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

Last Tango in Paris (1972)

          Few ’70s films have provoked as much discussion as Last Tango in Paris, for myriad reasons. The movie’s filled with rough sex, leading man Marlon Brando’s performance has been described as everything from juvenile silliness to Method-driven genius, and the opaque storytelling leaves all sorts of room for interpretation. Plus, thanks to the sophisticated images created by director/co-writer Bernardo Bertolucci and master cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, Last Tango in Paris looks like art of the highest order—so it’s hard to reconcile the film’s elegant sheen with its exploitive nature. Because, make no mistake, Last Tango in Paris exploits leading lady Maria Schneider to an absurd degree. Although Brando never flashes more than a brief glimpse of his derriere, Schneider reveals every inch of her body, often performing scenes wearing nothing but a scarf. On a deeper level, she exposes cringe-inducing vulnerability, especially in the notorious scene of Brando’s character sodomizing Schneider’s character.
          And just as Schneider portrays a sexual plaything, it seems she was a pawn in Bertolucci’s and Brando’s macho mind games. The stench of male ego is everywhere in Last Tango.
          Set in modern-day France, the picture begins with fortysomething American Paul (Brando) screaming in the streets, obviously lost in some sort of private grief. Then pretty young Frenchwoman Jeanne (Schneider) walks by him and continues on her way. Moments later, they both end up examining a vacant apartment. As they haggle over who’s entitled to rent the place, an attraction develops between them, and they have intense sex within moments of meeting each other. Paul then proposes an arrangement—he and Jeanne shall meet in the apartment regularly for trysts, but they won’t share any personal information with each other. As this unusual relationship develops, the movie shows the lovers in their private lives. Paul is a hotel owner whose unfaithful wife just committed suicide, and Jeanne is a confused youth on the verge of marrying a narcissistic filmmaker.
          Paul’s existential crisis is clear, but the reason Jeanne agrees to the illicit relationship is never explained in a satisfactory fashion. That is until one reads about the making of the film, and discovers that the storyline grew out of Bertolucci’s sexual fantasies. Since the film shows Paul tormenting his lover by violating her in painful physical ways and by demanding that she do the same to him—to say nothing of calling her demeaning names and flailing a dead rat in front of her face—Bertolucci’s fantasy life seems a horrific place, or at the very least a realm highly unfriendly to women.
          In fact, were it not for the scenes of Jeanne in her private life, Schneider’s character would come across as little more than a bag of flesh that Brando’s character periodically fucks. That’s because Brando’s performance seethes with egotism. Yes, Paul’s in agony because of betrayal and loss, but he inflicts his pain on everyone in his path, as if he’s the only person who’s ever been hurt by life. Thus, unsuspecting Frenchmen and Frenchwomen are subjected to his tantrums and whining, and viewers of Last Tango in Paris are subjected to nonsense dialogue that reportedly arose from a combination of improvisation and scripting. At one point, Paul advises Jeanne to “go right up in the ass of death to find the womb of fear.” One suspects this stuff meant a lot to Brando (and Bertolucci) while they were in the crucible of artistic creation, but seen from a more rational perspective, certain behavior and dialogue comes off as dross.
          Still, because of the fundamental tension between its cinematic beauty and its narrative ugliness, Last Tango in Paris is a unique statement. And for some, obviously, it’s a powerful one—among other accolades, the movie earned two Oscar nominations, for Bertolucci (Best Direct0r) and Brando (Best Actor). Therefore, it’s impossible to arrive at a full understanding of what ’70s cinema means without investigating the mysteries of this startling picture, which bore an X-rating during its original release. Just beware: You’ll never look at butter the same way again.

Last Tango in Paris: FREAKY

Hot Lead & Cold Feet (1978)

          Generic family entertainment from Walt Disney Productions at the nadir of the company’s live-action cycle, Hot Lead & Cold Feet is a farcical Western featuring the unremarkable British comedian/singer Jim Dale in three roles. And while Disney’s concerted effort to transform Dale into a U.S. star was admirable (he was featured in three of the company’s movies from 1977 to 1979), Dale lacks the easy charisma of a genuine box-office attraction, so a triple serving of Dale in Hot Lead & Cold Feet represents too much of a not-so-good thing. In fact, even with his multiple roles, Dale is less interesting than veteran actors Jack Elam, Don Knotts, and Darren McGavin, who play silly supporting characters. The story begins with crusty old varmint Jasper Bloodshy (Dale) announcing that he’s leaving his entire estate—which includes the crime-riddled frontier town that bears his name—to his twin sons. After a fashion, that is. One of the sons is Billy (Dale), a rootin’-tootin’ outlaw who menaces the good (and not-so-good) townsfolk of Bloodshy. The other son is Eli (Dale), a preacher-in-training raised by his mother in England. Billy’s the “hot lead” of the title, and Eli’s the “cold feet.”

