To Find a Man (1972)

          The most intriguing films about teen life avoid oversimplifying young characters, following adolescents through adventures and mishaps as they broaden their worldviews—or don’t. Such is the case with To Find a Man, an offbeat dramedy with the unlikely subject matter of illegal abortion. Making her screen debut, Pamela Sue Martin stars as Rosalind McCarthy, a shallow Catholic schoolgirl who wants to terminate a pregnancy. Hence the title, since the “man” she seeks is not a romantic companion but rather a doctor willing to operate outside the law. Yet Rosalind is only nominally the protagonist, as the story revolves around her best friend, Andy (Darren O’Connor). Their families live near each other in a ritzy Manhattan neighborhood, but even though Andy has developed feelings for Rosalind, he’s never expressed himself. This hidden truth adds yet another layer of emotional weirdness to the situation once Rosalind enlists Andy’s help finding an abortionist. In the film’s best scenes, Andy’s willingness to do anything for Rosalind collides with her inability to behave responsibly. While the film doesn’t overtly slut-shame Rosalind, an understandable sense of bewilderment at her recklessness comes across.

          Based on a novel by S.J. Wilson, To Find a Man was written for the screen by the venerable dramatist Arnold Schulman, whose career includes some spectacular misfires as well as several fine scripts for film and television. He imbues every character in To Find a Man with specificity, from Rosalind’s guy’s-guy father, played by Lloyd Bridges, to a neighborhood druggist, played by Tom Bosley. Yet Schulman achieves his best work where it matters most: Andy and Rosalind. Andy is a bespectacled science nerd who finds the horny blathering of his adolescent pals juvenile, while Rosalind is so spoiled she frets at the prospect of even minor pain. A vivid sketch emerges of two people thrown together by circumstance, challenged by adversity, and changed by their discoveries about each other during the process. It’s a platonic love story of sorts, filled with vivid moments. In one memorable scene, Andy coaches Rosalind through the indelicate matter of providing a urine sample, even as Andy’s savvy housekeeper interrupts several times, sparking comedy-of-errors awkwardness.

          As directed by the reliable Buzz Kulik, To Find a Man strives to balance lighthearted storytelling and serious themes, mostly succeeding in that endeavor. (Some may feel the treatment trivializes the topic of abortion, while others may feel satirical elements don’t go far enough.) In the end, what keeps the piece grounded and interesting is the combination of Schulman’s crisp scripting and the credible performances. Martin does appealingly naturalistic work, incarnating a young woman sure to drive many lovers mad in the future, and O’Connor, who never played another major screen role, is just as good.

To Find a Man: GROOVY

Bad Ronald (1974)

         Despite the absurdity of its premise, the made-for-TV thriller Bad Ronald is enjoyably creepy. According to the kooky logic of the film’s plot, it’s possible for a family to purchase and move into a house without noticing that someone’s living in a hidden alcove—because, apparently, the unseen squatter generates neither sounds nor smells that arouse suspicion. Whatever. The name of the game here is cheap thrills. In that regard, Bad Ronald achieves its goals well enough. Young Scott Jacoby, who built a minor career in features and TV projects from the late ’60s to the early ’90s, is suitably otherworldly as the title character, a mama’s boy in the Norman Bates tradition, and versatile director Buzz Kulik infuses ridiculous scenes with as much emotional reality as he can conjure. The actors comprising the solid supporting cast, including Dabney Coleman, Lisa Eilbacher, Kim Hunter, and Pippa Scott, hit their respective notes adequately, and, in a counter-intuitive way, the sheer improbability of the project works in its favor. Bad Ronald is so far-fetched that after the viewer gets over the weirdness of early scenes, a generalized acceptance for bullshit settles in, allowing the viewer to go along for the ride.

         At the beginning of the picture, middle-aged Elaine Wilby (Hunter) lives alone with her bizarre teenaged son, Ronald (Jacoby). He accidentally kills someone and runs home to Mom for help. She supervises the conversion of a pantry into a hiding place, and then she stocks it with supplies. This ruse works for a while, even though cops sniff around the house, suspecting Ronald of committing the murder. Then Elaine dies, so her house goes on the market. Enter the Wood family. They move in totally unaware of Ronald’s presence, even though he sneaks out from his hiding place at night, eventually fixating on the Wood family’s eldest daughter, Ellen (Eilbacher). And so it goes from there. To their credit, everyone in the cast plays this outlandish material straight, and several scenes tap into the universal fears of home invasion and voyeurism. Additionally, the trope of Ronald building a fantasy world through drawings he makes on the walls of his tiny room serve as a metaphor representing his delusional state.

