The Great Bank Hoax (1978)

          A would-be farce that never achieves liftoff, this comedy is nonetheless a handsomely made film with a strong cast and a number of mildly amusing moments. Running a brisk 87 minutes, the picture is a trifle containing charms sufficient to engage viewers who are willing to lower their expectations.

          Set in a small American town, the movie tracks the adventures of three bank officers—Manny Benchley (Richard Basehart), Jack Stutz (Burgess Meredith), and Julius Taggart (Ned Beatty)—who discover that $100,000 has disappeared from their bank’s holdings. Jack, the wily senior member of the trio, suggests an outrageous scheme: Why not stage a robbery to cover the absence of the money, and then recover the $100,000 through insurance? Despite Julian’s troubled conscience and Manny’s weak constitution, the trio performs their fake heist, only to discover a new problem. One of their employees, meek teller Richard Smedley (Paul Sand), confesses to embezzling the original $100,000 and says he wants to return the money. Writer-director Joseph Jacoby comes close to making this convoluted setup work, although his storyline ultimately crumbles beneath the weight of confusing subplots, incessant logic problems, and underdeveloped characters. Among other things, the whole business of a romantic triangle between Richard, ambitious local beauty Cathy Bonano (Charlene Dallas), and neighborhood preacher Everett Manigma (Michael Murphy) rings false. It’s also distracting that The Great Bank Hoax is so reminiscent of Cold Turkey (1971), a better film about small-town greed that also prominently features a preacher.

          Yet The Great Bank Hoax is a good example of a picture in which the parts are greater than the sum. The scenes featuring Basehart, Beatty, and Meredith are droll, with each actor contributing a different tonality; whether they’re attempting a getaway on a bicycle or negotiating deals in a boardroom, the actors make the most of weak material. Dallas, Murphy, and Sand are good, as well, though none of their characters makes much sense. On the technical side, cinematographer Walter Lassally shoots the picture beautifully, using silky backlights to give the locations a warm, Norman Rockwell-type glow. Also making his presence felt is noted film editor Ralph Rosenblum, who cut most of Woody Allen’s ’70s movies. Based on his other work, it seems fair to credit Rosenblum with the picture’s imaginative intercut sequences and vibrant visual juxtapositions. Especially after the plot becomes too labored to follow, the presence of bright visuals and zippy pacing helps keep the focus on patter and performances.

The Great Bank Hoax: FUNKY

Deliver Us from Evil (1973)

          A taut little adventure saga/morality tale that takes its inspiration from the notorious real-life hijacking committed by D.B. Cooper, this excellent telefilm is something of a Northwestern riff on John Huston’s immortal drama The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Like that film, Deliver Us from Evil depicts the corrosive power of greed and uses a battle against nature as a metaphor representing the extremes to which men will go once the promise of wealth overcomes morality and reason.

          Set in the beautiful but unforgiving mountains of Wyoming, Deliver Us from Evil begins quietly, with five friends hiking through the woods, lead by professional guide Dixie (Jim Davis). The men are Al (Jack Weston), an overweight whiner; Arnold (Charles Aidman), a quiet blue-collar worker in late middle age; Steven (Bradford Dillman), a twitchy CPA; Nick (Jan-Michael Vincent), Arnold’s twentysomething son, reeling from a recent divorce; and Walter (George Kennedy), a macho blowhard who fancies himself an outdoorsman and wears a pistol on his belt. While setting up camp one afternoon, Walter spots a parachutist dropping behind a treeline not far from the group’s location. Soon afterward, the men hear a radio broadcast indicating that a D.B. Cooper-like skyjacker escaped by parachute in the same part of Wyoming where the men are camping. Walter persuades the others to join him in chasing the alleged criminal. Once they find their quarry, a trigger-happy Walter kills the parachutist.

          After a stomach-churning interlude during which the men fear that Walter killed an innocent man, they discover the hijacker’s stolen loot—$600,000 in cash. At first, the group reacts to the discovery with good citizenship, securing the money for a hike back to civilization so they can return the cash to its rightful owners. Yet it’s not long before the lust for wealth invades the hearts of even the noblest members of this crew, so, as the men make their way across cliffs, mountains, and finally a glacier, they turn on each other.

          The incisive script by Jack B. Sowards sketches each character distinctly and then generates believable conflicts through a steady process of escalation. For instance, immediately after the shooting of the hijacker, highly principled Dixie pushes the men to travel as fast as they can, since he knows it’s only a matter of time before someone hatches the idea to keep the cash. Similarly, the dynamic between kindhearted Arnold and his tormented son shifts from nurturing to tragic in a way that makes perfect sense. The script also captures a highly credible sense of the bone-deep weariness that comes from punching a clock year after a year—rather than seeming like opportunistic crooks, these characters seem like average joes who lose their minds after winning the lottery. Powered by crisp dialogue, panoramic images of wide-open scenery, and strong performances from an eclectic cast, Deliver Us from Evil unfolds like a harrowing fable.