          As a means of bringing his sons together, Jasper stipulates that his boys must race each other through the wilderness surrounding the town of Bloodshy, with the winner claiming the family wealth. Billy tries to rig the contest, abetted by the town’s corrupt mayor (McGavin), while Eli simply wants to provide for the pair of orphaned children who are in his care. (Because it wouldn’t be a Disney flick without orphans.) Knotts plays the town’s bumbling sheriff, the so-called “Denver Kid,” and Elam plays his arch-enemy, a crook named “Rattlesnake.” The running gag of these two men trying to stage a gun duel despite constant interruptions is about as close to real humor as this movie gets. Most of the running time comprises goofy Disney slapstick and overly exuberant racing scenes, with a spoonful of saccharine thanks to Eli’s relationships with the kids and with a pretty schoolteacher (Karen Valentine). There’s not a hint of originality or wit anywhere in Hot Lead & Cold Feet, but it’s a harmless enough distraction, with okay production values and energetic acting. Even Dale, who isn’t up to the task of carrying a picture, deserves credit for his hard work—he tries every trick imaginable to entertain viewers, so it’s a shame he can’t conjure screen presence by force of will.

Hot Lead & Cold Feet: FUNKY

Deathsport (1978)

The saving grace of Roger Corman’s cheapo productions is usually a sense of humor, and the importance of jokes to low-budget crap is obvious when watching the Corman turkey Deathsport, which is monotonously grim. A sci-fi thriller set in the same sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland seen in a gazillion other movies—gladiator contests organized by an authoritarian regime, radioactive mutants, and so on—Deathsport is so close to self-parody that it would have been easy to tip the thing into full-on satire. Instead, Deathsport is played straight, even though it’s filled with cartoonish costumes, over-the-top violence, and ridiculous dialogue. (In the finale, the hero announces, “Now we will have our duel,” and the villain replies, “I agree.”) David Carradine, seemingly unaware that he’s appearing in a piece of shit, lays on the gravitas to portray Kaz, a quasi-mystical warrior who roams the wasteland protecting common folk from overlords. He gets captured by bad guys who force Kaz and other warriors, including Deneer (Claudia Jennings), to participate in “Deathsport,” an open-field battle between warriors on foot and soldiers on motorcycles. During the game, Kaz and Deneer mount a rebellion/escape because they need to rescue a little girl from mutants. All of this is set to a chintzy synthesizer score that sounds as if it’s being played by a keyboardist whose day job is pounding away at a roller-rink pipe organ. Co-written and co-directed by Nicholas Niciphor (Corman and Allan Arkush also helped direct the picture), Deathsport is dull, grungy, and unpleasant, featuring not one but two scenes of nude women getting tortured in an electroshock chamber. Still, B-movie fans may enjoy the absurdly somber performances of Carradine and main villain Richard Lynch (a genre-flick favorite memorable for his badly scarred face). Furthermore, leading lady Jennings, a former Playboy model, is easy on the eyes whether dressed or (as if often the case here) not.

Deathsport: LAME

Duel (1971)

          A key moment in the ascent of Steven Spielberg from promising young Hollywood talent to genuine cinematic wunderkind, this arresting TV movie demonstrated Spielberg’s gift for using nimble camerawork and sure-handed pacing to create powerful onscreen excitement. Particularly since Spielberg made something from virtually nothing—the story is thin to the extreme of barely existing—it’s no surprise that historians often cite Duel as the project that gave Universal Studios the confidence to entrust Spielberg with Jaws (1975) just a short while later. (If you take the menacing big-rig truck in Duel and replace it with the shark in Jaws, the thinking goes, you’re dealing with similar storytelling problems.) Duel was written by acclaimed fantasist Richard Matheson, and the narrative couldn’t be simpler—when an everyman, who’s literally named David Mann (Dennis Weaver), gets into a lane-change hassle with the unseen driver of an 18-wheeler on a desert highway, the driver seeks revenge by spending the rest of the movie running Mann off the road, slamming into the back of Mann’s car, and taunting Mann into the last-man-standing battle suggested by the movie’s title.

