The Voyage (1974)

          The final feature directed by venerable Italian filmmaker Vittorio De Sica, The Voyage is little more than a maudlin soap opera with the trappings of an art movie. Starring Richard Burton at his most disinterested and Sophia Loren at her most earnest, the movie is brisk and watchable but almost laughably trite. Why so many talented people combined their efforts to generate something this fundamentally mediocre is a mystery. Still, as romantic tearjerkers go, one could do worse than spending 102 minutes enjoying Burton’s mellifluous baritone and Loren’s legendary physical gifts. Set in turn-of-the-century Sicily, the movie begins with the reading of a will. After their father dies, brothers Cesare Braggi (Burton) and Antonio Braggi (Ian Bannen) are bequeathed control over the family’s considerable fortune. As the older brother, somber Cesare is charged with looking after business—including the arrangement of marriage between Antonio and Adriana de Mauro (Loren), the daughter of a working-class family with social ties to the Braggi clan. The complication is that Adriana and Cesare have been in love with each other for years, though they’ve never made their feelings known. (The reason why the would-be lovers kept their affection secret remains unclear throughout the film, creating a significant plot hole.) Adhering to his father’s wishes, Cesare oversees the marriage, and then suffers in silence—until circumstances introduce tragedy, happiness, and still more tragedy into the lives of the characters.

          Considering De Sica’s reputation for sophisticated social realism, it’s shocking how little material of substance makes its way into The Voyage. There’s some lip service given to class differences, but mostly the picture is preoccupied with Cesare’s operatic martyrdom, Antonio’s simple-minded innocence, and Adriana’s difficulty reconciling cultural expectations with romantic desire. Working in the film’s favor are lush production values and a quick pace, though the film’s brevity is partially enabled by the use of bluntly expositional dialogue. (Full disclosure: I committed the ultimate foreign-film travesty by watching the dubbed English-language version of The Voyage, so the use of language in the original version may be more graceful.) Burton, as always, is interesting to watch even when it’s clear he doesn’t give a shit about his work—his command of language and his natural intensity shine through. As for Loren, perpetually more noteworthy as a screen presence than as an actor, she’s beautiful and endearing, though the apex of her performance borders on camp. Yes, dear readers, Ms. Loren gets to play that old movie-queen song of a noble heroine suffering a disease without unattractive symptoms.

The Voyage: FUNKY

Mister Scarface (1976)

          Filmed in Italian and then dubbed into English for its American release, the mob flick Mister Scarface—also known as Rulers of the City—offers a passable mixture of action, humor, intrigue, and violence. Like many substandard crime pictures, the movie has too much plot and not enough character development, so after a while it gets hard to follow who’s doing what to whom, and why, except in the broadest strokes. Plus, nominal leading man Jack Palance plays a secondary role as the titular villain, while German hunk Harry Baer (issuing a voice provided by some random American actor) is the true star. Nonetheless, the fast-paced Mister Scarface has some mildly exciting fight scenes, a smattering of physical comedy, and even eye candy in the form of attractive starlets occupying the periphery of the storyline. The movie is also executed with more care than the usual grindhouse-level fare, excepting a narrative that goes off the rails halfway through, so it’s possible to find a measure of mindless enjoyment—that is, for viewers willing to overlook the major obstacle created by voices that don’t match the lip movements of onscreen actors.

          Baer stars as Tony, a Mafia loan collector with an easygoing attitude. During the movie’s lighthearted first half, Tony goes about his daily business, charming attractive women and unleashing wisecrack-laden martial-arts violence on victims. Tony’s boss, Luigi (Edmund Purdom), gives Tony the thankless task of collecting a debt from high-level mobster Manzara, also known as “Mister Scarface” (Palance). To avoid revealing his identity to Scarface, whom Tony knows to be vengeful, Tony arranges a complex rip-off scheme and successfully reclaims Luigi’s money. Scarface does the math, however, and has Luigi killed before vowing to annihilate Tony. In the movie’s darker second half, Tony and two low-level Mob buddies—Napoli (Vittorio Caprioli) and Ric (Al Cliver)—simultaneously avoid Scarface’s goons and draw Scarface into a deadly showdown. While action fans won’t encounter anything in Mister Scarface they haven’t seen a zillion times before, there’s still fun to be had watching Palance scowl with a cigarette holder in his lips, or watching Baer romp through impressive fighting scenes. Chances are the Italian-language original version is even livelier, but searching for that probably isn’t worth the trouble.