Deliver Us from Evil: GROOVY

The Psychic (1977)

An Italian film that merely happens to star an American actress, The Psychic hit U.S. screens in 1979, two years after it played in Italy under its original title, Sette note in nero (translation: Seven Notes in Black). Featuring a mystery/thriller story with elements of supernatural horror, the picture belongs to the loose genre of giallo films, so it’s a cousin to the creepy work of Dario Argento. Alas, the director of this picture, Lucio Fulci, never rose to the same level of international notoriety as Argento, and with good reason; while The Psychic has some gruesome moments, the overall experience is dull. After a zippy opening scene of a young girl psychically “seeing” her mother’s death while it happens in another country, the movie slips into a turgid storyline about American decorator Virginia Ducci (Jennifer O’Neill) getting embroiled with a murder. Virginia, of course, was the little girl in the prologue, and now her gift has resurfaced, because she “sees” a new killing. Reporting her vision to the authorities causes Virginia’s Italian husband to become a suspect, so she spends the rest of the movie following clues from her visions in order to find the truth. Without giving away the movie’s big secret, it’s sufficient to say that the final twist is a dark surprise of which Edgar Allen Poe would have been proud. Unfortunately, the road the movie travels in order to reach that destination is boring as hell, and even the ending is stretched out in such a way that excitement and suspense are neutralized. Like many of his peers in ’70s Italian cinema, Fulci relies on distracting gimmicks, such as sharp musical stings and sudden camera zooms, and he also spends far too much time lingering on O’Neill’s features, perhaps assuming that viewers will imbue her beautiful face with a world of meaning that O’Neill is unable to convey through her weak acting. Giallo fans may find much to enjoy here, thanks to long purely visual sequences and a cryptic storytelling style that vaguely recalls Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973). Casual viewers, however, are likely to lose interest way before Fulci’s film finds its mojo.

The Psychic: LAME

The Homecoming (1973)

          Mysterious, provocative, and vicious, The Homecoming concerns an English household so overrun with male energy that the tenderness normally associated with family units has been replaced with cruelty, intimidation, and manipulation. God help any woman unlucky enough to enter the household. Produced by the American Film Theatre, the picture is a slightly opened-up version of Harold Pinter’s play, adapted for the screen by Pinter and directed by Peter Hall, who served the same function for the play during its 1965 stage premiere in London.

          Taking place almost entirely in the family’s home, the movie begins in the middle of a merciless argument between patriarch Max (Paul Rogers), a widower who elevates bitterness to an art form, and his ineffectual brother, Sam (Cyril Cusack). Then Max’s middle son, Lenny (Ian Holm), enters the mix, and he’s as much of a monster as his father. Cold, hurtful, and vulgar, Lenny delights in prodding the weak spots of other people’s psyches, so it fits that he makes his living as a pimp. Next to enter the picture is Max’s youngest son, the simple brute Joey (Terence Rigby), a struggling boxer whom Max hopes will win enough money by getting his brains bashed in to support the family.

          Later in the story, after the warring relatives have gone to bed for the evening,  a sleepless Lenny ventures downstairs and discovers Ruth (Vivien Merchant) sitting in the living room. It seems that during the night, Max’s oldest son, Teddy (Michael Jayston), came home unexpectedly after a long absence—and that Ruth and Teddy were recently married. The intrusion of a female into this testosterone-riddled household sparks all sorts of psychosexual drama, but Pinter plays everything deadpan. This elevates the material from kitchen-sink melodrama to lofty symbolism. At the story’s most absurd juncture, Ruth ends up making out with Joey on the living-room floor while Teddy calmly observes from a nearby chair, smoking his ever-present pipe, and while the rest of the family provides nonplussed color commentary. (“We’re talking about a woman of quality,” Max beams while Ruth is humping his son.)

          The Homecoming becomes more and more surreal as it winds toward an insane climax, but what keeps the piece on track is Pinter’s meticulous characterization and dialogue. (Not every writer can work the phrase “pox-ridden slut” into a conversation.) Echoing Pinter’s restrained style, Hall keeps the camerawork simple and employs a muted color palette. The performances consistently rise to the level of literary artistry on display. Excepting Cusack and Jayston, the cast was carried over from the original stage production, so the actors wear their roles like second skins. Holm and Rogers are the standouts, since they get the showy roles filled with crude insults and demented monologues, but the straight faces of Jayston and Merchant are crucial to the overall effect.

          Designed to be analyzed, debated, and interpreted—thanks to its singular treatment of class, family, and gender—The Homecoming is both fabulously ambiguous and terrifically specific. It has the force of a nuclear bomb and the precision of a sniper’s bullet.