          Yes, it’s 90 minutes, excepting a few bits when Mann stops for meals or phone calls, of a dude driving a car while a truck pursues him. The fact that Spielberg makes this relentlessly interesting is testament not only to his inherent gifts as a filmmaker but also to the soul-deep ambition that fueled the early days of his career. Undoubtedly stretching meager resources way past their limits, Spielberg shoots scenes elaborately, collecting every imaginable angle to create options in the editing room, and yet his camera’s nearly always in the right place—whether Spielberg’s shooting from a camera mounted by the rear wheels of the truck or from a camera positioned by the gas pedal of Mann’s car, looking up at the driver, Spielberg finds myriad ways to accentuate the physical details comprising a harrowing experience. We’re right there with Mann in a phone booth when the truck emerges from the rear of the frame, barreling toward the phone booth like a tidal wave; similarly, we’re right there with Mann in the driver’s seat when, at a crucial moment, his car succumbs to mechanical problems, creating a suffocating degree of instant panic.

          So, while it’s easy to list all the important things Duel lacks—a deeply developed leading character, an explanation for the truck driver’s psychotic behavior, a spectrum of integrated supporting characters—it’s more relevant to note how well Spielberg minimizes these shortcomings. Simply put, Duel was just the right project at just the right time for the young director. Rather than smothering a nuanced script with cinematic pyrotechnics—as he did with his first theatrical feature, The Sugarland Express (1973)—Spielberg exploited a one-note script for visual opportunities that might never have occurred to anyone else.

Duel: GROOVY

T.N.T. Jackson (1974)

A failed attempt to generate another female blaxploitation icon in the vein of Cleopatra Jones and Foxy Brown, this very short feature combines the worst elements of blaxploitation with the worst elements of Asian-themed martial-arts flicks. It’s two shitty movies for the price of one! Lovely Jeannie Bell plays T.N.T. Jackson, a young woman who travels to Hong Kong after her brother dies there under mysterious circumstances. Using her ass-kicking karate skills, she impresses members of the local underworld and learns that her brother was involved with heroin dealers including Charlie (Stan Shaw). T.N.T. seduces Charlie to get close to him and learn about his operation, and T.N.T. clashes with another female American in Charlie’s circle, pretty blonde Elaine (Pat Anderson), who turns out to be an undercover cop. (Rest assured that she’s a karate expert, too, just like nearly everyone else in the movie.) Over the course of 68 dull and grungy minutes, T.N.T. gets vengeance and upsets a far-reaching drug operation. She also gets naked repeatedly, as in an absurdly exploitive topless karate scene. (Watch for the continuity error during that scene in which her black panties suddenly become white for one shot.) Badly acted, cheaply filmed, sluggishly paced, and ugly on nearly every level, T.N.T. Jackson isn’t the worst movie of its type, but it’s a far cry from the Pam Grier-starring films it was presumably intended to emulate. While the story makes sense, more or less, the myriad karate scenes get mind-numbing very quickly. As for the cast, Bell is appealing if not particularly memorable, Anderson is sexy as her adversary-turned-ally, and it’s a bummer to see the sensitive actor Shaw stuck in a one-note role as a cocksure thug.

T.N.T. Jackson: LAME

Elvis: That’s the Way It Is (1970) & Elvis on Tour (1972)

          By the late ’60s, rock legend Elvis Presley’s long run as a movie star seemed like it was over, as evidenced by the failure of Change of Habit (1969), a musical comedy the King made for Universal. Rather than accepting defeat, however, Presley’s home studio, MGM, tacked in a new direction by commissioning a documentary about the singer’s return to live performance after a seven-year hiatus. Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Denis Sanders, Elvis: That’s the Way It Is captures the King at the beginning of his self-parody period, introducing such tropes as the sequined jump suit, the exuberant karate moves, and the cheesy onstage patter (“Thank you, thankyouverymuch”). Yet for every example of excess—bloated arrangements, syrupy ballads—there’s something redeeming, like a flash of Presley’s thunderous vocal power every now and then. Therefore, this record of the King’s blockbuster residency at the International Hotel in Las Vegas is consistently compelling.

          In the best sequence (Presley rehearsing with his band), the singer is loose and playful, digging into killer grooves like a version of “Little Sister” that segues into a cover of the Beatles’ “Get Back.” And while there’s plenty of bad-Elvis sludge in That’s the Way It Is—Presley does a half-assed version of “Love Me Tender” as he trolls the lip of the stage and kisses female audience members—the film is a fascinating artifact. This is especially true of the re-edited version that premiered on Turner Classic Movies in 2000. Sanders’ original cut was derided for including pointless secondary material, such as interviews with fans and hotel workers. The 2000 version excludes the superfluous material, features a slightly different song list, and offers stronger momentum during the second and third acts, which simulate one full concert even though footage was cobbled together from six different evenings. Both cuts of That’s the Way It Is benefit from crisp, dramatic concert photography by the great cinematographer Lucien Ballard, who shot The Wild Bunch (1969) and other classics.

