The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978)

          It’s a rare privilege to discuss existential considerations in the context of an action movie, but that’s exactly why the Hong Kong production The 36th Chamber of Shaolin won a place in the pantheon of martial-arts cinema. The picture has some exciting passages of violent action, and the basic plot takes the familiar shape of a revenge saga, but the storyline also explores notions of dignity and harmony and transcendence. Viewers accustomed to Hollywood’s treatment of martial arts, which often reduce ancient tradition to cutesy “wax on, wax off” slogans, will find something new here. It’s no accident that The 36th Chamber of Shaolin has a significant cult following that even stretches into the world of hiphop—members of the iconic rap act Wu-Tang Clan, including Quentin Tarantino collaborator RZA, have cited this movie as a touchstone.

          Set in feudal China, the story follows a young man named Liu Yude (Liu Chia-Hui). He’s a student at a martial-arts academy run by a teacher who agitates against the oppressive Manchu government. When government operatives including a corrupt enforcer invade the school, murdering the teacher and several students, Liu escapes but vows revenge. Determined to increase his martial-arts skills, he makes a harrowing journey to the remote Shaolin temple, where monks are rumored to have perfected almost superhuman fighting abilities. Demonstrating humility and perseverance, Liu eventually wins entry to the Temple and is renamed San Te. (There really was a Shaolin monk named San Te, and the movie’s storyline, though wildly fictionalized, was inspired by his life.)

          The moment Liu becomes San is also the moment when The 36th Chamber of Shaolin becomes truly interesting. Fitting the Buddhist principles of patience and serenity, the movie shifts gears from a violent adventure tale to a methodical exploration of personal growth through grueling physical training. Even the simple task of walking from living quarters to the temple’s dining hall is a pivotal test, because the monks install a moat between the two locations and fill it with tethered logs, so acolytes must learn to center themselves in order to glide over the obstacles. San proves his mettle by discovering a new way of moving across the logs, inspiring his teachers and fellow students alike. Then San begins his journey through the 35 chambers of the temple, each of which indoctrinates students in a different martial-arts skill. Some of the chamber sequences are mesmerizing, because the training combines elements of combat, dance, resistance, and other physical disciplines, sharpening everything from eye/hand coordination to mental focus to muscle tissue. Once San completes the 35th chamber and receives an invitation to teach at the temple, he has spent years transforming himself from a headstrong youth to an impressive adult.

          What keeps these sequences from seeming episodic is the revenge angle. Through each challenge and trial, we know the protagonist is focused on a singular goal. Hence the 36th chamber of the title, a proposed expansion of the temple’s influence by teaching Shaolin martial arts to outsiders—and hence the film’s exciting final act, San’s adventure outside the temple. Elevated by Chen Yung-Yu’s rousing score and expertly filmed by director Liu Chia-Liang, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is an action film that periodically approaches the level of poetry, even though it has one foot planted in spirituality and the other in violence. The picture was followed by two sequels, Return to the 36th Chamber (1980) and Disciples of the 36th Chamber (1985), though neither is as highly regarded as the original.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin: GROOVY

Tower of Evil (1972)

          Alternately titled Horror on Snape Island, this lurid UK/US coproduction has a little bit of everything, at least as far as sensationalistic elements go. There’s an abundance of sex and violence, and the story involves ancient artifacts, knife-wielding murderers, provincial weirdos, psychotherapy, a religious cult, romantic melodrama, and normal people driven to psychotic extremes. Given the jam-packed narrative, events unfurl at such a rapid pace that one scene comprises nothing but shots of people plunging knives into victims intercut with shots of a woman screaming. Tower of Evil may not be the most coherent or logical picture, but it has lots of flash.

          The film starts frantically. Fishermen arrive at a remote island, walk onto the rocky shore, and discover the nude, dismembered bodies of several young people. Then a beautiful girl named Penelope (Candace Glendenning), who, naturally, is also naked, rushes at them with a knife and kills one of the fishermen. Thereafter, she’s thrown in a psych ward and treated while police and shrinks try to determine whether she was responsible for killing the other folks on the island. The film depicts Penelope’s prior experiences in flashback, while simultaneously dramatizing the exploits of a second group of pretty young people on the same island. They’re after archeological treasures, and much excitement ensues from the unearthing of a Phoenecian spear. Crusty sailors native to the area surrounding the island are involved, as well. In a word, scattershot.

          Narrative chaos notwithstanding, Tower of Evil is a slick piece of work. The images are colorful and polished, the acting is decent, and the ladies are sexy, particularly starlet Anna Palk. Because Tower of Evil is supposed to be a horror flick, however, it must be said that the movie isn’t particularly scary. Worse, the way everything comes together at the end is ridiculous and unsatisfying, though expecting more from this shameless picture would have been unrealistic. Lest we forget, Tower of Evil aims so low that one transition involves cutting from Penelope leaning her head out of frame so she can fellate her boyfriend to a shot of her screaming in the psych ward.
          That’s Tower of Evil in a nutshell: If all else fails, let the screaming start.

Tower of Evil: FUNKY

Maidstone (1970)

          During his lifetime, it often seemed as if no one was as invested in burnishing Norman Mailer’s literary-lion reputation than Mailer himself. In between crafting major books and taking bold political stands, he played the provocateur with public appearances distinguished by obnoxious self-aggrandizement and sometimes shockingly offensive repudiations of others. The notion seemed to be that it was Norman’s world, and the rest of us were lucky to play supporting roles. And that’s roughly the context for Maidstone, the last in a trio of grungy independent movies that Mailer wrote and directed from 1968 to 1970. (Nearly two decades later, he made the more conventional Tough Guys Don’t Dance, one of 1987’s biggest flops.) Maidstone is a textbook example of creative indulgence, a home movie with famous participants and lofty ambitions. In its ramshackle way, the picture tells the story of Norman T. Kingsley, a controversial filmmaker who runs for U.S. president even as he casts his latest opus. Much of the picture comprises clashes between Norman (played by Mailer himself) and his tempestuous brother, Raoul (Rip Torn). Their conflict climaxes in a brawl that was reportedly improvised, with the real-life Torn smacking his frenemy’s head with a hammer and drawing blood. With all due respect, one can’t blame him for lashing out, because Mailer’s self-important bloviating is as tiresome as his shapeless filmmaking.