The Homecoming: GROOVY

The Day It Came to Earth (1979)

Taking a generous view of the sci-fi shocker The Day It Came to Earth, it’s possible to imagine that the culprits behind this picture began with the germ of a sensible idea—piggybacking ’50s nostalgia onto the resurgence of science fiction by making a throwback to the monsters-from-outer-space flicks of the ’50s. Think Close Encounters of the Happy Days Kind. However, blending kitsch with thrills requires a deft touch, and artistic nuance was apparently beyond the reach of writer Paul Fisk, director Harry Thomason, and their collaborators. Every aspect of The Day It Came to Earth is atrocious, from the acting to the special effects to the storytelling. The goofy narrative begins with two mobsters whacking a dude and then dumping his body into a lake. Next, a meteor falls into the lake and reanimates the corpse as a supernatural monster—but for reasons unknown, the zombie returns to its hiding place in the lake after each killing spree. Apparently, even the walking dead enjoy leisure time. The film’s main characters are a pair of college guys who stumble across the meteor (while somehow failing to notice the nearby corpse), then enlist the aid of their science professor to examine the artifact. Bland rampages and dull monster hunting ensue. Noting that the science professor is played by comedian George Gobel, of The Hollywood Squares fame, indicates how little of merit The Day It Came to Earth offers to viewers; not only is Gobel miscast and terrible, but he’s recorded poorly, so his dialogue sounds like it’s drifting in from another movie. Future notable Rita Wilson’s appearance is equally unimpressive. Playing her first credited role in a feature, she’s embarrassingly bad, all bug-eyed expressions and unpersuasive giggling. About the only passable thing in The Day It Came to Earth is the monster makeup, but even that loses its appeal after sustained exposure.

The Day It Came to Earth: SQUARE

Cannonball! (1976)

          Despite an inconsistent tone that wobbles between action, comedy, drama, and social satire, the car-race flick Cannonball! is periodically entertaining. As cowritten and directed by Paul Bartel—whose previous film, Death Race 2000 (1975), provided a more extreme take on similar material—the picture tries to capture the chaotic fun of the real-life Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, an illegal trek from New York to L.A. that attracted speed-limit-averse rebels for several years in the ‘70s. (In Cannonball!, the race is reversed, starting in Santa Monica and ending in Manhattan.) Bearing all the hallmarks of a Roger Corman enterprise (the picture was distributed by Corman’s company, New World), Cannonball! has a strong sadistic streak, seeing as how the plot is riddled with beatings, explosions, murders, and, of course, myriad car crashes. Yet while Death Race 2000 employed a body count to make a sardonic point, Cannonball! offers destruction for destruction’s sake. Shallow characterizations exacerbate the tonal variations, so the whole thing ends up feeling pointless. That said, Bartel and his collaborators achieve the desired frenetic pace, some of the vignettes are amusingly strange, and the movie boasts a colorful cast of B-movie stalwarts.

          David Carradine, who also starred in Death Race 2000, stars as Coy “Cannonball” Buckman, a onetime top racer who landed in prison following a car wreck that left a passenger dead. Eager for redemption—and the race’s $100,000 prize—Coy enters the competition alongside such peculiar characters as Perman Waters (Gerrit Graham), a country singer who tries to conduct live broadcasts while riding in a car driven by maniacal redneck Cade Redman (Bill McKinney); Sandy Harris (Mary Woronov), leader of a trio of sexpots who use their wiles to get out of speeding tickets; Terry McMillan (Carl Gottlieb), a suburban dad who has his car flown cross-country in a brazen attempt to steal the first-place prize; and Wolf Messer (James Keach), a German racing champ determined to smite his American counterparts. Some racers play fair, while others employ sabotage, trickery, and violence.

          Carradine is appealing, even if his martial-arts scenes seem a bit out of place, while Bartel (who also acts in the picture), Graham, McKinney, and Dick Miller give funny supporting turns. Thanks to its abundance of characters and events, Cannonball! is never boring, per se, but it’s also never especially engaging. Additionally, much of the picture’s novelty value—at least for contemporary viewers—relates to cinematic trivia. Cannonball! was the first of four pictures inspired by the real-life Cannonball race, since it was followed by The Gumball Rally (also released in 1976), The Cannonball Run (1981), and Cannonball Run II (1984). Providing more fodder for movie nerds, Bartel cast several noteworthy figures in cameo roles, including Sylvester Stallone (another holdover from Death Race 2000), Corman, and directors Allan Arkush, Joe Dante, and Martin Scorsese.

Cannonball!: FUNKY

Inside Out (1975)

          Produced and released theatrically in England, but originally shown in the U.S. only on television (where it bore the moniker Hitler’s Gold), this picture offers a textbook example on how not to make a heist thriller. The characters are ciphers, the storyline is ludicrous, and the tension is nonexistent. After a dreary first half, the movie picks up somewhat once the actual heist gets underway, and the presence of three familiar actors in the leading roles generates a certain amount of interest. Nonetheless, there’s a reason why this picture never found a significant audience. Lots of reasons, actually.

