Skatetown, U.S.A. (1979)

          Running down the cast of Skatetown, U.S.A. should explain why the movie is such a glorious train wreck—that is, if the title didn’t do the job already. Happy Days kid Scott Baio plays Richie, a fast-talking hustler who wants to help his best friend, Adonis-like blond Stan (Greg Bradford), and Stan’s nymphomaniac sister, Susan (Maureen McCormick from The Brady Bunch), win a roller-disco championship. The team’s destination is Skatetown, U.S.A., a rink located on the Santa Monica Pier and operated by stressed-out comedian/entrepreneur Harvey (Flip Wilson), who spends most of his time keeping his diminutive second-in-commend, Jimmy (Billy Barty), from hitting on a voluptuous ticket-seller played by ’70s TV starlet Judy Landers. Meanwhile, an evil roller-skating gang led by Ace (Patrick Swayze, in his embarrassing movie debut) tries to rig the context, intimidating Harvey with threats of violence and sending gang member Frankey (Ron Palillo from Welcome, Back Kotter) to distract Susan. Yes, that means Skatetown, U.S.A. includes scenes of Horshack and Marcia Brady necking in a convertible.
          Amid this nonsense, grade-Z comedy actors perform stupid bits, rocker Dave Mason appears periodically to perform tunes including “Feelin’ Alright,” and a DJ character called “The Wizard” (Denny Johnston)—who wears some sort of gigantic albino-Afro wig—uses magic laser beams to make roller skaters appear. Oh, and most of the film’s screen time is consumed by endless roller-disco scenes, including tightly choreographed routines by ensembles, as well as eroticized duets such as Swazye’s bondage-themed dance set to a mediocre cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb.” Need it be said that Skatetown, U.S..A. concludes with a Rebel Without a Cause-style chicken run between Ace and Stan, who zoom down the Santa Monica Pier on skates equipped with rockets? Or that Wilson plays a second role, as his own character’s wife, in drag? Notorious as one of the few ’70s movies with major actors never to be released on any form of home video, Skatetown, U.S.A. is staggeringly awful from the first frame to the last. Although clearly made with a decent budget and featuring some impressive dancing, the movie is atrocious in terms of acting, direction, and writing. And yet that’s why it’s both weirdly compelling and something of a cult favorite among devotees of cinematic misfires.

Skatetown, U.S.A.: LAME

I Will, I Will . . . for Now (1976)

          More or less watchable because if its charismatic leading actors, but otherwise quite rotten thanks to limp comedy and primitive gender attitudes, I Will, I Will . . . for Now attempts to paint a raucous picture of marriage in the ’70s. Elliot Gould and Diane Keaton play estranged spouses who attempt reconciliation by commissioning a detailed legal contract that spells out their respective responsibilities, and their scheme gets sidetracked because both spouses pursue relationships outside the marriage. Cue lots of remarks from Gould’s character about why it’s okay that he flirts with the sexy neighbor who lives downstairs, and lots of shrewish whining from Keaton’s character about why her husband needs to spend more time talking about his feelings. As cowritten and directed by old-school comedy pro Norman Panama, once a gag writer for Bob Hope’s radio shows, I Will, I Will . . . for Now gives voice to ideologies that must have seemed positively regressive when the movie was originally released; watched today, the picture’s not quite cringe-inducing, but it’s close.

         Les Bingham (Gould) is financially successful but romantically frustrated, because he’s still in love with his wife, Katie (Keaton). Alas, she’s moved on to someone new, whom Les doesn’t realize is Les’ best friend and lawyer, Lou Springer (Paul Sorvino). When Les and Katie attend an offbeat commitment ceremony together, they both react to the nation of partners laying out expectations through a contract rather than simply mouthing old-fashioned marriage vows. Les persuades Katie to give their romance another shot, at which point the believability and logic of the story utterly disappears. Literally the instant that Katie moves back into Les’ building, his eyes nearly pop out of his head while he ogles Jackie Martin (Victoria Principal), a onetime Playboy centerfold who lives a few floors below Les. Then, despite a few interludes of romantic outings and sexual bliss, Les resumes bad habits—ignoring Katie, smoking smelly cigars, watching sports incessantly, etc. He also spends time in Jackie’s apartment, even accepting a copy of The Joy of Sex from her. This is Les’ idea of reconciliation?

          Panama weakly mimics the manner in which Billy Wilder used actors including Jack Lemmon to make his sex-farce stories sing, for example throwing in a running joke about Les’ bad back, and the movie revolves around the idea that women can’t resist men who behave like Neanderthals. By the time the movie culminates in an elaborate sequence at a sex-therapy retreat, Panama has succumbed to male wish fulfillment, creating a scenario by which Les can romp around a bedroom with Jackie free of guilt—while still preserving a chance of keeping Katie. Oy. Gould does what he can, faring best in the film’s loosest scenes, while Keaton seems adrift without the benefit of a real role to play. Principal is merely ornamental, but Sorvino does well, even spicing some scenes with opera singing.