Mister Scarface: FUNKY

Black Hooker (1974)

Also known as Street Sisters, this abysmal drama was written and directed by a gentleman named Arthur Roberson, who apparently adapted the material from his own play. There’s a good reason this project represents the entirety of Roberson’s cinematic output, because Black Hooker manages to be confusing, pretentious, sleazy, and unintentionally funny all at once. Set during the Depression, the convoluted story revolves around a character known as “Painted Woman” (Sandra Alexander), who leaves her impoverished family’s home to become a prostitute. After getting knocked up by a white client, Painted Woman dumps her kid, Young Boy (Teddy Quinn), with her parents—saintly matriarch Grandma (Kathryn Jackson) and strident preacher Grandpa (Jeff Burton). Extended flash-forwards to Young Boy’s early adulthood make very little sense because Painted Woman looks exactly the same in both timeframes. The movie’s befuddling narrative includes such gruesome events as Grandpa’s rape/seduction of his grandson’s hot girlfriend and a murder scene laced with incestuous implications. Somehow, there’s also room for musical numbers and a quasi-surrealistic graveyard scene presented in sepia tone. Compounding clarity problems stemming from incompetent storytelling and terrible acting, the film’s soundtrack is a mess, with lots of re-recorded dialogue slapped into scenes that were shot without on-camera speech. There’s a vague connection between this horrendous movie and the historically important silent films of pioneering black director Oscar Micheaux (especially 1920’s Within Our Gates), but while Micheaux’s rickety dramaturgy is forgivable in light of his incendiary political content, Roberson’s picture is merely a disaster with a misguided sense of purpose. Exacerbating the ignominious nature of this enterprise, the tile Black Hooker—and a hilariously deceptive marketing campaign exemplified by the above poster—were slapped onto the movie as a means of piggybacking on the success of blaxploitation, even though Black Hooker is not in the least a blaxploitation picture.

Black Hooker: SQUARE

Hugo the Hippo (1975)

          Partially because of the usual attrition one experiences during life, and partially because my family moved a large number of times while I was younger, I no longer possess many artifacts from my childhood. Yet for a good three decades, I inexplicably retained a paperback tie-in book for the 1975 animated musical Hugo the Hippo—even though I have no recollection of seeing the movie during its original release. More likely than not, I held onto the book for the colorful illustrations, which showcase an ornate style of line art. In any event, the book finally drifted out of my life a few years ago, but the normal business of this blog led me to track down Hugo the Hippo itself. And while I can’t describe the experience of watching the movie as one of tarnishing a beloved memory, I worry for the sanity of my younger self if seeing Hugo the Hippo was something I deemed worthy of commemorating. One can only hope the book was a gift from some misguided relative.

          Originally made in Hungary, but later dubbed into English and festooned with an American song score, Hugo the Hippo is easily among the weirdest children’s films of the ’70s, which is saying a lot. The movie is alternately cloying, disturbing, dull, offensive, psychedelic, saccharine, and tragic. Not many pictures contain gentle ballads sung by Marie Osmond as well as shockingly racist portrayals of black people, but Hugo Hippo does.

          Set in Tanzania, the bizarre picture begins when sharks invade the port of Zanzibar, frightening away the porters who work waist-deep in the water every day and forcing the Sultan of Zanzibar to seek a remedy. The Sultan orders the importation of a dozen hippos, which presumably can drive the sharks away. Entrusted with the task is the Sultan’s green-faced Minister of Finance, sadistic schemer Aban-Khan. He leads a hunting party into the jungle, and they successfully acquire animals including little Hugo, the adorable son of the King of the Hippos. Released into the harbor, the hippos defeat the sharks but are subsequently abandoned and slaughtered, turning Hugo into an orphan. Desperate to survive, Hugo escapes to a farming community and eats crops until he’s arrested and put on trial (!), becoming the center of a conflict between the goodhearted children of Tanzania and the nature-hating adults.

          Yes, Hugo the Hippo is yet another ’70s movie riding the environmental-crusade bandwagon.

