1980 Week: Hangar 18

          Only the brave or the brazen dared to make UFO movies in the immediate aftermath of Steven Spielberg’s monumental Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), which realized nearly all the potential of the genre in spectacular fashion. Undaunted, the happy hacks at Sunn Classic Pictures forged ahead with their own entry into the flying-saucer genre, Hangar 18, perhaps emboldened by their success in the paranormal realm with such “documentaries” as Beyond and Back (1978) and The Bermuda Triangle (1979). Anyway, Hangar 18, which shamelessly borrows plot elements from Peter Hyams’ larky sci-fi adventure Capricorn One (1978), begins in space, where the crew of a space-shuttle mission witnesses a UFO striking a satellite. Returning to earth, the astronauts (played by Gary Collins and James Hampton) seek an explanation for what happened but get a run-around from officials, even as their boss (Darren McGavin) receives the true story. Turns out the UFO crash-landed on earth and was recovered by the U.S. military, then hidden in a secret hangar in the Southwest. (Shades of Roswell, New Mexico.) McGavin’s character is tasked with examining the spaceship.

          Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., a presidential aide (Robert Vaughn) conspires to keep the whole mess secret until the impending election because—how convenient!—the president recently scolded his opponent for suggesting that UFOs might be real. Making the story even sillier is an action/adventure subplot about the astronauts trying to find the secret hangar, and a very Star Trek-ish thread about McGavin and his team entering the spaceship, discovering quasi-humanoid bodies inside, and trying to decode the alien language they discover on the ship’s computers. Had any of this been put across persuasively, Hangar 18 could have built up a tremendous head of steam, but the filmmaking and storytelling exist on the level of a bad TV movie, with each scene feeling more outlandish than the preceding all the way to the anticlimactic ending. Yet even with its goofy storyline and C-lister cast (apologies to Messers. McGavin and Vaughn), Hangar 18 represents a sort of pinnacle moment for Sunn Classics, combining myriad layers of speculative-fiction bullshit—ancient astronauts, government conspiracies, and so on—into one cartoonish pseudoscience extravaganza. Call it a close encounter of the tepid kind.

Hangar 18: FUNKY

1980 Week: The Shining

          Perhaps even more interesting than The Shining itself is the enormous culture of debate, scholarship, and theorizing that has emerged around the film. At the most extreme edge of this peripheral realm is the insane 2012 documentary Room 237, during which various fans explain their bizarre readings of the movie while director Rodney Ascher employs clips from The Shining, as well as other archival material, as “evidence” supporting the readings. In the most memorable sequence, a Kubrick obsessive says The Shining contains Kubrick’s admission that he helped NASA fake the 1969 moon landing.

          Drifting back to Earth, another fascinating byproduct of The Shining is the conflict between Kubrick and Stephen King that even Kubrick’s death could not conclude. King, who wrote the popular horror novel upon which the film is based, famously denounced Kubrick’s movie because of liberties the director took with King’s storyline. For context, it’s important to note remarks that Kubrick made during his lifetime to the effect that only bad novels merit cinematic adaptation, because they can be improved upon. Hell hath no fury like an author scorned, or, for that matter, an auteur.

          Why is The Shining the object of so much fascination? Devotees of the movie would attribute its longevity to pure cinematic power—beyond mere scares, the film contains provocative allegories and unnerving ambiguities. The Shining also contains one of Jack Nicholson’s most iconic performances, complete with the famous moment when he hacks through a doorway with an axe, then pokes his head through the resulting hole and hisses, “Here’s Johnny!” Yet The Shining probably lasts simply because it’s so many things to so many people, hence the varied interpretations found in Room 237. The Shining is a horror movie, to be sure, complete with gory murders and unexpected jolts, to say nothing of ominous atmosphere that lasts from beginning to end. Moreover, The Shining is a character study, an exercise in paranoia, a fantasy with supernatural elements, and a tragedy. So even though it’s excessive and frustrating and weird, it’s almost completely unique. Employing King’s novel as a springboard, Kubrick—who cowrote the script with Diane Johnson—embarked on a demented flight of fancy.

          As has been endlessly reported in articles and books and documentaries, Kubrick utilized painstaking production techniques, building a gigantic set, shooting innumerable takes, and attenuating production over a reported 500 days. The parallels between this Bataan Death March approach to filmmaking and the storyline are inescapable, because The Shining follows author Jack Torrance (Nicholson) as he and his family occupy the remote Overlook Hotel as winter caretakers while Jack tries to write a novel. Some combination of Jack’s mental problems and unknown forces occupying the hotel transform Jack from a family man into a maniac. Caught in the path of his rampage are his timid wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and their psychically gifted son, Danny (Danny Lloyd). Things don’t go well for anyone.

          Kubrick shoots the hell out of his remarkable set, creating mesmerizing images with gimmicks including Steadicam photography, while the eerie score by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind accentuates the oddity of it all. By the time the film concludes with an epic nighttime chase through an outdoor maze blanketed in snow, Kubrick has generated such a potent quality of claustrophobia and fear that The Shining is more than just spooky—it’s upsetting. 

The Shining: GROOVY

1980 Week: The Mirror Crack’d

          The Agatha Christie vogue that began with Murder on the Orient Express (1974) fizzled quickly, but not before several big-budget mediocrities were unleashed on the public. Of these lesser Christie adaptations, the British-made The Mirror Crack’d is interesting because it doubles as a catty story about Hollywood, complete with performances by several iconic American actors. The Mirror Crack’d doesn’t work for a lot of reasons, ranging from an inconsistent tone to the way the main detective is sidelined throughout most of the action. Viewed as glossy camp, however, The Mirror Crack’d offers minor distractions. Set in England during the 1950s, the story revolves around a group of Hollywood professionals visiting Great Britain for a movie shoot. Christie’s matronly detective Miss Marple (Angela Lansbury) happens upon the shoot at the same time a series of murders begins, so, naturally, it falls to Marple and her intrepid nephew, Inspector Craddox (Edward Fox), to identify the killer. In classic Christie fashion, the investigation reveals years of secrets and lies, all of which Marple explains in a lengthy final scene.