          After That’s the Way It Is did well, MGM commissioned a second concert documentary two years later. Elvis on Tour records Presley’s first concert trek in a decade. Although the movie drags at times—partially because Presley’s starting to look bored, heavy, and silly onstage, and partially because the filmmakers include drab offstage bits like shots of roadies moving cases around empty amphitheaters—Elvis on Tour has incredible moments. For instance, the movie shows Presley singing his last significant single, “Burning Love,” a song so new he reads lyrics off a sheet of paper. It’s striking to see an artist crafting a fresh hit almost 20 years after his first Number One song. Elvis on Tour also features a terrific gospel-music jam session between Elvis and his backup singers. This sequence lets viewers watch Presley enjoy his talent in a (mostly) private way. Elvis on Tour lacks the dramatic build of That’s the Way It Is, particularly since Presley’s climactic cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” appears too early, but it’s worth watching all the way through just to hear these immortal words: “Elvis has left the building.” Elvis on Tour was the last film of Presley’s career, and though he enjoyed one more showbiz triumph afterward—the famous TV concert Aloha from Hawaii (1973)—health problems took the King’s life in 1977.

Elvis: That’s the Way It Is: GROOVY

Elvis on Tour: FUNKY

Posse (1975)

Even though he’d been producing many of his own movies since the late ’50s, the venerable star Kirk Douglas didn’t try directing until the early ’70s, and it’s surprising how little skill he brought to the task. Both movies that Douglas directed—this one and the pirate flick Scalawag (1973)—suffer from middling storylines and tonal chaos. Posse is the better of the two, but it’s a messy endeavor in which Douglas’ admirable ambition far exceeds his directorial abilities. A failed attempt at a postmodern Western in the Sam Peckinpah mode, Posse revolves around U.S. Marshal Howard Nightingale (Douglas), who tries to curry political favor with frontier types by tracking down ruthless bank robber Jack Strawhorn (Bruce Dern). Nightingale organizes the mob of the film’s title, only to get captured by his quarry. Then, in what was undoubtedly meant to be an ironic twist, Nightingale’s posse must turn criminal in order to raise money with which to pay Strawhorn for Nightingale’s release. It all ends with lots of preaching and violence, so viewers are supposed to walk away from the movie contemplating issues of justice and mob rule and so forth. Had the movie been written with more clarity—and, quite frankly, had Douglas’ lead performance been more subtle—Posse might have become the hard-hitting statement Douglas surely envisioned. But while previous Douglas productions about the murky intersections between morality and violence had shattering power (consider his remarkable Stanley Kubrick collaboration from 1957, Paths of Glory), Posse is simultaneously overwrought and underdeveloped. The biggest moments are delivered with bludgeoning obviousness, an issue exacerbated by Douglas’ over-the-top acting, and the heaviest thematic elements are subverted by mixed narrative messages. In the end, the film says so many things, so loudly, that it’s a muddle. Still, the intentions are good, the production values are fine, and supporting player Dern’s performance crackles with his unique energy—few people play villains with anywhere near the level of humanity and nuance that Dern brings to the task.

Posse: FUNKY

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

          Calling The Texas Chainsaw Massacre a masterpiece seems wrong, because while it’s made with incredible skill—and while its potency as a fear machine is beyond reproach—the movie is so unrelentingly sadistic that praising it requires significant qualifiers. Yes, a strong argument can be made that the film represents an unflinching statement about the evils that prowl our modern world, and yes, there’s a glimmer of hope in the film’s climax. But, man, this movie is grim beyond measure, and that last shot—I won’t spoil it for you, but brace yourself for nightmares—is among the most frightening images ever committed to film. So while director Tobe Hooper deserves all sorts of credit not just for his cinematic craftsmanship but also for his merciless integrity, one must ask the inevitable question: Why was this film made?

          I have a hard time believing the picture was created to express the dark psychological and social themes that bubble beneath its bloody surface. I have a much easier time believing the picture was created as a thrill ride, and that it’s only because Hooper did his job so well that critics look for meaning in the movie. And that, in turn, raises another inevitable question: What does it say about society that something titled The Texas Chainsaw Massacre qualifies as a thrill ride?