I Will, I Will . . . for Now: FUNKY

Shanks (1974)

          Throughout his lengthy career, William Castle’s cinematic efforts ranged from the sublime (producing 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby) to the ridiculous (equipping theater seats with electronic buzzers in order to jolt viewers during screenings of 1959’s The Tingler). Much of his work fell between these extremes, because even though Castle’s hucksterism often outpaced his artistry, there’s no denying the simple pleasures of, say, 1959’s House on Haunted Hill. Yet the last film that Castle directed, Shanks, exists in a weird little universe all its own. By any reasonable critical estimation, it’s an utter disaster, because it’s predicated on so many strange contrivances that it crumbles under the weight of its own silliness. Furthermore, the use of family-friendly storytelling devices to communicate a tale about reanimated corpses is as creepy as the movie’s implied romance between a man in his 50s and a adolescent girl. Atop all that, the movie’s leading performance—by famed French mime Marcel Marceau—is ridiculous. Thing is, using reasonable critical estimations in order to appraise Shanks is beside the point. One can only revel in the peculiarity of the thing, and marvel that Castle got someone to fund such a deeply misguided enterprise.

          First off, Shanks is a silent film. Except when it isn’t. After a title card announces that “William Castle Presents a Grim Fairy Tale,” an opening scene drenched with optical effects and syrupy music introduces viewers to Malcolm Shanks (Marceau). A deaf and mute puppeteer who wants only to fill the world with joy, Malcolm lives with his beastly sister, Mrs. Barton (Tsilla Chelton), and her drunken husband, Mr. Barton (Philippe Clay). Inexplicably, the Bartons live off money that Malcolm makes as a laborer, even though he seems to spend most of time entertaining local children with puppet shows.

          In the first of many confusing plot twists, Malcolm answers a call to work for a man named Walker (also played by Marceau), who is some sort of Dr. Frankenstein-like mad scientist living in a castle near Malcolm’s village. (Never mind that Malcolm’s “village” looks suspiciously like an American suburb.) Walker has concocted a means of reviving dead animals, so when Walker dies, Malcolm reanimates his friend. Then Malcolm goes on a killing spree, eventually reanimating several corpses—which he controls through the use of a tiny electronic device—in order to cover his tracks. Until a biker gang shows up at the castle. During all of this nonsense, Malcolm woos a wholesome young girl named Celia (Cindy Eibacher), though Castle is cryptic about whether Malcolm wants to be Celia’s guardian or her lover.

          Long stretches of Shanks pass without dialogue (Castle even uses old-timey title cards), but then full-dialogue scenes intrude periodically. If there’s a consistent aesthetic at work, it’s hard to recognize. Additionally, the plotting gets so laborious that at one point, Castle uses a title card to plug a narrative hole: “Old Walker cannot attend Celia’s birthday party this evening because Malcolm (in a gesture of mercy) buried his friend several days ago.” Huh? Never the most visually sophisticated filmmaker, Castle enters the realm of outright incompetence at regular intervals, sometimes employing the old Ed Wood trick of cutting to inanimate objects in order to bridge jumps in camera coverage. Dreary, dull, morbid, sloppy, and tasteless, Shanks is unquestionably one of the oddest movies ever released by a major American studio, in this case Paramount Pictures.

Shanks: FREAKY

Open Season (1974)

          Presenting horrific behavior in a matter-of-fact style, Open Season is unusual among the myriad ’70s movies about the corrosive effects of violence. Whereas many ’70s films engaging this subject matter use vigilantism as a prism for exploring morality, Open Season takes a decidedly nihilistic approach. The principal characters are three average Americans who spend their annual camping trips hunting human beings for sport. Some brisk but pointed dialogue late in the movie explains why: The friends became addicted to killing people while serving in Vietnam. Pretty heavy for a European exploitation movie that caters to the international audience by featuring several American actors. Sleekly filmed by UK director Peter Collinson (helmer of 1969’s The Italian Job), this slow-burn thriller stars Peter Fonda, John Phillip Law, and Richard Lynch as the hunters.

          Their characters are introduced effectively at a backyard barbecue, the apex of suburban normalcy, before they kiss their wives and children goodbye and depart for their annual getaway. Upon reaching the boondocks, the dudes drink heavily and zero in on a young couple traveling the same roads. Nancy (Cornelia Sharpe) is a sexy blonde, and her companion, Martin (Alberto de Mendoza), is a clean-cut dweeb whom the hunters correctly guess is having an extramarital affair with Nancy. The hunters pretend to be cops in order to pull over the couple’s car, and then the hunters abduct the couple, transporting their hostages to a lakeside cabin miles from civilization. The hunters toy with the couple, forcing Martin to do housework while cleverly manipulating Nancy into believing she can seduce her way out of trouble. After the men have their fun with Nancy, the real gamesmanship begins—the hunters release Martin and Nancy into the wild with a 30-minute head start, and then the hunters gather high-powered rifles and begin their pursuit. 