          Nearly every scene in Hugo the Hippo is so peculiar as to seem like part of a drug-induced hallucination, which means that a complete inventory of the picture’s oddities would take too long. A few highlights shall suffice. In one sequence, Hugo and his best pal, a little boy named Jorma, have a food-themed dream that culminates with Hugo and Jorma evading corn cannons and pumpkin samurai by riding a giant butterfly toward a planet made of cauliflower. Seriously. Elsewhere, Jorma and other children serenade Hugo with these promises: “If you go to jail, we’ll get parole for you; if you go below, we’ll save your soul for you.” FYI, this ditty about venturing into hell to rescue a hippo is sung by Marie’s little brother, Jimmy Osmond. Unbelievably, it gets worse. The voice of Aban-Khan is provided by game-show staple Paul Lynde, the bitchiest queen of the ’70s, so every line the villain speaks sounds like an example of gay camp.

          And as syrupy-sweet as some of the songs performed by the Osmonds and by Burl Ives are, the underscore is dark, giving parts of Hugo the Hippo the texture of a surreal horror movie. How horrific? Let’s try the montage of sharks eating everyone in the harbor or the sequence in which Aban-Khan systematically murders Hugo’s entire family. And then there’s the racist content—think monkeys performing a Harlem Globetrotters-style routine (completely with whistling), or Jorma enjoying his favorite breakfast cereal, “Jungle Pops.” On every single level except artistic execution—thanks to a gorgeous color palette and relatively ornate line work—this movie is about as wrong as the ’70s gets, so I’m glad that time has erased the reasons why Hugo the Hippo first entered my young life.

Hugo the Hippo: FREAKY

And Soon the Darkness (1970)

          Before he found his cinematic groove with the campy horror picture The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), which combined flamboyant storytelling with stylish production design, British director Robert Fuest made varied films including this atmospheric thriller about two young women who encounter a dangerous stranger while traveling through Europe. Although handsomely photographed and tastefully staged, And Soon the Darkness is a good 30 minutes too long considering the threadbare nature of the storyline. As a result, the picture is painfully dull for long stretches, even though it’s a respectable piece overall.

          And Soon the Darkness follows English nurses Cathy (Michele Dotrice) and Jane (Pamela Franklin), who spend their vacation making a bicycle tour of rural France. One afternoon, the girls stop for a rest in a roadside clearing, but the idyll leads to a quarrel—frisky Cathy wants to slow the trip down so she can seek romantic adventures, while prim Jane is determined to follow a rigid schedule. Jane leaves Cathy in the clearing and bikes to the next town, where she overhears locals talking about a murder that occurred in the area some time previous. Spooked, Jane returns to where she left Cathy, only to discover her friend is missing. Complicating matters is the recurring presence of Paul (Sandor Elés), a handsome stranger whom the girls have noticed several times in their travels; he conveniently appears at the location where Cathy was last seen and offers assistance to Jane, though his motives remain mysterious. Once all the pieces of the narrative puzzle are in place, Fuest and screenwriters Brian Clemens and Terry Nation play Hitchcockian suspense games, creating ambiguity about what might have happened to Cathy and what role Paul may or may not have played in nefarious events.
          Franklin has a appropriately mousy quality and Elés oozes smarminess, so all of this could have worked quite well had the pacing been stronger. Alas, And Soon the Darkness foreshadows problems that Fuest had in later films of sustaining interest all the way from beginning to end. Still, this isn’t a bad little thriller, especially since the movie feels credible and looks good. In fact, And Soon the Darkness has engendered enough goodwill over the years that a Hollywood remake emerged in 2010, starring Amber Heard in the role that Franklin originated.

And Soon the Darkness: FUNKY

Gus (1976)