          Setting aside these larger questions for the moment, the texture of the picture is deceptively simplistic. Several young people, led by Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns), wander into the Texas wilderness and stumble upon the lair of Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) and his deranged clan. Living in a dilapidated old house far away from civilization, these inbred monsters are cannibals and murderers, so the horror begins the moment the young people end up in the proverbial wrong place at the wrong time. Excepting sequences preceding the introduction of Leatherface, all of which are creepy, Hooper doesn’t really bother with the subtle art of building mood once the movie reaches cruising altitude—Leatherface kills someone in his first scene, and the bodies pile up as the movie progresses.

          Leatherface is so named because of the human-skin mask he wears over his features, and the pervasive gruesomeness found throughout the movie is just as nauseating as the reason for Leatherface’s moniker: A woman gets impaled on a meathook; a man gets it with a chainsaw; and so on. There’s actually not much gore in the movie, at least not nearly as much as one might expect, but Hooper makes clear exactly what’s happening so viewers can fill in the ugly pictures with their imaginations. Allegedly inspired by the crimes of real-life killer Ed Gein (who also inspired the novel that became Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 classic Psycho), Hooper’s movie is meticulously filmed, and despite a miniscule budget, the production design is sickeningly perfect. The central location will ring true for anyone who’s ever lived by a mysterious abandoned house, and the costuming of the film’s grotesque characters is so persuasive that simply looking at Leatherface’s family is enough to turn the stomach.

          The rare horror movie that’s truly horrific, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a unique piece of work that shouldn’t be tarnished by its association with myriad lesser sequels and remakes; Hooper’s original is unforgettable, in the worst possible way.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: GROOVY

Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster (1971) & Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) & Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973) & Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) & Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

          At the risk of antagonizing countless fans of a certain beloved behemoth, I believe the only artistically credible Godzilla movie is the Japanese-language original, Gojira (1954), a horrific atomic-age parable about a prehistoric monster drawn from the ocean’s depths by the use of nuclear weapons. Although exemplary in its original form, the picture was sloppily recut for American audiences, with new scenes featuring U.S. actor Raymond Burr inserted, and given the new title Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956). Thus began the diminishing of the Big G, whom most viewers of a certain age remember primarily as a stunt player in a silly-looking monster suit, stomping his way through scale-model sets in a seemingly endless series of goofy children’s movies. I confess that I dearly loved these movies until I was about 10 years old, and it is with no small measure of regret that I note how utterly these pictures have lost their ability to delight me.

          The sequel cycle started with Godzilla Raids Again (1955), and then continued through the ’60s with such self-explanatory flicks as King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) and Godzilla vs. Mothra (1964). Cheaply made and juvenile, these pictures were distinguished by campy special effects, comic-book-style fighting scenes, wild soundtracks, and, for American viewers, badly dubbed English-language dialogue played over scenes of Japanese actors mouthing words in their native tongue. By the mid-’60s, Godzilla had transformed from rampaging beast to crusading hero, an all-purpose savior summoned whenever an even worse radioactive critter threatened Japan.

          The Big G entered the ’70s with Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, which is compelling simply because it’s top-to-bottom insane. Riding the then-current trend of eco-themed cautionary tales, this one pits the Big G against a giant pile of sludge that represents man’s abuse of the environment. Describing the story is pointless, but the memorable bits include a sequence in which both Godzilla and Hedorah (aka the Smog Monster) learn to fly so they can fight in mid-air. Because, hey, why stop at fire-breathing dinosaurs and anthropomorphized detritus? Especially in its original Japanese version, Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster is incredibly weird, featuring random bits ranging from musical numbers (I’m still humming the melody of “Save the Earth” decades later) to psychedelic sequences—and did I mention that Godzilla flies? Of all the Big G’s ’70s adventures, this is the by far the most mind-meltingly odd.

          Next up is Godzilla vs. Gigan. In this one, the Big G battles a favorite foe from his ’60s romps, the three-headed flying dragon creature King Ghidorah, who is sent by aliens to conquer Earth. Aiding Godzilla is Anguirus, some kind of giant thorny dinosaur/lizard/turtle thing that appears periodically in the series, and the “Gigan” of the title is King Ghidorah’s ally, a Godzilla-like upright lizard monster with a bird-like beak and giant tusks for hands. You get the idea—Godzilla vs. Gigan is basically an episode of WWE Monday Night Raw with giant creatures instead of human wrestlers, a lot of noisy fighting and property destruction without much of a recognizable plot. And, yeah, this is the movie in which Godzilla speaks. The mind reels.

