The Pursuit of Happiness (1971)

          The Pursuit of Happiness is yet another middling drama about angst-ridden ’70s youth culture that ends up feeling less like a sensitive tribute to a thoughtful generation and more like a condescending satire of mixed-up kids. Gangly Michael Sarrazin plays William Popper, a New York City college student from a privileged family. He lives with hippie activist Jane Kauffman (Barbara Hershey), and he uncomfortably straddles her world of ideals and his family’s world of Establishment values. Driving in the rain one night, William accidentally hits and kills an old woman who steps into traffic. He’s arrested. William’s sensitive father, artist John Popper (Arthur Hill), arrives on the scene to help William through his legal troubles, but the family’s stern lawyer, Daniel Lawrence (E.G. Marshall), drips contempt for William’s screw-the-man attitude.

          Ignoring Daniel’s advice to keep his mouth shut, William makes a scene during his first hearing—he gives a naïve speech about how the legal system isn’t interested in empirical truth—and gets thrown into prison. All of this confirms William’s impression that society is broken; as William whines at one point, “There’s a nervous breakdown happening in this country, and I don’t want to be part of it if I don’t have to.” Also thrown into the mix is William’s loving but racist grandmother (Ruth White), the personification of small-minded Old Money.

          Based on a book by Thomas Rogers and directed by Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird), this picture means well but undercuts itself. William isn’t truly an idealist; rather, he’s a slacker uninterested in committing to anything. Thus, when William breaks out of prison and tries to flee the country, his actions don’t seem charged with us-vs.-them significance. Sure, the filmmakers communicate the central idea that William resents the game he’s being asked to play (feign adherence to Establishment values, and you can get away with anything), but William is so passive that he’s the least interesting person who could have taken this journey. Sarrazin’s perfunctory performance exacerbates matters, as does the blunt screenplay. The movie also leaves several promising storylines unexplored, so characters including a crusty detective (Ralph Waite), an imprisoned politician (David Doyle), and a mysterious pilot (William Devane) pass through the story too quickly. Each of them, alas, is more interesting than the protagonist.

The Pursuit of Happiness: FUNKY

Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)

          It’s tempting to say that Eyes of Laura Mars would have been a better movie if its original writer, horror icon John Carpenter, had also been the director—but then again, the central conceit of Carpenter’s story is so goofy that it’s possible even he would have encountered difficulty in making the narrative believable. The gimmick is that a fashion photographer becomes psychically linked to a serial killer, “seeing” murders as they’re committed. This makes her and all the people she knows suspects, and the premise inevitably leads to a showdown between the photographer and the killer.
          Journeyman director Irvin Kershner got the job of filming the story (David Zelag Goodman rewrote Carpenter’s script), and he delivers a diverting but somewhat forgettable thriller whose glamorous textures accentuate the lack of narrative substance. For instance, the main character’s photos were taken by real-life provocateur Helmut Newton, so the “shoots” depicted in the movie feature lingerie-clad models juxtaposed with gruesome backgrounds (e.g., car wrecks). Sensationalistic, to be sure, but not necessarily meaningful.

          Faye Dunaway stars as Laura Mars, a super-successful fashion photographer whose life unravels when she starts “seeing” murders. Laura soon meets Detective John Neville (Tommy Lee Jones), who is understandably skeptical about her insights. As Neville investigates the people around Laura, he and Laura become lovers. The movie gets formulaic during its middle section, with various characters in Laura’s life presented and dismissed as possible suspects, and whenever the movie needs a jolt, Kershner has Dunaway slip into a trance while he cuts to hazy point-of-view shots representing the killer’s perspective during a murder.

          The movie actually loses credibility as it progresses, and the ending is so trite it’s almost campy, but Kershner benefits from a strong supporting cast. In particular, Rene Auberjonois, Brad Dourif, and Raul Julia invest small roles with color and dimensionality. Unfortunately, the leads don’t fare as well. Jones does his standard early-career taciturn-stud thing, glowering through rote scenes as a cynical investigator, and Dunaway plays the whole movie a bit too broadly—by the time she’s cowering in her bedroom while the killer confronts her, she’s using hand movements so operatic they recall Barbara Stanywck’s performance in the 1948 potboiler Sorry, Wrong Number. In fact, it says a lot about Eyes of Laura Mars that the most memorable thing in the movie is Barbara Streisand’s overwrought theme song, “Prisoner,” which plays at the beginning and end of the picture. Fittingly for a movie set in the fashion industry, it’s all about the packaging, baby.