          The best sequences of Open Season depict savagery casually. The hunters use good manners while humiliating Martin and shackling Nancy so she can’t escape. Worse, they treat their whole adventure like a regular hunting trip, downing beers and trading jokes even as they prepare for sadistic homicide. The filmmakers wisely eschew musical scoring during many scenes, letting the creepy onscreen events manufacture mood without adornment. When music does kick in, however, some of the misguided attempts at replicating hillbilly melodies are distracting. The acting is uneven, though Fonda, Law, and Lynch simulate camaraderie well. (FYI, William Holden makes a mark in a very small supporting role.) Best of all is the film’s final half-hour, during which a remote island becomes a killing ground. Once the characters in Open Season throw off their pretenses, the savage heart of this nasty little movie beats loudly.

Open Season: GROOVY

The Assassination of Trotsky (1972)

Muddled and pretentious, this British drama takes the strange tack of inventing a fictional character in order to tell a story pulled from real-life. In 1940 Mexico, a Russian agent named Ramón Mercarder killed Leon Trotsky, the exiled founder of the Red Army. After helping to lead the Russian Revolution, Trotsky became a political enemy of Soviet strongman Joseph Stalin and fled the USSR for Mexico. Stalin then ordered Mercader to assassinate Trotsky, thus silencing a powerful opposition voice. Since all of this historical material is fascinating, the narrative path followed by the makers of The Assassination of Trotsksy is befuddling. Nicholas Mosley’s script presents the fictional Frank Jackson (Alain Delon) as Trotsky’s killer-in-waiting, and then wastes inordinate amounts of screen time on confusing scenes depicting the codependent relationship between Frank and Gita Samuels (Romy Schneider), who works as a housekeeper in Trotsky’s villa. They scream at each other a lot. Director Joseph Losey, who seems utterly lost in terms of what sort of movie he’s trying to make, generates marginal Day of the Jackal-style interest by showing Frank’s meticulous preparations for killing Trotsky, though this material ultimately feels superfluous. Similarly, the film includes many scenes of the aging Trotsky (Richard Burton) wandering around his villa and giving speeches about how the true meaning of Marxism has been overwhelmed by Stalin’s brutal totalitarianism. Eventually, the picture brings its disparate elements together when Frank uses his relationship with Gita to insinuate his way into the villa and befriend Trotsky, whom he then kills with a hammer to the back of the head. This occasions more yelling, because Burton transitions from the prior somnambulistic mode of his performance and commences a Grand Guignol freakout replete with geysers of blood pouring down his face. Just as Delon’s eyes are hidden behind sunglasses throughout most of the movie, whatever virtues The Assassination of Trotsky has are impossible to see through the fog of a lifeless and meandering storyline.

The Assassination of Trotsky: LAME

Firepower (1979)

          A bad movie that occasionally manages to hold the viewer’s attention through a combination of familiar faces and spectacle, Firepower tells a convoluted story about mercenaries trying to kidnap a reclusive billionaire whom the U.S. government hopes to prosecute for criminal acts. Helmed by British action specialist Michael Winner, best known for Death Wish (1974), the picture showcases a truly odd collection of actors: James Coburn, Sophia Loren, and O.J. Simpson are the big names, while the supporting cast includes Billy Barty, Anthony Franciosa, Vincent Gardenia, Victor Mature, Jake LaMotta (!), and Eli Wallach.

          The plot is as overstuffed as the cast. In the opening sequence, Adele (Sophia Loren) watches in horror as her husband, a pharmaceutical researcher, dies in a lab explosion. Convinced her husband was murdered by operatives of a mysterious industrialist named Karl Stegner, who owns a drug company that’s under government investigation, Adele provides incriminating evidence to federal agent Frank Hull (Gardenia). Frank wants to arrest Stegner, but Stegner lives on a remote estate in the Caribbean, protected by anti-extradition laws. And that’s when things get really confusing.

          Frank seeks help from mobster Sal Hyman (Wallach), who offers to kidnap Stegner in exchange for a blanket pardon. Sal then calls in a favor from retired assassin Jerry Fanon (Coburn), who agrees to do the Stegner job for $1 million. Yet Jerry’s got a secret of his own. Jerry enlists his twin brother, Eddie, to . . . seriously, it’s not even worth explaining. Firepower is bewildering from a narrative perspective, but one gets the sense Winner realized he was building a giant heap of nothing, because he cuts the movie at an absurdly fast pace, rushing from chose scenes to double-crosses to explosions to gunfights to nighttime invasions. At any given moment, lots of colorful stuff is happening, even if it’s virtually impossible to know who’s doing what to whom, or why.

          Coburn somehow manages to emerge unscathed, his coolness seeing him through the movie’s muddiest sections, though others don’t fare as well. Loren seems perplexed by her constantly changing characterization, so she spends most of her time posing for Winner’s myriad ogling shots of her cleavage. Simpson delivers his usual perfunctory work, while stone-cold pros ranging from Gardenia to Wallach try to ensure that individual scenes make as much sense as possible. For all his shortcomings on this project as a storyteller, Winner compensates somewhat by shooting violence well, so it’s possible to absorb the most vivacious scenes of Firepower as straight shots of adrenalized nonsense.