Live-action Disney movies from the ’70s often courted abject stupidity but remained watchable thanks to charming acting and energetic physical comedy. Alas, some of the studio’s pictures from this era were so moronic that even the valiant efforts of skilled comic performers were insufficient to maintain interest. For example, Gus is about a Yugoslavian mule named Gus that becomes an NFL field-goal kicker. The folks at Disney loved telling stories about animals becoming involved in human endeavors, with the innate cuteness of, say, chimpanzees or dogs providing much of the appeal. Yet calling a mule “cute” is a stretch—even when the filmmakers dress the titular animal in a custom-built football helmet and jersey. Plus, the mildly amusing image of Gus kicking field goals loses its novelty quickly. The movie’s insipid plot revolves around a dismal NFL team that enlists the mule out of desperation, thereby attracting the attention of nefarious types who don’t want the scheme to succeed. Struggling to make all of this bearable is a solid cast of Disney regulars and familiar actors from the worlds of film and television. Gary Grimes, the earnest young star of ’70s films including Summer of ’42 (1971), concluded his brief feature career by starring as Andy Petrovic, Gus’ handler. Grimes shares most of his scenes with Ed Asner, who plays a team owner; Don Knotts, who plays a coach; and real-life former NFL player Dick Butkus, who plays Gus’ gridiron rival. (Forgettable starlet Louise Williams portrays Andy’s love interest.) Other pros appearing in Gus include Bob Crane, Harold Gould, and Dick Van Patten, with Happy Days guy Tom Bosley and slapstick favorite Tim Conway forming a comic team as crooks hired to menace the mule. Suffice to say that the “highlight” of the movie is the interminable climax during which Bosley and Conway chase Gus through a grocery store, causing lots of property damage in the process. Like many of Disney’s lesser offerings, Gus is harmless and might amuse very small children, but it’s a grim 95 minutes for grown-up viewers.

Gus: LAME

Visit to a Chief’s Son (1974)

          Well-intentioned and bursting with impressive production values, the family-friendly adventure film Visit to a Chief’s Son depicts the friendship between a white American boy and a young member of the African Maasai tribe. Although the movie lacks sufficient dramatic conflict, Visit to a Chief’s Son is passable because it explores virtuous themes. The story begins when American anthropologist Robert (Richard Mulligan)—accompanied by his preteen son, Kevin (John Philip Hogdon)—travels to the eastern section of central Africa in order to film a solar eclipse. Robert quickly becomes interested in the Maasai tribe, whom he observes during filming. Adhering to pre-technological ways (the use of the pejorative term “primitive” is largely avoided), the Maasai hunt with spears and engage in bloody rituals of physical modification and strenuous challenge. Robert asks for permission to film the Maasai’s culture, but he meets with resistance from the chief, who fears being exploited. Meanwhile, Kevin befriends the chief’s son, Codonyo (Jesse Kinaru), and the two share such escapades as exploring forests and venturing to swimming holes. Yet Kevin makes several ignorant mistakes (e.g., inadvertently aiming a gun at the Maasai), so his presence complicates Robert’s quest for acceptance.
          This being a warm-hearted family picture, the outcome is never in much doubt, and, indeed, moving directly toward a predictable ending makes Visit to a Chief’s Son somewhat dull. That said, director Lamont Johnson keeps things brisk, and the plentiful images of African wildlife and of Maasai rituals are interesting. Critters on display include flamingos, hippos, jackals, lions, monkeys, reptiles, and zebras (to say nothing of the flies that buzz around every exposed patch of skin). Long National Geographic-type montages of Codonyo and Kevin wandering through the wilderness, with syrupy music by Francis Lai on the soundtrack, are underwhelming. Adding to the sleepiness of the piece are Hogdon’s non-presence as a performer and the fact that Mulligan’s comic gifts are never utilized. Costar Johnny Sekka, who plays a Maasai native educated in England, easily steals the picture by imparting a sense of dry irony; watching Sekka’s character reveal new skills at every turn is enjoyable. Alas, while the 88 minutes of Visit to a Chief’s Son offer fascinating glimpses at Maasai culture, the film’s entertainment value is ultimately nominal.

Visit to a Chief’s Son: FUNKY

The River Niger (1976)

          Offering a potent alternative to the stereotypical content in blaxploitation films, a handful of serious dramas with primarily African-American casts were released in the ’70s, including Black Girl (1972), Claudine (1974), and this adaptation of a Tony-winning play by Joseph A. Walker. Originally presented in New York by the progressive Negro Ensemble Company, The River Niger is intense and political but loaded with so many hot-button signifiers that, seen today, it seems a bit more like a highlight reel of the Black Power movement than a proper drama. Walker crams in Afrocentrism, Black Panther-style militarized activism, the resentment felt by black Vietnam veterans, the ravages of alcoholism among urban African-Americans, and myriad other incendiary topics. Thus, even though the story pulls these threads together, more or less, by focusing on the troubles that plague a single black family, The River Niger feels episodic and pretentious, as if Walker felt compelled to address every single subject that was important to African-Americans during the early ’70s.

