The Children of Sanchez (1978)

          Based on a nonfiction book by Oscar Lewis, an American anthropologist who spent time in Mexico studying the lives of the working class and gravitated toward the Sanchez family as a microcosm for his subject matter, The Children of Sanchez is an odd sort of a movie. Given the scope and socioeconomic significance of the material, a miniseries might have been a more appropriate format, allowing characterization and subplots to sprawl, thereby creating depth and texture. Crammed into a movie running about two hours, the storyline feels rushed and superficial, so every time director Hall Bartlett and his collaborators linger on something nonessential, the picture becomes rudderless. Specifically, because larger-than-life star Anthony Quinn plays the patriarch of the Sanchez family, his character receives a disproportionate amount of attention, even though the real protagonist of the story is Consuelo Sanchez, the patriarch’s willful daughter. Moreover, because Consuelo’s story depicts a woman finding her way to feminism, the source material’s original focus on economic issues gets overshadowed. It’s also distracting that smooth-jazz musician Chuck Mangione composed the score, because his distinctive flugelhorn riffs and disco-influenced grooves lack subtlety, drowning tender scenes with flamboyant sonics.

          Covering multiple decades in the life of the Sanchez family, the picture begins, more or less, with the death of a matriarch. After Jesus Sanchez (Quinn) buries his wife, he becomes angry and remote, which causes anguish among his children. Eventually, he becomes a brute holding men and women alike to caveman standards of morality, beating and berating anyone who defies his commands or offends his sensibilities. Jesus is also a monstrous hypocrite, maintaining households with several common-law wives and supporting illegitimate children throughout Mexico City even as he calls his adult daughters whores simply because they date men. Upon reaching adulthood, Conseulo (Lupita Ferrer) reaches her limit, fretting that in her society, “only a man has rights.” The tipping point is when Jesus turns a housekeeper into a mistress. After Consuelo calls him on his boorish behavior, he ejects her from the house. Most of the film’s second half concerns her attempts to build a new life. Concurrently, Jesus wins a large amount of money in a lottery, soon discovering that wealth can’t heal the divides he’s caused within his own family.

          If The Children of Sanchez sounds like a soap opera, that’s about right—which is a shame, because chances are something meaningful and relevant could have been made from Lewis’ book. In fact, some of Quinn’s scenes have weight, illustrating the damage a formidable man can do while serving only his own interests.

The Children of Sanchez: FUNKY

The Inheritance (1976)

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

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

The Inheritance: FUNKY

A Walk in the Spring Rain (1970)

          Notwithstanding Anthony Quinn’s inexplicable casting as a Tennessee native and the unexplained presence of Ingrid Bergman’s Swedish accent, A Walk in the Spring Rain is a passable romantic melodrama. Both actors are strong enough to surmount their miscasting, and the combination of a relatively brisk storyline with resplendent location photography keeps the picture palatable. That said, deep problems permeate A Walk in the Spring Rain. For the first hour or so, the picture is almost completely bereft of dramatic conflict, meaning that the weight of the film falls on entirely on Bergman’s shoulders as she depicts the anguish of a woman torn between her fuddy-duddy husband and a charming stranger. Concurrently, Elmer Bernstein’s score is so chaotic that it ruins the efficacy of many scenes. During stable moments, Bernstein provides straightforward emotional string accents. Yet he also punctuates scenes with virile horn signatures better suited to an action movie, and he periodically employs strange juxtapositions of, say, organ chirps and unidentifiable honking noises. Had the film’s narrative been stronger, these musical excesses wouldn’t have been so noticeable, but sizable stretches of the picture comprise aimless montages and/or silly vignettes of (wait for it) Bergman drinking moonshine and/or imitating the bleating vocalizations of goats.