          Shot entirely at a posh country estate in the Northeast, the movie comprises scenes of Mailer/Kingsley boasting that he’s about to reinvent cinema (his new project is “an attack on the nature of reality”), coupled with scenes of Mailer/Kingsley cataloguing the nation’s political ills. Somehow important to expressing these themes are myriad shots of topless women, plus dull vignettes of young ladies making out with Mailer and/or Torn. In one scene, Mailer/Kingsley uses clichéd “jive” talk while communicating with a black actress; in another, several characters wander across a field while the soundtrack comprises nothing but a woman moaning in sexual pleasure. True students of Mailer’s work might find resonant tropes here, and Maidstone unquestionably captures something about the experimental artistry of its historical moment. Nonetheless, while Mailer likely thought himself the most interesting man in the world, Maidstone proves he was not.

Maidstone: LAME

A Different Story (1978)

This highly problematic rom-com offers a textbook example of how iffy politics can derail a movie that shouldn’t have been political in the first place. The story of a gay man and a lesbian becoming a straight couple, A Different Story has the unintended effect of marginalizing homosexuality as a phase some young people pass through on the way to adulthood. To describe that implication as repulsive is to make a gross understatement. Yet nothing about A Different Story feels didactic or mean-spirited, so one fears the filmmakers were simply ignorant of the statement they were making. In some ways, that’s worse than deliberately belittling an entire class of people. Anyway, it’s not as if there’s a great movie buried inside A Different Story, and that all one need do is detach from political correctness long enough to enjoy the story. Even setting aside its treatment of human sexuality, A Different Story is mediocre at best. The characterizations are clichéd and superficial; the storytelling is choppy, with some scenes drifting off into nothing; and the plot is as hackneyed as bad episode of a sitcom. After kept boy Albert (Perry King) gets dumped by his wealthy lover, his casual friend Stella (Meg Foster) says he can crash on her couch. He cooks fancy meals and tidies the place, so she extends her hospitality. Discovering that Albert has immigration issues (he’s a Belgian national), Stella suggests a green-card marriage. They wed. Later, they sleep together, thinking it a one-time event until Stella learns she’s pregnant. She dumps her on-again/off-again girlfriend, and then Albert and Stella fall into the bickering rhythms of a generic movie marriage. He spends too much time at the office! She’s stuck at home all day with the baby! Yawn. Foster and King render professional but undistinguished work, while director Paul Aaron orchestrates the whole middling affair in similarly bland fashion. It’s all so enervated and false that the only quirky thing in the picture is a sidecar motorcycle.

A Different Story: LAME

Swept Away (1974)

          On a surface level, Swept Away (or, as the longer formal title goes, Swept Away . . . by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August) is likely the most accessible film that politically charged Italian director Lina Wertmüller ever made. The plot is simple, and the polemics are easy to unpack because most of the film comprises arguments between the same two characters, one of whom represents capitalism and the other communism. Yet in some ways, Swept Away is as challenging and problematic as Wertmüller’s other work. The movie is way too long, with lots of screen time chewed up by repetitive screaming matches, and the gender politics are a hot mess. At one point, the male protagonist exclaims, “Bitch, you’re more beautiful when I hit you.” Even worse, a man successfully woos the female antagonist by raping her. Let it never be said that male filmmakers have a monopoly on demeaning iconography.

          Set in and around a rocky island in the Mediterranean, the story begins with a small yacht cruising through perfect waters for a relaxing getaway. The trip was commissioned by Pavone (Riccardo Salvino), whose wife, Raffaella (Mariangela Melato), is a narcissistic harpy. Lean and tan, with a shapely figure and bleach-blonde hair, she’s glamorous but insufferable, perpetually complaining about the servants on the yacht. Gennarino (Giancarlo Giannini) receives most of her invective. A proud communist, he perceives Raffaella as the epitome of ugly elitism. One day, she rises late and demands that Gennarino take her to a swimming cove in a small dinghy. Predictably, they’re separated from the yacht, tossed about by a storm, and stranded on an island. Circumstances allow Gennarino to change his social status by demanding that Raffaella serve him. Her screechy resistance hardens his resolve, illustrating how repression foments rebellion, until he becomes as great a monster as his companion. He beats Raffaella, taunts her diminished position, and finally rapes her.

          All of this is as unpleasant to watch as it sounds, even though the cinematography is quite beautiful, as are the locations. Also keeping Swept Away basically tolerable are flashes of humor. Yet Swept Away is far too cruel to click as a battle-of-the-sexes farce. After all, both major characters are horrible people. This makes it nearly impossible to care what happens to them, thereby sapping energy from Wertmüller’s twisted attempt at a love story. Swept Away is interesting from a political perspective, not so much from a human perspective. Nonetheless, frequent Wertmüller leading man Giannini sells his outlandish role with charisma and intensity. Nearly three decades later, pop singer and occasional actress Madonna remade this movie with her then-husband, director Guy Ritchie. Even with Giannini’s son, Adriano, assuming his father’s old role, Swept Away (2002) bombed.