Firepower: FUNKY

The Brood (1979)

          David Cronenberg’s horror movies are filled with indelibly unpleasant images, but it’s hard to top the surreal variation on childbirth that occurs near the climax of The Brood. Without spoiling the sickening spectacle, suffice to say there’s a lot of licking involved. And, as in the best of Cronenberg’s fright flicks, the image is about so much more than simply provoking revulsion and shock—it speaks to deep and disturbing themes that the Canadian provocateur has explored throughout his many bio-horror phantasmagorias. In this special pocket of Cronenberg’s filmography, the only thing worse than the terrors lurking inside our own bodies is the nettlesome human tendency to alter physiology, risks be damned.

          In this case, the individual playing God is one Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed), a therapist who has invented a field called “psychoplasmics.” He teaches patients to push negative emotions out through their skin, resulting in lesions and sores. From Hal’s Machiavellian perspective, this is a messy but necessary path to catharsis. Although Hal has a full complement of acolytes at his handsomely appointed institute just outside Toronto, not everyone is a believer. Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) is upset because his estranged wife, Nora (Samantha Eggar), is under a sort of lockdown for intensive therapy, and because Hal has begun working with the Carveths’ young daughter, Candice (Cindy Hinds). Frank employs various means (some legal, some not) in order to reclaim his daughter, somewhat like a concerned relative trying to free a loved one from a cult compound. Complicating matters is a series of gruesome murders committed by childlike mutants. Eventually, Frank helps authorities connect the murders to Hal’s research, though the task of confronting the good doctor—and whatever sort of weird creatures are hidden at his institute—falls to Frank.

         Although The Brood is a slow burn, with long stretches of screen time elapsing in between violent scenes, the combination of Cronenberg’s artistry and the immersive mood generated by his collaborators helps sustain interest. A serious student of metaphysical, psychological, and scientific subjects, Cronenberg puts across science-fiction stories exceptionally well by creating utterly believable environments and terminology, and by building characters who seem like genuine academics. The Hal Raglan character, for instance, is plainly a maniac because of his willingness to endanger the lives of others in the name of research, but Cronenberg ensures that the therapist never seems like a monster. Similarly, the people (and creatures) who do terrible things in The Brood are victims as much as they are victimizers. Cinematographer Mark Irwin’s naturalistic lighting energizes Cronenberg’s meticulously crafted frames, while composer Howard Shore—providing his first-ever movie score—conjures incredible levels of dread. More than anything, The Brood is a testament to Cronenberg’s unique storytelling style, which blends classical structure and methodical pacing with a natural affinity for the macabre and the perverse.

The Brood: GROOVY

Our Winning Season (1978)

          Rehashing themes from American Graffiti (1973), but with a milquetoast approach to storytelling replacing the visionary qualities of George Lucas’ enduring hit, Our Winning Season juggles the bland stories of several 1960s high-school students facing adulthood. Competently directed by Joseph Ruben, who has usually fared better with pulpy genre stories, the picture suffers as much from a lack of distinctive performances as it does from a lack of distinctive characters. Of the principal cast, three actors later gained notoriety, and none of them is is the lead. Future WKRP in Cincinnati costar Jan Smithers plays a young woman wrestling with whether or not to surrender her virginity, future Riptide/Jake and the Fatman TV actor Joe Penny plays the on-again/off-again boyfriend of Smithers’ character, and future A-lister Dennis Quaid portrays one of several interchangeable young men driven to stupidity by raging hormones. The actual leading man of Our Winning Season is Scott Jacoby, who plays an angst-ridden student athlete, and despite putting in a sincere effort, he’s ultimately as forgettable as his role.

          In lieu of a proper overarching storyline, Our Winning Season presents a number of interconnected subplots. David (Jacoby) struggles to overcome the feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing that keep him from achieving greatness as a distance runner. Meanwhile, his sister, Cathy (Smithers), breaks up with her tiresome boyfriend, Dean (Penny), only to reconsider their situation when Dean impulsively joins the Army and explains that he’s headed for Vietnam. Providing would-be comic relief are the misadventures of a teen Casanova named Jerry (Randy Herman), who juggles relationships with two girls at once. (One of Jerry’s ladies is played by cult-fave starlet P.J. Soles, whose presence in the movie is fleeting.)

          In terms of tone, Our Winning Season is all over the place. At its most desperate, the movie provides “wild” scenes of kids getting into trouble, hence the ridiculous shot of a car crashing through the screen at a drive-in theater. At its best, the movie aims for intimate drama with a special focus on the challenges that horny young men face when they first realize they must treat women as more than just sexual objects. Quite often, the movie lands in some unsatisfying place between these extremes. For instance, several necking scenes linger so long that they almost feel like softcore—it’s as if the filmmakers tried a little bit of everything, then cobbled the final movie together from whichever footage seemed to generate visceral reactions. Therefore, even though Our Winning Season steers clear of many obvious traps, the movie is as unfocused as it is unmemorable.

