuzz or the stupid version of Fuzz might have worked, but this disjointed hybrid is a dreary mess. And that’s a shame, because the leading players (with the exception of the ever-vapid Welch) present interesting personas, and the movie has fleeting moments of amusing interplay and/or dynamic action. However, these glimmers of entertainment hardly merit sitting through 92 minutes of tacky pandemonium.

Fuzz: LAME

Big Bad Mama (1974)

          In his autobiography Up Till Now—well, one of his many autobiographies, that is—the incomparable William Shatner derides this Roger Corman-produced action flick as Big Bad Movie, which isn’t fair. Sure, Big Bad Mama is yet another Corman rip-off of Bonnie and Clyde (1967), but it’s a hoot. Campy, funny, sexy, and violent, the picture has just about everything you might want from a silly drive-in flick. Set in the Depression era, the story follows tough Texan Wilma McClatchie (Angie Dickinson), who’s having trouble paying the bills with her small-scale bootlegging operation. When she meets a charismatic bank robber, Fred Diller (Tom Skerritt), she embarks on a new career as a machine-gun-toting thief, abetted not only by Fred but also by her two sexy daughters and, eventually, by dandy-ish con man William J. Baxter (Shatner).

          The plot meanders because too many characters are involved, and it’s odd that Wilma’s the lead character but not actually the leader of her gang, but this sort of picture is all about creating a badass vibe and presenting exciting events. Wilma gets to spout power-to-the-people propaganda while she’s robbing wealthy people—yes, this is one of those soft-edged crime pictures in which the heroine just wants to make enough money to care for her family—and the movie offers a steady stream of sex scenes and shootouts.

          Regarding those sex scenes, one of the reasons Big Bad Mama has enjoyed a long life on home video is that Dickinson appears in the altogether during a pair of scenes, including a yowza full-frontal reveal. Since Big Bad Mama was released the same year Dickinson’s TV series Police Woman debuted, the movie captures her beauty at just the moment she enjoyed her greatest notoriety. Corman has speculated that Dickinson did the risqué scenes because she had reached her early 40s and wanted to prove she was still sexy, a classic Corman justification for exploiting an actress if ever there was one.

          As to why Shatner considers the movie a stinker, one can only speculate that he didn’t like getting upstaged by Dickinson’s body or that he didn’t like playing a ridiculous coward of a character. In any event, Corman and his cheerful accomplices, including reliable B-movie helmer Steve Carver, deliver the goods in Big Bad Mama, but not gracefully—the story sputters through awkward rhythms even as the screen fills with vivid vignettes. FYI, Dickinson reprised her Wilma McLatchie role in the poorly received sequel Big Bad Mama II (1987), also produced by Corman but helmed by sleaze-cinema hack Jim Wynorski instead of original director Carver.

Big Bad Mama: FUNKY

Ice Castles (1978)

          Even though its leading performance is terrible and its storyline is laughably contrived, Ice Castles holds a special place in the hearts of many women who came of age in the late ’70s, because it delivers a fresh spin on that most beloved of fables—the princess who finds her true love. In this case, the princess is innocent, 16-year-old Midwesterner Alexis Winston (Lynn-Holly Johnson), a promising figure skater who’s considered too old for serious competition. She lives a sheltered life with her overprotective father, widower Marcus Winston (Tom Skerritt), and she worries what will happen when she’s separated from her directionless boyfriend, Nick Peterson (Robby Benson), who loves her but resents her potential. Predictably, however, when Alexis performs well at a local competition and catches the eye of a top-level trainer, things change dramatically. Leaving her father and Nick behind, Alexis enters the high-stakes world of Olympic-level skating. Dazzled by the lights of the big city, Alexis even succumbs to the romantic advances of an ambitious TV reporter who’s about 15 years her senior. And then, just when it seems Alexis is doomed to lose her identity, she loses her sight in a skating accident. Retreating into self-pity, Alexis sulks until Nick proves his worth by forcing her to see life anew—“through the eyes of love,” in the words of the film’s maudlin theme song.
          Ice Castles is schmaltzy in the extreme, complete with a saccharine Marvin Hamlisch score, but the movie goes down smoother than you might expect. Skerritt and Colleen Dewhurst (who plays Alexis’ hometown trainer) eschew sentimentality with their grown-up performances, while Benson leavens his moony adoration with tough-love dialogue. It also helps, a lot, that cinematographer Bill Butler (of Jaws fame) shoots the movie like a slick sports documentary instead of a glossy tearjerker. Alas, Johnson’s leading performance is the film’s weakest element. While her skating is fine (she was an Ice Capades performer before becoming an actress), Johnson seems utterly lost when called upon to express complex emotions. As a result, Ice Castles has a major vacuum at its center, neutralizing many of the good efforts by costars and behind-the-scenes talents; the movie works, but just barely. FYI, Ice Castles writer-director Donald Wrye, whose career mostly comprises made-for-TV projects, remade this movie in 2010, though the second version failed to generate much excitement.