          In the broadest stokes, the movie depicts what happens the week that Vietnam vet Jeff Williams (Glynn Turman) comes home from the war to his family in Los Angeles. Jeff’s father, Jonny (James Earl Jones), is a drunk who dabbles in writing poetry; Jeff’s mother, Mattie (Cicely Tyson), is a strong matriarch trying to prevent her loved ones from learning she has cancer; and Jeff’s friend, Big Moe Hayes (Roger E. Mosley), is a militant caught up in an ongoing hassle with the LAPD. Suffice to say, tensions are as plentiful as plotlines. Combined with narrative-flow problems in the screen version (also written by Walker), this kitchen-sink approach to dramaturgy makes The River Niger a tough film to slog through. Worst among the narrative-flow problems is Walker’s inability to command pacing and tone; the movie jumps abruptly from intense scenes to light ones, and Walker misses myriad opportunities to group similar scenes together and/or use cross-cutting to create dramatic counterpoint. Director Krishna Shah seems equally adrift, occasionally using interesting devices—flash cuts of African masks, a striking camera angle looking over the barrel of a gun—without ever locking into a consistent style.

          Even the acting, by a cast of normally reliable performers, is inconsistent. Jones has many beautiful moments, especially when reciting poetry, but his belligerent-drunk bits get tiresome. Tyson, perpetually and rightly cast as personifications of principle, is formidable but humorless. Turman, at his best when loosest, is tight in the extreme, delivering rigid body language and stilted line deliveries. Even the always-interesting Louis Gossett Jr. is merely okay, playing the family’s doctor with a campy Jamaican accent. Holding the film together, to some degree, is a funk/R&B score by one of the quintessential ’70s bands, War, though none of their melodies connect as strongly as their loping grooves.

The River Niger: 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

Concrete Cowboys (1979)

          The TV movie Concrete Cowboys is a staple of DVD bargain bins everywhere, and packaging usually suggests that small-screen icon Tom Selleck is the picture’s leading man. Yet Selleck actually costars with good-ol’-boy country singer Jerry Reed, who gained mainstream attention by appearing in several Burt Reynolds movies and then built a respectable acting career. Anyway, Concrete Cowboys was made as the pilot for a proposed detective series, but the show didn’t materialize for another two years. (More on that later.) The movie concerns easygoing drifters J.D. (Reed) and Will (Selleck), who hop a train headed for Hollywood, with only the vaguest notions of what they’ll do for money upon reaching California. When the train passes through Nashville, country-music superfan J.D. insists on stopping for a visit. The boys contact their friend Lonnie (Randy Powell), a Nashville-based PI, and crash at Lonnie’s place while Lonnie travels for work. Thus, when a mousy young woman named Kate (Morgan Fairchild) shows up at Lonnie’s door looking for investigative assistance, the boys pretend to be PIs so they can earn a quick buck. This puts them on the trail of Kate’s missing sister, Carla (also played by Fairchild), a wannabe country singer. Chases, intrigue, and plot twists ensue.

          Yet Concrete Cowboys is less about the mystery at the heart of the narrative and more about the cutesy bickering between the protagonists. Reed plays slick and wired, while Selleck goes for forthright and quiet. Both actors put in valiant efforts, but their energies never coalesce into the wonderful intangible of chemistry. Further slowing the picture’s momentum is the sluggish plot, which relies on such hokey devices as an actress playing dual roles and various characters giving conflicting recollections of the missing girl. Even the main plot hook is a tired cliché—the ambitious starlet willing to sleep with anyone who might help her find success. In its favor, Concrete Cowboys has the novelty of a Nashville setting, complete with cameos by legit country-music stars Roy Acuff, Barbara Mandrell, and Ray Stevens. (Stevens performs one of his signature comic tunes during a nightclub scene.) In the end, though, it’s unsurprising that this pilot did not immediately beget a series. And by the time that finally happened in 1981, Selleck had gotten a show of his own (Magnum, P.I.), so Reed inherited Geoffrey Scott as a costar for the very short run of the Concrete Cowboys weekly show.