Eyes of Laura Mars: FUNKY

Policewomen (1974)

While some viewers may enjoy watching leading lady Sondra Currie kick ass and strut around in revealing outfits, those without an affinity for the actress will find little to enjoy in Policewomen, a grade-Z thriller about cops who go undercover in a smuggling ring. The action is dull and fake, the one-liners are painfully stupid, and the acting is terrible, with Currie’s lifeless performance setting the pace for her equally inept costars. Plus, because people who seek out movies like Policewomen usually settle for trashy elements in lieu of worthwhile ones, it deserves mentioning that at least one widely available print of Policewomen is bereft of nudity and even swearing (the audio drops out whenever someone curses). Yet it’s hard to imagine that the inclusion of rough stuff could make much difference. Anyway, the story begins with Lacy (Currie) trying to prevent a jailbreak at a women’s prison. Despite her karate jobs and right crosses, several badass mamas escape and join the criminal gang of Maude (Elizabeth Stuart), an aging crone portrayed in the “dragon lady” style of the era. (You know a movie’s in trouble when you wish Shelley Winters would show up to add some vigor.) Having impressed supervisors with her valor during the jailbreak, Lacy meets with top cops including Tony (Frank Mitchell), who put her through a series of tests to confirm she’s got the right stuff. (Sample dialogue from Mitchell:  “Now, you’re a very pretty girl, and you obviously have a way with escaping female prisoners, but . . .”) The highlight of the movie, speaking only in very relative terms, is Lacy’s sparring session with a karate instructor played by the always-enjoyable B-movie madman William Smith. Lacy flips Smith’s character on his ass several times, and Smith plays the scene for high comedy. So, even though the scene is stupid and unfunny, at least the scene wants to be something, which is more than can be said for the rest of the movie.

Policewomen: SQUARE

Two-Minute Warning (1976)

          The premise of Two-Minute Warning couldn’t be more appealing for fans of cheesy ’70s blockbusters: A sniper takes a position in the clock tower of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during a crowded football game, so cops led by Captain Peter Holly (Charlton Heston) must take the sniper out. Chuck Heston versus a psycho against a backdrop of tragic melodrama—pass the popcorn! Unfortunately, the title of Two-Minute Warning is itself a warning (to viewers), since virtually nothing exciting happens until the last two minutes of the game that provides the film’s narrative structure. Most of the movie comprises a long slog of “character development” in the superficial disaster-movie style, meaning Two-Minute Warning is nearly all foreplay with very little payoff.

          That said, if you dive into the movie aware that it’s a slow burn, the combination of enterprising location photography and enthusiastic performances might be enough to keep you interested. The main relationship in the movie is between Captain Holly, who spends most of his time watching the sniper through a video feed originating in the Goodyear Blimp (!), and hotshot SWAT team commander Chris Button (John Cassavetes). Holly wants to remove the sniper without gunplay, whereas Button is itching for a shootout. Watching these alpha males clash provides a smidgen of macho entertainment, though one wishes the filmmakers had found a way to make their conflict more dynamic. The lack of strong leading characters lets supporting players run away with the picture. Brock Peters stands out as a Coliseum maintenance man who tries to be a hero, and Beau Bridges has some sorta-affecting moments as an unemployed dad fighting with his wife and kids in the stands, unaware of the danger lurking behind the end zone.

          Two-Minute Warning hews so closely to the disaster-movie paradigm that the story also includes an aging pickpocket (Walter Pidgeon), a football-loving priest (Mitchell Ryan), and a bickering couple (played by David Janssen and Gena Rowlands). Yes, it’s the old “Who’s going to live, who’s going to die?” drill. Director Larry Peerce rounded out the cast with his then-wife, Marilyn Hassett, the star of his maudlin The Other Side of the Mountain movies, although casting his missus appears to be as close as he got to emotionally investing in this trifling potboiler. Since the Coliseum figured prominently in ’70s pop culture (it was used for Heaven Can Wait, North Dallas Forty, and innumerable TV episodes), the venue provides as comforting a presence as any of the name-brand actors, and Peerce shoots the location well. Overall, however, Two-Minute Warning is a missed opportunity given all the possibilities suggested by the premise. Fumble!

Two-Minute Warning: FUNKY

Daughters of Darkness (1971)

          One of the artiest exploitation movies of the ’70s, the Belgian vampire thriller Daughters of Darkness features such extraordinarily beautiful cinematography—and, to be frank, such extraordinarily beautiful women—that it’s tempting to seek some deeper significance, as if the movie is more than just a tastefully executed shocker. Alas, director/co-writer Harry Kümel’s cult-favorite movie doesn’t reward close scrutiny, and in fact the picture’s biggest flaw is a ponderousness suggesting Kümel himself thought he was making a Grand Statement. Shot with English-language dialogue despite its European origins, the picture originally ran a plodding 100 minutes, though a widely available expurgated cut is only 87 minutes long. Which version suits which viewer is a matter of taste, because those who get hooked on the picture may want to savor every possible frame.