Swept Away: FUNKY

Trapped (1973)

          Generic but mildly enjoyable, this made-for-TV thriller explores the threadbare premise of a man getting stuck inside a department store and battling vicious Dobermans that a security company unleashes inside the store overnight. A few scenes comprise vapid melodrama about the man’s relationship with his young daughter and his embittered ex-wife, but most of the screen time features star James Brolin either running from dogs, using makeshift weapons to push the animals away, or extricating himself from close encounters. Here’s the setup, such as it is. Chuck (Brolin) meets his ex, Elaine (Susan Clark), and their preteen daughter, Carrie (Tammy Harrington), in a department store so Chuck can purchase Carrie a going-away gift, because Elaine and her new husband, David Moore (Earl Holliman), are about to move overseas. They’re taking Carrie with them, much to Chuck’s chagrin. Old resentments spark an argument, with Carrie caught in the middle, and the fight ends with a promise to reconvene at the airport for a more civil goodbye. Chuck lingers at the store to await the delivery of an out-of-stock toy, but he gets mugged in the men’s room, so he’s unconscious at closing time. While he’s out, dogs are set loose.

          Thereafter, the movie cuts between canine-suspense sequences and vignettes of Carrie moping about her missing dad. Nice guy David insists on tracking Chuck down, lest Carrie blame him for her father’s absence. Decent movies have arisen from material this simplistic, but Trapped (sometimes known as Doberman Patrol) still manages to underwhelm. The script is hackneyed and the acting is serviceable. Brolin, for instance, evidences his usual shortcomings. In conversational scenes, he’s enjoyably charming and macho, but whenever he tries for a big emotional display, his facial expressions turn cartoonish. Holliman is characteristically vapid, while Clark’s likable grit isn’t enough to significantly move the quality-control needle. As for the dog action, it’s okay. Seeing big animals perform simple stunts lacks novelty, and the money-shot scenes—Brolin fending Dobermans off with a handmade torch, a nasty-looking dog climbing along a thin railing to chase Brolin, and so on—pale in comparison to similar moments in bigger-budgeted productions.

Trapped: FUNKY

The Silent Scream (1979)

Shamelessly borrowing plot elements, stylistic tropes, and even musical flourishes from Psycho (1960), this modestly budgeted shocker is of a piece with the countless slasher films that kept teen audiences squealing with nervous delight throughout the 1980s. Like most of those interchangeable pictures, The Silent Scream combines a far-fetched storyline with nasty gore and predictable scares to create a lot of empty cinematic noise. As in Psycho, the story revolves around a pretty young woman picking the wrong place to stay. College student Scotty (Rebecca Balding) takes a room in a gothic-style boarding house overlooking the California shoreline. Despite bonding with fellow young tenants, she’s unnerved by the proprietors, a family including awkward twentysomething Mason (Brad Rearden). In classic slasher-film fashion, Scotty ignores various warning signs, because she’s more focused on dating a handsome young tenant than on noticing that several murders have occurred nearby. Unbeknownst to Scotty, disturbed Victoria (Barbara Steele) lives in the boarding house attic, and Victoria has a rude habit of venturing outside to kill people. You can figure out where it goes from there—each murder brings Victoria closer to Scotty, even as intrepid cops (played by Cameron Mitchell and Avery Schreiber) follow clues. Will Scotty survive? Whatever. The Silent Scream has a few demented moments, like the scene in which Steele dances around her attic with a corpse as her only companion, and the body count rises substantially in the third act. Yet nothing imaginative or surprising happens, so The Silent Scream is, at best, a somewhat competent recitation of the imperiled-innocent formula. If a smattering of sex and a splash of plasma speeds your pulse, indulge. If not, ignore.

The Silent Scream: LAME

Sounder, Part 2 (1976)

          Pity the filmmakers responsible for good sequels to great films, particularly when major cast members disappear between installments, because review of such pictures inevitably begin with provisos about diminishing returns. So it is with Sounder, Part 2, a solid picture that pales only in comparison to its extraordinary predecessor, Sounder (1972), one of the most admired ’70s explorations of the African-American experience. In Sounder, Part 2, capable performers Harold Sylvester and Ebony Wright replace original stars Paul Winfield and Cicely Tyson, while Annazette Chase assumes Janet MacLachlan’s role as a rural schoolteacher. All three do fine work, perhaps better than the rehashed storyline deserves.

          In the first film, a child named David strives to gain an education while his family endures the hardships of sharecropping in Depression-era Louisiana. In the second film, roughly the same thing happens. Despite his family’s challenging circumstances, David (played by Darryl Young instead of the first film’s Kevin Hooks) tries to better himself through formal schooling. Alas, his onetime tutor, Camille (Chase), plans a move to Cleveland, and no one has come forward to assume her responsibilities. David’s father, Nathan Lee (Sylvester), resolves to build a school and talk Camille into remaining. Give or take a few details, that’s the whole story, which means the film is as unadorned—and as devoid of real conflict—as it sounds. Sounder, Part 2 is a simple homily about determination and dignity.

          By keeping the plot uncluttered, however, the filmmakers are able to dig deep during key moments. Of particular note is the climactic debate between Camille and Nathan Lee, a beautifully rendered vignette of personal revelation delivered with grace and power by actors who imbue their dialogue and physicality with real emotion. In fact, the acting in Sounder, Part 2 is uniformly good, although Winfield’s rawness and vulnerability give the original film an impact the sequel cannot match. That said, the sequel looks great, with credibly ramshackle locations bathed in golden light, and real-life blues musician Taj Mahal—reprising his minor supporting role as Nathan Lee’s neighbor—gives the soundtrack bounce and grit with his evocative tunes.

