A Labor of Love (1976)

          Analyzing the documentary A Labor of Love is a tricky business. Brief but focused and interesting, it’s a movie about movies, tracking production of a low-budget indie called The Last Affair that was made in Chicago, and the documentarians capture elements of artistic obstacles, cast misbehavior, financial pressure, sudden production problems, and the tedium of creating films one camera angle at a time. None of that, however, suggests the film’s main hook and the reason why it’s so complicated to discuss. Prior to principal photography on The Last Affair, backers told director Henri Charr to include hardcore sex scenes or else kiss his budget goodbye—so by the time documentarians Robert Flaxman and Daniel Goldman began filming life on the set of The Last Affair, they had become journalists tracking the creation of pornography.

          This turn of events created two problems, both intermingled with aesthetic and social considerations. Firstly, because A Labor of Love concerns a “real” movie that morphed into porn, A Labor of Love isn’t truly a documentary about the “porn chic” movement that thrived during the early ’70s. There’s a big difference between this film’s squirm-inducing scenes of uninhibited men and women screwing on camera and, say, fly-on-the-wall coverage of professional adult-film stars grinding away on a soundstage in Southern California. A Labor of Love illustrates the surreal working conditions of porn sets without saying anything about the porn industry. Secondly, the documentarians cross enough lines of decorum and good taste to become pornographers themselves. During its theatrical release, A Labor of Love carried an X-rating because it features countless closeups of female genitalia, as well as male-gaze favorites including female masturbation and attractive women receiving oral sex. Yet there’s barely more than a fleeting glimpse of male frontal nudity, suggesting the documentarians felt the true value of their work wasn’t satisfying intellectual curiosity, but rather inspiring hard-ons.

          The most frustrating thing about A Labor of Love is that it’s made well. The on-set footage is steady and vivid, no easy feat given all the chaos and varying lighting patterns of an active film set, and the sit-down interviews are revelatory, with Charr discussing his anguish about the porn requirements and actresses sharing regret after filming exploitive scenes. Parsing the respectable documentary buried inside the skin show, the best moments involve a hopped-up stud failing to rouse—necessitating the use of a stand-in—and the use of liquid soap to create a skeevy cinematic illusion. Although A Labor of Love lacks all sorts of important context, including postmortem interviews exploring what happened with The Last Affair, it conveys some truth, as when a crew member remarks that filming coitus is like making an industrial film, all numbing repetition. Heavy on the labor, light on the love.

A Labor of Love: FUNKY

The Inheritance (1976)

          Despite Anthony Quinn’s top billing, this trashy melodrama is a vehicle for glamorous French actress Dominique Sanda, who plays a money-hungry vixen sleeping her way through a dysfunctional family while trying to seize control of a fortune. Produced in Italy and shown on American screens with some iffy dubbing transforming supporting players into English-language speakers, the picture evokes novelist Harold Robbins’ style of sexualized upper-class intrigue, although it’s a period piece instead of a modern story. Together with gauzy cinematography, extensive location photography, and relatively ornate production design, the vintage setting gives the piece a deceptive quality-cinema veneer. For while the characters are credible, the narrative is logical, and the themes are serious, the movie slides into the gutter at regular intervals. Director Mauro Bolognini spends almost as much time pointing his camera at Sanda’s naked body as he does recording her actual performance, and the way her character uses sex ensures that most of the movie feels lurid. Sure, Robbins often took similar material to even sleazier places, but it’s really just a matter of degrees.

          Set in the late 19th century, the film begins abruptly, with cruel patriarch Gregorio (Quinn) announcing that he’s dissolving the family business, a huge commercial bakery, and giving his three adult children their inheritances while he’s still alive. Long-suffering elder son Pippo (Gigi Proietti) gets a pittance, handsome Mario (Fabio Testi) receives only repayment of his massive gambling debts, and daughter Teta (Adriana Asti) gets nothing because Gregorio dislikes the man she married. Set adrift, Pippo starts a hardware business and marries the beautiful Irene (Sanda), who seems like a saint at first blush, given how she mediates various squabbles between the siblings. Alas, Pippo discovers her true character once he realizes that Irene is sleeping with Mario. Later, she makes her way into Gregorio’s bed, though it’s never clear whether that was her plan all along or whether she simply pursued an opportunity once it became visible. Although it’s made skillfully, The Inheritance is forgettable. Among other problems, it’s impossible to root for any of the characters, who run the gamut from avaricious to entitled. Moreover, while Sanda possesses a certain kind of regal allure, she’s too much of an ice queen to generate empathy. Go figure that she won the Best Actress prize at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival for her work in The Inheritance. 

The Inheritance: FUNKY

Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things (1971)

          This low-rent Floridian exploitation flick presents an offbeat pastiche of crime, gore, melodrama, and same-sex relational dynamics. Yet Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things isn’t quite as weird a viewing experience as you might imagine. Instead, it’s alternately droll and tedious and unpleasant. Scenes of two male criminals bickering at each other like an old married couple approach camp, even though the conflict between a repressed psychopath and a slovenly thug is quite grim; drab sequences of cops searching for clues chew up screen time without adding much; and bloody murder vignettes, often tweaked with solarization effects, repulse in typical grindhouse fashion. Cheap production values, some shoddy performances, and ugly cinematography add to the generalized sleaziness of the piece. While Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things tells the creepy story of a dysfunctional relationship triggering a string of murders, it’s exaggerating to say there’s a real movie in here somewhere. Nonetheless, the filmmakers exhibit a small measure of curiosity and imagination, even if they lack skill.