          When the story begins, an attractive newlywed couple arrives at a seaside resort, which is empty because the year’s tourist season has ended, and they learn that several murders has taken place nearby. Worse, the victims were drained of blood. Then, when a beautiful countess arrives at the hotel with her female companion/servant at her side, the couple falls under the countess’ charismatic spell. It turns out the countess is a centuries-old vampire with nefarious designs on the couple. So begins a strange odyssey filled with betrayal, death, and sex. There’s nothing new about the eroticized-horror formula, so what makes Daughters of Darkness unique is its intoxicating style. Kümel treats every shot like a photographic art project, filling the screen with arresting compositions and subtle textures; thus, when he strings his beguiling images together with meditative editing and mournful music, he creates a bewitching atmosphere.

          Contributing to this effect are actresses Delphine Seyrig, as the countess, and Andrea Rau, as her servant. Seyrig is a stunning blonde with aristocratic bearing who, at first, seems as if she’ll be an ice queen—so when she reveals fragility, insecurity, and need, a quietly textured performance emerges. Rau is a sensuous brunette, the natural visual counterpart to Seyrig, and though her presence is less nuanced that Seyrig’s, Rau affects a plaintive quality. (As the newlyweds, John Karlen is enjoyably sleazy and Danielle Ouimet, the cast’s weak link, is merely lovely.) In the movie’s grandest contrivance, the countess is revealed to be Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous 16th-century Hungarian aristocrat who bathed in the blood of virgins because she felt doing so would preserve her beauty; like Kümel’s rarified pictorial style, this allusion to history gives Daughters of Darkness a sophisticated sheen lesser films of its ilk lack, but not actual depth.

Daughters of Darkness: GROOVY

The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena (1976)

          More entertaining “nonfiction” silliness from the folks at Sunn Classic Pictures, The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena is a journalistically dubious survey of various mental powers that people have claimed to possess throughout history. You name it, it’s in here: astral projection, precognition, spirits, telekinesis, and so on. Actor Raymond Burr, summoning all of his Ironside-era gravitas, hosts and narrates the picture, which comprises archival footage, dramatic re-enactments, interview snippets, and cheesy vignettes of Burr “participating” in staged experiments. This is the Sunn Classics formula in full bloom, with a barrage of unsubstantiated facts and figures thrown at the audience alongside creepy dramatic scenes right out of a low-budget horror movie.

          For example, one early scene features a woman piloting a small plane until she receives a telepathic “distress call,” at which point she diverts her plane to a highway 70 miles distant and rescues her mother from a flaming car crash. Later in the movie, a woman and her young child freak out during the seeming visit of an apparition to their home—the duo watches, terrified, as their front door appears to undulate in tune with a mysterious breathing sound. Fantastic claims are presented without skepticism, as are guest stars including famed ’70s Israeli mentalist Uri Geller (who does his signature routine of bending spoons with his mind).

          It’s hard to differentiate the genuinely unsettling exhibitions from the outright nonsense, because everything is explored with the same degree of wide-eyed intensity. At its worst, the movie features laughably loose logic. “If we continue to exist after our physical bodies die,” Burr asks at one point, “is it possible to communicate from one world to the another? One way of communicating between these two worlds is with the help of a medium, at what is popularly known as a séance.” Notice the quick shift from speculating about alternate dimensions to treating them as documented reality. Or consider this howler of a voiceover line: “The best evidence for the existence of spirits is that presented by the owners of haunted houses.” Because, of course, haunted houses are indisputably real.

          Still, as with all of Sunn Classic Pictures’ wonderfully irresponsible documentaries, the goal of The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena is simply to catalog creepy-crawly maybes on the fringes of the known world. So, by the time the movie barrels through things like Kirlian photographs and mentalists who “psychometrize” the identities of murderers by studying objects found at murder scenes, it’s easier to go with the entertaining flow than to worry about veracity.

The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena: FUNKY

I Never Sang for My Father (1970)

          An elegant, insightful character piece grounded by precise writing and masterful acting, I Never Sang for My Father is one of the best small dramas of the ’70s, and it contains a crucial early performance by Gene Hackman. Already recognized as an extraordinary actor (his memorable supporting turn in 1967’s Bonnie & Clyde earned an Oscar nomination), Hackman was on the verge of becoming a Hollywood leading man, and he commands the screen throughout I Never Sang for My Father with the confidence of a veteran star. Indeed, had established actor Melvyn Douglas not received top billing for this movie, it’s likely Hackman’s well-deserved Oscar nomination for I Never Sang for My Father would have been in the leading-actor category, not the supporting-actor category.