          After a ho-hom prologue set in Nazi Germany, the picture cuts to modern-day London, where Harry Morgan (Telly Savalas) is a businessman, a criminal, or both. He’s approached by Ernst Furben (James Mason), who served in the German Army during World War II and claims to know the location of gold that was hidden by the Nazis. There’s some lip service given to how the men know each other, but, like Harry’s occupation, the information is neither clear nor memorable. In any event, Harry then recruits American adventurer Sylvester Wells (Robert Culp) to join the party. Together, the men concoct an absurd scheme that involves liberating an aging SS officer from jail, constructing a mock-up of Adolf Hitler’s WWII office, and training a man to portray Hitler. The plan also includes a dangerous and illegal entry into East Germany, which should be a source of great suspense, but is not.

          Anemically written by Judd Bernard and Stephen Schneck, Inside Out makes very little sense. The conspirators all seem friendly and trusting with each other, the obstacles the protagonists encounter are surmounted with relative ease, and the outrageous resources the thieves need always seem to be readily available. In terms of drama, logic, and tone, the movie is a disaster, right down to the all-over-the-place musical score, which combines disco passages and orchestral cues into sonic chaos. Still, star power matters, so Culp, Mason, and Savalas ensure that Inside Out is more or less watchable. (Mostly less.) In particular, Savalas’ smug swagger periodically creates the false impression that Inside Out has a sense of purpose, or at least a distinctive attitude. Further, cinematographer John Coquillon lends Inside Out a professional look, and the filmmakers make ample use of interesting European locations.

Inside Out: FUNKY

Pursuit (1972)

          By the time this made-for-TV thriller aired in late 1972, the project’s writer-director, Michael Crichton, was already on his way to becoming a pop-culture phenomenon. Three of the doctor-turned-novelist’s books had been adapted to theatrical features, and Pursuit began his side career as a filmmaker—which subsequently peaked with the hits Westworld (1973) and Coma (1978) before losing momentum. Later, Crichton found his niche as one of the world’s best-selling authors, and, in the hands of other directors, some of his books became massive hits, notably Jurassic Park (1993). He even found time to write original movie scripts and to create the blockbuster TV series ER (1994-2009). Considering the whole of Crichton’s Hollywood career, Pursuit represents a humble early effort. It’s an adequate little potboiler that comes together nicely at the end, despite bargain-basement production values, but it’s unlikely that Pursuit would be remembered today if not for Crichton’s involvement.
          Based on a novel called Binary, which Crichton wrote under one of his many pseudonyms, Pursuit follows a government agent’s surveillance of a potential domestic terrorist. During the first half of the picture, intrepid Steven Graves (Ben Gazzara) tracks the movements of right-wing nutjob James Wright (E.G. Marshall) without knowing exactly what Wright plans to do. During the second half of the picture, once Graves discovers that Wright has built a complex chemical weapon that he plans to detonate in downtown San Diego while the president is visiting the city, Graves and his colleagues use psychology, strategy, and tenacity to prevent Wright’s weapon from detonating.

          Throughout Crichton’s career, he was better at plotting than characterization, and his stories were often convoluted and far-fetched. All of those shortcomings manifest here. What carries the day, as per the norm, is the novelty and strength of Crichton’s concepts. In Pursuit, he dramatizes the ease with which a well-funded criminal seizes dangerous chemicals, and then meticulously illustrates the simple techniques by which those chemicals are transformed into a homemade WMD. So even if the people in the movie are familiar types—Graves is a brilliant hothead, Wright is a dignified psychotic—Crichton puts all the pieces in place for a fun ticking-clock finale. (Never one for subtlety, Crichton actually superimposes countdowns over many scenes.) And while the picture’s visuals are quite bland, the quality of acting is strong, with the leads abetted by supporting players including Martin Sheen, William Windom, and Joseph Wiseman. Just don’t probe the logic of the piece too closely.

Pursuit: FUNKY

End of the Road (1970)

          Film editor Aram Avakian made his solo directorial debut with this uncompromising phantasmagoria, which was slapped with an “X” rating during its original release. Telling the story of a young man who goes insane after receiving his master’s degree—thus tapping into the zeitgeist of youth-culture ambivalence toward American ideals in the Vietnam era—End of the Road features assaultive editing patterns, crass images, pummeling sound effects, and stylized performances. It’s a deliberately bizarre experience, derived from a 1958 novel by John Barth that fits somewhere on a continuum with Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Unlike the movies adapted from those books, one of which is an admirable misfire and one of which is a stone classic, Avakian’s End of the Road doesn’t strike a nerve so much as it gets on one’s nerves. The picture is filled with dynamic visuals, impassioned performances, and offbeat themes, but the style of the piece is so aggressively ugly and weird that it’s a chore to watch.