Ice Castles: FUNKY

Wild Rovers (1971)

          Even though he enjoyed a long and lucrative career directing light comedies, it’s a shame Blake Edwards made only one proper Western, because Wild Rovers reveals the writer-director’s unexpectedly lyrical approach to the cowboy genre. Starring the unlikely but compatible duo of William Holden and Ryan O’Neal, the gorgeous-looking movie tracks the adventures of a pair of cowpokes whose foolhardy decision to rob a bank triggers a series of deadly events.

          Presented as an old-school epic, complete with a musical overture and an intermission, the film moseys along at a deliberate pace, but it’s never boring; the locations and photography are intoxicating, the action is exciting, and the performances keep everything lively. Moreover, Edwards’ inventive screenplay presents a rich mixture of familiar Western tropes and witty flourishes; the best original elements include novel characterizations and sharp dialogue.

          Holden plays Ross Bodine, a veteran cowboy who’s ready to settle down even though he doesn’t have a financial stake, and O’Neal plays Frank Post, a young man still naïve enough to believe he can shape his own destiny. When Ross casually mentions one day that the only cowboys with money are those who rob banks, Frank gets his teeth into the notion and eventually talks Ross into performing a heist. The movie takes its time getting to this point, creating a persuasive sense of camaraderie between the protagonists before things get sticky, and the robbery sequence is offbeat.

          Instead of busting into a bank at daytime, the men casually intimidate the bank owner at his home during evening hours, holding his wife and daughter at gunpoint while forcing him to head to the bank and unload the vault. Charged with overseeing the hostages, Frank bonds with a puppy and protects the banker’s family from a mountain lion rather than doing anything menacing. Narrative choices like these make Ross and Frank compelling characters—we see how easily they buy into the romantic fantasy of a victimless crime, and feel their anguish when they realize how badly they miscalculated.

          Holden adds an unusual color to his standard world-weary persona, accentuating amiability over cynicism, and O’Neal gives a performance that’s as naturalistic as anything he’s ever done. Eschewing the usual rouge’s gallery of overly familiar onscreen varmints, Edwards surrounds his leads with carefully chosen supporting players—including Joe Don Baker, Moses Gunn, Karl Malden, James Olson, and Tom Skerritt—all of whom make valuable contributions. Framing the actors’ work are spectacular widescreen images created by veteran cinematographer Philip Lathrop, a regular Edwards collaborator; his crisp photography of a sequence in which Ross breaks a wild bronco in a snowy field is particularly outstanding, making the sequence a joyous celebration of the cowboy lifestyle. Even the film’s music is noteworthy, with the great Jerry Goldsmith subtly expressing everything from jubilance to heartbreak.

          The unhurried pace of Wild Rovers ensures the picture isn’t for everyone, but the film’s unexpected emotional complexities reward patient viewers with a tough, elegant statement about masculine identity. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Wild Rovers: RIGHT ON

The Devil’s Rain (1975)

          Ernest Borgnine as a bug-eyed Satanist, complete with ram’s horns and a shaggy fright wig. Bit player John Travolta as a victim of supernatural forces, his eyes weeping blood and his face melting away. A shirtless William Shatner crucified, upside-down, in a church defiled by Satan worshippers. All this and more can be yours for the price of admission to The Devil’s Rain, a perpetual contender for the title of Worst Movie Ever Made, and therefore cinematic catnip for masochistic viewers. Directed by cult-fave Brit Robert Fuest, who cleverly blended camp and horror in The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and therefore should have known better, The Devil’s Rain makes the fatal mistake of taking itself seriously. So even though Fuest’s innate artistry gives a few scenes visual grandiosity, The Devil’s Rain is dull and sluggish, and only the scenes of shameless scenery-chewer Shatner getting tortured achieve campy bliss.