          Such considerations aside, I Never Sang for My Father benefits from Douglas’ expert acting as much as it does from Hackman’s touching work. Hackman plays Gene Garrison, an author and teacher who has never been able to win the approval of his father, Tom (Douglas). A self-made man who rose from a miserable childhood to high achievement, Tom lords over every member of his family, exerting such merciless authority that Gene’s sister, Alice (Estelle Parsons), was excommunicated for the sin of marrying a Jew. Despite Tom’s hard edges, Gene struggles to find kindness in the man, especially after Gene’s mother dies and Tom becomes an aging widower with rapidly diminishing mental capacity. Meanwhile, Gene contemplates a move from the family’s East Coast home base to California, where Gene has a chance to start a new life with his girlfriend, Peggy (Elizabeth Hubbard). Thus, in the aftermath of his mother’s death, Gene becomes the de facto caretaker of his domineering dad, potentially at the cost of a chance for personal happiness.

          Exploring themes of duty, independence, love, and what it means to be a man, screenwriter Robert Anderson—adapting his successful play of the same name—digs deep into his characters, presenting everyone in the movie as a complex individual with warring impulses. For instance, Tom is nurturing and tender with his children until the instant he perceives disobedience, which instantly transforms him into a scornful monster. Similarly, Gene is soulful despite exhibiting faint echoes of his father’s macho stubbornness. That both Douglas and Hackman illustrate such subtle nuances is a testament to their thoughtful work. An even greater testament to their skill is that both actors assiduously avoid playing for cheap sentiment: Every painful moment in I Never Sang for My Father is earned. Producer-director Gilbert Cates, who worked on the Broadway presentation of Anderson’s play, serves the material well with unobtrusive camerawork, and his use of unvarnished locations adds greatly to the movie’s diligent realism. (Available through Columbia Screen Classics via WarnerArchive.com)

I Never Sang for My Father: RIGHT ON

The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

          A laughably silly horror movie, The Incredible Melting Man delivers exactly what the title promises—a grotesque character melts throughout the movie. Yes, this one’s about a monster who becomes less formidable with each passing scene. Or at least that’s the logical implication. To make the movie work, the filmmakers fudge the premise by giving the monster superhuman endurance, so he never loses any of his strength until the very last scene. Most beings run out of gas if they burn through too many calories, but somehow the "melting man" retains his vigor even as his body is disappearing. As such, the underlying notion of The Incredible Melting Man is so astoundingly stupid it’s impossible to take a single frame of the picture seriously. But then again, even though the movie is basically competent in its execution, every other aspect of the storyline is just as astoundingly stupid. The picture begins with U.S. astronauts in outer space, where they’re bombarded with radiation from a solar flare. Returning to earth, all of the astronauts die except Steve West (Alex Rebar), who wakes up in a hospital and discovers that he’s become the sludgy shuffler of the title. Cue murderous rampage.

          The movie is dominated by the work of make-up master Rick Baker, who later won multiple Oscars (beginning with his prize for 1982’s An American Werewolf in London); in addition to creating the grotesque applications for the title character, whose organs and skin drip and ooze in loving close-ups, Baker made props including a realistic-looking disembodied head. Yet it’s a measure of the picture’s schlocky nature that the head is featured in not one but two slow-motion angles as it drifts down a lazy river—the money shot involves the head tumbling over a waterfall and then cracking open when it hits a rock at the base of the water, a geyser of crimson shooting forth. Perhaps offering a nod to The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), writer-director William Sachs follows his narrative all the way to a depressing ending, so the movie has a certain kind of bummer integrity, but, still, it’s hard to heap too much praise on a dull gorefest about a glop of goo. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

The Incredible Melting Man: LAME

The Day of the Dolphin (1973)

          It’s easy to pick apart The Day of the Dolphin, not just because it’s an awkward hybrid of loopy ideas and straight drama, but also because it was such a bizarre career choice for screenwriter Buck Henry and director Mike Nichols, who previously collaborated on the social satire The Graduate (1967) and the surrealistic war movie Catch-22 (1970). Yet even though The Day of the Dolphin doesn’t bear obvious fingerprints from either Henry or Nichols, it subtly reflects both artists’ focus on meticulous character development and thought-provoking concepts. As to the larger question of whether the movie actually works, that’s entirely a matter of taste. Undoubtedly, many viewers will find the central premise too incredible (or even silly). As for me, I find the picture consistently interesting even when believability wavers.

          The plot revolves around Dr. Jake Terrell (George C. Scott), who operates a privately funded marine laboratory where he studies the communication behaviors of dolphins. Or at least that’s what he tells the public. In secret (known only to his staff), Terrell has trained two dolphins, Alpha and Beta, to speak and understand a handful of English words. Predictably, problems arise when Terrell shares this information with his chief benefactor, Harold DeMilo (Fritz Weaver). Shadowy forces learn about the dolphins and kidnap the animals for an evil purpose—the bad guys want to train the dolphins to assassinate the U.S. president by delivering underwater bombs to his yacht while the president is on vacation. (As noted earlier, the premise borders on silliness.)