          The murder-mystery stuff is fine, if a bit perfunctory, so what really connects is the showbiz satire. Kim Novak and Elizabeth Taylor play aging screen queens who trade nasty barbs, while Tony Curtis plays the sleazy agent/husband of Novak’s character and Rock Hudson plays the director/husband of Taylor’s character. Naturally, there’s a mistress in the mix, as well. Made without any pretense to sophistication, the film is enlivened by bitchery. Looking in a mirror, Taylor’s character coos, “Bags, bags, go away, come back again on Doris Day.” Another gem: “I could eat a can of Kodak and puke a better movie.” You get the idea. Lansbury is great fun whenever she’s onscreen, and in retrospect her performance seems like an audition for the long-running TV series Murder, She Wrote (1984-1996). Yet for much of the movie, she’s absent, with Fox doing the heavy investigative lifting. As for the big names, Curtis, Hudson, and Taylor are cartoonish but appealing, while Novak is embarrassingly bad.

The Mirror Crack’d: FUNKY

1980 Week: Serial

          Perhaps more than any other American movie released in 1980, Serial makes an appropriate cinematic headstone for the ’70s, meaning the spiritual ethos of that wild decade rather than the chronological decade itself. Set in California’s Marin County, that affluent enclave long maligned as a nesting place for privileged white folks with a weakness for cultural fads, Serial concerns a character who’s sick to death of people talking about feelings and self-realization and social issues, because what he really craves is the Eisenhower-era ideal of a secure career and a stable home. This dude dug getting his rocks off during the anything-goes ’70s, and he’s hip enough to grasp why his daughter joins a cult and why his best friend becomes a swinger, but when consciousness-raising compels his wife to seek meaning outside the home, enough is enough. Like the disappointed boomers whom Lawrence Kasdan depicted so sharply thee years later in The Big Chill (1983), the nominal hero of Serial is a man for whom the ’70s left a bittersweet aftertaste.

          Based on a novel by Cyra McFadden, Serial has more in the way of concepts and themes than it does in the way of narrative clarity. Although the picture ostensibly tracks the adventures of businessman Harvey Holroyd (Martin Mull), it’s really more of an ensemble piece. Similarly, although the picture fares best when it cruises along with verbal satire, director Bill Persky and his collaborators unwisely attempt laugh-out-loud farce at many points, such as the hellzapoppin climax. That stuff falls flat more often than not, and the chaos it creates adds to the sense that Serial is an unwieldy mess. After all, the movie involves gay romantic drama, a motorcycle gang, myriad sexual affairs, a suicide, and many other things. Will the real Serial stand up? And for that matter, does the title, which was extrapolated from the source material, really make sense given how the story evolved during the transition from one medium to another? Oh, well.

          Its discombobulated nature aside, Serial contains some wonderful stuff. Mull slays with his signature deadpan delivery, and his rendering of the line “I’m going to love-bomb the shit out of them” is priceless. The name of the movie’s cult, the Church of Oriental Christian Harmony, is a fabulous one-liner. Costar Sally Kellerman’s remark, “I want to talk about how I’m having trouble talking about it,” captures the ridiculous extremes of the Me Decade, as does the bit when Tuesday Weld, as the wife of Mull’s character, castigates Harvey for daring to criticize their daughter in front of friends: “Do you know what you’ve done to her peer-group dynamics?” Mention should also be made of Tom Smothers’ droll supporting performance as a hippy-dippy clergyman, as well as Bill Macy’s fine work portraying the hero’s confused pal. Alas, there’s a lot of stuff in Serial that is the opposite of wonderful. Christopher Lee is horribly miscast, and the portrayal of gay characters is grossly dehumanizing. Whether the good outweighs the bad is a highly subjective matter.

Serial: FUNKY

1980 Week: Middle Age Crazy

          During one of the many dream sequences that permeate Middle Age Crazy, successful but unhappy builder Bobby Lee Burnett (Bruce Dern) imagines that he’s on trial for the way he lives his life. “I find you guilty,” the dream judge declares, “of preventing your family from exercising their God-given right to tell you a bunch of shit you don’t want to hear.” That vignette illustrates everything that’s wrong—and right—about Middle Age Crazy. At a baseline level, the movie says something truthful about the way men of a certain era felt trapped after achieving the American dream. It’s the old “things you own end up owning you” conundrum. And yet the scene also illustrates that in order to solve his problems, all Bobby Lee needs to do is get the fuck over himself.

          Although technically released during the first year after the Me Decade concluded, Middle Age Crazy is infused with the absurd narcissism of the entitled suburban white male circa the late ’70s. Barraged by sociocultural messaging about self-actualization, Bobby Lee represents faceless millions who couldn’t tell the difference between having it all and having enough—which is why it’s tough to care about Bobby Lee’s journey. He’s so self-centered that he can’t appreciate what he has. Making matters worse, the film’s narrative problems are compounded by execution issues. Director John Trent has a clumsy touch for dramaturgy and pacing, so he presents the content of Carl Kleinschmitt’s bland script without any special spin. For most of its running time, the picture just sits there like a run-of-the-mill TV movie. While Middle Age Crazy would be disappointing under any circumstances, it’s especially irritating because the picture was one of two projects that helped derail the career momentum Dern gained with his Oscar nomination for Coming Home (1978).