Our Winning Season: FUNKY

The Young Nurses (1973)

          The wheels came off the bus of New World Pictures’ sexy-nurse cycle with this fourth installment, which substitutes sleaze for story. And while it’s not as if the previous sexy-nurse movies were paragons of narrative ambition, the pictures mostly kept their exploitive elements in check by giving lip service to characterization and social issues. Throughout The Young Nurses, viewers are bludgeoned with confusing plot twists, nasty violence, and ogling topless shots. The only novel element is the presence of iconic B-movie director Samuel Fuller, who contributes one of his occasional acting performances; signature cigar and flyaway hair firmly in place, Fuller plays the main villain in a crime-conspiracy subplot. Alas, the actual direction of The Young Nurses was handled not by Fuller but by actor-turned-one-time-filmmaker Clint Kimbrough, who brought zero aptitude to his work behind the camera. Still, New World cranked out sexy-nurse pictures at the brisk pace of one per year, employing the same basic framework for each picture, so it’s not as if the job description for making The Young Nurses included a reasonable expectation of innovation.

          As per the norm, the picture tracks the exploits of three ladies who work at a hospital.  Statuesque brunette Joanne (Ashley Porter) bristles at restrictions placed upon RNs, getting into trouble by usurping doctors’ authority. Clothing-averse blonde Kitty (Jeane Manson) becomes involved with a spoiled blueblood after he’s injured while watching her sunbathe. And token African-American Michelle (Angela Elayne Gibbs) occupies a subplot that’s like a miniature blaxploitation flick, riding a motorcycle as she investigates drug pushers. The acting in the movie is almost uniformly terrible, the music score largely comprises grinding rhythm tracks, and the ick factor is high—at one point, crooks kidnap Michelle, drug her, and subject her to a weird orgy/gang-rape episode. The picture also approaches softcore status with the sheer number of sex scenes. And in an especially laughable moment, “empowered” Joanne takes an odd approach to soul searching by running along a beach, stripping off her clothes, and bouncing into the ocean.

The Young Nurses: LAME

The Big Sleep (1978)

          Three years after playing Raymond Chandler’s famous detective Phillip Marlowe in Farewell, My Lovely (1975), which was set in the 1940s, Robert Mitchum reprised the role in this film, which is set in the 1970s. Making the time-shift between movies even more awkward, The Big Sleep writer-director Michael Winner employs hokey devices straight out of Chandler’s Depression-era fiction, such as femme-fatale types and hardboiled interior monologue presented as voiceover. Yet in other respects, The Big Sleep is quite modern, thanks to ample amounts of gore and nudity. Therefore, it’s an old-fashioned movie filled with things that turn off most fans of old-fashioned movies.

          Moreover, Winner risked walking on hallowed cinematic ground with this project, since the first movie version of The Big Sleep—starring Humphrey Bogart and released in 1946—is considered a classic of the original film-noir cycle. Given this tricky context, it almost doesn’t even matter that Winner’s version of The Big Sleep is an adequate little mystery/thriller. In order to satisfy all concerned parties, the movie needed to be superlative, which it is not. Furthermore, Winner inexplicably changed the location from Los Angeles (as in the original Chandler novel) to London, and then populated the cast with a random mixture of Brits and Yanks. Since nothing inherently English happens, the jump across the pond is a head-scratcher from a conceptual standpoint.

          In any event, the convoluted story begins when Marlowe is invited to the home of a rich American, retired General Sternwood (James Stewart). Sternwood hires Marlowe to scare off a would-be blackmailer. Meanwhile, Marlowe receives seductive advances from Sternwood’s adult daughters, the cynical Charlotte (Sarah Miles) and the provocative Camilla (Candy Clark). As per the Chandler story, the seemingly simple job opens a Pandora’s box of secrets, eventually placing Marlowe in the midst of betrayals, double-crosses, and murders.

           Winner hits the sleazy elements of the narrative hard, as in scenes of Camilla posing nude for a pornographer and various incidents of people getting shot through the skull. The material is so grim and the story is so bewildering that The Big Sleep isn’t fun to watch, per se, even though it boasts abundant sex appeal thanks to Clark, Miles, and costars Joan Collins and Diana Quick. Concurrently, the men in the supporting cast provide gradations of menace, with Colin Blakely, Richard Boone, Edward Fox, and Oliver Reed playing villainous types. (Offering glimmers of gallantry are the characters portrayed by Harry Andrews and John Mills.) However, none of the film’s performances or technical contributions is extraordinary, so Mitchum dominates in the absence of anything more interesting. As in Farewell, My Lovely, Mitchum’s seen-it-all demeanor suits the Marlowe character perfectly.