Concrete Cowboys: FUNKY

The Candy Snatchers (1973)

          Even by the grim standards of ’70s exploitation cinema, The Candy Snatchers is a nasty piece of business. Other movies from the same period are more disturbing and/or sadistic, but few can match this kidnapping drama for sheer nihilism—nearly everyone in this movie is a sociopath, and a catastrophic body count accrues by the time the final credits roll. Along the way to the bloodbath finale, the movie features abduction, adultery, deceit, extortion, premature burial, and rape. The Candy Snatchers is not made with sufficient craft to qualify as a truly unsettling picture, since everything that happens onscreen feels artificial, but it’s a heavy trip nonetheless. Reportedly inspired by a real-life kidnapping that went awry, the picture concerns three would-be criminals, man-child Eddy (Vince Martorano) and siblings Alan (Brad David) and Jessie (Tiffany Bolling). Eddy is the muscle of the group, while attractive WASPs Alan and Jesse are the brains. All three hope to score easy money thereby and avoid getting jobs “for the man.”

          Their chosen target is middle-class prick Avery (Ben Piazza), the manager of a jewelry store. The crooks kidnap Avery’s teenage daughter, Candy (Susan Sennett), and then demand Avery give them all the diamonds in his store. Alas, the crooks never suspected that Avery is even more devious than they are—it turns out that Candy is only Avery’s stepdaughter, and that Avery had been looking for a way to kill her so he claim part of the large inheritance she’s due to receive upon reaching legal adulthood. This wrinkle complicates the kidnapping scheme in myriad ways, leading to deadly outcomes for many of the involved parties.

          Although the basic plot of The Candy Snatchers is creepy and surprising, the execution is mediocre at best. Screenwriter Bryan Gindoff provides clunky dialogue and dull plotting, while director Guerdon Trueblood films events in lifeless style. As for the acting, it’s all over the place. Piazza fares best, conveying a sense of banal evil, and David is okay as a burgeoning serial killer. Glamorous starlet Bolling has a few decent moments of iciness, though she seems amateurish during emotional scenes. Martorano runs the biggest gamut, since he’s quasi-affecting in vulnerable moments and cartoonish whenever conveying rage. In the end, The Candy Snatchers doesn’t merit especially close attention, though it unquestionably possesses more purpose and substance than the average sex-and-violence B-movie. Still, the film’s double-entendre title is probably better than the film itself.

The Candy Snatchers: FUNKY

Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1973)

          Like most concert films, the David Bowie picture Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars can be appraised on at least three levels—cinematic value, historical interest, and musical merit. As a film, it’s nothing special, with veteran rock-doc helmer D.A. Pennebaker operating on autopilot as he captures the final performance of Bowie in his flamboyant stage persona as space-alien rocker Ziggy Stardust. In terms of historical interest, Ziggy Stardust scores a bit higher, since it preserves Bowie at the apex of his breakout period, performing early hits including “Space Oddity” and “Suffragette City” while wearing androgynous clothes and sporting a blood-red mullet. Musically, however, Ziggy Stardust is terrific. Watching Bowie and his tight band, led by guitar hero Mick Ronson, blast through “Changes” and covers of “Let’s Spend the Night Together” and “White Light/White Heat” is, like the saying goes, as close as one can get to being there.

          Bowie had been working the Ziggy persona for a couple of years by the time he and his band, the Spiders from Mars, hit the stage of London’s Hammersmith Odeon in July 1973. Manipulating gender signifiers and playing games with reality had done wonders for the singer’s career, elevating him to the status of supernatural pop-culture shaman. Yet Bowie was ready to hang up the glam-rock affectations of elaborate makeup and flamboyant costumes. Thus, Pennebaker found just the right moment to train his cameras on the singer’s tour. (According to the lore around the film, Pennebaker didn’t know at the beginning of the project that Bowie was planning to end his Ziggy period at the end of the Odeon show.) Had Pennebaker gained greater access, Ziggy Stardust could easily have become a definitive rock chronicle. Instead, the only bits in the film that take place offstage are inconsequential interludes of stylists helping Bowie into his costumes, as well as a brief montage of shots featuring fans waiting outside the theater. Even the fleeting moment when former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr shows up to hang backstage with Bowie fails to make an impression.
          Worse, the actual filming of the concert scenes is merely okay. Clearly battling with problems related to low lighting inside the theater, Pennebaker often employs shots that are grainy and/or underexposed; he also has so few camera positions that the editing feels repetitive and unimaginative. Nonetheless, Bowie’s dynamic stagecraft and vibrant music save the day. Sometimes, Bowie slips into art-rock affectation (e.g., his extended mime routine), but at other times he rips through numbers including “All the Young Dudes” and “Watch that Man” with an impressive combination of ferocity and precision. In lieu of a better document for this key phase of Bowie’s career, Ziggy Stardust communicates the power of his early-’70s live performances adequately.

Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: FUNKY

Son of Dracula (1974)

          In the years immediately following the demise of the Beatles, George Harrison, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney each found individual musical success, but the band’s easygoing drummer, Ringo Starr, wasn’t naturally suited to solo pop stardom. Therefore, even as he periodically released music, Starr had time for such other endeavors as acting and film producing. Starr’s cinematic hobby reached a strange climax with Son of Dracula, a comedy/horror musical featuring singer Harry Nilsson in the title role. Nilsson, a friend of Lennon’s and Starr’s who was as notable for his epic drinking as for his offbeat pop music, demonstrates zero screen presence as the modern-day heir to Count Dracula’s netherworld throne—despite performing a number of exciting tunes both onscreen and on the soundtrack (including one of his biggest hits, the mournful ballad “Without You’), Nilsson’s appearance in the film is merely a novelty. Similarly, Starr’s supporting role as Merlin the Magician (complete with the silly costume of a gigantic beard, a pointy hat covered with stars, and a robe) feels more like a lark than a proper filmic statement. Plus, the way music-industry pals including John Bonham, Peter Frampton, and Keith Moon show up during performance scenes gives Son of Dracula the feel of a show that Starr put on in his backyard.

          Buried inside Son of Dracula, however, is the skeleton of a serviceable horror movie, because the protagonist, Count Downe (Nilsson), experiences an existential crisis on the eve of taking his father’s place as King of the Monsters. Specifically, Count Downe wants to experience human emotions, so he enlists the aid of Dr. Van Helsing (Dennis Price) for a scientific process that will make Count Downe mortal. Meanwhile, scheming netherworld lieutenant Baron Von Frankenstein (Freddie Jones) wants to expose Count Downe as a traitor, thus usurping the throne. Executed without irony, this plot could have generated an adequate horror show. Alas, Son of Dracula is padded with nonsense including the aforementioned musical numbers (which are weakly justified by the contrivance that Count Downe dabbles in singing), as well as endless montages of Count Downe wandering around London. Veteran horror director Freddie Francis does an okay job of filming city streets and underground dungeons with atmospheric low angles, and composer Paul Buckmaster provides a few evocative moments of dissonant scoring, but none of these flourishes matter. As it wobbles between action, comedy, drama, horror, and music, Son of Dracula elicits no audience reaction more strongly than it elicits boredom.

Son of Dracula: LAME

Katherine (1975)

          Clever and slick but also quite thoughtful, the made-for-TV feature Katherine depicts the radicalization of a rich white girl from Colorado during the heyday of the anti-Vietnam War movement. Beginning with her eye-opening experience as a teacher of impoverished farmers living near an American mission in Peru, Katherine Alman (Sissy Spacek) becomes more and more incensed about the social inequities of the modern world, which naturally creates estrangement between Katherine and her wealthy parents, Emily (Jane Wyatt) and Thornton (Art Carney). Meanwhile, Katherine’s commitment to revolutionary change brings her into the orbit of Bob Kline (Henry Winkler), a fellow teacher-turned-radical, and the two eventually join the Weathermen wing of Students for a Democratic Society. Writer-director Jeremy Paul Kagan, whose script was inspired by the exploits of real-life SDS activist Diana Oughton, exhibits a deft touch for blending entertainment and issues.

          The best scenes in Katherine feature direct human conflict that dramatizes class warfare, ranging from an early scene of a thuggish overseer whipping a farm worker to a pivotal re-creation of the riots surrounding the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Even in smaller scenes, Kagan effectively crystallizes major political strife into relatable disagreements. For instance, the sequence of Bob and Katherine receiving pressure from black citizens and white cops to close the school where Bob and Katherine teach African-American youths illustrates how many different battle lines were drawn in the late ’60s. Scenes set in the Alman house lack the same measure of authenticity, because Kagan’s choice to gift his character with a privileged background overstates the stereotype of part-time radicals who retain the safety net of running home to Mom and Dad.