          Dern earned his first shot at top billing in the early ’70s, headlining a number of interesting but unsuccessful projects, as well as a few outright turkeys, Coming Home gave Dern another chance. Middle Age Crazy and the perverse psychodrama Tattoo (1981) tanked, so Dern was thereafter relegated to supporting roles in expensive pictures and starring roles in low-budget indies. That said, Middle Age Crazy demonstrates why Dern was never destined for sustained leading-man status. Even when playing innocuous scenes, he’s got a strange twinkle in his eyes—and whenever his character gets angry, he’s frighteningly intense. Dern’s gifts include his bone-deep commitment and his myriad idiosyncrasies, so it’s a waste to put him in something as mundane as Middle Age Crazy, which was based upon, of all things, a song by Jerry lee Lewis.

          It doesn’t help that the actors surrounding Dern aren’t in his league. Ann-Margret makes a valiant stab at the thankless role of Bobby Lee’s crass wife, and the rest of the actors in this Canada/US coproduction are competent but forgettable. As for the story—yawn. Bobby Lee buys a fast car, sleeps with a younger woman (a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, no less), and tells an obnoxious client to take a hike. All of this plays out like an anemic version of Blake Edwards’ sexy hit 10 (1979), though the vibe is actually more grim character study than robust sex comedy.

Middle Age Crazy: FUNKY

1980 Week: Any Which Way You Can

The box-office success of Every Which Way But Loose (1978) all but ensured that audiences hadn’t seen the last of Clint Eastwood playing Philo, a trucker with an orangutan for a pet and a side career as a bare-knuckle fighter. Whereas Every Which Way But Loose is an awful movie that can be explained away by assuming that Eastwood wanted a break from playing tight-lipped avengers, Any Which Way You Can is inexcusable crap. Rehashing the narrative elements of the previous film and sprawling across an absurd 118-minute running time, Any Which Way You Can is punishingly stupid. The die is cast during the opening-credits scene, a dull montage of a pickup truck driving while Eastwood and Ray Charles croon a ghastly country song titled “Beer’s to You” on the soundtrack. Then comes the insipid storyline. After being dumped by country singer Lynn (Sondra Locke) in the previous film, Philo retires from fighting, but gangsters offer him $25,000 to tussle with Jack (William Smith), a brawler with a reputation for beating his opponents to death. Meanwhile, Philo has misadventures with his drinking buddy Orville (Geoffrey Lewis) and Orville’s foul-mouthed mother (Ruth Gordon). Everything unfolds predictably. Friends ask Philo not to fight, and then criminals blackmail him into participating. At regular intervals, the movie stops dead for musical performances (by Locke, Glen Campbell, and others), as well as scenes of Clyde defecating in police cars and sharing a hotel room with a frisky lady orangutan. At one point, Clyde cavorts to the accompaniment of a song called “Orangutan Hall of Fame.” By the time Any Which Way You Can reaches its nadir—cross-dressing bikers, a 20-minute fistfight, homophobic dialogue—the idiocy has become intolerable. Although Eastwood wasn’t done scratching his comedy itch (please give the 1989 clunker Pink Cadillac a wide berth), at least Any Which Way You Can ended the actor’s orangutan era.

Any Which Way You Can: LAME

1980 Week: The Idolmaker

          Based on the real-life experiences of Bob Marcucci, the rock-music impresario who led Frankie Avalon and Fabian to teen-idol fame in the 1950s, this heavily fictionalized drama is forever on the cusp of becoming as formulaic and trite as the average made-for-TV biopic. Happily, the innate skills of the participants elevate the material just enough to keep The Idolmaker interesting, and the way the protagonist comes across as a hard-driving prick neutralizes any accusations that the piece is mere hagiography. Another reason The Idolmaker merits attention is that it marked the big-screen debuts for several notables: In addition to being the first feature directed by Taylor Hackford, who broke big two years later with An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), this movie introduced actors Peter Gallagher and Joe Pantoliano.

          Primarily set in New York City, The Idolmaker follows the adventures of Vincent Vacari (Ray Sharkey), an ambitious songwriter who realizes that his ethnic look and receding hairline will prevent him from becoming a star. Channeling his energies into talent management, Vincent discovers swaggering sax player Tomaso DeLorusso (Paul Land), then gradually transforms the young man into a heartthrob with the stage name “Tommy Dee.” Success follows, as do problems. Tommy’s ego grows out of control, and he dallies with underage groupies. Meanwhile, Vincent develops a love/hate relationship with Brenda Roberts (Tovah Feldshuh), editor of a teen-idol fan magazine—instead of collaborating with Brenda, Vincent competes with her. Like so many people in show business, Vincent suffers from a mixture of insecurity and vanity, because he can’t reconcile his behind-the-scenes success with his desire to perform onstage. Eventually, Vincent grooms a new foundling, Guido (Peter Gallagher), into Caesare, using a hype campaign to create the impression that Caesare is a star before he’s performed in public. The mind games that Vincent plays with Guido/Caesare push tensions in Vincent’s life to a breaking point.

          Featuring original songs penned by Brill Building stalwart Jeff Barry, The Idolmaker has authenticity to spare. Hackford shoots concert scenes well, and he shapes performances meticulously. The movie’s a bit too squeaky-clean, giving drug use and illicit sex the arm’s-length treatment, and the script (credited to Edward Di Lorenzo) falls into predictable rhythms. Gallagher’s performance is a problem, as well. Attacking scenes way too vigorously, he shows his lack of experience. However, this is Sharkey’s movie from top to bottom. Reaching a career pinnacle that earned him a Golden Globe, Sharkey incarnates a very specific kind of fast-talking hustler, while also showing aspects of sensitivity and wounded pride that make the songwriting aspect of the character believable.