          The very thin basic story is as follows—when college professor Roger Meredith (Fritz Weaver) and his wife, Libby (Bergman), temporarily relocate from New York to Tennessee so Roger can write a textbook, Libby falls for rugged and upbeat handyman Will (Quinn), even though he’s married to the mousy Ann (Virginia Gregg). Predictable complications ensue, but not with enough frequency or impact. Among the underdeveloped tropes is the relationship between Libby and her daughter, Ellen (Katherine Crawford), who perceives Libby as nothing but a readily available babysitter for Ellen’s young son. Although there’s a smidgen of proto-feminist ideology buried inside A Walk in the Spring Rain, the movie is really about the novelty of middle-aged people experiencing romantic passion. Bergman finds abundant pathos and truth in the material, whereas Quinn toggles between cutesy shtick and overwrought melodrama. Writer-producer Stirling Silliphant, whose massive output for film and television includes as much hackery as it does serious endeavors, adapted the movie from a book by Rachel Maddux, and it’s hard to tell whether he envisioned a grown-up drama or a treacly soap. At various times, A Walk in the Spring Rain is both.

A Walk in the Spring Rain: FUNKY

Flap (1970)

It’s hard to imagine how or why the venerable British director Carol Reed became involved with this tone-deaf project, which on the one hand espouses a progressive political platform regarding the mistreatment of Native Americans, but on the other hand insults the very people it’s about by casting most of the principal roles with non-Indians. Reed was a versatile talent whose filmography spans the film-noir classic The Third Man (1949) to the Oscar-winning Dickensian musical Oliver! (1968), so it’s a gross understatement to say this picture exists outside his comfort zone. Similarly, the three main actors (Anthony Quinn, Tony Bill, and Claude Akins) are wildly, even offensively, miscast. The serviceable story concerns modern-day reservation Indians living in the American southwest and protesting the endless encroachment of the U.S. government onto tribal lands. Quinn stars as Flapping Eagle (“Flap” for short), de facto leader of a group of drunken misfits that also includes Eleven Snowflake (Bill) and Lobo Jackson (Akins). After being hassled by a local sheriff, the latest in a long series of racially charged incidents, Flap gets pissed (in both the American and British senses of the word) and starts a fight with construction workers that climaxes with an industrial vehicle getting driven off a cliff. Whereas Flap’s peers are inclined to take the heat for the demolished vehicle, even straining tribal funds to pay for damages, Flap transforms the event into the first spark of a revolution. He leads his borderline-inept accomplices through a series of crimes including the theft of an entire train. Had the picture stuck to the main storyline of Flap’s political activism, it might have been tolerable, even with the ridiculous casting. Alas, the filmmakers fumble with a subplot about Flap’s romance with a blowsy prostitute (Shelley Winters); the screechiness of the Quinn-Winters scenes, some of which include goofy hallucinations, is painful to endure. Adding to the film’s dissonance is a grating score by Marvin Hamlisch, which tries to be comical and folksy but also integrates pointless electronic beeps and whoops. Worst of all, the makers of Flap strive for a Big Statement with the tragic finale, thereby adding undeserved grandiosity to the list of the picture’s unseemly attributes.

Flap: LAME

The Greek Tycoon (1978)

          There are at least three ways to watch The Greek Tycoon, a fictionalized take on the marriage of presidential widow Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. (Well, four ways, if you count the option of skipping the movie altogether.) Firstly, you can watch the film in abject horror at the crass exploitation of human tragedy. Secondly, you can experience the movie as a campy jet-set melodrama. And thirdly, you can cut the filmmakers a whole lot of slack by enjoying the piece as the downbeat character study of a larger-than-life individual whose money bought him everything except lasting happiness and social respectability.
          Released in 1978, just three years after Onassis’ death, The Greek Tycoon is among the most shameless cinematic endeavors ever “ripped from the headlines.” Most of the sensational aspects of the Kennedy-Onassis relationship are replicated here—the assassination of a president, the arrangement of a multimillion-dollar marriage contract, the luxury of life on a giant yacht, the controversial business deals. And for everything the filmmakers subtract from the source material (notably absent are stand-ins for Kennedy’s children), the team behind The Greek Tycoon adds in something just as salacious, because the movie features a conniving brother, a suicidal ex-wife, and a tempestuous mistress. It’s all exactly as glamorously trashy as it sounds, right down to the quasi-lookalike casting of Jacqueline Bisset as Kennedy and Anthony Quinn as Onassis. (Perpetually tanned movie/TV hunk James Franciscus appears, somewhat inconsequentially, as The Greek Tycoon’s version of JFK.)
          In the film’s storyline, Theo Tomassis (Quinn) first meets Liz Cassidy (Bisset) and her husband, James Cassidy (Franciscus), while James is a Congressman prepping a presidential campaign. Later, after Liz suffers a miscarriage while living in the White House, she leaves D.C. for a recuperative vacation with Theo in Greece. Then, a year after an assassin shoots and kills James, Liz accepts Theo’s marriage proposal, but with a slew of conditions—such as agreeing to share Theo’s bed only 10 nights each month.