          That said, committed acting elevates even the most contrived parts of Katherine. Carney embodies old-fashioned American decency so beautifully that he evokes the movies of Frank Capra, and Winkler—a long way from Fonzie thanks to his moustache and shaggy hair—imbues his character with the beguiling/maddening blend of messianic charisma and smug narcissism that plagued so many men in the antiwar movement. Holding the film together, of course, is Spacek, an actor nearly incapable of striking a false note. Even Spacek’s great powers, however, are tested by some of the strident speeches that Kagan’s script forces her to deliver. Yet stilted dialogue isn’t the only component of Katherine that feels wobbly, as Kagan’s storytelling involves three layers—documentary-style vignettes in which characters address the camera, fully dramatized re-creations of events, and eerie clips of Katherine telling her own story. Although the last of these three elements could have been discarded without much harm to the film’s dramatic power, Kagan sticks the landing with a beautifully cut final sequence that pulls all of the story’s threads together.

Katherine: GROOVY

Supervixens (1975)

          Russ Meyer, the mad genius of skin flicks, was operating at the height of his singular powers when he made Supervixens, an exuberant combination of action, comedy, romance, and satire. Fast, filthy, and fun, the movie is a joyous celebration of one man’s fetishes, so even though Supervixens is heinous from the standpoint of gender politics, it’s so breezy and silly and upbeat that it’s difficult not to get a contact high. Plus, like all the best Meyer movies, it’s completely batshit insane.
          After cranking out dozens of exploitation flicks in the ’50s and ’60s, including the signature works Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) and Vixen (1968), Meyer briefly dabbled in mainstream cinema, making the crazed Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) and the more sedate The Seven Minutes (1971) for Fox. It wasn’t until Supervixens, however, that Meyer truly returned to his comfort zone of independently produced sextravaganzas. Supervixens takes place in a violent alternate universe of Meyer’s own imagining, so every woman is a buxom, insatiable beauty with the word “Super” affixed to her first name. Yet the alternate universe is also morally just, in a twisted sort of way, since bad people pay for their villainy while true love wins in the end. More or less.

          When the story begins, studly everyman Clint Ramsey (Charles Pitts) works at a gas station run by Martin Bormann (Henry Rowland), a nice guy who may or may not be the same Martin Bormann who spent World War II working as Hitler’s secretary. Clint’s girlfriend is SuperAngel (Shari Eubank), a sex-crazed housewife who treats Clint like garbage. One day, while Clint is passed out drunk after a fight with SuperAngel, she seduces a policeman named Harry Sledge (Charles Napier). When Harry proves impotent, he becomes enraged and murders SuperAngel in an epic scene that’s simultaneously funny and grotesque. Once Clint sobers up and learns what happened, he realizes he’s the likely suspect for SuperAngel’s murder, so he hits the road and begins a series of erotic misadventures. He gets robbed by a male-female criminal duo, he finds refuge at a farm until the farmer’s mail-order bride cheerfully rapes Clint, and he falls victim to the charms of a motel proprietor’s deaf daughter. Eventually, Clint meets and falls in love with SuperVixen (also played by Eubank), who is the quasi-reincarnation of SuperAngel, but is as kind as SuperAngel was treacherous. Predictably, Mean Old Harry Sledge turns up to cause more trouble—leading to a surreal climax involving lots of dynamite.

          Also thrown into the mix are flash cuts of nude women writhing on imaginary beds, and such weird musical flourishes as the use of German marching-band music, “Dixie,” and snippets of classical compositions for punctuation during random moments. This being a Meyer movie, the most important recurring stylistic elements are enormous breasts—closeups of cleavage, long shots of women running and bouncing, claustrophobic angles of men’s faces being smothered with massive mammaries, and so on.

          Meyer, who wrote, produced, directed, shot, and edited the movie, executes all of this stuff with a cartoonish kind of high style, creating frenetic rhythms and something very closely resembling dramatic tension. The actresses in the movie are generally quite awful, though Eubank has spunk, because Meyer cast for physical attributes rather than talent. Pitts is merely okay, doing best in scenes where he communicates exasperation. Therefore the heavy lifting falls to Meyer regular Napier. He’s a stone riot in Supervixens, incarnating one of the most gleefully demented rednecks in screen history. By the time his character devolves into the live-action equivalent of a Looney Tune at the end of Supervixens, he’s personified everything from giddiness to psychosis with gusto. Plus, like Meyer, Napier seems totally hip to the self-referential joke at the heart of Supervixens.

Supervixens: FREAKY