The Idolmaker: GROOVY

1980 Week: Little Miss Marker

          Envision The Sting (1973) without the zing, and you get an idea of what to expect from Little Miss Marker, a crime-themed comedy set in the Depression. Based on a vintage Damon Runyon story and written and directed by Hollywood vet Walter Bernstein, the movie wants desperately to recapture the effervescence of classic screwball comedies. It doesn’t. But thanks to star power and slick production values, the movie is watchable, provided your tolerance for schmaltz is high. Little Miss Marker is one of myriad movies featuring the perpetually crusty Walter Matthau as a cynical loner softened by the experience of becoming the surrogate parent to a sweet child. Adding to the movie’s sugar level is the presence of leading lady Julie Andrews. While her screen coupling with Matthau stretches credibility, her innate dignity elevates the whole production. Matthau plays “Sorrowful” Jones, a pitiless bookie forever at odds with local gangster Blackie (Tony Curtis), whom Jones has known since childhood. One day, a client who doesn’t have the cash to pay off a bet leaves his six-year-old daughter, “The Kid” (Sara Stimson), as collateral. When the girl’s father fails to return on schedule, Jones takes the Kid home as a means of protecting his investment.

          Limp comedy stems from the farcical situation of Jones trying to play homemaker. Later, once Jones learns that the Kid’s father has died, he resists turning her over to authorities, ostensibly because doing so would require Jones to explain his criminal enterprise. In reality, of course, he’s fallen for the kid and wants to protect her from the big, bad world. Complicating matters is Blackie’s scheme to open a new gambling joint, with money borrowed from Jones, and to fix a horse race involving a thoroughbred owned by society dame Amanda (Andrews). Figuring out where all this stuff is headed doesn’t require much imagination. When Runyon wrote the original story in 1932, the narrative might have seemed fresh and fun. Nearly 50 years later, the cocktail lost its fizz. Had Bernstein presented Little Miss Marker with a frenetic pace and different casting (namely, someone with more sass than Andrews), he might have put the thing over. Instead, he made something passable bordering on tedious. Stll, one can do worse than watching so many talented actors—the cast also includes Brian Dennehy, Lee Grant, Kenneth McMillan, and Bob Newhart—strut their stuff.

Little Miss Marker: FUNKY

1980 Week: My Bodyguard

          Note: While I'm on vacation, please enjoy a double-dose of 1980 movies with two weeks of brand-new posts about the year that brought the '70s to a close. Included in this super-sized batch of 1980 reviews are two movies recently requested by readers. Regular reviews of 1970s features will resume on Monday, July 25. Meantime, keep on keepin' on!
          Charming but slight, this crowd-pleaser about a pair of high-school misfits who yank each other from their doldrums was the promising directorial debut of actor/producer Tony Bill, best known at the time for coproducing The Sting (1973). Seen with hindsight, My Bodyguard is pocked with such imperfections as awkward tonal shifts and threadbare dramatic transitions. However, the endearing work of the two leads blends with an overall humanistic sensibility to cast the movie in a warm glow from start to finish. Therefore, even though the film's basic storyline is a clichéd underdog saga, only the most hard-hearted viewer can resist the pull of My Bodyguard.
          Set in Chicago, the picture concerns nebbish teenager Clifford Peache (Chris Makepeace), who transfers from a private academy to a tough public school. Clifford's father, Mr. Peache (Martin Mull), is the live-in manager of a posh hotel, but Mr. Peache is forever distracted by the antics of his aging mother. Gramma (Ruth Gordon) is a cheerful eccentric who spends her evenings making outrageous sexual overtures to men in the hotel bar. Upon arrival at his new school, Clifford recklessly embarrasses the school bully, Moody (Matt Dillon), thereby making a permanent enemy of the punk who shakes down nerds for lunch money. Meanwhile, Clifford becomes aware of a mysterious classmate named Ricky Linderman (Adam Baldwin), who is rumored to have missed school because he murdered someone. Once Clifford meets Ricky, he recognizes a kindred spirit—someone misunderstood for his sensitivity—even though Ricky is physically formidable because he's bigger and older than his peers. After one too many run-ins with Moody and his goons, Clifford hatches a wild idea and hires Ricky to serve as his bodyguard.
          Although there's little suspense regarding whether the main characters will overcome their differences, somehow it all works. Whenever Clifford and Ricky celebrate their newfound companionship (as in the climactic scene of a long motorcycle ride through city streets), the effect is genuinely uplifting. Similarly, the final showdown between the heroes and their enemy is as thrilling as it is simplistic. Dave Grusin's robust music keeps the movie energetic and propulsive, while judicious editing (credited to Stu Linder) keeps scenes focused and tight. Yet it’s the performances that make My Bodyguard fly. Dillon and Makepeace, both of whom had just begun their film careers, fill the screen with believable emotions, while Baldwin, in his movie debut, tears into the colorful role of a gentle giant with a traumatic past. Others in the solid cast are John Houseman, playing an enjoyably contrived cameo role, and the very young Jennifer Beals and Joan Cusack, both of whom play dorky students.

My Bodyguard: GROOVY

A Doll’s House (1973, UK) & A Doll’s House (1973, USA)

          In an odd coincidence, two films of Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House arrived in 1973, one in theaters and one on television. Both take place in 19th-century Norway, where housewife Nora revels upon hearing that her husband, uptight banker Torvald, has earned a major promotion, because the change marks an end to the family’s monetary woes. When Torvald fires a subordinate named Krogstad, the disgruntled man blackmails Nora with evidence that she once forged documents for a bank loan. The ensuing melodrama reveals what little respect Torvald has for his wife—hence the title, which refers to men treating women as playthings. Given the story’s ultimate theme of a woman’s self-realization, it’s obvious why the material seemed timely during the early feminist era.

          The British version, ironically enough, has American roots. It’s a filmed record of a Broadway production that was adapted from Ibsen by the celebrated UK playwright Christopher Hampton. The Broadway show featured revered British actress Claire Bloom in a tour-de-force performance, and Bloom re-creates her meticulous work in the movie. Director Patrick Garland largely ignores any cinematic possibilities in the play, opting for intimate scenes taking place on fully dressed approximations of the stage production’s sets. At his worst, Garland slips into bland cuts back and forth between flat close-ups, particularly during the final, lengthy showdown between Nora and Torvald. What Garland’s A Doll House lacks in visual imagination, however, it makes up for in dramatic firepower.