          Paul (Abe Zwick) and Stanley (Wayne Crawford) killed someone up north and fled to Florida, where Paul put on women’s clothes and assumed the identity of Stanley’s “Aunt Martha.” The idea is to create the illusion of a quiet suburban existence until they can slip back into society as themselves, but problems emerge. A pesky neighbor tries to make friends with the reclusive Martha, and Stanley is too undisciplined to maintain the ruse. He refuses to cut his hair or ditch his counterculture wardrobe, he slips out of the house on a regular basis to chase local chicks, and he treats Paul/Martha like a nagging spouse. Stanley’s sex life is of particular interest, since the filmmakers make a point of showing his inability to go all the way with compliant lovelies, and they also show him in bed with Paul/Martha. Therefore, the dreadful things of the title come across as manifestations of Paul’s jealous rage. Things get extreme during the climax, which involves a C-section, sadomasochism, and a van covered with pastel-colored peace signs.

          Is Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things yet another wrongheaded movie presenting the stereotype of gays as deviants? Yes and no. Somehow, the picture is simultaneously a misguided attempt at telling a serious story, an unfunny pass at comic material, a transgressive spin on familiar B-movie tropes, and a vulgar blast of sex and violence. As such, it’s uncommon without actually being special.

Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things: FUNKY

Savages (1974)

          Months after playing a howling-mad psycho in the telefilm Pray for the Wildcats, Andy Griffith took more subdued approach to playing a killer in another telefilm, Savages. Slight but unnerving, Savages was based upon a novel by Robb White, and it tells the threadbare story of a hunter who accidentally kills an innocent man, then tries to frame his guide for the crime. Since the story lacks the element of mystery—viewers never doubt whether Griffith’s character was responsible—the vibe is more pressure cooker than whodunit, so the material might have worked better as, say, a one-hour episode of Night Gallery. Even though Savages runs just 74 minutes, it feels padded, especially during the long, long sequences of the guide struggling to survive in the desert while the hunter plays cat-and-mouse games. Extending the story to full telefilm length also exposes some iffy narrative mechanics to scrutiny. The trick for telling stories about villains toying with victims involves providing a persuasive explanation for why the villain doesn’t simply kill his or her adversary, and Savages never does that. As a result, Savages is merely disposable escapism.

          Griffith plays Horton Madec, a big-city lawyer with a bum leg. After using is influence to get a license for killing a big-horn sheep, he travels to the California desert only to find that the guide he originally hired is unavailable. Lucky for Horton, Ben Campbell (Sam Bottoms) has time on his hands. A young animal enthusiast who strikes locals as eccentric because of his fixation on vultures and other desert critters, he knows the land but doesn’t groove on killing protected animals, no matter the circumstances. Yet Horton twists his arm with cash, so off they go. The minute Horton spots a ram on a hilltop, he gets carried away and fires blindly, hitting and killing an old hermit. When Ben refuses to help cover up the death, Horton forces Ben to flee at gunpoint, the idea being that Ben will die of exposure before reaching civilization, allowing Horton to spin a yarn about Ben committing the murder and going crazy afterward. As directed by the experienced Lee H. Katzin, Savages is workmanlike at best, with some sequences suffering for lack of narrative excitement and visual creativity. However, the picture starts well and ends well, its third act effectively complicating the storyline. Better still, Bottoms complements Griffith’s restrained villainy with sweet vulnerability, so watching Savages conjures images of Sheriff Andy Taylor torturing Opie. Sometimes, casting against type works wonders.

Savages: FUNKY

The Twist (1976)

Recalling the production of this obscure European sex comedy in his memoirs, Bruce Dern admits “I didn’t really get what the movie was getting at until about two-thirds of the way through.” In fact, most of the chapter Dern devotes to The Twist concerns meals, Parisian weather, director Claude Chabrol’s preoccupation with complicated camera movements, and a weird episode with Ann-Margret and her husband at a nightclub. Watching The Twist, you’ll quickly understand why the circumstances of the picture are more interesting than the picture itself. A dull would-be farce about rotten people cheating on each other, the movie concerns an American writer (Dern), his French wife (played by Chabrol’s real-life spouse, Stéphane Audran), and their various extramarital entanglements. Ann-Margret plays the writer’s mistress. The wife fantasizes about killing the mistress, and the husband has a fever dream about all the women in his life—including his hot stepdaughter—molesting him before the wife shows up to cut off his manhood with a pair of scissors. (Not exactly Mr. Subtlety, Chabrol juices this sequence with a closeup of a fake penis becoming engorged, lest the audience somehow misread the wife’s intentions when she shows up with the scissors.) The Twist is not wholly negligible, because Dern plays his role with intensity (perhaps too much so); the production values are slick; and there’s a lot of fodder for the male gaze, with Sybil Danning as a flirty secretary and Sydne Rome as the stepdaughter. Additionally, scenes depicting the marital dynamic between the main characters exude believable hostility, with the husband coming across as a self-involved prick while the wife comes across as a shrew desperate to be tamed. (Wait, you’re surprised that a sex farce from a French director born in 1930 has gender politics from the Stone Age?) Nonetheless, beyond those eager to see everything Chabrol or Dern ever made, it’s hard to imagine many viewers finding the stamina to endure all 107 minutes of The Twist.