Sounder, Part 2: GROOVY

T.R. Baskin (1971)

          Moderately insightful and sensitive but plagued by a tendency toward superficiality, T.R. Baskin is an intimate character study that puts a fresh spin on the old story of a young person experiencing culture shock by moving from a small town to a big city. Rather than portraying its protagonist as a naif overwhelmed by sophisticates, T.R. Baskin presents a preternaturally wise individual disappointed to learn that sharing her life with metropolitan folks isn’t the revelation she expected. Candice Bergen, delivering one of her best early performances, is almost too well cast in the leading role, since she’s so beautiful and worldly that it’s hard to believe she doesn’t thrive among the cosmopolitan set.

          Written and produced by Peter Hyams, who later enjoyed a long career as a genre-cinema auteur, and directed with characteristic grace by Herbert Ross, the movie begins with traveling salesman Jack (Peter Boyle) arriving in Chicago and running into a college acquaintance, Larry (James Caan). Jack asks if his pal knows any ladies who might keep him company, so Larry suggests T.R. Baskin (Bergen). A phone call later, she shows up at Jack’s hotel-room door. Jack believes he’s hit the jackpot until T.R. challenges him verbally, revealing she’s his intellectual superior by a mile. Performance anxiety ensues, so they talk instead of trysting, and their conversation triggers flashbacks detailing T.R.’s early experiences in Chicago. After leaving home for a new life, T.R. took a mindless data-entry job and tried double-dating with a co-worker who was obsessed with landing a wealthy husband. That got boring fast. Eventually, T.R. met Larry, who seemed intellectual and tender at first blush. How their relationship unfolded, and how that course of events led her to Jack’s hotel room, is the heart of the picture and a small statement about the casual cruelty of modern life.

          T.R. Baskin unfurls like an observational novella, with copious dialogue revealing characters’ personalities as a larger sketch of city life emerges through the accumulation of detail. Easily the most interesting aspect of the storytelling is the quippy dialogue that Hyams provides for the title character. “I want to die young and neat,” she says. “I don’t want to die old and sloppy.” Or, more tellingly, “I just wish everybody else didn’t look like they know exactly what they’re doing.” T.R. Baskin is frustrating because Hyams and Ross ignore so many obvious opportunities to dig deeper, but excellent acting fills in some of the blanks. Boyle infuses his role with surprising warmth, and Caan conveys important nuances that can’t be discussed without spoiling the story. Bergen, of course, carries much of the picture on her shoulders, and she’s terrific, complementing her innate comic timing with the soulfulness that precious few of her early roles allowed her to display.

T.R. Baskin: GROOVY

Mean Dog Blues (1978)

         Mean Dog Blues gets off to a decent start. After the AIP logo (always a promising sign), Fred Karlin’s smooth lounge-rock score accompanies credits that include these heartening words: “Scatman Crothers as Mudcat.” Shortly afterward, shaggy-haired protagonist Paul (Gregg Henry) abandons his useless car on the side of a desert road near a stand of Joshua trees by saying, “Goodbye, Old Paint,” then wanders off to his next adventure carrying only his guitar and a suitcase. By this point, viewers have learned that the cast includes George Kennedy, Kay Lenz, Tina Louise, and William Windom. As the saying goes, you had me at hello. Although it’s not exactly downhill from there, Mean Dog Blues never builds the desired head of steam. Nonetheless, it’s enjoyable in a disposable sort of a way. (Sadly, it's also homophobic, par for the course in B-movies of this vintage.)

          After dumping his car, Paul hitches a ride with Victor (Windom) and his wife, Donna (Louise). Things get tricky a few hours later, when Donna hits on Paul while Victor gets drunk at a roadside diner. Imprudently, Paul remains in their car afterward, so he’s a witness when Victor hits a 10-year-old kid. Politically connected and wealthy, Victor claims Paul was behind the wheel at the time of the accident, so Paul gets slapped with a one-to-five stretch at a prison work farm. Predictably, the commandant, Captain Omar Kinsman (Kennedy), is a sadistic redneck who cares more about the welfare of his favorite bloodthirsty Doberman, Rattler, than he does about the health of the convicts under his supervision. Paul decides the best way to survive his prison term is to take a dangerous job as a “dog nigger” (seriously, that’s the phrase used through the movie), so his work involves running through wilderness while guard dogs chase him for training exercises. Meanwhile, Paul’s wife, Linda (Lenz), agitates for his release.

          So much of the picture comprises scenes of Paul getting chased by the dogs that everything else gets pushed to the sidelines. Lenz, for instance, is barely in the movie except for a sequence during which a creepy guard bedevils her during a prison visit. The great Crothers has even less screen time. Of the film’s many underused supporting players, Louise probably comes off best because one doesn’t usually expect an adequate performance from the Artist Forever Known as Ginger. Kennedy is Kennedy, growling and stomping his way through scenes, while Henry, later a strong character actor, makes an ineffectual lead. 

Mean Dog Blues: FUNKY

Please Share Your Hard-to-Find Titles!

          Greetings, dear readers! All goes well at Every '70s Movie command central, and if my numbers are correct, approximately 75% of the films that meet criteria for review in this space have been reviewed. Now it's time to ask for some help. This is not one of my rare entreaties for donations, although those are always welcome, hint-hint. Instead, I'm reaching out to my informed and involved readership for assistance with identifying titles that might otherwise hover outside my radar. Here's your mission, if you choose to accept it: In the comments on this post, or in direct contact to me via e-mail or Facebook messaging, please provide the names of the absolute most obscure 1970s movies with which you're familiar.