          Bloom runs the gamut from frivolous to manic to regal, and her costar—the sublime Anthony Hopkins—imbues Torvald with a mixture of inflated ego and repressed desperation. Playing key supporting roles are Denholm Elliot, bitter and cruel as the maligned Krogstand, and Ralph Richardson, elegantly sad as Nora’s aging friend, Dr. Rank. One can’t help but wonder what a filmmaker more adept at stage-to-screen adaptations, perhaps Sidney Lumet, could have done with the raw material of these finely tuned performances, but at least theater fans can savor great work forever. Plus, in any incarnation, Ibsen’s prescient notions about women liberating themselves pack a punch. Consider this passage from the British film: After Torvald exclaims, “No man would sacrifice his honor for love,” Nora replies, “Millions of women have.”

          Seeing as how Jane Fonda was a fierce combatant on the front lines of the ’70s culture wars, it’s not surprising she felt Ibsen’s statement merited a fresh adaptation. Alas, she proved unlucky twice. First, she clashed with director Joseph Losey, and second, she completed her project after the UK version had already reached theaters. That’s why the Fonda film landed on TV—producers rightly estimated the limits of the public’s appetite for this material. In nearly every way, Losey’s take on A Doll’s House is inferior to the Bloom/Hopkins version, even though Losey’s comparatively sophisticated camerawork creates more visual interest than Garland’s stodgy frames.

          The big problem is that the casting never clicks. Fonda gives an adequate performance, with intense moments of fervor and physicality weighted down by stilted readings of classical-style dialogue. Viewed in context, she’s an outlier. Fine European actors including Trevor Howard (as Dr. Rank) and David Warner (as Torvald) seem natural delivering reams of ornate dialogue while stuffed into period costumes, but none of them truly connects with Fonda—her performance exists in isolation from the rest of the picture. Plus, since the gangly Warner somewhat resembles a frequent Fonda costar, it’s impossible not to picture Donald Sutherland in the Torvald role and wonder what that dynamic might have been like. That said, Edward Fox is excellent in the Krogstand role, radiating predatory heat. Yet the thing that should have supercharged this spin on A Doll’s House, Fonda’s offscreen passion for gender equality, makes key moments feel more like stand-alone political speeches instead of organic elements of interpersonal confrontation.

A Doll’s House (UK): GROOVY

A Doll’s House (USA): FUNKY

The Ordeal of Patty Hearst (1979)

           Detailed, lengthy, and somewhat meticulous, this made-for-TV dramatization of heiress Patricia Hearst’s kidnapping and reconditioning by political radicals offers an adequate recitation of an event that ranks among the most notorious episodes in 1970s America. The title is a bit of a misnomer, partially because the protagonist is the FBI agent supervising the search for Hearst, and partially because the filmmakers fail to provide real insight into Heart’s psychological state. This is outside-in storytelling rather than inside-out, so a more accurate title would have been The Search for Patty Hearst. Yes, the picture depicts all the infamous moments, such as Heart’s participation in a bank robbery, but this is not the same as trying to explain Hearst’s experience of Stockholm Syndrome. Moreover, while TV mainstay Dennis Weaver is serviceable in the leading role of the FBI agent, Lisa Eilbacher isn’t given room to explore all of Hearst’s complicated dimensions. The actress is good enough in the most important scenes that one wishes the filmmakers had put her front and center.

           Shot in a slick but unadorned style, with some scenes energized by handheld, verite-style camerawork, The Ordeal of Patty Hearst opens by setting up the circumstances of FBI agent Charles Bates (Weaver). A veteran investigator, he’s facing professional obstacles including the imposition of a new mandatory retirement age and various public outcries for government transparency following the Watergate controversy. When Hearst is kidnapped, he’s under a microscope in every way imaginable. Worse, his investigation is hampered because most leads emanate from the San Francisco counterculture, and the denizens of that realm harbor profound anti-law-enforcement sentiments. Disappointingly, the filmmakers portray Bates as a saint with a badge, so even when his investigation stalls, we’re expected to root for his success. Employing hagiography techniques is not the best way to instill the viewer with confidence in the credibility of storytelling. The scenes with Hearst have more edge. She’s taken at gunpoint from her home, tossed in a lightless closet, tormented with propaganda and psychological seduction, and generally disengaged from her own identity over the course of weeks-long captivity. Eventually, she is rechristened Tania, a soldier in the Symbionese Liberation Army, so it’s Tania, rather than Hearst, who carries a machine gun into the bank robbery alongside SLA comrades.

           Again, seeing this stuff is one thing, but making us feel and think what Hearst did is another, and the higher ambition is beyond this project’s scope. Still, the see-it-now method renders a few vivid sequences, notably the violent standoff between police and an SLA contingent in Watts, and the score by John Rubenstein adds layers of eeriness and tension. Better still, the filmmakers do a fair job of explaining how leads and legwork eventually led FBI agents to Hearst’s final hiding place, and the parallels that are drawn between internal conflicts at the FBI and similar friction within the SLA are interesting. Also worth nothing is the presence in the supporting cast of actors who later achieved fame: indie-cinema sexpot Rosanna Arquette, Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul guy Jonathan Banks, and future horror-cinema fave Robert Englund.