The Twist: LAME

Three Tough Guys (1974)

          Partly a blaxploitation thriller but mostly a failed attempt to give European star Lino Ventura some international crossover appeal, Three Tough Guys—sometimes known as Tough Guys—contains about two-thirds of a moderately entertaining movie. The first stretch of the picture, setting up a convoluted plot involving various parties connected to stolen loot, is murky and tedious, too many disconnected events and not enough character development. Things pick up during the second stretch, when an ex-cop allies with a rough-and-tumble priest to search for clues. And then, in a case of too little too late, things finally resolve into proper thriller mode during the last stretch, when the ex-cop and the priest square off against a swaggering criminal. Typical of the movie’s shortcomings is the number of scenes without musical scoring, because the producers hired Isaac Hayes as both composer and costar, then failed to fully utilize his talents for manufacturing industrial-strength funk. It says a lot about Three Tough Guys that the most enjoyable sequence is a nothing vignette of a car driving across town, simply because that’s when Hayes gets to unleash a thumping R&B theme without any interruptions. Costar Fred Williamson is squandered, too, since he’s barely the first hour.

          Set in Chicago, the picture revolves around the theft of $1 million, the murder of an insurance investigator, and various other narrative threads that fail to generate much interest. For reasons that are never particularly clear, Father Charlie (Ventura), an ex-con and ex-prizefighter, defies his monsignor’s directives by investigating the theft/murder/whatever. Over the course of several days, he sees a mysterious black dude watching him, and the dude, Lee (Hayes), asserts himself just in time to rescue Father Charlie from certain death. They bond, again for reasons that are never particularly clear, though it’s amusing to watch Lee iron the priest’s pants and cook him eggs by using the still-hot iron as a griddle. Caught in the middle of the intrigue is Fay (Paula Kelly), a gangland moll connected to slick crook Joe Snake (Williamson). Blah, blah, blah. Three Tough Guys has some colorful fights, the filmmakers use Chicago locations well, and Hayes and Ventura both exude the same sort of casual cool. There’s some vibe here. But will you remember a single thing about Three Tough Guys after it’s over? Not likely.

Three Tough Guys: FUNKY

2.5 Million Page Views!

It’s always a pleasure to break from the routine of everyday posts with a special update about good news, so I’m happy to report that Every ’70s Movie has reached yet another readership milestone that far exceeds any expectations I might have had when I began this project in October 2010. As of this week, the blog has accrued over 2.5 million views. Thank you! Given the occasion, and the fact that the end of this massive project is in sight, please forgive one of my periodic requests for assistance. As always, donations are more than welcome, because we’re well into the phase of this project that involves expenses for tracking down obscure films. (If you’re able to contribute, please use the PayPal button on the homepage.) While I harbor no illusions of finding every single picture that meets my criteria, as some times are legitimately lost, my plan is to get as close to saturation coverage as possible. To that end, I’m happy to report a behind-the-scenes milestone as well, since I recently crossed the 2,000 mark in my tally of feature films reviewed for the blog. (In actuality, hundreds more have been reviewed, counting TV movies, 1980 releases, and some titles that were written up before I refined the criteria—you’ve got to crack a few eggs, etc.) My best guess is that Every ’70s Movie will end sometime in early 2018, though the final post could arrive sooner if I hit a wall in terms of finding obscure releases. That’s where your assistance, dear readers, is so important. The more resources I have, the closer I can get to making the title of this blog a declaration of fact rather than a metaphor. Meantime, thanks as always for your loyal readership, don’t be shy about comments and suggestions, and keep on keepin’ on! 

Promise at Dawn (1970)

Clearly imagined as a tribute to a colorful sort of woman whose zest for life is eclipsed only by her steadfast belief in her son, Promise at Dawn instead plays out as a disjointed hybrid, part character study, part melodrama, part nostalgia piece. Worse, the key character of the woman comes across not as formidable and idiosyncratic but as delusional and obnoxious. Watching Greek screen icon Melina Mercouri overact for 99 minutes is torturous, and enduring the anything-goes directorial flourishes rendered by her real-life husband, Jules Dassin, makes Promise at Dawn even less palatable. One gets the sense that Dassin and Mercouri found this story charming or even magical, but it is neither. Based on a semiautobiographical novel by Romain Gary, the film covers many years before, during, and after World War II. Polish actress Nina Kacewa, played by Mercouri, has an illegitimate child with fellow thespian Ivan Mosjukine, who is played by Dassin. For various reasons, some political and some related to Nina’s erratic nature, Nina takes her young son from Poland to France, living an nomadic lifestyle while pummeling her boy with peculiar life lessons. “If someone insults your mom,” she says at one point, “they must bring you home on a stretcher.” Nina pushes him to excel at random activities, such as dancing and ping-pong, giving a kid a complex about being destined for greatness. At her most demented, Nina decides that Romain (played as an adult by Assi Dayan) must kill Hitler. Promise at Dawn is lavishly produced and pictorially impressive, but it’s a mess in terms of tone, with heavy political discourse in one scene and idiotic comic business in the next. How the conversations about incest and rape fit into the mix is anyone’s guess. As for the acting, Dayan gives a forgettable performance and Mercouri gives one you’ll wish you could forget.