The Big Sleep: FUNKY

Heart of Glass (1976)

          Despite having made a sizable number of important films, German director Werner Herzog is infamous for the extremes he took on various projects in the ’70s and ’80s, notably an incident (probably apocryphal) during which he pointed a gun at leading man Klaus Kinski in order to make the reluctant Kinski perform a scene. Somewhat in a similar vein, Herzog had nearly his entire cast hypnotized before each take while making Heart of Glass, a lyrical saga about the residents of a remote Bavarian village in the 18th century. The plot is an interesting fable revolving around a special kind of red glass that the residents of the town manufacture. After the only blower who knows the formula for the glass dies, the residents literally drive themselves mad trying to re-create the formula. Meanwhile, a mystic living in the hills over the town—played by the only leading actor who performed without hypnosis—observes the dissipation of the village and provides philosophical commentary. Like many of Herzog’s best films, Heart of Glass is about the cost of pursuing an impossible quest, a story archetype that Herzog often uses to remark upon what he perceives as the futility of the human experience.

          In terms of sonic and visual style, Heart of Glass represents Herzog at his apex. The images are painterly and often mesmerizing; the music, by Popol Vuh, is atmospheric; and the unique gimmick of hypnotizing actors results in a beautifully consistent aesthetic. Furthermore, although he’s made interesting films with modern settings, Herzog thrives in historical and primitive settings because he creates such immersive worlds, a gift very much in evidence throughout Heart of Glass. No other movie feels or looks quite like this one. And if normal considerations of characterization and plotting get subordinated beneath the more ethereal qualities of mood and vibe, so be it—in Heart of Glass, Herzog explores primal themes of existence and meaning and purpose.

          Per the director’s norm, Heart of Glass is also surpassingly weird. In one sequence, a dazed musician plays a hurdy-gurdy while a drunk laughs, a bereaved man dances with the corpse of his best friend, a prostitute with a shaved head cradles a duck, and a narcotized man waves his hands as if he’s conducting an unseen orchestra. Elsewhere in the film, two hypnotized actors sit across a table from each other as one cracks a glass over the other’s head, and then the victim pours a drink onto the first man’s head in response. Some of the vignettes in Heart of Glass are bewildering, some are compelling, and some are sad. Yet they all share a strange sort of mythological quality, as if the film retells some story that’s been handed down through generations. Achieving that effect with original material is no small feat, and yet it’s something Herzog has done again and again throughout his career.

          Working with cinematographer Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein, a frequent collaborator, Herzog creates many painterly images, especially with transitional landscape shots filmed at various locations around the world, and he achieves pure poetry with the picture’s final massage, a story-within-a-story about the residents of a tiny island venturing out to sea. Heart of Glass is loose and unhurried, so some viewers may feel as if they’ve been hypnotized into submission just like the actors. For those willing to go the distance, however, a singular experience awaits.

Heart of Glass: GROOVY

The McKenzie Break (1970)

          For a movie that comprises almost nothing but plot, treating characterization as an afterthought at best, it’s peculiar that the biggest shortcoming of the World War II adventure The McKenzie Break is a weak storyline. Plenty of things happen onscreen, but the filmmakers fail to select either a distinct protagonist or a specific point of view. Ostensibly a mano-a-mano contest between a German POW and the British officer assigned to keep the German from leading a mass escape, the picture can’t quite decide whether it’s an offbeat story presenting Nazis as underdogs or a traditional potboiler about keeping Third Reich soldiers from participating in Germany’s war effort. Compounding these problems is a pair of cold leading performances. Helmut Griem is methodical and ruthless as the POW, while Brian Keith is mostly indifferent as the British officer. Despite all of these fundamental problems, The McKenzie Break has several exciting sequences, and the final standoff between the opponents generates real tension. Therefore, even if it’s virtually impossible to connect with the movie on an emotional level, The McKenzie Break has flashes of manly-man spectacle.

          Set in Scotland, the movie begins when imprisoned U-boat commander Will Schlüter (Griem) leads a violent rebellion of fellow POWs against British jailers. This sequence sets the mood well because cinematographer Michael Reed’s imagery is suffused with shadows. The rebellion proves that by-the-book camp commander Major Perry (Ian Hendry) isn’t up to the task of corralling resourceful prisoners, so higher-ups assign a new man to run the camp. Enter Captain Jack Connor (Keith), an Irishman with a record of delivering results even as he regularly faces disciplinary action for insubordination. The middle of the movie, during which Connor and Schlüter test each other’s skills, gets awfully turgid, though the subplot of Schlüter persecuting a fellow German officer for being gay is surprising. Eventually, the movie coalesces into a straightforward thriller about the Germans building a tunnel and planning a brazen exodus.

          Seeing as how the movie’s title includes the word “break,” it’s giving nothing away to say that the last (and best) third of the picture comprises Connor’s attempts to recapture his prisoners. There’s something to be said for a movie that improves as it goes along. Still, Keith makes some peculiar acting choices along the way. Although his Irish accent seems credible, Keith mumbles most of his dialogue, which saps energy from the movie, and he doesn’t run as far with his character’s mordant sense of humor as he should. More of the snarky energy that infuses the picture’s amusing final line would have helped.