          Godzilla vs. Megalon was the follow-up, and this one has many fans among former ’70s kids because Godzilla’s sidekick is a giant superhero robot called Jet Jaguar (more on him in a minute). The main villain, Megalon, is another monster sent to conquer Earth, and he’s a lumbering Godzilla-like creature with an insect head and pointy drill-things for hands. Gigan returns, but this one’s all about Jet Jaguar—or, as his name is pronounced repeatedly, “Jet Jag-yoo-ar!” A silver-bodied robot with a pointed helmet and a splashy primary-colors costume, Jet Jaguar even has a theme song (which, appropriately enough for a Godzilla movie, is sung in a lounge-lizard style). The robot’s powers range from flying to magically transforming from human size to gigantic proportions. What’s not to like? Oh, and one more note about Godzilla vs. Megalon: Even though the story takes place entirely in Japan, the film’s super-duper-awesome American poster features the titular monsters standing atop the twin towers of New York City’s World Trade Center while they trade blows. Not for nothing did this memorably ridiculous image end up as the centerfold pin-up in the 1979 debut issue of Fangoria.

          The end of Godzilla’s original run manifested, appropriately enough, as a pair of films in which the Big G battles a mechanical version of himself—a sure sign the franchise’s creators had run out of ideas. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla is yet another monster mash, with a combination of new characters and old ones—the fresh creatures include Mechagodzilla, who looks like Godzilla wearing silver battle armor, and the weird King Caesar, a dog/lion/reptile/whatever. The narrative of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla is enervated even by the low standards of the series, and the trite doppelgänger device loses its novelty quickly. That said, the production values of the Godzilla movies kicked up a notch once Mechagodzilla hit the scene, so the final ’70s entries have an appealing level of sci-fi spit and polish even if the onscreen mayhem is sillier than ever. By this point, it seems the Big G had become a form of cinematic comfort food, so the folks at Toho (the production company behind the whole series) mostly concentrated on delivering such familiar flavors as Godzilla’s ominous theme music and the Big G’s inimitable roar with the most flamboyant packaging possible.

          Underscoring the notion of creative fatigue, the fake Godzilla returned in Terror of Mechagodzilla, which picks up where the previous film left off—not that continuity matters much in this series. Stomping through miniature cities along with the dual Godzillas is Titanosaurus, a giant red-and-blue dinosaur/fish/lizard beastie, who is—of course!—controlled by the same aliens who tried to conquer Earth in several previous movies. Can you say “running on fumes”? That answer to that question is naturally “yes,” but appraising the relative quality of Godzilla’s ’70s adventures is somewhat beside the point. Unlike, say, the James Bond series, in which producers try with each new film to outdo the predecessor in terms of scale and spectacle, the Godzilla movies are like episodes of a TV show. Some installments have cooler monsters, some installments have more impressive fight scens, and some installments drift way too far into campiness. Yet each delivers the goods, inasmuch as Godzilla shows up, tussles, and leaves. Viewed that way, each of the ’70s Godzilla movies is equally good or equally poor, depending on your affinity for the character—although I stand behind singling out Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster as a demented high point.

          The Big G took a much-needed rest after the Mechagodzilla movies, reappearing a decade later in The Return of Godzilla (1984). Since the mid-’80s, the rompin’-stompin’ fire-breather has resurfaced many times, in cartoons, comic books, myriad Japanese films, and even a big-budget Hollywood release, the 1998 underperformer Godzilla, with Matthew Broderick. Although a Matrix­-flavored 2004 Japanese release—the 28th in the series!—was optimistically titled Godzilla: Final Wars, the Big G resurfaced once more with a megabudget American reboot, Godzilla (2014), featuring Bryan Cranston, and a sequel to that picture has already been announced.

Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster: FREAKY

Godzilla vs. Gigan: FUNKY

Godzilla vs. Megalon: FUNKY

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla: FUNKY

Terror of Mechagodzilla: FUNKY

A Small Town in Texas (1976)

Man, if this one lived up to its poster, the movie would be killer. Unfortunately, A Small Town in Texas is not the lean, mean exploitation flick one might expect. It awkwardly straddles drive-in sleaziness and legitimate dramatic terrain, and a movie trying to be two things succeeds in being neither. For instance, leading man Timothy Bottoms, a strong presence when playing sensitive souls, is miscast as a rootin’-tootin’ wild man with a penchant for bikes, booze, and brawling, so the actor’s endearing persona is neutralized and the potential of the role is unrealized. When we meet Poke Jackson (Bottoms), he’s just gotten out of jail following a pot bust, and he’s ready for vengeance against Sheriff Duke (Bo Hopkins), the small-town cop who sent Poke up the river. Poke’s grudge against the lawman grows deeper when he realizes that the whole time he’s been in jail, Duke has been courting Poke’s girl, Mary Lee (Susan George). Had that been the whole story, A Small Town in Texas could have been a tidy little package of low-rent nastiness. Yet screenwriter William Norton adds a layer of political corruption that never quite coalesces into a worthwhile subplot, with Duke and rancher C.J. Crane (Morgan Woodward) executing some sort of power grab over their municipality. As a result of this extraneous material, the promising Duke/Poke tension gets dissipated, and poor Mary Lee gets relegated to whimpering while Duke threatens bodily harm against her once-and-future significant other. The action in A Small Town in Texas doesn’t get underway until the 40-minute mark, and even though things eventually become gruesome—beatings, deaths, explosions—the movie never tips over into the gleeful excess of gen-yoo-wine Southern-fried trash cinema. It’s all a bit too restrained, with tasteful widescreen compositions and solid production values, so in the most important particulars (for this sort of picture, that is), A Small Town in Texas fails to impress. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