Promise at Dawn: LAME

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) & The Cat o’ Nine Tails (1971) & Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971)

          Around the same time that Alfred Hitchcock’s career began to wane, potential successors for his “Master of Suspense” title emerged in Hollywood and abroad. In America, director Brian De Palma laced several films with overt homages to Hitchcock. Overseas, Italian director Dario Argento won a fleeting sort of international fame with his first three pictures, all of which have unmistakably Hitchcockian elements.

          Argento’s debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, benefits not only from the self-assurance of a youthful talent eager to strut his stuff but also from extraordinary collaborators. Having proven himself as a screenwriter on pictures including Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), Argento secured the services of composer Ennio Morricone and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. Their unnerving music and stately photography elevate the contrivances of the script Argento adapted from a 1949 novel by Fredrick Brown. The film opens with a bravura visual flourish—while living in Rome, American writer Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante) happens upon an attack inside an all-white art gallery, so he watches from behind the gallery’s glass façade as a beautiful woman struggles to survive a stabbing. Luckily, he’s able to call for help. Afterward, police detective Morosini (Enrico Maria Salerno) confiscates Dalmas’ passport and forces the writer to remain in Italy until the investigation concludes. Dalmas then starts an investigation of his own, even as the killer attacks others who get too close to the truth.

          Despite myriad lapses in credibility and logic, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage moves along fairly well. Unfortunately, so many scenes feature the brutalization of women that Argento left himself vulnerable to charges of misogyny, just as De Palma did with his Hitchcockian shockers. That said, most of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is vivid. Expertly staged jump scares complement unpleasant scenes including a horrific razor-blade attack.  Salerno’s world-weary portrayal, while clichéd, is fun to watch, though Musante is far less impressive. In his defense, he’s burdened with some wretched dialogue (“What’s happening to me? This damn thing’s becoming an obsession!”). All in all, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is an impressive first effort, its rough edges attributable to inexperience and its highlights indicative of promise.

          Argento’s follow-up, The Cat o’ Nine Tails, is made with just as much confidence but slightly less panache. Morricone returns, but the movie suffers for Storaro’s absence, because the imagery in Argento’s second film is pedestrian instead of painterly. Also miring The Cat o’ Nine Tails in mediocrity are distasteful themes of child endangerment, homophobia, and incest. Once again, Argento uses the device of a witness who becomes an amateur sleuth. This time, blind typesetter Franco Arnò (Karl Malden) overhears a suspicious conversation and then makes a connection when he learns about a murder that happened near where the conversation took place. Franco enlists the help of newspaperman Carlo Giordani (James Franciscus), and they search for the killer’s identity. Things get convoluted fast, because the plot involves, among other things, cutting-edge genetic research and the use of a whip as a metaphor. Still, the plotting of The Cat o’ Nine Tails is no more ridiculous than that of the typical Hitchcock picture, except perhaps for the sheer number of McGuffins pulling the story down blind alleys.

          Logic is even more of a problem in Argento’s sophomore effort than it was in his debut, since the police in The Cat o’ Nine Tails seem both ineffective and weirdly tolerant of amateur detectives. Like Musante in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Franciscus cuts a handsome figure but offers little else to the proceedings, though Malden’s avuncular charm makes all of his scenes watchable. Argento’s apparent desire to out-Hitchcock Hitchcock gets a bit tiresome, as during a long scene involving poisoned milk, but Morricone saves the day with his offbeat score, all eerie wails and spidery syncopation. Furthermore, Argento comes through with a fun chase at the end as well as a colorful final death. So even though The Cat o’ Nine Tails doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, it’s the most entertaining installment of Argento’s so-called “Animal Trilogy.”

          Four Flies on Grey Velvet lacks the elegance of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and the pulpy energy of The Cat o’ Nine Tails. Worse, Four Flies on Grey Velvet tacks in a grotesque direction by fetishizing violence with close-ups of foreign objects penetrating skin. It’s as if Argento, upon reaching maturity as a storyteller, suddenly forgot the lessons about understatement he’d learned from Hitchcock’s work. Anyway, Four Flies on Grey Velvet gets underway when rock-music drummer Roberto Tobias (Michael Brandon) confronts a man he perceives as a stalker, then accidentally kills the man while another person photographs the incident. Blackmail ensues, so Roberto half-heartedly investigates with the assistance of artist friends and a PI. Meanwhile, Roberto navigates romances with two women. Four Flies on Grey Velvet is one of those befuddling thrillers in which the protagonist seems fearful of mortal danger in one scene, then seems untroubled in the next. Further muddying the viewing experience are brief attempts at comedy, such as a scene featuring Italian-cinema funnyman Bud Spencer. It’s hard to reconcile the lighthearted stuff with scenes of slow-motion mutilation, especially since the plot deteriorates into endless explanations of far-fetched motives sprinkled with cut-rate psychobabble.

          After making Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Argento took a break from the rough stuff and made an outright comedy, which flopped. Thereafter, he doubled down on gore and weirdness with Deep Red (1975) and Suspiria (1977). Exit the would-be Master of Suspense, enter the Master of Horror. While none of Argento’s early thrillers remotely approaches the quality of Hitchcock’s best work, all three are creepy and imaginative, with moments that would have made the master proud.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage: GROOVY

The Cat o’ Nine Tails: GROOVY

Four Flies on Grey Velvet: FUNKY

Patrick (1978)

          An above-average shocker from Down Under, Patrick employs the creepy premise of a seemingly comatose character using supernatural means to terrorize those around him. Specifically, Patrick (Robert Thompson) has been a resident in a special hospital for several years, ever since he murdered his mother and his lover. Patrick’s cynical caretaker, Doctor Roget (Robert Helpmann), refers to the inert patient as “160 pounds of limp meat hanging off a comatose brain,” but sensitive nurse Kathy Jacquard (Susan Penhaligon) treats Patrick with compassion and respect. This being a horror movie, things don’t go well for her. Yet the plot, which also includes some romantic-triangle stuff involving Kathy’s estranged husband and her new would-be boyfriend, is of secondary importance, even though Everett De Roche’s script is logical, suspenseful, and tight. What makes Patrick exciting to watch is the way Aussie director Richard Franklin, who cut his teeth on episodic TV and raunchy comedy features, builds a sense of realism around fantastical events.