          The big problems are the unnecessarily convoluted story and the lackluster production design. The backstory of the picture has something to do with a cult of Satanists who populate a ghost town in the American Southwest, performing human sacrifices in order to gain immortality or power or whatever; the current story depicts a family rebelling against the Satanists’ oppression, which leads Mark Preston (Shatner) to confront the bad guys. Not the smartest move. For reasons that strain credibility, Mark’s mom (Ida Lupino) owns a book that’s mystically connected to the Satanists’ power, so head villain Jonathan Corbis (Ernest Borgnine) tries to exchange Mark’s life for the book. However Mark’s brother, Tom (Tom Skerritt), will have none of this, so he storms into town with a shotgun hoping to rescue his sibling. Also drawn into the overcooked mix are a local doctor (Sam Richards) and a local sheriff (Kennan Wynn).

          One might assume that The Devil’s Rain zips along with this much plot crammed into 86 minutes, but that’s not the case. Instead, the movie lumbers slowly because the filmmakers favor lengthy setpieces like people melting to death in what appears to be real time. Furthermore, the picture’s ghost-town sets are cheap and sparse, the shocker moments are so clumsy and obvious that tension never builds, and stiff acting by nearly the entire cast gives every scene a leaden quality.

          Through normally an energetic asset to any picture, Borgnine is a weak link, because he’s miscast as an aristocratic character in the classical mold—he looks ridiculous spouting verbose curses in monster drag. Even solid actors Lupino and Skerritt are hamstrung by the goofy goings-on. Only Shatner gets into the spirit of the thing, dropping to his knees and flailing and shouting like he’s playing grand opera—or at least Grand Guignol. Accordingly, the fact that he’s only in the movie for a total of about twenty minutes is a shortcoming.

          Still, there’s no denying that The Devil’s Rain comprises 86 of the weirdest minutes in ’70s cinema, even though it’s more of a slow-moving unnatural disaster than a high-speed train wreck. And as for the poster's claim that the flick features “absolutely the most incredible ending of any motion picture ever”? Let’s just say you can’t blame the hypesters who sold The Devil’s Rain for trying.

The Devil’s Rain: FREAKY

M*A*S*H (1970)

          A brilliant antiwar comedy that turned Robert Altman into an A-list director, cemented the stardom of Elliot Gould and Donald Sutherland, inspired one of the most beloved series in TV history, and pissed off supporters of America’s involvement in Vietnam without once uttering the word “Vietnam,” M*A*S*H encapsulates almost everything that made the counterculture movies of the ’70s wonderful. Brash, inappropriate, and vulgar, the picture tackles a controversial topic from an unexpected angle, resulting in outrageous comedy setpieces, seamless acting work by a terrific ensemble, and touching moments of unexpected humanity. Plus, even though some of Altman’s excesses are plainly visible, like his tendency toward misogynistic portrayals of attractive women, M*A*S*H is his most accessible movie, displaying all of his clever storytelling techniques without getting sidetracked by his esoteric narrative interests.
          The story, of course, depicts the wild adventures at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, focusing on three gifted peacenik doctors drafted into military service: “Duke” Forrest (Tom Skerritt), “Trapper” John McIntyre (Gould), and “Hawkeye” Pierce (Sutherland). To numb themselves against the insanity of war—and the inanity of military bureaucracy—they spend their downtime bedding nurses, downing copious amounts of homemade booze, and violating every imaginable code of conduct. Their primary nemesis is another surgeon, the impossibly straight-laced Frank Burns (Robert Duvall), who preaches a nice god-mother-and-country line even though he’s a having an illicit affair with nurse Margaret “Hot Lips” O’Houlihan (Sally Kellerman). Skerritt's funny and loose, though he gets eclipsed as Gould and Sutherland congeal into a perfect comedy team over the course of their first (and best) film together. Playing broader types, Duvall and Kellerman strike satirical sparks lampooning conservative hypocrisy.
          The supporting cast is deep and democratic, with Rene Auberjonois, Roger Bowen, Bud Cort, Jo Ann Pflug, John Schuck, Fred Wiliamson, and others all getting memorably outrageous things to do, plus the movie includes Gary Burgoff’s first appearance as his indelible character “Radar” O’Reilly, the ESP-equipped company clerk he played during most of the M*A*S*H series’ historic 11-year run.
          Working from Ring Lardner Jr.’s Oscar-nominated script, which in turn was based on a novel by Richard Hooker, Altman presents a string of irreverent scenes, like the football game in which doctors use syringes to dope the opposition, Hawkeye and Trapper’s debauched field trip to Japan, and the famous “Suicide is Painless” sequence that spotlights the franchise’s moody theme song (with lyrics!) while giving a shout-out to the Last Supper. From start to finish, the film achieves a delicate balance by satirizing everything inhuman about the military while at the same time celebrating the sacrifices of honorable men and women, so it’s a deeply felt statement that made waves when the movie was released in 1970, at the height of the Vietnam War. Bloody, funny, raunchy, serious, silly, and smart, M*A*S*H set a standard for tonally unpredictable satire that few films have matched since.