The McKenzie Break: FUNKY

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979)

          The last proper movie directed by skin-flick legend Russ Meyer, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens is a tacky and tedious story about a voluptuous woman trying to cure her boyfriend of a predilection for anal sex. In Meyer’s simultaneously moralistic and perverse cinematic realm, there’s nothing worse than a stud who can’t “look a good fuck in the eye.” Were Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens not so sleazy, the theme of a lover craving intimacy would almost seem sweet. Cowritten by Meyer and frequent collaborator Roger Ebert, Beyond the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens is about as close to full-on pornography as Meyer ever got, thanks so lingering close-ups of erect phalli, peekaboo shots that almost-kinda-sorta depict genital penetration, and endless scenes of couples grinding against each other. The movie features many tropes that fans of Meyer’s movies enjoy—including frenzied editing, satirical characterizations, and whimsical narration. It also has a few decent jokes. On the whole, however, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Fixens seems like the work of a filmmaker at a professional crossroads. Presumably, Meyer realized that the days in which his strange brand of comical softcore commanded a specific market niche were rapidly passing.

          After a weird opening scene that mashes together allusions to Nazism and necrophilia with gospel music and videogames—to say nothing of energetic sex—the movie introduces “The Man from Small Town U.S.A.” (Stuart Lancaster), a plain-talkin’ fella who speaks to the camera and then narrates the story, providing judgmental color commentary. He introduces viewers to troubled couple Lamar (Ken Kerr) and Lavonia (Kitten Navidad). She’s a horny housewife, but she hates Lamar’s preferred position. Both embark on trysts with others, and Lavonia assumes the second identity of Lola Langusta (“hotter than a Mexican’s lunch,” according to the narrator), in order to make Lamar jealous enough to change his ways. When that doesn't work, Lamar seeks the ministrations of voluptuous radio hostess Sister Eufaula Roop (Ann Marie), who delivers gospel-style broadcasts about sexual satisfaction.

          Once in a while, Meyer lands an ingenious verbal or visual joke, as when “The Man from Small Town U.S.A.” drills a hole through a wall so he can watch the action upon which he’s commenting—very meta. Yet Ebert also suffocates the film with wall-to-wall word soup. Consider this oppressive chunk of narration: “Then there is Beau Badger and his faithful sidekick, Tyrone. Beau is a redneck, lean and mean. Tyrone is a racist—crude, rude, and tattooed. Dropouts from the rat race of life. Human flotsam. Useless roadblocks in the avenue of progress. Bitterly envious of the lower classes. Rejected by the volunteer Army. Their choice in life is simple: the drunk tank or the scrap heap.” Like the dialogue, the sex in the movie is undercut by overkill. And when the “good parts” of a sexploitation romp aren’t that good, what’s the point?

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vizens: FUNKY

To Kill a Clown (1972)

          Given that Alan Alda’s role as compassionate surgeon “Hawkeye” Pierce on the 1972-1983 TV series M*A*S*H cemented the actor’s public persona as a paragon of decency, it’s interesting that some of the film roles he played before M*A*S*H were downright dastardly. In the middling thriller To Kill a Clown, for instance, Alda plays an unhinged Vietnam vet who torments the young couple renting a house on his beachfront property. The movie doesn’t completely work, mostly for reasons to do with the muddy storyline, but it’s a hoot to watch Alda play a full-on villain. In the movie’s best moments, Alda accentuates the gulf between his nice-guy demeanor and the gonzo extremes of his character’s creepy comportment.

          Set on a remote beach somewhere in New England, the movie begins by introducing viewers to man-child artist Timothy Frischer (Heath Lamberts). Working in the isolation of a quiet bungalow, Timothy does freeform paintings using traditional media as well as chewing gum and cigarettes. At first, Timothy’s only companion on the beach is his beautiful wife, Lily (Blythe Danner), who’s near the end of her patience with Timothy’s adolescent antics. In fact, she tries to leave him, but he woos her back with promises to behave more responsibly. Into this uneasy situation steps Major Evelyn Ritchie (Alda), a seemingly affable bachelor who walks with two canes because his knees were injured during combat, and who always travels with his two loyal Doberman Pinschers at his side.

          During the movie’s drab first hour, Evelyn plays the perfect host to his tenants, even as he evinces eccentricity. One evening over drinks, Evelyn says Timothy couldn’t hack a single day of military discipline. Timothy drunkenly takes the dare, and he’s surprised when Evelyn shows up at dawn the next morning, demanding that Timothy “report for duty” and perform menial labor. This very, very slow burn of a story finally explodes about 40 minutes before the movie ends, because Evelyn sics his dogs on Timothy to prove he’s serious about playing soldier. A weird psychodrama/thriller scenario ensues, with Evelyn using the threat of the dogs to hold the young couple hostage, regularly demeaning Timothy while implying that he wants Lily sexually.