          Franklin and his collaborators get things started with a good jolt, then take their time developing characters, locations, and mood before unleashing the heavy pyrotechnics. The filmmakers also lace the picture with unsettling details, all of which feel germane to the world they’ve created. A good example is the central location of the hospital where Patrick resides. Instead of using the predictable visuals of an antiseptic, institutional building, the filmmakers set the action inside a large Victorian house, complete with soaring gables and a wraparound porch. Juxtaposed against the welcoming décor of the building is the cold behavior of the doctor and his head nurse. This combination of seemingly disparate elements creates both specificity and the necessary quality of uneasiness—something feels fundamentally off even before violent things happen. Similarly, the psychic-phenomena stuff starts slowly and builds steadily, giving the viewer time to accept wild notions of telekinesis and the like. It also helps that Franklin and his collaborators spice the movie with grounded gross-out moments, such as the fate of an unfortunate frog used in a scientific demonstration.

          Helpmann is the obvious standout among the cast, giving an urbane quality to the role of a healer hiding horrible tendencies, and Penhaligon acquits herself well as a damsel in distress. Still, much credit is due to Thompson, whose intense gaze makes the title character memorable even though he’s motionless and speechless. An unauthorized sequel, the Italian production Patrick Still Lives, was released in 1980, and a remake, again produced in Australia and again titled Patrick, hit theaters in 2013.

Patrick: GROOVY

No Drums, No Bugles (1972)

          Given his lifelong commitment to humane causes, it’s no surprise Martin Sheen agreed to star in this sincere melodrama about a conscientious objector during the Civil War. As a personal and political statement, the film is highly commendable. As an entertainment experience, not so much. The only actor onscreen for most of the 90-minute movie, Sheen spends most of his screen time foraging for food and shelter in the wilderness. Weirdly, the filmmakers elected not to create a narration track, which would have illuminated the protagonist’s inner life and utilized Sheen’s glorious speaking voice. Bereft of this obvious element, No Drums, No Bugles is a slog, though an argument could be made that the minimalistic storytelling suits the narrative, which was extrapolated from lore that has survived through generations in the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia. Written and directed without Clyde Ware, the movie starts awkwardly, because when we meet him, Ashby Gatrell (Sheen) is already on the run. One gets the vague impression that the opening scene is supposed to represent Asbhy’s first, horrifying experience of combat, with fellow Southerners laid to waste while cruel Northerners pick the bodies clean for loot, but Ware doesn’t sufficiently orient viewers.
          Thereafter, the movie transitions to repetitive scenes of Ashby making a primitive life for himself. He builds a torch to scare a bear out of the cave that Ashby claims for his home, he picks up scraps left behind by hunters, and he often hides by roadsides so he can parse people’s conversations for clues about the status of the war. In what should be the movie’s emotional high point, Ashby sneaks into his own home to visit his sleeping wife and children, not daring to wake them lest they share the dangerous secret of his whereabouts. No Drums, No Bugles is redeemed by its clear thematic focus, and Ware strives for lyricism by using twee folk songs to bridge sequences together. Yet No Drums, No Bugles is ultimately a better idea for a movie than it is an actual movie, because even though Sheen’s performance is infused with honesty and passion, Ware’s storytelling is dull and flat.

No Drums, No Bugles: FUNKY

The Night of the Strangler (1972)

Employment options for ex-Monkees being what they were, it’s understandable that Micky Dolenz had to venture outside the mainstream to find onscreen work. Shot on a meager budget and telling a far-fetched story about a string of murders, The Night of the Strangler is comprehensively underwhelming. For instance, Dolenz’ leading performance is way too cutesy and upbeat to sustain the ominous mood this sort of material requires. Set in New Orleans, The Night of the Strangler depicts a family beset by tragedy. Easygoing youth Vance (Dolenz) rebels against the dictatorial manner of his older brother, wealthy lawyer Dan (James Ralston), especially when their sister, Denise (Susan McCullough), announces she’s pregnant with a black man’s child. Unapologetically racist Dan cuts her off from family money, and she kills herself. Meanwhile, Vance prepares to wed his girlfriend, so he listens to counsel from his clergyman friend Jesse (Chuck Patterson), who suggests Vance mend family ties. That’s easier said than done once local police discover clues suggesting Denise was murdered. Amateurish in terms of acting, directing, production values, and writing, The Night of the Strangler wobbles between melodrama and horror, with clashing performance styles exacerbating narrative dissonance. Ralston goes way over the top as the film’s main villain, while Ed Brown and Harold Sylvester veer into light comedy playing world-weary cops. Even the title is a misnomer, since only one of the film’s myriad kill scenes involves strangulation. Similarly, the picture’s alternate title—Is the Father Black Enough?—overplays the race-relations angle, since the film is a potboiler rather than a polemic.