          I have a list of about 600 movies yet to review, so it's possible I'm already aware of some titles you might suggest, but I'd rather have some redundancy than discover later that something legitimate was accidentally omitted. If you're not sure whether I've reviewed a movie yet, just use the search function on the blog to check the title. If it's not on the blog, I want to know, just in case I'm not yet aware of that particular title.

          This is the time to scrape the tiniest crumbs from the bottoms of your brainpans, friends. If there's some oddity you remember seeing once in a grindhouse or some strange thing you came across on cable, let me know. Please share as much or as little detail as you can muster, up to and including links for research or viewing. On my end, I'll identify whether the film actually meets the criteria and, hopefully, add some exciting new discoveries to my master list as this blog segues into its last couple years of fresh publishing.

          Finally, here's a refresher course on the aforementioned criteria, which might help jog your memories and/or save you the trouble of suggesting something that falls outside the scope of Every '70s Movie. The criteria for inclusion is any English-language, U.S.-made (even partially) fictional feature-length film that received a legitimate theatrical release in America from January 1, 1970, to December 31, 1979. Obviously, I'm also writing about documentaries, foreign films, TV movies, and select releases from 1980, but I've got those categories covered. This invitation is all about making sure I haven't missed something obvious (or not so obvious) while assembling my master list of American-produced (or coproduced) movies of the 1970s.

         Thanks in advance for your terrific suggestions, and keep on keepin' on!

Love Among the Ruins (1975) & The Corn Is Green (1979)

          Among director George Cukor’s myriad accomplishments, he introduced Katharine Hepburn to the big screen, directing her first film, A Bill of Divorcement (1932), and featuring her in several more pictures—including The Philadelphia Story (1940)—before helming a pair of early-’60s comedies starring Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. More than a decade later, the longtime collaborators reunited to make two telefilms.

          First came the highly enjoyable romantic comedy Love Among the Ruins, which pairs Hepburn with another acting legend, Laurence Olivier. Set in England circa 1911, the playful film concerns Jessica Medlicott (Hepburn), a society lady mired in scandal. Widowed two years ago, she has become engaged to a younger man and now seeks to break the engagement because she realizes her fiancé is a gold digger. To plead her case, Jessica hires lawyer Sir Arthur Glanville Jones (Olivier). He’s thrilled because 40 years ago, he and Jessica had a three-day romantic idyll in Toronto, when he was a college student and she was a touring actress. The central joke of Love Among the Ruins is that while Arthur is as smitten with Jessica now as he was then, she doesn’t remember their time together—or does she? It’s a perfect role for Hepburn in the autumn of her years, because she gets to play haughty and narcissistic while winking at the audience to indicate the warmth hidden behind her character’s upper-crust façade.

          Constructed like a play and written with considerable verbal dexterity by James Costigan, Love Among the Ruins features Olivier in nearly every scene and Hepburn in almost as many, so viewers who love these actors can immerse themselves in the stars’ distinctive personas from start to finish. Olivier, whose ’70s work was often cartoonish, mostly restrains himself here, relying upon still-nimble physicality and the incredible musical instrument of his mellifluous diction. With Cukor orchestrating the action so there’s always motion and speed, Love Among the Ruins is often quite delightful even though it’s old-fashioned and talky. The opulent costumes and locations help create the desired effect, and so, too, does the characteristically romantic musical score by the great John Barry.

          For their second TV project, Cukor and Hepburn revived The Corn Is Green, a 1938 play that was previously filmed in 1945, with Bette Davis in the lead role of an English schoolteacher whose integrity and willpower changes provincial attitudes toward education in a 19th-century Welsh mining town. Miss Lilly Moffat is a quintessential Hepburn character. After a small-minded woman says, “Men do know best, I think,” Moffat shoots back, “Then don’t think!” As Hepburn did in real life, Moffat challenges social rules, whether she’s defying restrictive ideas of gender or pushing illiterate people to better themselves.

          In the well-constructed narrative, Moffat inherits a small estate near a coalmine and then opens a school, using her household staff as fellow teachers. Moffat takes a special interest in Morgan Evans (Ian Saynor), a young man who honors tradition by working in the mine but secretly nurtures his natural gift for writing. Moffat tutors Morgan and secures an entrance interview for Trinity College at Oxford, despite resistance from locals. Further complicating matters is Moffat’s nubile charge, Bessie (Toyah Wilcox), who seduces Morgan as a means of expressing her boredom with small-town life.

          There’s never much doubt that Moffat will conquer adversity, but Cukor puts across the material with his signature sophistication. In addition to filming many scenes with long takes and wide shots, a stylistic departure from the usual closeup-heavy mode of ’70s TV, Cukor sparingly employs original music, again by Barry. While Hepburn’s age shows (she shakes periodically and her voice isn’t the blaring trumpet it once was), she convey her unmistakable resolve. By story’s end, Hepburn conveys her character’s pride at a job well done—a fitting final image after nearly 50 years of Cukor/Hepburn collaborations.

Love Among the Ruins: GROOVY

The Corn Is Green: GROOVY

Nightmare Honeymoon (1974)

          My tolerance for mindless thrillers about unlucky people who stumble onto trouble in the boonies is relatively high, especially if the thrillers are executed with any modicum of restraint and style. It’s all about the vibe, baby. That said, far too many of these movies devolve into exploitive sleaze by employing rape as a major story element, and that’s when my tolerance gets tested. Hence my ambivalence toward Nightmare Honeymoon, which is a fairly slick production given its humble budget and lack of major star power: On the one hand, the flick is straightforward B-movie trash about good people falling into a spiral of danger and intrigue, but on the other hand, it’s the same old song about villains committing sexual violence against a pretty girl. Nightmare Honeymoon is far from the worst picture of its type, and in fact the filmmakers evince a measure of sensitivity while depicting the psychological effects of rape on not only the victim but also her husband. Still, another path would have been preferable.