          Plus, like most counterculture-era films, End of the Road is best defined in terms of what it shuns. The movie avoids conventional storytelling tropes and “traditional” American values at every turn, so it’s something of a position paper railing against the Establishment, delivered in the confrontational and fractured idiom of the generation that brought psychedelia into the mainstream. There’s a germ of something human buried inside the trippy flourishes, but good luck latching onto that simple core while enduring headache-inducing montages.

          Stacy Keach stars as Jacob Horner, who walks from his graduation ceremony to a nearby railway station, where he stands in a catatonic state for what appears to be several days before the arrival of a concerned psychiatrist, Doctor D (James Earl Jones). Combative and sarcastic, Doctor D drags Jacob to a facility called “The Farm,” where Doctor D lets lunatics play out their fantasies as a form of therapy. (One patient cross-dresses as a nun, one endures S&M abuse while crucified, and one rapes a chicken.) Doctor D leads Jacob through harsh therapy sessions complete with heavy audiovisual gimmicks and occasional physical punishment. Then he declares Jacob cured and ready for a job.

          Jacob bullshits his way into a gig teaching English at a university, soon befriending fellow teacher Joe Morgan (Harris Yulin) and Joe’s long-suffering wife, Rennie (Dorothy Tristan). Joe’s a weirdo who spends most of his time wearing a Boy Scout uniform, and he’s prone to slapping Rennie around. Jacob begins an affair with Rennie, and their loveplay includes a strange scene of spying on Joe while he thinks he’s alone—as Jacob and Rennie watch from a hiding place, Joe shoves a gun in his mouth and pantomimes suicide, then masturbates while reciting Shakespeare. Meanwhile, Jacob exhibits loopy behavior of his own, at one point parading around in a toga. Eventually, the story resolves with a painfully detailed abortion scene.

          Avakian, who also edited the picture, benefits from the participation of cinematographer Gordon Willis, who notched his first feature credit with this picture; Willis’ muscular images impose coherence onto the madness of the onscreen events. Avakian also makes ample use of Jones, Keach, and Yulin, all of whom provide frightening levels of intensity. Still, the big question remains: Is End of the Road anything more than a hearty fuck-you to normalcy? Further, even though time has not lessened the film’s ability to shock, has time erased the relevance of the narrative—or whatever it is that Avakian employs in place of a narrative? The answers to those questions are very much in the eyes of the beholder. Nonetheless, thanks to its mercilessly abrasive textures, End of the Road is bold and innovative filmmaking that’s deeply evocative of a certain time. While far from essential, it’s at the very least emblematic.

End of the Road: FREAKY

Nothing But the Night (1973)

          Marketed as a horror movie, presumably because of the involvement of Hammer Films veterans Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, Nothing But the Night is really more of a whodunit with a supernatural angle. It’s also not particularly coherent or interesting, although the picture includes some atmospheric location photography during an extended chase scene that takes place in Scotland.

          The disjointed story begins with vignettes featuring violent deaths, culminating in the crash of a tour bus carrying dozens of children and adults. One of the survivors is young Mary Valley (Gwyneth Strong), ward of a charitable trust that runs a home for girls from troubled families. Following the crash, Mary ends up in a hospital under the care of physicians including Sir Mark Ashley (Cushing), who, at the urging of a colleague, investigates Mary’s background. Concurrently, police detective Charles Bingham (Lee) examines whether the earlier deaths are connected to the crash. Charles believes that Mary might be capable of providing key information. Making the already-murky story unnecessarily convoluted is the presence of Mary’s biological mother, a deranged ex-prostitute named Anna Harb (Diana Dors). After being contacted by a representative from the hospital, Anna becomes obsessed with seeing Mary, who was taken away from her by authorities three years previous. Observing a fraught mother/daughter encounter causes Sir Mark to embrace the odd notion that Anna and Mary share some sort of psychic link, and that the psychic link relates to the mysterious deaths. Whatever.

          Following the plot of Nothing But the Night is an arduous and ultimately pointless endeavor, because the movie slowly spirals from an intricate conspiracy story to a trite race-against-time melodrama. That said, Nothing but the Night has strong production values, occasional thrills, and lively acting. Cushing is terrific, likely savoring the opportunity to play a normal human being instead of someone extreme, and Dors is a holy terror as Anna, all mile-high hair and whorish makeup. Lee is less impressive, his character’s inner machinations hidden too deeply behind a stiff-upper-lip façade, and costar Georgia Brown, who plays a pushy journalist, is merely adequate. (Future Harry Potter star Michael Gambon shows up in a small role, as well.) The violent ending of Nothing But the Night—which vaguely resembles the climax of another 1973 British release, The Wicker Man—is something of a cheat, but at least the finale has energy, which is more than can be said for much of this middling effort.