The Night of the Strangler: LAME

Hurry Up or I’ll Be 30 (1973)

          An adequate character study that owes a huge debt of gratitude to the Paddy Chayefsky-penned classic Marty (1955), this quiet little picture follows a sad-sack New Yorker who tries to expand his universe beyond childhood friends and the family business. Cowriter, producer, and director Joseph Jacoby has a good touch with actors, getting naturalistic work from his entire cast, and Jacoby captures the way that working-class folks from the outer boroughs sometimes develop romantic illusions about Manhattan and its denizens. Also working in the movie’s factor is Jacoby’s take on sophisticated urbanites taking Brooklyn natives for rubes. In some ways, Hurry Up or I’ll Be 30 is a conventional coming-of-age flick, even though arrested development means the protagonist doesn’t face his developmental crisis until well after the conclusion of adolescence. In other ways, the picture is a simple exploration of how divisions of class, education, and ethnicity lead to prejudice. The film is very much a minor work, and it suffers for weak elements including a dopey musical score, but there’s something humane and real about what Jacoby has to say.

          George Trapani (John Lefkowitz) works for his father’s small printing company, but he’s bored with rituals like cruising with his friends while trying to score with local girls. One day, George meets a theatrical producer named Mark Lossier (Frank Quinn), who invites George to an audition because he thinks he can squeeze George for an investment. During the degrading audition, Mark compels desperate women to perform a scene topless in front of salivating would-be investors. Willowy actress Jackie (Linda De Coff) impresses George by politely refusing to strip, so when he encounters her later, he asks her out. They date for a while, but then George realizes she’s slumming with him, leading George to question whether he’ll ever truly escape the confining identity he inherited at birth.

         While nothing in Hurry Up or I’ll Be 30 is surprising, Jacoby seems more concerned with generating empathy for George, as well as for characters including Jackie and Mark. George discovers that even though their worlds are larger than his, they have their own problems. As portrayed by Lefkowitz with a bowl cut and a hangdog face, George is a moderately appealing protagonist. He’s admirable when he tries, and he’s pathetic when he tries too hard. Still, the movie never feels judgmental, especially because Jacoby shows George being repeatedly humiliated by his father. The mostly unknown actors comprising the supporting cast lend additional layers of credibility, and a young Danny DeVito fits right into the mix as one of George’s pals.

Hurry Up or I’ll Be 30: FUNKY

Conversation Piece (1974)

          Born into nobility, the Italian director Luchino Visconti had a unique perspective on the foibles of the upper class, and Visconti’s penultimate film, Conversation Piece, is in some ways a referendum on wealth. The protagonist uses his affluence to separate himself from the rest of the world, transforming his historic villa into a private museum filled with expensive artwork. The vulgar family that barges into his home and demands permission to rent an upstairs apartment is pure Eurotrash, transforming the whole world into the backdrop for their petty psychodramas. Caught between these exemplars is a handsome young hustler who has the aesthetic sophistication of the protagonist and the low morals of the vulgarians. Not every filmmaker has the curiosity or integrity to dissect his own social class and then present his findings to the world, no matter how unflattering, so it’s to Visconti’s credit that Conversation Piece paints a grim picture. Whether the movie also works as entertainment or even as a logical narrative is another matter, because much of the plot is predicated upon far-fetched behavior.

          The Professor (Burt Lancaster) contentedly occupies his Roman villa until the overbearing Marquise Bianca Brumonti (Silvana Mangano) shows up one day and demands a visit to the Professor’s spare apartment. Despite his repeated declarations that the rooms are not available for rent, she wears him down and leases the space for her daughter, Lietta (Claudia Marsani). Thereafter, Lietta begins elaborate remodeling without the Professor’s permission, leading to friction, and the Professor becomes involved in the life of Konrad Hubel (Helmut Berger), the Marquis’ lover. Eventually, Konrad uses the apartment as a crash pad following a beating, so the Professor becomes Helmut’s unlikely caretaker.

          Conversation Piece can be taken at face value as a human drama, and it can be interpreted as social or even political allegory. As with so many leftist European filmmakers who lived through World War II, Visconti often used his work to ponder the big questions of how and why society allows toxic influences to take root, and to celebrate individuals who reject isolation for involvement. Named for a type of artwork the Professor collects, Conversation Piece is perhaps most effective as exactly that—something to discuss after it’s over—since watching the picture is a bit tiresome. The movie looks beautiful, with elegant camerawork capturing meticulous sets and costumes, but much of the onscreen behavior is unpleasantly histrionic. And while Lancaster’s character is a beacon of decorum and sanity, his performance is mannered and theatrical to a fault. Like the movie around him, Lancaster suffers for an abundance of artifice, polemics, and stylization.