          The Greek Tycoon is a cartoonish riff on history, but the production values are pleasant—cinematographer Anthony Richmond shoots the hell out of the film’s gorgeous Greek locations—and Quinn overacts with his usual operatic verve. Conversely, Bisset and costars Edward Albert (as Theo’s son), Charles Durning (as a U.S. politician), and Raf Vallone (as Theo’s brother) play the material straight, which is unwise. Versatile helmer J. Lee Thompson, who years earlier directed Quinn in The Guns of Navarone (1961), orchestrates the whole silly/tacky endeavor with his usual impersonal proficiency.

The Greek Tycoon: FUNKY

Caravans (1978)

          Based on a novel by James Michener, whose sprawling stories set in exotic periods of history were better served by TV miniseries, Caravans features interesting cultural observations, resplendent production values, a romantic musical score, and a solid international cast. Undercutting these strong elements, however, is muddy storytelling. Not only is the nature of the relationship between the characters played by stars Jennifer O’Neill and Anthony Quinn maddeningly vague—are they lovers or merely friends?—but the dynamics coloring interactions between the various sociopolitical factions in the movie are hard to track. The root of this problem, of course, is the choice to set Caravans in a fictional Middle East country, necessitating inoffensive vagueness, even though everything about the setting and the story suggests the region in and around Afghanistan. Furthermore, because the main story is very simple, casual viewers can easily tune out the social-studies material, which is a shame—for while Caravans is primarily a story about a proud man clinging to outdated traditions during a moment of global change, the movie also attempts to dramatize the intrusion of America into foreign conflicts, the power struggles between different Muslim tribes, the smuggling of Russian guns, and so on.

          Anyway, the main story goes something like this: Low-level American diplomat Mark Miller (Michael Sarrazin) is sent into the desert to find runaway American woman Ellen Jasper (O’Neill), who married a local military man (Behrouz Vossoughi) but then fled to join the caravan of a nomadic tribe led by Zuffiqar (Quinn). Predictably, the movie tracks Mark’s slow awakening to the beauty and savagery of an ancient culture. Just as predictably, the movie features a half-hearted attempt at romance between Mark and Ellen, a subplot that climaxes in a drab love montage set to the pretty “Caravan Song,” performed by Barbara Dickson.

          Had the filmmakers either gone full-bore in Michener’s epic storytelling style or winnowed the source material down to just the core narrative, Caravans might have been more effective. As is, the movie feels too melodramatic for a depiction of geopolitical strife, and too complicated for a sweeping romance. The indifference of certain performances exacerbates these problems, with the lovely O’Neill—as usual—forming the weak link in the principal cast. Meanwhile, Quinn delivers an amiable retread of his Lawrence of Arabia performance, and Sarrazin struggles to identify what purpose his character serves other than to guide audiences into the narrative and periodically express “Oh, the humanity” shock. Among the Middle Eastern actors in the cast, Vossoughi provides intensity as the main villain, and Khosrow Tabatabai adds edge as a male dancer who plays sexualized mind games with men and women alike, causing considerable havoc.