          The plot, no surprise, is simple. David (Dack Rambo) and Jill (Rebecca Dianna Smith) leave their wedding reception and head for New Orleans, where they have hotel reservations. They stop by a lake for a quick swim, then accidentally observe bad guy Lee (John Beck) committing a murder. Lee knocks David unconscious and rapes Jill, but the newlyweds escape. Thereafter, David becomes obsessed with getting revenge.

          Notwithstanding brief appearances by the great character actors Pat Hingle and David Huddleston, Nightmare Honeymoon features only journeymen players, but they acquit themselves well. Rambo injects some malice into his usually bland screen persona, Smith does a fair job of expressing anguish, and Beck swings for the fences playing a horny psychopath. Never the nimblest or subtlest of actors, he’s weirdly compelling as he bulges his eyes from between his sweaty forehead and his thicket of a moustache. As for the plot, it works until it doesn’t. The setup is effective, the assault scene is handled discreetly, and the second act, depicting how the newlyweds wrestle with their new reality, has real humanity. Better still, things move along at a good pace once David begins searching for Lee. Yet Nightmare Honeymoon gets awkward in its final stretch, an operatic showdown with more than a little bit of Cape Fear (1962) in its DNA. The climax is tense and violent, but believability is an early casualty.

Nightmare Honeymoon: FUNKY

The Amazing Transplant (1970)

Cursory research into the background and perception of this low-budget sex picture reveals some debate about whether it was the first film to feature a penis transplant as a plot device, but I’m sure readers will understand my lack of passion for investigating the matter further. In fact, if I could have back the time I wasted aiming my eyeballs at The Amazing Transplant, I’d surely be grateful. For while there’s a certain crass novelty to the subject matter, The Amazing Transplant is only peripherally about the medical procedure to which its title refers. Most of the picture comprises unpleasant scenes of a psycho named Arthur (Joao Fernandez) scoring private time with ladies, freaking out when he sees their earrings, and then killing the women during sex. Meanwhile, a detective named Bill (Larry Hunter) tries to find Arthur after he goes missing, only to discover the trail of bodies Arthur has left behind. Eventually, Bill learns that Arthur demanded a doctor graft another man’s penis onto Arthur’s body. The new organ brought with it homicidal intent, so The Amazing Transplant is basically a grindhouse derivation of the 1920 French novel Les Mains d’Orlac, which has been adapted for the screen several times. Yet the lack of originality is the least of this awful movie’s sins. The acting is horrible, the lighting is garish, the sound was badly cobbled together in post-production, and the sex scenes are boring, exploitive, and grimy. Suffice to say nothing resembling a scare appears onscreen, and if you find The Amazing Transplant the least bit titillating, then please keep your distance.

The Amazing Transplant: SQUARE

Pufnstuf (1970)

          Producers Sid and Marty Krofft have spent decades denying that their Day-Glo children’s-fantasy shows of the ’60s and ’70s were influenced by the drug culture of the era, but let’s get real. Some of the images in Pufnstuf, a theatrical feature made to capitalize on the fleeting popularity of the Kroffts’ 1969-1970 series H.R. Pufnstuf, seem like flashes from an acid trip. Not only does the main villain, Wilhelmina W. Witchiepoo (Billie Hayes), dress like a crazy-quilt version of a circus clown, but she makes bizarre transformations. In one scene, she becomes a hippy-dippy dancer named Betsy Boogaloo, her fringe jacket flailing as she gives a hyperactive dance lesson juiced by undercranked camerawork. In another scene, she becomes a flower, so her normal-sized face protrudes from a ring of giant petals while she shoos away a nettlesome bee that means to pollinate her mouth. And what is one to make of the character “Stupid Bat,” an aeronautically challenged purple rodent who bashes into walls until declaring, “I’m beginning to like this”? How can anyone argue this stuff doesn’t celebrate the joy of altered states?

          Pufnstuf tells a condensed version of the same tale featured in the 17 episodes of H.R. Pufnstuf. Young misfit Jimmy (Jack Wild) wanders into a forest one day, singing about loneliness until his flute comes to life and declares that it’s named Freddy. (Or, as Wild says in his cloying lisp, “Fweddy.”) The boy and the flute discover a magic boat and sail off to adventure, but Witchiepoo flies overhead on her motorized “Vroom Broom” and transforms the boat into a monster. Jimmy and Freddy escape to Living Island. Among the island’s residents is a yellow dragon with a giant head, H.R. Pufnstuf. He and his allies combat Witchiepoo’s various schemes to kidnap Freddy, so the plot shamelessly echoes that of The Wizard of Oz (1939).

          Sprinkled throughout the picture are weird tropes and vignettes. Rock singer “Mama” Cass Elliot, of the Mamas and the Papas, plays one of Witchiepoo’s fellow sorcerers, Witch Hazel. Elliot’s first shot is a fat joke of sorts, not exactly the kindest way to present the plus-sized thrush; her face obscured by brightly colored makeup, Elliot is shown gorging herself while reclining in a giant bathtub filled with fruit. Things get even more crass later. When Boss Witch (Martha Raye) makes her entrance, she’s accompanied by a giant rat with a German accent and an SS uniform. Nazi jokes? In a kidde flick?