Conversation Piece: FUNKY

Deafula (1975)

The low-budget horror flick Deafula is about exactly what the title suggests, and every line of dialogue is delivered by way of American Sign Language. The noble goal of providing entertainment for an underserved population notwithstanding, Deafula is an embarrassment. Peter Wolf, the picture’s writer, director, and star, evinces little talent in any of his craft areas, so the movie is amateurish, boring, and discombobulated. The gist of the piece is that Steve Adams (Wolf), a seminary student with pillowy blond hair and a fondness for turtlenecks, occasionally transforms into bloodsucker named Deafula. This often happens during the daytime, which is odd, and during the transformations, Steve’s hair changes color, he grows a gigantic prosthetic nose, and his clothes morph into a tuxedo with a cape. What’s the sign for “WTF”? According to the backstory that’s doled out in awkward flashbacks, Steve’s mom consorted with Count Dracula, but Steve grew up believing that he had a strange blood disease requiring regular transfusions instead of vampirism. While detectives investigate Deafula’s killings, Steve searches for answers about his identity, hence the flashbacks. It’s all very jumbled and silly, culminating in a ridiculous scene of Deafula chatting with Count Dracula in a cave. Peculiar stylistic choices regarding sound exacerbate Deafula’s other problems. Although voice actors provide real-time translations for the ASL dialogue, music only appears intermittently, and long stretches of the film are silent. It is an understatement to say that Wolf’s images do not command attention without aural assistance. Once in a while, Deafula is so misguided as to become compellingly awful. In one scene, Steve sits with a buddy in a bar and orders peanuts from the waitress. Later in the same scene, Steve says, “A moment ago, I ordered peanuts.” Again, WTF? In any language, Deafula is ridiculous.

Deafula: LAME

Alambrista! (1977)

          In a perfect world, we all would view others with the same degree of compassion and curiosity as filmmaker Robert M. Young, who transitioned from a career in socially conscious documentaries to a new life helming socially conscious fiction films. While not the most polished of storytellers, Young imbues his best films with a deep passion for underrepresented populations. Perhaps no project demonstrates these traits better than Young’s second dramatic feature, Alambrista!, the title of which translates to The Illegal. Using a docudrama approach to stretch the possibilities of a limited budget, the picture tracks the experiences of a young man who leaves his wife and child in Mexico to seek better-paying work as an undocumented laborer in America. By turns touching and tragic, Alambrista! puts a human face on a hot-button political issue, conveying insights that are as relevant today, if not more so, as they were in the late ’70s.

          Roberto (Domingo Ambriz), who speaks only Spanish, struggles to support his family with farm work in rural Mexico, and he dreams of making big money in the U.S. Coloring his viewpoint is ambivalence about his father, who made an illegal border crossing years ago and never returned. Roberto joins a several workers who slip through a fence in the desert, and he picks produce with them until INS officers arrest most of Roberto’s peers. He escapes, but his U.S. employers withhold his pay, leaving him stranded. Eventually, Roberto finds friends in America. Joe (Trinidad Silva) is a high-spirited illegal who speaks serviceable English, but their time together is cut short by a horrific accident. Later, Roberto meets Sharon (Linda Gillen), the waitress in a greasy-spoon diner. Young’s filmmaking excels during the Sharon sequences, because he gives Sharon incredible dimensionality without benefit of proper dialogue scenes between her and Roberto; we discover her lonely life as a single mother who goes to Evangelical services, and we explore her passionate and playful aspects until, once more, circumstances sever Roberto from a friend. Eventually, Roberto finds himself caught in a terrible cycle, because even though his first trip ends with financial disappointment and deportation, he feels compelled to return to the U.S., as if making another attempt will bring him closer to the illegal’s version of the American dream.

         While much of Alambrista! is harrowing, from the rigors of field work to the terror of riding on the undercarriage of a freight train, Young never sensationalizes the material. Instead, we see the cost of this lifestyle sketched on a simple man’s face in a way that’s neither condescending nor reductive. Yes, there’s a certain nobility-of-the-downtrodden flavor to Alambrista! that makes some stretches feel like homework. But because Young approaches his important subject matter with clarity and respect, while still adding entertainment elements by including musical passages and guest appearances by Hollywood actors (Ned Beatty, Jerry Hardin, Julius Harris), he ensures that watching Alamabrista! is rewarding on many levels. As a side note, Edward James Olmos’ bit part in this film began his long association with Young, who later directed Olmos in The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (1982) and many other projects for film and television.

Alambrista!: GROOVY

The Killer Inside Me (1976)

          One of several deeply flawed ’70s films containing an Oscar-worthy performance by Stacy Keach, The Killer Inside Me is the first of two movies, thus far, adapted from the Jim Thompson novel of the same name. (A 2010 version starring Casey Affleck received a more favorable critical response.) The material is strange, tracking the adventures of a small-town cop who secretly harbors homicidal tendencies, so the storyline asks viewers to take an unusual ride from wholesome Americana to deviant ultraviolence. Getting the tone of this one right would have challenged even the subtlest of filmmakers, a group to which rough-and-tumble action guy Burt Kennedy most certainly does not belong. Accordingly, the 1976 version of The Killer Inside Me is a mess from a tonal perspective, because it’s unclear whether the movie is a straight drama, a thriller disguised as a lighthearted character piece, a satire of American values, or some combination of all of those things.

          Keach finds a peculiar sort of true north, both in his onscreen performance and in his wry narration track, so his characterization tells a fatalistic but darkly funny story about a guy trying to make murder a part of his everyday life. Alas, the movie around Keach isn’t nearly as surefooted, even though some of the supporting performances are tasty and even though cinematographer William A. Fraker shrouds the film in evocative shadows. Those excited about exploring weird pockets of Hollywood cinema will be more inclined to cut The Killer Inside Me slack than those looking for straightforward escapism.