Caravans: FUNKY

Across 110th Street (1972)

          This gritty crime picture crams a dizzying number of characters, storylines, and themes into 102 frenetic minutes. Ostensibly a police thriller about two mismatched detectives investigating a Mafia-related shooting in Harlem, the racially charged movie also devotes considerable screen time to infighting among criminals. Based on a novel by Wally Ferris and written for the screen by Luther Davis, the film does a great job of taking viewers inside the minds of hoodlums, thereby conveying a morally gray picture of life in the big city. However, because the detectives are the lead characters, the potential impact of this humanistic approach to criminality is dulled—it’s hard for viewers to know whether they’re being asked to root for the heroes, the villains, both, or neither. In short, Across 110th Street has great texture but lacks a clear point of view.

          When the movie begins, black street crooks deliver a cash payoff to white Mafia lieutenants in a dingy Harlem apartment. Then uniformed police offers “raid” the apartment—but it turns out the cops are robbers in disguise. The theft goes smoothly until a crook reaches for a gun, at which point the lead robber, Jim Harris (Paul Benjamin), gets trigger-happy. Jim and his two partners, Joe (Ed Bernard) and Henry (Antonio Fargas), escape with the Mafia’s cash, leaving a pile of bodies behind.

          Two factions respond to the incident. The first is the Mob, represented by Nick D’Salvo (Anthony Franciosa), a godfather-in-waiting who’s reached middle age without proving himself; Nick becomes obsessed with killing the robbers in order elevate his standing. Also responding is the NYPD, specifically a veteran white cop named Capt. Mattelli (Anthony Quinn) and a younger black cop named Lt. Pope (Yaphet Kotto). Mattelli wants to handle the investigation his usual way (abuse informants until secrets are spilled), but Pope—who is given jurisdiction over the case for political reasons—wants to exercise post-Miranda Act restraint.

          The most interesting material in this overstuffed movie concerns the disintegrating relationships between the robbers, who react in varied ways as pressure mounts for their capture. Benjamin commands the movie with a jittery, raging performance as a black man robbed of life choices by hard circumstance, so whenever he’s onscreen, the movie sizzles. And even when the storyline meanders, director Barry Shear and cinematographer Jack Priestley create a vivid sense of place with the use of grungy locations and verité-style shooting on New York streets. Across 110th Street is a mess, but it’s an interesting mess.

Across 110th Street: FUNKY

Mohammad, Messenger of God (1977)

          Also known as The Message, this historical epic about the creation of Islam is handsomely mounted but of little interest to anyone except true believers—while it’s not a bad film, per se, it’s so reverent that it provides far more detail than casual viewers might want, and far less insight than serious viewers would need to justify the investment of three hours. Mohammad, Messenger of God also has one of the most unusual storytelling problems in the history of religious cinema: Out of respect for a Muslim custom, Mohammad is never shown onscreen. As a result, Mohammad, Messenger of God is a biopic about a person we neither hear nor see. Thanks to producer-director Moustapha Akkad’s resourceful approach, this isn’t a fatal storytelling flaw—Akkad uses narration and scenes of characters addressing the unseen Mohammad to suggest the prophet’s presence. Yet the inability to depict the character around whom the story revolves raises legitimate questions about why Mohammad, Messenger of God is so long.

          In any event, this is a good-looking movie with impressive production values, and composer Maurice Jarre contributes a stirring score in the vein of the music he composed for another desert epic, Laurence of Arabia (1962). Set six centuries after Christ’s death, the movie begins with the illiterate Mohammad emerging from a spiritual retreat in the mountains outside Mecca. He returns to town having received a message from God, who has imbued Mohammad with the ability to deliver prophecies. Because Mecca is a major trading hub in which the worship of hundreds of gods is practiced, Mohammad’s message threatens powerful people including tribal leader Abu-Sofyan (Michael Ansara). Meanwhile, Mohammad gains charismatic supporters, including his uncle, Hamza (Anthony Quinn). For the first hour of the picture, Mohammad’s following increases even as the powers-that-be escalate their violent opposition to his teachings. Eventually, Mohammad leads his people on a 250-mile pilgrimage to find religious sanctuary until another message from God compels the group to reclaim Mecca.