          What makes The Day of the Dolphin watchable is how straight the material is played. During the movie’s most evocative scenes, Terrell bonds with Alpha and Beta through underwater play that’s scored to elegant music by composer Georges Delerue; for viewers willing to take the movie’s ride, it’s easy to develop a real emotional bond with the animals, and to sympathize with Terrell’s desire to protect them. In that context, the assassination conspiracy isn’t the driving force of the story so much as a complication that tests an unusual relationship.

          Obviously, having an actor of Scott’s power in the leading role makes all the difference. His gruff quality steers the animal scenes clear of Disney-esque sweetness, so when the movie finally goes for viewers’ heartstrings, the bittersweet crescendos of the story feel as earned as they possibly could. There’s not a lot of room for other characters to emerge as individuals, but Nichols stocks the movie with skilled actors who lend nuance where they can. Edward Herrmann and Paul Sorvino stand out as, respectively, one of Terrell’s aides and a mystery man who infiltrates Terrell’s laboratory. A key behind-the-scenes player worth mentioning is cinematographer William A. Fraker, who captures the beating sun and lapping waves of the film’s oceanside locations with crisp realism while also creating a magical world underwater.

The Day of the Dolphin: GROOVY

High Plains Drifter (1973)

          After making a strong directorial debut with 1971’s Play Misty for Me, Clint Eastwood decided to put his stamp on the genre that originally made him famous as an actor: the Western. Yet instead of simply churning out a moralistic shoot-’em-up in the John Wayne mold, Eastwood made High Plains Drifter, a creepy revenge tale so heavily allegorical it might actually be a ghost story. Considering this was only his second directing job, Eastwood’s artistic ambition is impressive. Yet while the movie is brisk, nasty, and stylish, it has major narrative weaknesses. One big problem is that the protagonist is a cipher—we never learn the character’s background, name, or true motivation—and another is the way the movie fails to clarify whether onscreen events are happening in “reality” or taking place in a supernatural netherworld. Eastwood gets points for attacking heavy themes, but his inability to bring everything together is disappointing.

          The story begins when a character referred to as the Stranger (Eastwood) rides into the lakeside frontier town of Lago. He gets into a hassle with a group of thugs, and then kills all of them with his frightening gunplay. Impressed, the townspeople ask the Stranger to plan an ambush: Three murderers who have just been released from prison are pledged to ravage Lago, so the townspeople are terrified. Courtesy of (confusing) exposition and flashbacks, we learn that some time ago, the murderers slaughtered Lago’s do-gooder sheriff while the townspeople watched—and that the tragedy stemmed from a conspiracy related to the mine from which the town derives its livelihood. Furthermore, Eastwood’s character may or may not actually be the sheriff’s reincarnation and/or spirit—never mind the fact that no one recognizes him.

          Anyway, the Stranger is given carte-blanche throughout Lago, so he installs a local dwarf (Billy Curtis) as the new mayor/sheriff, seizes a local tramp (Marianna Hill) as his personal concubine, and makes the townspeople paint all of Lago’s buildings red so the town looks like a vision of hell. This sets the stage for a showdown with the murderers, although the townspeople start to wonder if their “savior” is worse than the killers he’s been hired to fight.

          The gist of the piece is painfully obvious right from the beginning—the people of Lago are being punished for their sins—but the script, by Ernest Tidyman, muddies the narrative waters. The Stranger is a bloodthirsty, crude, sarcastic outlaw capable of violent sexual assaults, so it’s not as if he’s the personification of justice. Therefore, the movie has virtually no morality on display, making it difficult to care what happens to any of the film’s characters. And since the movie doesn’t compensate for this deficit by providing a tidy parable, what’s the point? Still, High Plains Drifter looks great, especially during the moody nighttime scenes, and Eastwood surrounds himself with interesting faces. Curtis stands out as the town’s perverse voice of conscience, and Eastwood favorite Geoffrey Lewis is effectively odious as the leader of the murderers.

High Plains Drifter: FUNKY

Don’t Look Now (1973)

          Adventurous director Nicolas Roeg’s breakthrough movie, the sexually charged psychological thriller Don’t Look Now, is one of those rare films that enjoys both cult-fave notoriety and deep critical respect. Yet try as I might, I’ve never been able to wrap my head around the thing, despite having watched it at different times of life. The picture feels intelligent and provocative, so it’s possible I’m missing something, but Don’t Look Now’s opaque storyline and its perverse preoccupation with human suffering has always struck me as needlessly pretentious and grim. Therefore, I can’t find a whole lot to praise beyond certain aspects of acting and technical execution, but it’s clear many other viewers experience Don’t Look Now differently.