A Small Town in Texas: LAME

The Revolutionary (1970)

          On the plus side, this counterculture-themed drama has a strong sense of time and place. Even though it was shot in England, the movie somehow evokes a vivid sense of America in the student-revolt era, from pristine campuses to trash-strewn ghettos. Furthermore, director Paul Williams and cinematographer Brian Probyn artfully situate characters within painterly shots to provide context for how people relate to different environments. And the overarching narrative is interesting because it tracks how a troubled student shifts from posturing campus demonstrator to radicalized anarchist. Unfortunately, the weakest element of The Revolutionary is the most fundamental one—Hans Koningsberger’s script, which he adapted from his own novel of the same name.

          For instance, the lead character is known only as “A,” even though we see nearly every aspect of his life—his classwork, his home, his lover, his parents—so it’s clear right from the start that Koningsberger can’t decide whether to operate on a metaphorical or realistic plane. Worse, the storyline is logy and meandering, with excessive screen time devoted to uninteresting relationships. Much of the movie comprises A’s romance with Helen (Jennifer Salt), a rich girl whose lifestyle is pure Establishment, so it seems as if the focus is A choosing between creature comforts and political integrity. But then, nearly three-quarters of the way through the movie, A joins forces with Leonard II (Seymour Cassel), a radical whose activism involves outright lawlessness. So if the story is about how far A will go to serve his principles, then why bother with the Helen scenes or, for that matter, the unsatisfying bits with Despard (Robert Duvall), a mid-level organizer who debates politics with A but never has much impact on the overall narrative?

          To be fair, the goal of The Revolutionary may simply have been to raise questions. However, the sponginess of the story is compounded by the middling nature of Voight’s performance. Yes, it’s tough to dramatize a character who’s racked by indecision, but spending 100 minutes watching someone almost do this and almost do that challenges viewers’ patience. Still, the film gets points for tackling worthwhile subject matter, and the technical execution is terrific. (Composer Michael Small deserves special mention for imbuing many scenes with tension.) Yet just like director Williams’ next film, the drug drama Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (1972), The Revolutionary strives for profundity it never quite achieves. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

The Revolutionary: FUNKY

Welcome to L.A. (1976)

          After making a pair of schlocky horror flicks, writer-director Alan Rudolph finally got to make a proper film with the help of A-list auteur Robert Altman, who served as Rudolph’s producer for Welcome to L.A. Given the “Robert Altman presents” imprimatur, however, it’s hard not to perceive Welcome to L.A. as Altman Lite, especially since Rudolph emulates his producer’s filmmaking style by presenting a loosely intertwined mosaic of cynical stories. Yet while Altman’s best ensemble movies sparkle with idiosyncratic humor, Welcome to L.A. is monotonous, a downbeat slog comprising vapid Los Angelenos doing rotten things for unknowable reasons.

          The character holding everything together is Carroll Barber (Keith Carradine), a self-absorbed rich kid who fancies himself a songwriter and who spends the movie accruing sexual conquests. Some of the uninteresting people orbiting Carroll are Ann (Sally Kellerman), a pathetic real-estate agent given to humiliating displays of unrequited affection; Karen (Geraldine Chaplin), a spacey housewife who spends her days riding around the city in taxis; Linda (Sissy Spacek), a ditzy housekeeper who works topless; Nona (Lauren Hutton), a kept woman who takes arty photographs; and Susan (Viveca Lindfors), an insufferably pretentious talent representative in love with a much-younger man. Harvey Keitel and Denver Pyle appear as well, though Rudolph is clearly much more interested in the feminine mystique than the inner lives of men.