The Ordeal of Patty Hearst: FUNKY

Hi-Riders (1978)

          Basically a biker flick featuring drag-racing cars instead of motorcycles, this moderately entertaining exploitation flick benefits from copious amounts of action as well as moody cinematography by Dean Cundey, who later became a favorite of directors John Carpenter, Steven Spielberg, and Robert Zemeckis. In fact, the best reason to watch this forgettable picture is to savor the grainy shadows with which Cundey imbues the storyline. As for that storyline, it’s wise to set your expectations low and still leave room for disappointment. The gist is that Mark (Darby Hinton) and his girl Lynn (Diane Peterson) prowl the countryside in their tricked-out car looking for suckers to race. One night, they drag against thuggish Billy (Roger Hampton), a member of a gang called the Hi-Riders. He loses but refuses to pay his debts, so they chase after him and land at Hi-Riders HQ. After the gang’s leader, T.J. (Wm. J. Beaudine), sides with the newcomers, Mark and Lynn decide to hang out with the gang for a while. Later, when a young guy from a local town is killed during a drag race with a Hi-Rider, the man’s father, Mr. Lewis (Stephen McNally), sics rednecks on the Hi-Riders. Mark and Lynn get caught in the crossfire.

          Noting how much of this stuff is predicated on silly coincidences is futile, because the characters are so one-dimensional it’s hard to care what happens. Still, Hi-Riders zips along fairly well. Burly Hampton is enjoyably nasty during early scenes, perky Peterson has fun spewing automotive trivia while playing an engine freak, and director Greydon Clark peppers the cast with a trio of familiar Hollywood players. Mel Ferrer and Ralph Meeker give indifferent performances as small-town cops, and craggy Neville Brand plays a bartender. Additionally, spunky rock tunes by a band called “Coyote and the Pack” fill the soundtrack. Does any of this high-octane noise mean anything, or will you even recall a frame of Hi-Riders after the credits roll? No, but the same could be said about most of the biker movies after which Hi-Riders is patterned. This is unapologetic lowest-common-denominator sludge, with exciting stunts and rebellious attitude and snarling bad guys, all set to the rhythm of roaring engines. 

Hi-Riders: FUNKY

Darker Than Amber (1970)

          The first of numerous manly-man adventure flicks directed by Robert Clouse, Darker Than Amber is a grim piece of business filled with macho stoicism, nasty fistfights, and sexy babes. It’s escapism with a melancholy stripe, too brutal and tragic to pass for the average Saturday-matinee fluff, even though it’s not actually deep or probing. Beefy Australian Rod Taylor drives the piece with his appealing performance as quasi-investigator Travis McGee, a creation of prolific mystery novelist John D. MacDonald. McGee lives on a houseboat and shares adventures with his portly buddy, Meyer (Theodore Bikel). Although McGee claims to work only for a 50% finder’s fee whenever he recovers something a client has lost, he’s really a man of idiosyncratic but steadfast principles. Accordingly, the minor enjoyment of Darker Than Amber is watching how romantic entanglements with beautiful women draw McGee out of his shell and transform him into a violent crusader. Also noteworthy, of course, is the procession of 007-style spectacle and thrills, from mysterious dames hanging around gambling parlors to nefarious killers testing McGee’s mettle in personal combat. No viewer is likely to encounter anything in Darker Than Amber that he or she hasn’t seen before, but it’s a tasty slice of pulp fiction nonetheless.

          Things kick off when hulking thug Terry (William Smith) tosses unconscious beauty Vangie (Suzy Kendall) off a pier with a heavy weight tied to her legs. Unbeknownst to Terry, McGee sees the fall from a nearby boat and misinterprets it as an attempted suicide, so he rescues Vangie. This draws him into not only a love affair with the beautiful blonde, but also a dangerous mystery. Things get episodic very quickly, so there’s not much in the way of forward momentum, but most of the vignettes are interesting. For instance, a long passage of McGee getting dragged into a remote swamp by a would-be killer has an Elmore Leonard-esque sardonic edge. Kendall’s seductive quality bounces nicely off Bikel’s courtliness and Taylor’s swagger, while Smith, with his massive biceps and absurd bleach-blonde hair, channels villainy with characteristic focus and intensity. Better still, Clouse keeps things edgy and moody even when the story lags, finally shifting the movie into high gear with the brutal showdown between McGee and Terry that concludes the film.

Darker Than Amber: FUNKY

Alien Zone (1978)

A special treat, perhaps, for those eager to see what a low-budget horror anthology produced in Oklahoma might look like, the nonsensically titled Alien Zone—which has also been exhibited under the more appropriate moniker House of the Dead—features a number of bottom-rung Hollywood actors as well as various deservedly anonymous local performers. Basically an anemic example of the portmanteau style associated with the UK’s Amicus Productions, Alien Zone begins with a man arriving at a remote building one night while searching for a hotel. He's greeted by The Mortician (Ivor Francis), who introduces the newcomer to some of his “clients.” As The Mortician describes the circumstances under which each individual died, the movie presents extended flashbacks that play out like gruesome short stories. With the exception of a sequence involving dueling detectives, each of the stories ends with a violent shock instead of proper narrative twist, which reflects how feeble the movie is overall. The pace is slow, the performances are never better than adequate, the suspense is mostly nonexistent, and the takeaway is that Alien Zone should have been taken away from viewers. This is far from the worst horror picture ever made, but it’s certainly among the most forgettable. Francis has an enjoyably droll quality as The Magician, and the actors in the dueling-detectives vignette (Brit Bernard Fox and Yank Charles Aidman) bring florid style to their delivery of overwrought dialogue. As for the fright factor, one lady gets bitten to death by children wearing ridiculous-looking fangs, a dude falls down an elevator shaft, and a ladykiller offs his victims by using stockings as strangulation devices. Is there any aesthetic or logical reason for these very different types of stories to coexist? Not really. But then again, is there any reason whatsoever for Alien Zone to exist? Not really.

Alien Zone: LAME

Face to Face (1976)

          Some films are best appreciated as the vessels that deliver extraordinary performances, and Ingmar Bergman’s probing psychological drama Face to Face is an example. Liv Ullman, one of Bergman’s most frequent collaborators, renders an extraordinary characterization as a woman succumbing to madness. Her portrayal climaxes in an epic-length crying/laughing jag that represents some of the most vulnerable work you’ll ever encounter in a movie—like all the best actors, she creates the illusion that she’s peeled off her skin, metaphorically speaking, to let viewers she the blood and viscera pumping underneath. The resulting sense of connection between actor and viewer is powerful to experience. The same cannot necessarily be said of the film as a whole. Although Ullman is in nearly every scene and remains compelling throughout, the story is a fairly standard iteration of Bergman’s style.