Nothing But the Night: FUNKY

Infra-Man (1975)

          Something of a Saturday-matinee fever dream, this strange superhero saga was made by the prolific Hong Kong company Shaw Brothers, which found most of its success making martial-arts flicks. And, indeed, kung fu fights find their way into Infra-Man, even though the plot is about a cyborg battling demons and monsters sent by a mystical princess who emerges from her underground lair to conquer the surface world. Within the first five minutes of the movie proper (following the credits), a giant dragon falls from the sky onto a highway, blocking the path of a school bus, and then the dragon disappears, somehow causing a giant sinkhole that consumes the bus and sparks a fiery maelstrom that destroys a nearby city. The pace doesn’t stay quite that frenetic throughout Infra-Man, but the level of lunacy does.

          The first major human character introduced in the story is Professor De (Wang Hsieh), who runs a massive government science lab. As a means of telling the audience that the lab is futuristic, the professor arrives at work wearing street clothes and then changes into a sliver-lame lab coat festooned with military epaulets. Soon the humans discover that the culprit behind a series of monster attacks is Princess Dragon Mom (Terry Liu), who wears some sort of dominatrix outfit and a headdress designed to look like a dragon skull. From her subterranean HQ, where the attendants include lackeys garbed in skeleton costumes and assorted indeterminate critters who seem like they wandered over from a Sid & Marty Kroft soundstage, Princess Dragon Mom announces her intention to conquer Earth and/or destroy everyone using her monsters.

          To fight back, the professor enlists one of his subordinates, Lei Ma (Danny Lee), to undergo a high-tech transformation and become the cybernetic superhero Infra-Man. Lei can transform into Infra-Man at will, so whenever danger arises, he instantaneously summons a bright red costume with a bug-like helmet, thereby incarnating a drag-queen’s vision of a Power Ranger. (Accentuating the presumably unintended gay-chic nature of the character, one of Infra-Man’s superpowers involves “thunderball fists.”) Endless scenes of Infra-Man tussling with monsters ensue, and the filmmakers employ zero logic with regard to what levels of power and/or vulnerability each character possesses. Sometimes, Infra-Man simply engages in kung fu combat with human-sized monsters, and sometimes, both Infra-Man and his opponents magically expand to gigantic proportions.

          The creatures in the movie are as silly as the main character, including some sort of octopus monster, various robotic henchmen, and myriad mutants portrayed by actors wearing bargain-basement rubber suits. Further, Princess Dragon Mom seems more like a sexually frustrated S&M enthusiast than a super-villain, because she spends most of her time cracking whips and torturing people. Infra-Man borrows the worst possible tropes from Toho Studios’ Godzilla movies, so the professor delivers such insipid lines as, “Lieutenant, I’m going to need printouts on these monsters!” (Because, of course, detailed files are available on monsters previously unseen by man.) And yet the professor’s line can’t compare to some of Princess Dragon Mom’s dialogue (e.g., “She-Demon, I wish to speak to the mutants at once!”).

          All of this is made so much weirder, of course, by the horrible soundtrack of the movie’s English-language version, which features, in addition to the predictable out-of-sync dubbing, a motif of a monster laughing and scheming in a gravely voice reminiscent of Depression-era American gangster movies.

Infra-Man: FREAKY

Fillmore (1972)

          Along with Gimme Shelter, Let It Be, and Woodstock—all of which were released in 1970—this documentary represents a farewell of sorts to the counterculture dream of the ’60s as it manifested in peace-and-love music. Yet while Gimme Shelter is tragic, Let It Be is poignant, and Woodstock is idyllic, Fillmore has different energy. Two specific types of different energy, actually. Most of the movie is joyous, capturing the camaraderie and creativity of the San Francisco music scene. Yet the pure documentary bits of the movie are confrontational, because iconic rock-concert promoter Bill Graham—basically the star of the picture—comes off as something of a megalomaniacal bully. One can only imagine the frustrations of trying to talk business with rock stars whose minds are under the influence of drugs, ego, and success, but Graham’s combative style of foul language, guilt trips, peer pressure, and threats doesn’t exactly jibe with the Haight-Ashbury utopian dream.

          Fillmore documents the final week of shows at the Fillmore West, Graham’s iconic San Francisco concert hall. (The spinoff venue in New York City, Fillmore East, closed immediately prior to the mothership, but the festivities weren’t given feature-film treatment.) Graham called in favors from most of the big names on the San Francisco scene, so Fillmore includes performances from the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the New Riders of the Purple Sage, Santana, and others. Jefferson Airplane, who did not play the final week, is represented through archival footage depicting the growth of the flower-child counterculture in the Bay Area, and Creedence Clearwater Revival, who did perform in the final week, is conspicuously absent.

          The picture is structured around clips of Graham, who is alternately portrayed as a blowhard with anger-management issues and as a devoted music fan soldiering through frustrating episodes. Performance scenes build from niche bands with big San Francisco followings (Cold Blood, Hot Tuna, Lamb) to mainstream stars (the Dead, Santana). Some of the music has not aged well, including the twee twinklings of husband-and-wife hippie act It’s A Beautiful Day, but the best stuff is amazing. The Dead grooves through funky versions of “Casey Jones” and the Chuck Berry classic “Johnny B. Goode,” while Cold Blood—fronted by fiery Lydia Pense—delivers a grinding blues-rock set. Paying off a running trope during which Graham battles with Santana’s management, Santana kills with the two instrumental numbers at the end of the movie, beautifully representing the unprecedented fusion of sounds that made the San Francisco scene so special.