          Although Mohammad, Messenger of God was clearly a labor of love for Akkad, the picture suffers from problems that often plague sincere religious movies. Actors don’t so much inhabit roles as pose in ornate period dress while reciting stilted dialogue that’s written in a faux-classical style. So, while some scenes are powerful, notably the willing conversion of a black slave to Islam despite great personal risk, the film is more educational in nature than entertaining. It’s also awkward that Quinn has top billing, even though he only appears (fleetingly) during the middle hour of the picture. Most of the heavy lifting is done by Ansara, whose sonorous speaking voice suits the role of a regal leader, and by Damien Thomas, who tries to imbue his characterization of Mohammad’s adopted son Zayd with sensitivity.

          Questions of whether Mohammad, Messenger of God accurately depicts events or fairly characterizes the nature of the Islamic faith are for others to explore, though it’s perhaps unsurprising that the U.S. release of the film sparked controversy. The fact that Lybian dictator Muammar Gaddafi bankrolled the film did not curry much favor in America, and a bloody siege on three buildings in Washington, D.C., by radicals who, among other things, demanded the destruction of Akkad’s movie further tainted the picture’s debut. The movie enjoyed a much warmer reception internationally, both in this English-language version and in an Arabic-language version that Akkad shot simultaneously.

Mohammad, Messenger of God: FUNKY

The Passage (1979)

          Yet another lurid adventure flick set in occupied Europe during World War II, The Passage is mildly fascinating for what it lacks—depth and restraint. The plot is so thin that it can be described in one sentence without excluding any significant details: Members of the French resistance ask a farmer living near the French-Spanish border to help an American scientist and his family reach safety while a psychotic SS officer chases after them. That’s the whole storyline, give or take a couple of incidental characters, and the preceding synopsis also describes nearly everything we learn about the characters. Especially considering that the script was written by a novelist adapting his own work—a gentleman named Bruce Nicolaysen—it’s astonishing to encounter a narrative this underdeveloped.

          Furthermore, director J. Lee Thompson, a veteran who by this point in his career seemed content cranking out mindless potboilers, lets actors do whatever the hell they want. In some cases, as with sexy supporting player Kay Lenz, this translates to bored non-acting, and in others, as with main villain Maclolm McDowell, the permissiveness results in outrageous over-acting. Alternating between bug-eyed malevolence and effeminate delicacy, McDowell presents something that’s not so much a performance as a compendium of bad-guy clichés; he’s entertaining in weird moments like his revelation of a swastika-festooned jockstrap, but it seems Thompson never asked McDowell to rein in his flamboyance.

          That said, The Passage is quite watchable if one accepts the movie on its trashy terms. The simplistic plot ensures clarity from beginning to end (notwithstanding the lack of a satisfactory explanation for the scientist’s importance), and Thompson fills the screen with energetic camerawork, nasty violence, and, thanks to Lenz, gratuitous nudity. It should also be noted that leading man Anthony Quinn, who plays the farmer, invests his scenes with macho angst, and that costar James Mason, as the scientist, elevates his scenes with crisp diction and plaintive facial expressions. (The cast also includes Christopher Lee, as a gypsy helping the fugitives, and Patricia Neal, as the scientist’s frail wife.) Even more noteworthy than any of the performances, however, is the gonzo finale, during which Thompson’s style briefly transforms from indifferent to insane—for a few strange moments, The Passage becomes a gory horror show. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

The Passage: FUNKY

The Destructors (1974)

          A thriller without any real thrills, The Destructors is nonetheless quite watchable simply because of narrative economy, production values, and star power. Shot on location throughout picturesque Marseille and Paris, the movie zips along at a strong pace, throwing together an assassin, a drug dealer, and a pair of policemen in a plot filled with deception and intrigue. The film has enough beautiful women, fast cars, and shootouts at unusual locales for a James Bond flick, and its cast is topped by three big names: Michael Caine, James Mason, and Anthony Quinn. Plus, as photographed by the great British DP Douglas Slocombe, the movie is slick and occasionally beautiful, with scenes set at dusk featuring particularly interesting qualities of light. What’s missing? Well, that would be tension, of course.