          Set in a small Montana town, the story follows Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford (Keach) through a colorful period in his life. To the casual eye, he seems like Mr. Nice Guy, because he romances a local schoolteacher, evinces great skill at de-escalating conflicts, and gets along with people on every rung of the social ladder. Secretly, however, Lou begins an affair with a local floozy, thereby entering into a triangle with his buddy Elmer (Don Stroud), son of rich landowner Chester (Kennan Wynn). All the while, viewers glimpse Lou’s demons thanks to flashes from childhood trauma, so when Lou freaks out and kills two people, we have an inkling why.

          The first half of the picture is all setup, and the second half is all repercussions. Throughout, the filmmakers provide colorful details and grim humor. In one entertaining scene, Lou welcomes a con artist (John Carradine) into his home and proceeds to scare the bejesus out of the guy, seemingly just for sport. In another vivid bit, Lou’s boss, Sheriff Bob Maples (John Dehner), employs unique vernacular to lament his poor marksmanship: “I can’t hit a bull in the ass with a banjo.” Although the movie never coheres, The Killer Inside Me is interesting and odd from moment to moment. Beyond Keach’s beautifully deranged performance, the picture boasts strong work from Carradine, Stroud, Wynn, Tisha Steriling (as the schoolteacher), and—reuniting Keach with a costar from John Huston’s Fat City (1972)—Susan Tyrrell (as the floozy).

The Killer Inside Me: FUNKY

Moonshine County Express (1977)

          Since the ’70s were rotten with drive-in flicks about rednecks hauling white lightning through the woods with cops hot on their tails, there wasn’t much left to say about the subject by the time Moonshine County Express was made. That said, the textures of this low-rent genre were so firmly established that delivering a straight recitation shouldn’t have been too difficult—especially since Moonshine County Express was issued by trash-cinema titan Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. All of which goes to explain why Moonshine County Express is vexing. The movie has the usual barrage of zippy nonsense, so it’s never boring, per se, but the storyline is so sloppy that it’s hard to tell which of the two main characters is the protagonist. After all, John Saxon gets top billing for playing a racecar driver who moonlights running ’shine, but the narrative actually hinges on the character played by Susan Howard.

          After thugs kill an aging moonshiner, his three daughters learn that he left them a secret stash of valuable Prohibition-era whiskey, so the oldest daughter, Dot Hammer (Howard), begins selling the hooch to her dad’s old customers. This gets the attention of Jack Starkey (William Conrad), the kingpin of the area’s illegal-liquor business, since he’s the one who killed the father in the first place as a means of eliminating competition. Giving the story its small measure of complexity is J.B. Johnson (Saxon), who drives for Starkey until switching sides to help the imperiled Hammer sisters. There’s also a sheriff involved, but suffice to say nothing truly surprising happens.

          Still (no pun intended), it’s possible to groove on the film’s pulpy elements. Playing the Hammer sisters, Howard, Claudia Jennings, and former Brady Bunch star Maureen McCormick add eye candy, though all of them manage to keep their clothes since this PG-rated film is tame compared to other moonshine flicks. Saxon gives an unusually casual performance, and Conrad has a blast playing a cartoony villain. (Not every movie features the enormous Cannon star in a sex-fantasy scene featuring fishing tackle.) Furthermore, Dub Taylor plays a supporting role without his frontal dentures; the rootsy soundtrack features banjos and spoons and the like; and in one party scene, a bar band renders these peculiar lyrics: “Grandma’s got syphilis, Grandpa’s deranged, and all the children had their sexes changed.”

Moonshine County Express: FUNKY

Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies (1973)

          But for a few turns of fate, Steven Spielberg could have made his feature directorial debut with this drama about a former WWI pilot barnstorming across America with his young son. Spielberg wrote the story with an eye toward directing, but he was replaced, with Oscar-winning actor Cliff Robertson becoming the project’s driving force. Whatever charms the original story possessed must have been lost in translation, because the final film is such a misfire that the director, producers, and screenwriters all used pseudonyms in the credits. Can’t blame them. The central relationship, between the flyer and his son, is hopelessly underdeveloped. The main subplot, about a romance between the flyer and a woman he meets during his travels, is nonsensical. And the main character, the flyer, behaves so inconsistently that it’s as if he becomes a new person in every scene. The film’s choppy rhythms suggest that some overzealous tinkering occurred during post-production, but because many individual scenes is murky, it’s unlikely anyone could have made a worthwhile movie from the footage that director John Erman (credited as Bill Sampson) collected. About the only praiseworthy elements of Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies are the aerial scenes, the cinematography, and the detailed re-creations of 1920s America.

           The story begins awkwardly, with “Ace” Eli Walford (Robertson) crashing a plane and killing his passenger, who also happens to be his wife. After a brief funeral sequence, Eli starts building a new plane and telling folks that he wants to become a barnstormer and take his young son, Rodger (Eric Shea), with him. The obvious fact that Eli is s dangerous maniac never even gets lip service. One day, tired of Eli’s procrastinating, Rodger burns the family house to the ground, so Eli just smiles and starts up the plane, beginning their adventure. And so it goes from there. Eli cheats and lies to potential clients, sleeps with every available woman, and disappoints his kid on a regular basis. Improbably, the story expands to include Shelby (Pamela Franklin), a stalker who chases Eli from one town to the next until she finally seduces him. None of this stuff makes sense, though the picture sure looks swell. As for the project’s star, Robertson is terrible, playing a cocksure daredevil in one scene, a cowardly swindler in the next, and a vulgar cad at other times. His performance is as discombobulated as the movie itself.

Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies: FUNKY