          Perhaps inadvertently, Fillmore predicts where the rock-concert business was headed in the ’70s, with corporate hassles raining on the can’t-we-all-just-get-along parade. So even if the direction by Eli F. Blech and Richard T. Heffron isn’t all that imaginative—lest we forget, the type of split-screen shots and superimpositions utilized here were innovated by the makers of Woodstock—Fillmore deserves a place in the rock-doc pantheon.

Fillmore: GROOVY

The Island at the Top of the World (1974)

          Something of a precursor to the experimental period during which Walt Disney Productions expanded its live-action mandate to include darker subject matter than usual (the era that generated films including 1979’s sci-fi epic The Black Hole), this adventure/fantasy saga almost completely eschews the cutesiness and slapstick normally associated with the Disney brand. It’s not a wholly successful endeavor, particularly since the secret culture revealed midway through the picture turns out be nothing more than a lost tribe of Vikings, but the movie boasts a fair amount of danger, as well as copious amounts of old-school special effects, which are similar to those featured in the studio’s enduring 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954).

          Set in 1907, the picture opens in London, where wealthy aristocrat Sir Anthony Ross (Donald Sinden) hires visiting American archaeologist Professor Invarsson (David Hartman) for an expedition to the North Pole. It seems Sir Anthony’s estranged son, Donald (David Gwillim), disappeared while investigating reports of a mysterious island in the Arctic, rumored to be adjacent to a mythical bay where whales go to die. Sir Anthony also hires French aviator Captain Brieux (Jacques Marin), who has built an propeller-driven airship, to provide the expedition’s transportation. Arriving in the Arctic after a few in-flight scares, Sir Anthony’s team discovers that Donald made contact with Vikings who live in a valley that’s heated by a nearby volcano. (Among other practitioners of fantasy fiction, Marvel Comics has employed the same contrivance, although Marvel’s “Savage Land” is in Antarctica.)

          The long stretch of running time comprising the adventurers’ clashes with the Vikings is fairly drab, with the Vikings portrayed as superstitious primitives determined to murder outsiders, so the movie loses a great deal of energy in the middle. Things pick up during the extended chase/escape sequence that comprises the movie’s final third, because the heroes slide down chutes inside ice floes, run from lava, and survive an attack by a pod of killer whales.

          The acting is as perfunctory as the characterizations (Hartman later quit performing and became a long-running Good Morning, America anchor), but the vintage FX create an almost surrealistic quality—particularly when matted moving objects are partially transparent—while the great composer Maurice Jarre keeps things lively with a robust score. It’s also enjoyable to see the wonderful Japanese character actor Mako contributing a typically zesty performance, although he’s mostly wasted in the stereotypical role of an easily frightened Eskimo who tags along for the journey to the secret island. Adding to the indignity, Mako ends up sharing several of his scenes with Sir Anthony’s pet dog.

The Island at the Top of the World: FUNKY

Up the Sandbox (1972)

          Part downbeat character piece, part fantastical Walter Mitty-style escapism, and part political propaganda, the Barbra Streisand vehicle Up the Sandbox teeters uncomfortably on the line separating comedy and drama. As a result, the film doesn’t work particularly well in either respect, with the humorous scenes often feeling too dark and the heavy scenes often feeling too flip. The movie contains many worthwhile insights about the changing roles of women in American society circa the Ms. Magazine feminism era, but none of the disparate pieces hang together well. Ultimately, the picture is little more than a footnote in Streisand’s epic career. Additionally, it is yet another frustrating entry in the wildly inconsistent filmography of director Irvin Kershner.

          Streisand stars as Margaret Reynolds, the young wife of handsome college professor Paul Reynolds (David Selby). Raised by an oppressive, status-obsessed mother, Margaret wants more out of life than simply keeping house for Paul and raising their two young children. Adding to Margaret’s frustration is her belief that Paul is sleeping with one of his colleagues in Columbia University’s history department. Margaret starts experiencing grandiose daydreams, imagining herself as a sort of truth-telling feminist superhero. In the strangest episode, Margaret attends a speaking engagement by Fidel Castro (Jacobo Morales), during which she verbally spars with the Cuban leader over the role of women in post-revolutionary Cuba. Castro then invites Margaret to his hotel room and reveals that he’s actually a woman. In the film’s other outlandish fantasy scene, Margaret imagines that she’s part of a terrorist group attempting to blow up the Statue of Liberty. Milder vignettes depict Margaret’s comparatively mundane fantasies, such as standing up to her domineering mother. Buried amid the meandering fantasy scenes is a slight story about Margaret wrestling with impending life changes, such as a possible third pregnancy and a proposed move to the suburbs.