           It’s hard to tell whether screenwriter Judd Bernard or director Robert Parrish dropped the ball, but whatever the case, The Destructors might be the politest movie ever made about killers. Nobody ever seems especially upset about being targeted for murder, and only Caine summons a smidgen of intensity during his most dangerous scenes. Still, if likeable actors and pretty locations are enough to make so-so romantic comedies palatable, can’t those qualities be enough to make a so-so thriller palatable?

          The story itself isn’t the problem, because the same narrative material treated with more passion could have rendered livelier results. Steve Ventura (Quinn), an American drug-enforcement agent stationed in Europe, decides to seek revenge for the murders of several colleagues by operatives of an aristocratic French drug kingpin, Jacques Brizzard (Mason). Acting on a sly tip from a French cop, Ventura hires jet-setting hit man John Deray (Caine)—who turns out to be an old friend of Ventura’s—to kill Brizzard. Deray then seduces Brizzard’s sexy daughter, Lucienne (Maureen Kerwin), as a way of gaining access to the highly protected criminal. Meanwhile, Ventura figures out a way to snare Brizzard legally, so he tries to call off the hit. Double-crosses and other twists ensue.

          Caine is great fun as Deray, all smiles during off-hours and all business when taking out victims—his handling of a rooftop hit is pricelessly nonchalant—and Mason is appropriately oily in his small part. However, Quinn is just awful, mugging and quipping his way through an amateurish performance. He’s not quite enough to sink the movie, though it sure seems as if that’s his goal. FYI, watch for former JFK speechwriter Pierre Salinger, in one of his only acting roles, playing an extended cameo as Ventura’s boss. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

The Destructors: FUNKY

Deaf Smith & Johnny Ears (1973)

A terrible spaghetti Western that wastes a potentially interesting premise, Deaf Smith & Johnny Ears takes place in the Republic of Texas following the region’s breakaway from Mexico but prior to its annexation by America. The republic’s president, Sam Houston, sends one of his spies to squash a burgeoning rebellion, so the story is rife with possibilities for intrigue and sociopolitical commentary. Unfortunately, the filmmakers behind Deaf Smith & Johnny Ears opt for the usual Euro-Western bilge of offbeat buddy comedy and overwrought melodrama. The “heroes” at the center of the story are the spy, Erastus “Deaf” Smith (Anthony Quinn), and his slow-witted sidekick, Johnny Ears (Franco Nero). Quinn’s character is a deaf-mute, which raises all sorts of questions about how he functions in the world of espionage, and Johnny is such a hot-tempered dolt that it’s inconceivable he provides anything more useful to Deaf than companionship and occasional translation. Inordinate amounts of screen time get wasted on silly scenes featuring these two characters bickering with each other and/or getting into trouble, so they seem like the most easily distracted spies in cinema history. Exacerbating these storytelling flaws is the lack of a compelling villain, since the rebel leader the spies are sent to derail is a colorless nobody who has no personal connection to either main character. In fact, the only character beyond the titular duo given anything resembling a personality is a saloon whore named Susie (Pamela Tiffin), who screeches her way through an unconvincing romance with Johnny. As for the leads, Nero comes across like a childish nincompoop, and Quinn seems so concerned with looking sensitive—he’s introduced smelling a flower with an expression of poetic reverie on his face—that his entire performance feels like a desperate request for approval. Request denied.