          Pufnstuf has the same bargain-basement production values as the series from which it was derived, with cheap-looking costumes and two-dimensional sets. Any novelty of encountering these familiar items in an unfamiliar context wears off quickly. Moreover, the moralistic and simple-minded storytelling is tiresome, and so is Wild’s gee-whiz performance. Even Hayes tests viewers’ patience with her constant cackling and screaming, though none could ever question her commitment to the role. In lieu of actual quality, the strange stuff makes the biggest impression. All the random vocal references to old-time movie stars, like the West Wind—as in the actual breeze—mimicking John Wayne’s macho drawl. All those shots of a gopher popping up through the floor while carrying a bag of smoke. And those colors, eye-popping primaries and robust secondaries blending into a rainbow of visual stimulation. On the surface, Pufnstuf is a forgettable fantasy adventure. Underneath, it’s a gonzo exercise in hallucinogenic escapism.

Pufnstuf: FREAKY

Black Force (1975)

My favorite moment in the awful blaxploitation/martial-arts flick Black Force, sometimes known as Force Four (see the above poster), occurs right at the beginning. After an obnoxious disclaimer stating that all the martial-arts action in the film is real, the picture transforms into an interminable exhibition while the members of the titular fighting squad demonstrate their skills one at a time, leaping and punching across the floor of a dojo without opponents or even props, save their weapons. Hence this wondrous line of dialogue: “Hey, bro, lemme see you work those sais.” As opposed to, say, getting on with the story—but then again, once the story finally does commence, it’s a matter of being careful what you wished for, because, incredibly, the stupidity factor rises. Led by Jason (Owen Watson), the badass quartet is a band of mercenaries, or something of that sort, and they’re hired to recover a piece of stolen artwork. Their investigation and accompanying scuffles with bad guys lead them into the criminal underworld, where they confront various thugs interested in the stolen item. Clumsy editing, rotten post-production sound work, and terrible acting combine to make Black Force as confusing as it is uninteresting. Sure, there are some happening funk/soul grooves on the soundtrack, and the down-and-dirty production values mesh with the grimy inner-city locations at which much of the action takes place, but the movie is padded beyond belief, not just with undeservedly lengthy fight scenes but also with a pointlessly long musical performance during a party scene. 

Black Force: LAME

Green Eyes (1977)

          War leaves many victims in its wake, not just the soldiers and civilians directly affected by combat. In the case of the Vietnam War, sexual liaisons between American troops and indigenous women led to the birth of thousands upon thousands of children, many of whom were abandoned by their fathers and thereby consigned to lives of loneliness and poverty. The humanistic made-for-TV drama Green Eyes offers a poignant look at this cycle.

         Paul Winfield, in a touching performance, plays a U.S. Army veteran who returns to Vietnam in order to search for the son he left behind. Upon arrival, however, the soldier discovers that war orphans have become a major national problem, that the survival rate among such children is poor, and that because of economic and political strife lingering in Vietnam, the best chance for some children is adoption by foreigners. Based on a story by Eugene Logan and written with considerable sensitivity by Hollywood veteran David Seltzer, Green Eyes is the cinematic equivalent of encountering a social problem, looking up to the heavens in anguish, and asking, “What can I do?” Yet while bleeding-heart liberalism of the noblest energizes this project, the filmmakers don’t let their editorializing impede the telling of a good story.

          At the beginning of the picture, African-American Lloyd Dubeck (Winfield) returns home with a heavy heart and a limp, having escaped Vietnam with injuries but cognizant that he impregnated the Vietnamese woman with whom he once cohabited. Lloyd has difficulty settling back into civilian life, and his conscience gnaws at him, so he arranges transport back to Southeast Asia, even though the war has not yet ended. Returning to safe zones occupied by American advisors and their colleagues in South Vietnam’s armed forces, Lloyd begins a quest to find his lost lover. Aiding him is Margaret Sheen (Rita Tushingham), an English social worker who operates a bustling orphanage. Lloyd also has a number of encounters with Trung (Lemi), a wide-eyed street urchin who exploits the naïveté of foreigners while using various scams to survive. All of Lloyd’s experiences educate him about the plight of children whose parents are, for all intents and purposes, the war itself.

          Director John Erman does a more than serviceable job of delivering the narrative, utilizing the film’s locations in the Philippines to create a strong sense of verisimilitude. Scenes in slums are particularly evocative. Given the picture’s downbeat storyline, the filmmakers wisely modulate tone by including flashes of humor and playfulness. Better still, moments designed to tug at viewers’ heartstrings have impact without being needlessly maudlin. Driving the whole piece, of course, is Winfield’s warm persona. His pain at witnessing deprivation feels credible, and his joy during the rare moments when his character is able to have a positive impact is contagious.

Green Eyes: GROOVY

Tom (1973)

Although he remained mired in low-budget sleaze throughout the active years of his directorial career, give Greydon Clark some credit for trying to say something about important topics with his first picture, Tom, which was later reissued as The Bad Bunch. A clumsy attempt at dramatizing how racially charged violence spirals out of control after a chance encounter plants the seeds for conflict, Tom concerns earnest Vietnam veteran Jim (played by Clark himself), who innocently travels to Watts with the intention of delivering a letter on behalf of a fallen comrade. This journey brings Jim into the proximity of Tom (Tom Johnigarn), a radicalized dude who prefers the African name he gave himself, “Makimba.”  Hateful of all whites, Tom/Makimba tells Jim to get the hell out of Watts, and then he gathers his gang to pummel Jim for good measure. Only the intervention of racist cop Lt. Stans (Aldo Ray) saves Jim’s life. Thereafter, the movie runs along two parallel tracks. In one, Jim navigates his love life, trying to choose between easy lay Bobbi (Bambi Allen) and nice girl Nancy (Jacqueline Cole). This stuff is alternately sleazy and stultifying, with the Bobbi scenes featuring lots of gratuitous nudity and the Nancy scenes featuring lots of gratuitous montages. On the other track, Tom/Makimba gets into trouble with cops and criminals, improbably blaming Jim for all of his problems. All of this stuff eventually leads toward a histrionic climax, but not before Clark burns up screen time with nonsense including a topless pool party and a Greek Orthodox wedding. Even though Tom runs only 82 minutes, it somehow manages to seem directionless and overlong. 