          Streisand gives an ardent performance that conveys her passion for the political elements of the script, and every so often, screenwriter Paul Zindel (adapting a novel by Anne Richardson Rothe), lands a sharp line. At one point, for instance, the clueless Paul says to Margaret, “Maybe you’d be happy if you did more,” to which she replies, “You’ve got one job—I’ve got 97!” Alas, these moments are like islands of significance in a sea of nonsense. Had the fantasy scenes in Up the Sandbox been funnier and/or more purposeful, they might have helped the picture feel coherent and meaningful instead of scattershot and strident. On the plus side, the supporting performances are efficient, and peerless cinematographer Gordon Willis infuses every frame with visual elegance.

Up the Sandbox: FUNKY

Medusa (1973)

Good luck deciphering the plot of Medusa, a jumbled mystery/thriller shot in Greece with two American leading actors accompanied by a European supporting cast. Perpetually tanned pretty boy George Hamilton, who also produced this disaster, stars as Jeffrey, some sort of debauched jet-set type who flits around Europe looking for a good time. The picture opens with a scene of Jeffrey dying on a boat and then, in voiceover, promising the audience an explanation for his demise. The rest of the picture is an extended flashback, but clarity surrounding Jeffrey’s circumstances—or, for that matter, his characterization—never emerges. Instead, Medusa grinds through one seemingly unrelated vignette after another. In one scene, Jeffrey crashes a party while dressed in an Elvis-style white jumpsuit, then jumps onto a table and sings until he’s dragged away. In another scene, he reacts with horror upon discovering that his gangster acquaintance, the sadistic Angelo (Cameron Mitchell), has murdered someone. And yet in the scene following that one, Jeffrey himself commits murder, since it appears that he’s either a serial killer or the accomplice of a serial killer. (The last thing this dunderheaded flick needed to do was play perceptual games.) Worst of all, Jeffrey chews up long periods of screen time by spewing bargain-basement philosophy, suggesting that, on some level, Hamilton envisioned Medusa as a character study of a playboy in decline. Whatever the intentions, the culprits behind this absolute mess of a movie (including director Gordon Hessler and screenwriter Christopher Wicking) can’t lock into a coherent storyline or a consistent tone for more than a few minutes at a time. After all, the same movie containing the frivolous scene of Jeffrey crashing the party also features an extended sequence of Angelo torturing some poor guy to death by pumping his stomach full of water until the guy drowns.

Medusa: SQUARE

Hot Summer Week (1972)

          Also known as Girls on the Road, this muddled thriller involves hippie spirituality, horny teenaged girls, a lecherous guru, a PTSD-addled Vietnam vet, and young love that culminates in tragedy. Not only do the elements clash with each other so badly that Hot Summer Week is confusing and disjointed to watch, but each individual element is handled poorly. Despite possessing a certain measure of traffic-accident allure, this is misguided low-budget filmmaking on every level. The story, such as it is, starts when spoiled white girls Debbie (Kathleen Cody) and Karen (Dianne Hull) hit the road for a week’s vacation at a beach house. Right from the beginning, director Thomas J. Schmidt tries to portray the girls as carefree and spunky, but he actually reveals them to be inconsiderate, reckless, and stupid. They drive like maniacs because they’re distracted by activities like tossing bras into traffic, they treat hitchhikers terribly (stealing a guitar from a musician, shunning two would-be passengers for the crime of being flamboyantly gay), and they talk about nothing but their desire to get laid during their vacation. On the way to the beach house, the girls pick up hitchhiker Will (Michael Ontkean), who was recently discharged from an Army hospital after treatment for psychological problems.

          Despite the fact that Will’s twitchy and the fact that he carries a gun in his duffel bag, all Debbie can see is that he’s handsome. Turns out Will is an on-again/off-again resident at a progressive institute run by John (Ralph Waite), a touchy-feely therapist who helps his charges explore love. Karen digs the can’t-we-all-get-along vibe at the institute, but Debbie just wants to make out with Will—up to a point, since she’s all talk. The middle of Hot Summer Week is a mess of heavy-petting scenes, mind-expanding “experiences” at the institute, and silly PTSD flashbacks. (All of Will’s imaginary scenes are processed with a blue tint and a wobbly optical effect, while his war flashbacks seem to comprise stock footage from D-Day.) In the end, Hot Summer Week tries to be a little bit of everything, without committing sufficiently to any one genre—there’s not enough sex for the movie to qualify as an exploitation picture, the spiritual stuff is cartoonish and superficial, and the final sequence transforms Hot Summer Week into a full-on horror movie, complete with an axe-wielding psycho. Just as Debbie and Karen should have driven right by Will, the wise viewer should give Hot Summer Week a pass.

Hot Summer Week: LAME