Deaf Smith & Johnny Ears: LAME

The Don Is Dead (1973)

Even as Italian-American auteurs Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese reimagined the gangster genre in the early ’70s, other filmmakers cranked out perfectly serviceable mob thrillers of a more conventional nature. The Don Is Dead is a good example, since it’s a brisk potboiler that lacks much in the way of artistic ambition but still gets the down-and-dirty job done with a florid mixture of intrigue, sex, and violence. Anthony Quinn, overripe as always but effectively cast, stars as Don Angelo, leader of a powerful gang. When his mistress (Angel Tompkins) is murdered, Don Angelo orders his soldiers to go on a killing spree, sparking a war among various factions angling for power. Eventually, as the title suggests, Don Angelo gets caught in the crossfire, and the most effective stretch of the picture depicts the crime lord scheming from a secret hiding place while his enemies think he’s been taken out of commission. Based on a novel by Marvin H. Albert and directed by versatile workhorse Richard Fleischer, The Don Is Dead offers acres and acres of tasty ’70s texture. The clothes are all big lapels and synthetic fabrics, the locations are gritty, and the action is nasty. Fredrick Forrest stands out among the cast as an enforcer-for-hire who works alongside his brother; his energetic performance captures the melodramatic spirit of the piece. Robert Forster, working a nice blend of seething and suave, is good as well, playing an ambitious junior mobster trying to climb the organized-crime ladder no matter who gets hurt along the way. There’s even some crossover with The Godfather, which hit theaters about a year and a half before The Don Is Dead, because character actors including Al Lettieri and Abe Vigoda appear in both films. The Don Is Dead doesn’t break any new ground, but it works.

The Don Is Dead: FUNKY

R.P.M. (1970)

          Though admirable for his commitment to exploring progressive causes onscreen, producer-director Stanley Kramer was also a total square whose movies were so conventional they felt ancient even when they were new. That’s certainly the case with R.P.M. (the poster of which provides the handy translation Revolutions Per Minute), which explores the student unrest that was pervasive on college campus circa the late ’60s. However, instead of building his movie around a student leader whose experiences might illuminate issues related to the counterculture, Kramer focuses on a fiftysomething professor who’s so “hip” to the youth scene that his live-in girlfriend is a 25-year-old grad student (Ann-Margret). Yes, in Kramer’s archaic viewpoint, being a dirty old man is a revolutionary act.

          Further identifying this weird movie as an establishment statement about anti-establishment themes, studio-era leading man Anthony Quinn stars as Professor Paco Perez, a social-sciences specialist recruited by his school’s board of trustees to serve as an interim president after students storm the administration building and force the resignation of the previous president. With his hep-cat clothes and “rebellious” motorcycle, Paco swings to the same lefty tune as student leaders Rossiter (Gary Lockwood) and Dempsey (Paul Winfield), but once Paco starts engaging in rap sessions with the protestors, he discovers the gulf between his grown-up pragmatism and the kids’ all-or-nothing extremism. This renders the whole film somewhat pointless, because the focus on the uninteresting topic of Paco’s midlife crisis pushes the whole subject of student unrest into the background.

          That said, R.P.M. is strangely watchable. Kramer’s filmmaking is energetic, even though he opts for borderline embarrassing vignettes like a dream sequence in which school administrators are seen as clowns. There’s also considerable pleasure to be found in watching Kramer struggle with the movie’s climax, because his shots of the inevitable student riot are laughably overwrought. Furthermore, the dialogue is like a greatest-hits collection of ’60s slang; R.P.M. was penned by future Love Story author Erich Segal, who knew a thing or two about tapping into the zeitgeist. Leading man Quinn is comparatively restrained, embracing the talky role of an intellectual as a switch from his usual casting as animalistic macho men. Lockwood, best known for his costarring role in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is quietly charismatic; Winfield is characteristically intense; and Ann-Margret’s sex appeal is as formidable as always.

          Ultimately, R.P.M. is fascinating not only for its clumsy onscreen examination of the generation gap, but because its very style demonstrates the breadth of that gap—in every scene, it’s painfully obvious that Kramer and the kids he’s depicting come from totally different worlds. (Available through Columbia Screen Classics Request via WarnerArchive)

R.P.M. : FUNKY