M*A*S*H: OUTTA SIGHT

Alien (1979)

          Writer Dan O’Bannon was a film-school pal of John Carpenter’s, but his career foundered after the duo expanded Carpenter’s thesis film into the commercial feature Dark Star (1974). While Carpenter was making the low-budget shockers that launched his career, O’Bannon was mired in stillborn projects like an unproduced version of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel Dune, and at he ended up living on his friend Ron Shusett’s couch. Luckily, Shusett was an aspiring writer-producer intrigued by O’Bannon’s idea for a claustrophobic sci-fi/horror flick about an outer-space critter that preys upon a spaceship’s crew. (The concept borrows liberally from myriad sources, with the 1958 B-movie It! The Terror from Beyond Space often cited as a direct influence.) O’Bannon and Shusett fleshed out the story, which at one point was titled Star Beast, then sold the package to producers Gordon Carroll, David Giler, and Walter Hil, whose new company Brandywine Productions had access to Twentieth Century-Fox. Giler and Hill, both screenwriters, did more narrative tinkering, but Fox didn’t get excited until the studio’s Star Wars (1977) exploded at the box office. Alien was the next outer-space picture on deck at Fox, so the project finally got momentum—and as more people joined the party, the level of artistic ambition continued rising.
          Ridley Scott, then a veteran of countless TV commercials but only one little-seen feature, was hired because of his keen visual sense. Just as importantly, Swiss artist H.R. Giger, who worked on the same stillborn version of Dune as O’Bannon, was recruited for creature and set designs; his creepy “biomechanics” style infused the resulting film’s alien scenes with perverse grandeur. Representing a rare case of the development process doing what it’s supposed to do, Alien kept evolving, rather like the creature in the story, until finally, on May 25, 1979, audiences got their first look at a perfect marriage of exploitation-flick elements and art-film craftsmanship. Scott fills every frame of the picture with meticulous details, building excruciating tension by keeping the titular beastie almost completely offscreen until the film’s finale. He also created one of scare cinema’s greatest jolts with the unforgettable “chest-burster” scene.
          So despite underdeveloped characters and an occasionally murky storyline, nearly everything in Alien works on some level, from the sleek title sequence by R/Greenberg Associates to the terrifying climax featuring Sigourney Weaver wearing the smallest panties in the known universe. The production design’s mix of utility and grime is utterly credible; the score by Jerry Goldsmith is eerily majestic; and the interplay between actors Veronica Cartwright, Ian Holm, John Hurt, Yaphet Kotto, Tom Skerritt, Harry Dean Stanton, and Weaver nails under-pressure group dynamics. The movie that O’Bannon and Shusett once pitched as “Jaws in space” sits comfortably alongside Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster as one of the most cinematically important horror shows ever made.

Alien: OUTTA SIGHT