          Dr. Jenny Isaksson (Ullman) is a psychiatrist stuck in an unsatisfying marriage, so when she meets suave Dr. Tomas Jacobi (Erland Josephson) at a party, she indulges his romantic overtures—up to a point. After a first date during which she startles Tomas by asking clinical questions about his planned technique for sexual conquest, she later tests his interest even further by having a major breakdown in his presence. Eventually, Jenny’s torment leads her to attempt suicide, and that lands her in a psych ward. Amazingly, Tomas remains loyal to her, visiting Jenny on a regular basis while she wrestles with her demons. Since Bergman was never a sentimentalist, he’s not after the notion that love conquers all—Face to Face expresses something closer to the idea that love makes the pain of existence incrementally more tolerable.

         Along the way to articulating that mildly comforting expression, Bergman visits many dark places. Interestingly, the vignettes that connect most strongly in Face to Face are the unadorned ones, where Bergman employs nothing but acting and mise-en-scène, even though Face to Face contains a long surrealistic sequence that recalls the visually experimental Bergman of old—shades of The Seventh Seal (1957). The surrealistic sequence takes viewers inside Jenny’s mind. Wearing a metaphorically rich red dress, she drifts through pieces of her life, for instance raging at her parents. This sequence represents a noble attempt at bringing a character’s interior life to the surface, but it’s perhaps too linear and obvious to genuinely evoke a disturbed mental state.

          Plus, as with many of Bergman’s dramas, there’s the overarching aesthetic question of how much emotional horror an audience should be asked to endure. Beyond Jenny’s breakdown, her suicide attempt, her institutionalization, and her wrenching dream sequence, Face to Face also includes an attempted rape and various scenes of interpersonal cruelty. Face to Face is tough to get through, and not every viewer will agree it’s worth the investment of attention and endurance.

Face to Face: GROOVY

Believe in Me (1971)

          Released a few months after Jerry Schatzberg’s harrowing The Panic in Needle Park, this slickly produced drug drama tells roughly the same story, even though the films couldn’t be more different in terms of execution. Whereas The Panic in Needle Park is loose and nihilistic, Believe in Me is linear and tame. Despite its arty excesses, The Panic in Needle Park is something akin to a straight shot of ugly reality. Conversely, Believe in Me is a diluted dose, with the mandates of palatable Hollywood artifice compelling everyone involved to pull their punches. Believe in Me isn’t a rotten movie, per se, and neither does it slip into self-parody, which often happens when mainstream filmmakers try to explore street culture. Nonetheless, it’s way too safe and tidy to have the desired impact, and only one of the film’s two leading actors approaches the necessary level of commitment.

          Lanky and wide-eyed Michael Sarrazin stars as Remy, a young doctor who feels the world too deeply, so he pops a pill every time he’s touched by the plight of a patient, whether a diminished senior or a sick child. Setting aside the major plot point that Remy made an incredibly poor career choice, the movie continues when Remy meets Pamela (Jacqueline Bisset), the sister of a fellow physician. She’s working as an assistant editor on children’s books, but she’s a bit lost in life, so she’s susceptible to Remy’s charms. They move in together, and she soon learns that his drug use is spiraling out of control. She catches him snorting speed, and she lets him spin the fantasy that it’s okay for him to self-medicate because his medical degree allows him to safely manage his intake. Rather inexplicably, Pamela remains with Remy even after he escalates to shooting speed intravenously, and she ignores red flags like the periodic appearances of slimy dealer Stutter (Allen Garfield), who all but directly says he’d like to turn Pamela out as a prostitute. Inevitably, Rmy pulls Pamela into his world of addiction, and that’s when the movie loses its way.

          Not only is Pamela’s embrace of hard drugs dubious from a narrative perspective, but at this stage in her development, Bisset lacked the range to credibly dramatize the leap from buttoned-up city girl to strung-out junkie. Toward the end of the picture, she looks like she’s playing dress-up with her raccoon eyes and stringy hair. For his part, Sarrazin in his prime was so gaunt that he looked somewhat like a junkie anyway, and he was also a deeper actor than Bisset was during her ingénue years. His work here isn’t good enough to fully overcome the picture’s flaws, but he easily eclipses his costar. Adding to the general fakeness of Believe in Me is the gooey score by Fred Karlin, which is punctuated by a tender theme song that Lou Rawls sings, and the sometimes distractingly elegant imagery created by cinematographers Richard C. Brooks and Richard C. Kratina. In other words, good luck believing in Believe in Me.

Believe in Me: FUNKY

 

Straight on Till Morning (1972)

          More unpleasant than unsettling, Straight on Till Morning is an atypical offering from UK’s Hammer Films, because even though it has gruesome elements, the picture is a slowly paced psychological thriller rather than an outright horror show. Straight on Till Morning is not the only movie Hammer made in this vein, but it compares poorly to, say, Crescendo (1970), which packs a sexy punch. It’s also hard to defend the way this film utilizes iconography associated with J.M. Barrie’s classic Peter Pan character, since the various allusions that are made to Barrie’s work seem arbitrary and perverse. Linking fairy-tale storytelling to horrific subject matter has worked well in other contexts, but here, the device merely seems distasteful and opportunistic. Anyway, the plot begins when plain-looking twentysomething Brenda (Rita Tushingham) leaves her working-class mom in Liverpool to seek adventure and romance in London. Hopelessly naïve, Brenda talks quite a bit about wanting a baby, and her interest in motherhood, combined with her suffocating loneliness, makes her easy prey for predatory men. Sure enough, Brenda falls into a twisted relationship with Peter (Shane Briant), a fair-haired psychopath who insists on calling each of his lovers “Wendy.” (Pushing the Peter Pan allusion even further, he calls his yappy little dog “Tinker.”)