Tom: LAME

Bloodline (1979)

          Audrey Hepburn was so selective in the final years of her screen career, often letting years lapse between projects, that it’s disappointing most of her latter-day output is rotten. She returned from a long hiatus to play Maid Marian in Richard Lester’s wonderfully melancholy adventure/romance Robin and Marian (1976), and it was downhill from there, beginning with this overstuffed potboiler adapted from one of Sidney Sheldon’s lowest-common-denominator novels. As always, Hepburn comes across well, her natural elegance and poise allowing her to rise above even the silliest scenes, but Bloodline does nothing to embellish her well-deserved reputation as one of the most magical performers ever to step in front of a movie camera.

          The story’s hackneyed inciting incident is the death of a pharmaceutical tycoon named Sam Roffe, which pits his only child, Elizabeth Roffe (Hepburn), against myriad cousins who want to sell the family’s massive international operation for some quick cash. Naturally, each of the cousins is some gradation of Eurotrash, plagued by adulterous entanglements, crushing debts, impending scandals, or all of the above. Just as naturally, Elizabeth is the only saint in the family, so not only does she block attempts to liquidate the company—the better to honor her beloved father’s wishes—but she becomes an active participant in the investigation of her father’s death. Oh, and during all of this, she falls in love with an executive at the family company, chain-smoking smoothie Rhys Williams (Ben Gazzara at his most intolerably smug). Yet that’s not quite enough material for Sheldon’s voracious narrative appetite, so Bloodline also follows myriad subplots relating to the cousins. Ivo (Omar Sharif) tries to keep his wife and three children separate from his mistress and his other three children. Alec (James Mason) digs himself into a deep hole with gambling losses, even as his beautiful younger wife, Vivian (Michelle Phillips), whores herself out to placate creditors. And so on. All the while, intrepid European cop Max (Gert Fröbe, the Artist Forever Known as Goldfinger) pieces clues together with the help of a supercomputer—as in, during many of his scenes, Max chats with the computer, which responds in a mechanized voice.

          Anyway, let’s see, what are we forgetting from this recitation of the film’s major elements? Oh, right—the subplot about the bald psycho killing women in snuff films.

          Yeah, Bloodline is that sort of picture, a semi-serious but simple-minded piece of escapism that periodically and ventures into the realm of exploitation cinema, resulting in dissonance. Picture a Ross Hunter movie suddenly morphing into a William Castle production, and you get the idea. To be clear, director Terence Young does his usual slick work within scenes, but the task of reconciling all of Bloodline’s incompatible elements would have defeated any filmmaker. Still, it’s impossible to completely dismiss Bloodline for a number of reasons, Hepburn’s presence being the most important of those. Furthermore, the cast is rich with talent, and Ennio Morricone’s score is characteristically adventurous, at one point going full-bore into a Giorgio Moroder-type disco groove. There’s always something colorful happening in Bloodline, good taste and logic be damned.

Bloodline: FUNKY

1980 Week: The Big Brawl

          Like many American moviegoers of a certain age, I first encountered Jackie Chan in The Cannonball Run (1981), which featured the Hong Kong actor in a minor comedic role. Yet Chan actually made his first big play for U.S. notoriety the previous year, starring in the partially comedic martial-arts picture The Big Brawl for director Robert Clouse, who made Enter the Dragon (1973). After The Big Brawl and The Cannonball Run failed to create excitement around Chan, he returned to making films in Asia until finally conquering the U.S. in the late ’90s. Watching The Big Brawl now, it’s easy to see what 1980 audiences missed—and why they missed it. Clouse has a ham-fisted touch for comedy that undercuts Chan’s meticulously rehearsed illusion of effortlessness, and the marketing materials accentuated violence. Viewers expecting straight-up chop-socky savagery must have been disappointed by all the silliness on display. That said, The Big Brawl is a mildly entertaining adventure that makes sense within the context of Chan’s subsequent career: This flick represents an early attempt at finding the synthesis between fighting and funny bits that distinguishes Chan’s most successful films.

          Opening in Depression-era Chicago, The Big Brawl—which is occasionally known as Battle Creek Brawl—concerns Jerry (Chan), an ambitious young man who dates a nice white girl, Nancy (Kristine DeBell), and works part-time in his immigrant father’s Chinese restaurant. Against his father’s wishes, Jerry trains in martial arts with his uncle, Herbert (Mako). After making enemies of a big-time gangster, Dominici (José Ferrer), Jerry is coerced into entering a huge citywide brawl in Battle Creek, Texas, where dozens of combatants box and wrestle until the last man standing wins a cash prize.

          Powered by one-dimensional characterizations and predictable twists, the plot is forgettable. What makes The Big Brawl fun to watch, at least periodically, is Chan’s astounding physicality. In a lengthy roller-derby scene, he leaps and rolls like he’s made of rubber, using found objects and lightning-fast strikes to wipe out opponents. And during the brawl—which consumes a good 30 minutes of screen time—Chan runs the gamut from physical comedy to serious ass-kicking, even though the fight scenes all have a certain Hollywood falseness. Among the supporting cast, nobody excels beyond Chan and the always-dynamic Mako. However, the film has some great bursts of energy thanks to Lalo Schifrin’s memorable score. Laying Ennio Morricone-style whistles over a slinky jazz groove that would’ve made Henry Mancini proud, Schifrin locks into Chan’s playful frequency more than Clouse ever does.

The Big Brawl: FUNKY