          Rudolph structures the film like a concept album, using music to bridge vignettes, and this arty contrivance doesn’t work. Part of the problem is that singer-songwriter Richard Baskin, who provides the song score and also performs several numbers onscreen, prefers the song form of the shapeless dirge. Which, come to think of it, is not a bad way to describe Welcome to L.A. While Rudolph obviously envisioned some sort of Grand Statement about the ennui of modern city dwellers, he instead crafted an interminable recitation of trite themes. Worse, Rudolph employs juvenile flourishes such as having characters stare at the camera, as if viewers will somehow see into the characters’ souls. Sorry, but isn’t providing insight the filmmaker’s job? (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Welcome to L.A.: LAME

Bananas (1971) & Sleeper (1973) & Love and Death (1975)

          Comedian-turned-filmmaker Woody Allen’s first full-fledged directorial effort was the lighthearted crime satire Take the Money and Run (1969), which underwent massive surgery during postproduction but ended up being brisk, charming, and funny—a learning experience for Allen, an enjoyable viewing experience for everyone else. Entering the ’70s, Allen demonstrated smoother filmmaking skills with Bananas, a farce set amid civil unrest in Latin America. Allen plays the wonderfully named Fielding Mellish, a New York City putz desperate to get political activist Nancy (Louise Lasser) into bed. Trying to impress her, Fielding travels to the fictional country of San Marcos and inadvertently joins a band of local revolutionaries. (The sequence of Fielding training to become a machine-gun-toting guerilla is a high point of early Allen slapstick.) Eventually, through farcical circumstances, Fielding becomes the Castro-like leader of the revolutionaries—resulting in the hilarious sight of Allen sporting a giant, Castro-esque beard tinted to match Allen’s red hair. Bananas climaxes with a riotous courtroom scene in which Fielding is tried for his un-American activities. (As one borough-bred accuser says, “He’s a bad apple! A commie! A New York, Jewish, intellectual, communist crackpot! I mean, I don’t wanna cast no aspersions.”) Lasser makes a terrific foil for Allen, and the movie benefits greatly from brevity, since it’s only 82 minutes—so, while Bananas is very silly, it’s also very amusing. And with the success of Bananas, the cycle of what later came to be termed Allen’s “early, funny ones” (the goofy comedies he made before tackling serious subject matter at the end of the ’70s) was underway.

          After a busy 1972, during which Allen starred in but did not direct the adaptation of his stage play Play It Again, Sam, which was his first movie with Diane Keaton—and made his only sketch movie, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), which was adapted from a popular nonfiction book—Allen returned to Bananas mode with the sci-fi comedy Sleeper. Once again placing a comically exaggerated version of his neurotic self into an outrageous circumstance, Allen plays Miles Monroe, the proprietor of a New York City health-food store. Accidentally thrown into suspended animation for 200 years, Miles awakes in a future America controlled by an Orwellian government. Quickly realizing he’s a target in this strange world, Miles disguises himself as a servant robot and hides in the household of Luna Schlosser (Keaton), thus commencing a gleefully convoluted plot involving conspiracies, spies, and, of course, the Orgasmatron. Allen pushes his slapstick almost to the breaking point here; at one point, he dons a giant, inflatable suit that carries him off into the sky. Yet some of the movie’s verbal interplay is memorably deft, and the chemistry between Allen and Keaton is fantastic—she’s probably his best-ever scene partner for pure comedy. As with Bananas, however, Sleeper suffers for a lack of substance, even though the jokes are solid. In fact, for some fans, Sleeper represents the apex of Allen’s breakthrough period.

          The last of Allen’s “early, funny ones” was the offbeat Love and Death, which mined humor from the unlikely source of classic Russian literature. Riffing on the novels of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and others—the definition of dense, depressing fiction—Allen puts his patented New York schmuck character into the most outrageous setting yet. Wearing his signature horn-rimmed glasses, a running anachronistic joke since the movie takes place in the early 19th century, Allen plays Boris Grushenko, a coward (of course) who half-heartedly joins the Russian Army during the battle against Napoleon, and then becomes an unlikely hero. While the fish-out-of-water formula was getting a little thin by this point, Love and Death boasts Allen’s most sophisticated writing to date—how could it not, given the lofty subject matter?—and another winning collaboration with Keaton. Furthermore, Love and Death provides hints of the serious-minded artistry Allen would soon explore. The movie is laced with shout-outs to Bergman movies and silent Russian cinema, which are juxtaposed with cheerfully dumb sight gags. Clearly, Allen was itching to make something more meaningful than another pure joke machine, and with his next movie, 1977’s Annie Hall, he transformed the whole notion of a “Woody Allen film” into something complex, daring, and exciting.

Bananas: GROOVY

Sleeper: GROOVY

Love and Death: GROOVY