          The suspense of the piece, such as it is, stems from the question of whether Brenda will realize she’s in danger before falling victim to Peter’s weapon of choice, a retractable utility knife. On the plus side, writer John Peacock and director Peter Collinson take their time with scenes that straddle the line between character development and mood-building; although the filmmakers fail to properly illuminate the psychology of the people within the movie, a strong sense of the characters’ everyday lives comes across, so we get the context if not the substance. For instance, the filmmakers take lingering looks at Brenda’s job in a clothing store, her problematic acquaintance with a beautiful blonde gal pal, and Brenda’s generalized anxiety about life. Tushingham engages her role earnestly, wringing a bit of pathos from the malnourished script, and Briant is acceptable as the far-eyed, poetic murderer. Yet there’s a big so-what factor here, and the arty, fragmented editing style that renders the movie’s first half-hour borderline incoherent does not add to the overall appeal of Straight on Till Morning.

Straight on Till Morning: FUNKY

Birch Interval (1976)

          A thoughtful coming-of-age story somewhat in the vein of Harper Lee’s 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Birch Interval has some emotional moments and tender performances, even if the sum effect is underwhelming thanks to an episodic storyline and a general lack of narrative focus. Set in 1947, with events happening in and around the Amish country of Pennsylvania, the movie was directed by the capable Delbert Mann, best known for helming the Oscar-winning Marty (1955), and Joanna Crawford adapted the screenplay from her own novel. Together, these two did a fair job of blending nostalgic atmosphere, the experience of young people discovering grim realities for the first time, and the sadness of watching a loved one plagued by forces beyond his control. So even if Birch Interval fails to achieve all of its goals, the fault does not stem from a lack of sincere effort.

          The story opens with young Jesse (Susan McClung) arriving for an extended visit with her beloved grandfather, Pa Strawacher (Eddie Albert)' her eccentric uncle, Thomas (Rip Torn); Thomas’ wife, Marie (Ann Wedgeworth); and Josh (Doug Fishel Jr.), Marie and Thomas' son. Problems soon become apparent. Thomas’ behavior has become increasingly bizarre, even though he’s harmless; he does things like climbing into trees when the mood strikes him. Marie has lost her patience with her husband’s peculiarities, while Pa and Josh merely fret about their inability to provide meaningful help. Woven though this domestic material is an undercooked subplot about clashes between the Amish and local authorities, who are tasked with enforcing rules requiring that Amish children attend public school. In the same way that piece could have been dropped from the picture with no ill effect, the filmmakers would have been wise to strengthen Jesse’s story. She has some colorful and even harrowing adventures, but she’s more like a witness than a protagonist.

          Albert anchors the movie well, personifying compassion and tolerance while also expressing the helpless anguish of someone facing an impossible decision—specifically, whether to have his own son committed. Yet the only reason Torn doesn’t steal the picture is that, like his character, he disappears for long periods of screen time. He’s arresting when he's present, missed when he’s not. In the crucial leading role, young McClurg does earnest work, conveying bewilderment in some scenes and a kind of righteous indignation in others.

Birch Interval: FUNKY

Poor Devil (1973)

          One of the cinematic rabbit holes I find most alluring is the one containing lost feature-length TV pilots from the ’70s. Sure, it’s fun to revisit the initial episodes of series that later became cult favorites or even iconic boob-tube mainstays, but it’s even more revealing to investigate concepts that almost became series. For instance, it’s astonishing the pilot episode of Poor Devil was actually filmed and exhibited. It’s a broad-as-a-barn comedy about a low-ranking demon who’s desperate to escape his mundane job in Hell, which involves stoking the fires of the underworld by literally shoveling coal into a furnace. The price of getting a promotion? Persuading a mortal to sell his soul. Yep. Had Poor Devil gone to series, every week, the show’s “hero” would presumably have lured some dumb putz into eternal damnation, and/or attempt to do so and suffer a crisis of conscience. Oh, and the project’s star was Sammy Davis Jr.

          In the pilot movie, which has a few moments of pith but never overcomes the innately untenable nature of the premise, the would-be “client” is Burnett (Jack Klugman), a department-store accountant. His wife wants nice things that he can’t afford; his smarmy supervisor, Dennis (Adam West), has the store’s top accounting job simply because he’s better at kissing ass; and Burnett has sunken so low as to attempt robbing the store one night. Meanwhile, ne’er-do-well demon Sammy (Davis) has spent centuries in torment after screwing up previous assignments, so he’s eager to impress Lucifer (Christopher Lee) by getting someone to sign a contract. Sammy talks his way into becoming Burnett’s handler, with the understanding that if he fails, his punishment will be hundreds more years of shoveling. The bulk of the pilot depicts Sammy’s attempts to fulfill Burnett’s every wish, per the terms of the contract, even though Burnett knows he can wrangle out of the deal if Sammy botches anything. Proving how the series premise was never going to work, Sammy deliberately screws up once he realizes that Burnett is too nice a guy for Hell.

          Nonetheless, Poor Devil has a colorful cast, and Davis does his best to sell the wackadoodle idea. He’s charming if perhaps a bit overzealous. Lee and West are fine if uncharacteristically restrained, and Klugman fares best of all, bouncing between comic anguish and exasperated one-liners. For instance, when Sammy magically appears in Burnett’s bedroom, Sammy helpfully explains, “I’m from down below.” Burnett’s response: “You’re from the Feldmans’ apartment?” Or, as Burnett says later, “I don’t wanna go to Hell—I haven’t even been to Europe yet!” You get the idea. By the by, this movie’s vision of the underworld has a very Austin Powers vibe, with lots of medallions and turtlenecks—apparently the road to Hell is paved with polyester.

Poor Devil: FUNKY