          Anyway, the quasi-Hitchockian storyline begins in England, where John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) and Laura Baxter (Julie Christie) live with their young daughter. During an eerie, fragmented opening scene, the daughter drowns on the Baxters’ estate. After the tragedy, John and Laura relocate to Venice, where John has work, as a means of escaping their traumatic past. However, Laura remains unsettled, especially when she meets a pair of strange older women, one of whom claims to be a psychic receiving messages from Laura’s dead child. Worse, John has a series of jarring experiences suggesting he’s doomed. Eventually, it all gets very weird, with freaky imagery ranging from cataract-clouded eyes to a homicidal dwarf. Throughout the picture, Roeg deliberately jostles the audience’s sense of time and place with brash editing, creating an effect that might favorably be called dreamlike. Less favorably, the effect might be called confusing or simply annoying.

          At the center of the picture, consuming much more screen time than seems necessary, is an intense sex scene between Christie and Sutherland that’s meant to represent their characters coming back to life after a period of grief. Whatever its story purpose, however, the scene has become infamous after decades of rumors that the actors actually had intercourse during filming. (The gossip has been corroborated and denied so many times that, at this point, it’s anybody’s guess what really happened.) Considering that the sex scene should only be one color in the larger painting—if anything, the picture’s gruesome ending is a more appropriate subject for analysis—the fact that Don’t Look Now is best known for a few moments of carnality says something about its diffuse nature.

          And to those who adore this picture, I can only say that I envy you the pleasure of seeing the great film I’ve never been able to find in the thickets of Roeg’s brash artistic posturing. While I can recognize the fierce commitment of the leading actors’ performances and I can tout the craftsmanship of the picture’s cinematography and editing, I just can’t swing with Roeg’s cinematic insouciance.

Don’t Look Now: FREAKY

Fright (1971)

          Proving that John Carpenter and his collaborators on Halloween (1971) weren’t the first people to juxtapose babysitters and psychopaths, the passable British thriller Fright stars Susan George as Amanda, a sexy teen tasked with watching a young boy on the night a killer lays siege to the boy’s home. Eventually, it becomes clear that the invader is actually the boy’s father, Brian (Ian Bannen), a nutter who just escaped from the loony bin. He’s been incarcerated ever since he tried to kill the boy and his mother, Brian’s now-ex-wife, Helen (Honor Blackman). On the night during which the movie takes place, Helen and her new husband try to enjoy their first evening out since the original Brian episode, so, of course, their departure coincides with Brian’s return. Director Peter Collinson, an eclectic storyteller who made a handful of tense thrillers in addition to action movies and dramas, helms Fright competently, layering on exactly the elements one might expect to find in a picture of this sort. The camera angles are low and shadowy, the jolts are cheap and sudden, and the atmosphere is laden with sex.

          George spends the entire movie in a purple minidress, her tan legs on constant display, and for a good portion of the picture, the front of her dress is torn open, making her white brassiere a de facto costar. And while George’s performance is merely adequate—she’s best when expressing a mixture of disgust and fear while being violated—her sexiness compensates somewhat for her dramatic shortcomings. Bannen’s performance is florid but imbued with sympathetic tonalities, so even though he’s playing a cartoonish madman, it’s possible to feel for his anguished plight. And the elegant Ms. Blackman, best known for playing Pussy Galore in the 007 classic Goldfinger (1964), acquits herself well in a one-note role. However, Fright isn’t particularly frightening, though it’s certainly creepy; in particular, the transgressive moment when Brian assaults Amanda while thinking she’s actually Helen is enough to make any viewer uncomfortable. Plus, the complicated implications of the ending retroactively add a bit of substance to the rest of the picture.

Fright: FUNKY

Big Bad Mama (1974)

          In his autobiography Up Till Now—well, one of his many autobiographies, that is—the incomparable William Shatner derides this Roger Corman-produced action flick as Big Bad Movie, which isn’t fair. Sure, Big Bad Mama is yet another Corman rip-off of Bonnie and Clyde (1967), but it’s a hoot. Campy, funny, sexy, and violent, the picture has just about everything you might want from a silly drive-in flick. Set in the Depression era, the story follows tough Texan Wilma McClatchie (Angie Dickinson), who’s having trouble paying the bills with her small-scale bootlegging operation. When she meets a charismatic bank robber, Fred Diller (Tom Skerritt), she embarks on a new career as a machine-gun-toting thief, abetted not only by Fred but also by her two sexy daughters and, eventually, by dandy-ish con man William J. Baxter (Shatner).

          The plot meanders because too many characters are involved, and it’s odd that Wilma’s the lead character but not actually the leader of her gang, but this sort of picture is all about creating a badass vibe and presenting exciting events. Wilma gets to spout power-to-the-people propaganda while she’s robbing wealthy people—yes, this is one of those soft-edged crime pictures in which the heroine just wants to make enough money to care for her family—and the movie offers a steady stream of sex scenes and shootouts.