          Cowritten and directed by George Bloomfield, from a novel by Algis Budrys, To Kill a Clown fails to offer a credible explanation for Evelyn’s villainy, just as it fails to make Timothy sympathetic. (He’s the clown of the title, because prior to painting, he studied circus arts and mime.) That said, the quality of the film’s acting, combined with the cool confidence of Bloomfield’s minimalistic camerawork, help keep To Kill a Clown watchable. Complementing the supple textures of Alda’s performance, Danner is wonderfully sexy and smart and vulnerable, while Lamberts takes an energetic crack at a murkily conceived character. Better still, the last half-hour of the picture builds genuine suspense, even though To Kill a Clown fizzles at the end.

To Kill a Clown: FUNKY

Taking Off (1971)

          Bittersweet, funny, hip, and insightful, Czechoslovakian filmmaker Milos Forman’s first English-language movie offers a sly look at the Generation Gap in which both groups under investigation—counterculture kids and Establishment parents—are portrayed with dignity. Unlike most pictures of the same type, which opt for oh-the-humanity melodrama or us-vs.-them stridency, Taking Off tells a droll story about people trying to understand the life experiences of others, even as introspective odysseys reveal unexpected complexities. On some levels, the film is quite heady, and this aspect of Taking Off is maximized by Forman’s unique cinematic approach; as he did with such monumental later films as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and Amadeus (1984), Forman blends realism and stylization as effortlessly as he fuses comedy with drama. Yet on other levels, Taking Off works as a simple fish-out-of-water comedy, especially during scenes when nebbishy leading man Buck Henry illustrates the conundrum of average suburban Americans struggling to grasp the rhythms of the sex-drugs-and-rock-‘n’-roll lifestyle.

          Henry plays Larry Tyne, a straight-laced businessman living in an affluent suburb of New York City with his wife, Lynn (Lynn Carlin). When their teenaged daughter, Jeannie (Linnea Heacock), runs away from home, Larry searches the grungier sections of Manhattan, eventually encountering fellow befuddled suburbanite Margot (Georgia Engel), the parent of another teenager who “took off.” Margot introduces Larry and Lynn to a support group for parents in their unique situation, which leads to the film’s most amusing sequence—in the unlikely context of a hotel meeting room, a helpful young stoner (Vincent Schiavelli) provides reefers and coaches dozens of middle-aged straights on how to toke without bogarting.

          While the main story of Taking Off is fairly strong, it’s clearly just a framework that Forman and his collaborators use to connect sketches and vignettes. For instance, running through the movie are clips of an audition for a musical, so periodically Forman cuts to some longhaired singer-songwriter playing a number that speaks to a counterculture-friendly theme. (Notables among the auditioners are future pop star Carly Simon and future Oscar-winning actress Kathy Bates, appearing here as “Bobo Bates” and displaying a lovely singing voice.)

          Forman cowrote the picture with a team including playwright John Guare, and the script consistently prioritizes nuance over mere plotting. Beyond simply cataloging the impossibilities of hippie-era Utopian dreams, as well as the constricting problems inherent to those stuck on the 9-to-5 rat race, Taking Off communicates the notion that everyone in the story is lost, to some degree or another. In fact, the title has a double meaning because Larry’s quest through the counterculture represents him “taking off” from his normal world, even though he finds liberation frightening.

          Taking Off might ultimately be too slight, in terms of narrative, to earn a space in the counterculture-cinema pantheon, especially since the story is told only partially from the viewpoint of the Woodstock Generation. Nonetheless, in addition to marking Forman’s impressive transition from European to American filmmaking, Taking Off captures its time with unusual maturity, sensitivity, and wit.

Taking Off: RIGHT ON

Mr. Superinvisible (1970)

In between cranking out family comedies for Walt Disney Productions, actor Dean Jones made this rotten flick for a consortium of European companies. Riddled with frenetic camera zooms, horrible voice dubbing, and weird musical scoring, Mr. Superinvisible tries to mimic the Disney formula and fails on nearly every level. The plot is convoluted and stupid, the slapstick gags and verbal jokes are unfunny, and the special effects look cheap. By comparison, even the weakest of the movies that Jones made for Disney seems like masterpieces of kid-friendly entertainment. In Mr. Superinvisible, Jones plays Peter, an American scientist working in a European lab on a cure for the common cold. Concurrently, one of his colleagues discovers a formula for rendering living beings invisible. Through silly circumstances, Peter becomes invisible shortly after criminals steal his current experiment, which they mistakenly believe is a biological weapon. Peter uses his invisibility to defeat the villains—but not before wasting enormous amounts of time embarrassing suave coworker Harold (Gastone Moschin), a rival for the affections of beautiful scientist Irene (Ingeborg Schoener). Mr. Superinvisible is filled with things guaranteed to annoy any thoughtful viewer. One of the supporting players gives a Peter Lorre impression instead of a performance. A fluffy dog is the most developed supporting character. One scene involves Jones, while invisible, blowing raspberries in order to give the impression that Harold is flatulent. The climax involves exploding eggs. All of this drags on for 91 dreary minutes, replete with music suitable for a softcore sex farce. Even though Jones gives his usual valiant effort, his affability is not nearly enough to make Mr. Superinvisible tolerable.

Mr. Superinvisible: LAME