          Regarding those sex scenes, one of the reasons Big Bad Mama has enjoyed a long life on home video is that Dickinson appears in the altogether during a pair of scenes, including a yowza full-frontal reveal. Since Big Bad Mama was released the same year Dickinson’s TV series Police Woman debuted, the movie captures her beauty at just the moment she enjoyed her greatest notoriety. Corman has speculated that Dickinson did the risqué scenes because she had reached her early 40s and wanted to prove she was still sexy, a classic Corman justification for exploiting an actress if ever there was one.

          As to why Shatner considers the movie a stinker, one can only speculate that he didn’t like getting upstaged by Dickinson’s body or that he didn’t like playing a ridiculous coward of a character. In any event, Corman and his cheerful accomplices, including reliable B-movie helmer Steve Carver, deliver the goods in Big Bad Mama, but not gracefully—the story sputters through awkward rhythms even as the screen fills with vivid vignettes. FYI, Dickinson reprised her Wilma McLatchie role in the poorly received sequel Big Bad Mama II (1987), also produced by Corman but helmed by sleaze-cinema hack Jim Wynorski instead of original director Carver.

Big Bad Mama: FUNKY

Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970)

          New York director Frank Perry’s films tended toward pretentiousness, but amid his arty flourishes he demonstrated a fine gift for guiding performances, especially by actresses. Thus, it’s no surprise that his most widely admired film, Diary of a Mad Housewife, is virtually a one-woman show for leading lady Carrie Snodgress. With Perry’s sympathetic but unflinching camera studying every nuance of her suffering, Snodgress plays Tina Balser, the underappreciated spouse of successful young attorney Jonathan Balser (Richard Benjamin). Jonathan is an asshole of the first order, a name-dropping narcissist obsessed with professional and social advancement; he alternately treats Tina as a sex toy, a shrink, a slave, a sounding board, and a subject for psychological abuse. In the film’s arresting opening scenes, Perry and screenwriter Eleanor Perry (the director’s then-wife) succinctly illustrate every aspect of the Balsers’ suffocating lifestyle—we’re so primed for Tina’s escape from Jonathan’s oppression that when she meets a potential partner for an adulterous tryst, it feels like a triumphant moment.

          Alas, Tina’s would-be paramour, writer George Prager (Frank Langella), is merely a different breed of asshole. One of those smug swingers who justifies his callous behavior with fancy language about surmounting bourgeois hang-ups, George treats Tina tenderly when they’re in bed, and abysmally when they’re not. The journey of the movie is Tina’s quest for some kind of validation—whether it’s George complimenting her lovemaking or Jonathan recognizing the work she invests keeping their household afloat—because she’s beyond desperate for evidence proving her life means something. The fascinating quality of Diary of a Mad Housewife is that Tina never really snaps, which would have been the predictable path for the story to follow; instead, even when Jonathan belittles her in front of their two impressionable daughters, Tina barks but doesn’t bite.

          Emboldened by her adultery, however, she relishes keeping a secret from her schmuck spouse, and interesting questions get raised about how deeply Tina savors the creature comforts Jonathan’s success provides—has she been co-opted by the status-symbol system that’s oppressing her?

          Benjamin is terrific here, transforming obsequiousness into an art form, and Langella, in his first feature, mostly surmounts the overwritten extremes of his role. However, since she’s in nearly every scene, it’s all about Snodgress, who came virtually out of nowhere to score in this movie—her previous screen credits comprised a handful of minor guest shots on television. Snodgress’ relatable vulnerability earned the actress a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination. Following a second 1970 feature and a 1971 telefilm, though, Snodgress left Hollywood for a long romance with rock legend Neil Young. She didn’t return to movies until 1978’s The Fury, the project that began her transition from leading roles to minor character roles.

Diary of a Mad Housewife: GROOVY

Paradise Alley (1978)

          While Paradise Alley is unmistakably a major ego trip for Sylvester Stallone—he wrote, directed, and stars in the picture, and he even (over)sings the theme song—his onscreen presence is more muted than one might expect, given the circumstances. A cornball ensemble piece about three Italian-American brothers living in Hell’s Kitchen circa the late ’40s, the film as much a showcase for costars Armand Assante and Lee Canalito as it is for Stallone. In fact, Canalito gets the showiest part because he spends much of the movie in a wrestling ring, playing the same sort of undereducated underdog that Stallone did in Rocky (1976) and its endless sequels. Yet if Stallone demonstrated restraint by ensuring that Paradise Alley wasn’t entirely about his character, that’s the only restraint he demonstrated—in every other regard, Paradise Alley is florid, overwrought, and schmaltzy.

          Our hero, Cosmo Carboni (Stallone), is a street hustler who anachronistically wears long hair and an earring while he pulls one scheme after another because he doesn’t want to work for a living. His brother Victor (Canalito) is a gentle giant who hauls ice up apartment-building stairs for a living—which means that, of course, we get an epic, sweaty scene of Victor lugging ice, only to have it fall down and shatter (in slow motion). Their other sibling, Lenny (Assante), is a haunted war veteran with a limp who works as an undertaker. Because, you see, he’s dead inside. Subtlety, thy name is not Stallone. As the turgid narrative unfolds, Cosmo courts Lenny’s ex, dancehall girl Annie (Anne Archer), and Cosmo gets into hassles with local mobster Stitch (Kevin Conway, giving the film’s most cartoonish performance). Eventually—which is to say, halfway through the movie, once Stallone remembers to generate a plot—Cosmo asks Victor to become a wrestler so the family can get rich. Inexplicably, this decision transforms Lenny into an avaricious prick, allowing Stallone to twist the story so his character can grow a conscience. 

          After several diverting but pointless sequences—Lenny decides he wants Annie back, Cosmo bonds with a broken-down wrestler (Frank McRae), and so on—the movie climaxes in an interminable wrestling match that is set, for no reason except that Stallone wanted a visual flourish, during a rainstorm. Cue repetitive shots of Canalito and his sparring partner flipping each other into puddles for maximum slow-mo splashing! The great cinematographer László Kovács shoots the hell out of Stallone’s absurd scenes, making the movie look better than it deserves, and the acting is so flamboyant that many scenes have energy. However, Paradise Alley is both clichéd and confusing—it’s as if Stallone couldn’t decide which old movies he wanted to pillage, so he copped something from all of them. Combined with the excessive storytelling style, the haphazard cribbing from vintage cinema turns Paradise Alley into an unappealing jumble.

Paradise Alley: LAME

Convoy (1978)

          A sad spectacle representing the near-end of a once-glorious career, Convoy was not director Sam Peckinpah’s final film, but it might as well have been. (He only made one more picture, the lifeless ’80s espionage flick The Osterman Weekend.) Virtually a lampoon of every theme and visual device Peckinpah used in his previous films, Convoy is as vapid as the director’s other pictures are meaningful, so watching the movie is like seeing a faded singer struggle through greatest hits he can no longer perform with the proper energy. Exacerbating its lack of artistic worth, Convoy was the production that finally destroyed Peckinpah’s fragile reputation in Hollywood, since substance abuse often left him so debilitated that his friend James Coburn had to step in and direct several scenes. Even with the extra help, Convoy came in over-budget and over-schedule, guaranteeing no reputable producer would hire Peckinpah for years.

         Providing the final insult, Convoy became Peckinpah’s biggest box-office success.

         Yes, despite making provocative classics like The Wild Bunch (1969) and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), Peckinpah wasn’t fully embraced by American moviegoers until he helmed a trucker flick that was adapted from a novelty song. The song, of course, was C.W. McCall’s “Convoy,” the 1975 hit in which McCall narrated the tale of a rebel trucker’s adventure while cheesy music composed by future Mannheim Steamroller leader Chip Davis grooved underneath. Screenwriter B.W.L. Norton translated the song quite literally, presenting the idiotic story of badass trucker Martin “Rubber Duck” Penwald (Kris Kristofferson) forming a giant convoy of 18-wheelers to battle corrupt Sheriff “Dirty Lyle” Wallace (Ernest Borgnine).

          Yet Norton should probably be held blameless for the incoherent weirdness of the final film, since Peckinpah rewrote the script before and during production, even taking the extreme of letting his cast contribute material whether or not the material actually fit the overall storyline. Worse, Peckinpah dug into the tropes of his earlier movies, layering in endless scenes of property destruction, slow-motion violence, and sweaty men stirring up trouble. Whenever Convoy enters a sloppy montage of barroom brawling or cars crashing through buildings, the movie becomes a parody of Peckinpah’s wild-man style.

         Had the filmmaker demonstrated any discipline or restraint, Convoy could easily have become a fun B-movie about outlaws fighting the man. Certainly, the casting of the lead roles pointed the way toward something unpretentiously enjoyable. Singer-turned-actor Kristofferson, at the height of his beardy handsomeness, exudes rock-star cool, so he cuts a great figure steering an 18-wheeler while wearing aviator shades and a wife-beater. Borgnine, his gap-toothed swarthiness in full bloom, personifies redneck villainy. Yet Peckinpah puts so much crap between these characters—driving montages, explosions, pointless scenes featuring Kristofferson’s love interest, played by Ali MacGraw with her usual ineptitude—that the basic story gets bludgeoned to death. Convoy ends up feeling like a fever dream instead of a narrative, so it’s fascinating for all the wrong reasons.

Convoy: FREAKY