Bad Ronald: FUNKY

1980 Week: Tom Horn & The Hunter

          Like so many movie stars who epitomize a particular romantic ideal, Steve McQueen’s reign as a box-office champ was surprisingly brief. He found success on television with the 1958-1961 Western series Wanted: Dead or Alive, then became a proper marquee name with his breakout role in the ensemble adventure The Great Escape (1963) before peaking with action/thriller pictures including Bullitt (1968). By the mid-’70s, however, McQueen was basically over. That is, until he mounted a two-film comeback attempt in 1980. Alas, McQueen’s return to glory was not meant to be. The actor died from a heart attack at age 50 while receiving treatment for the cancer that his doctors discovered after McQueen completed production on his last movie, The Hunter. While both of McQueen’s final films are palatable distractions, neither is remarkable, and, quite frankly, neither suggests McQueen had much gas left in the tank. Released in March 1980, Tom Horn is an elegiac Western about a cowboy forced to pay for his violent life. Released in August 1980, The Hunter is the lighthearted story of a modern-day bounty hunter. Both pictures are based upon real people, and both roles suit McQueen well.

          Tom Horn, the better of the two pictures, explores the unique quandary faced by gunslingers during the historical moment when the Wild West gave way to civilization, with all the petty corruptions that word entails. The real Tom Horn was a Rough Rider with Teddy Roosevelt, and he helped capture Geronimo. By 1901, he was a relic—a bit like McQueen circa 1979, when the picture was shot. While drifting through Wyoming, Tom (McQueen) meets gentleman rancher John Coble (Richard Farnsworth), who hires Tom to help roust a troublesome band of rustlers. Working on behalf of John and a consortium of fellow ranchers, Tom dispatches the varmints permanently, killing them one by one. Even though he’s following orders and operating within the law, Tom’s bloody campaign gains unwanted attention, because the ranchers want Wyoming to seem like a peaceful paradise. Therefore, when Tom is arrested for the murder of an innocent man, it sure seems as if some nefarious soul framed Tom in order to make him go away. (The film, with a script credited to Bud Shrake and Thomas McGuane, retains ambiguity about the critical shooting.)

          The second half of Tom Horn comprises a kangaroo-court trial, though the real thrust of the inquiry is exploring the necessity of free-roaming gunmen in the 20th century. Director William Wiard does an okay job of infusing Tom Horn with fatalism (at one point Horn muses, “Do you know how raggedy-ass and terrible the West really was?”), and he tries valiantly to emulate John Ford’s sweeping vistas. However, Wiard isn’t much for generating real dramatic energy, and the casting of vapid Linda Evans in the female lead dooms the film’s romantic subplot. McQueen seems tired throughout the movie, which fits the character, but a distracting sense of listlessness pervades Tom Horn’s 98 pokey minutes.

          Offering a different look at similar subject matter, The Hunter is a more accomplished piece of work, but not in a good way—the movie is so slick and tidy that it feels like the pilot for a TV series instead of a proper feature. McQueen plays Ralph “Papa” Thorson, a gruff but loveable hired gun who chases bail jumpers across the country. Packing a .45 and perpetually griping that he’s too old for this shit, Papa treats bad men without mercy but cuts all kinds of slack for misguided ne’er-do-wells, even providing employment to some of the people he captures. Director Buzz Kulik has fun staging action scenes, including a chase across a farm involving cars and a tractor, as well as the centerpiece sequence revolving around an elevated train in Chicago. Domestic scenes are less impressive, because McQueen and leading lady Kathryn Harrold—as Papa’s pregnant girlfriend—share anemic, sitcom-style banter about commitment and Lamaze classes. Worse, the film’s climax is so trite that it’s nearly comical, and the myriad scenes designed to inform viewers that “Papa” is brave, eccentric, noble, old-fashioned, or just plain wonderful get tiresome after a while.

          Nonetheless, Tom Horn and The Hunter capture something important about McQueen, even if both are disappointing in different ways. In the ’60s, McQueen was the quintessential man of his moment. Just as McQueen did, the moment passed quickly through this world, leaving an indelible impression.

Tom Horn: FUNKY

The Hunter: FUNKY

Brian’s Song (1971)

          From the time of its release until, arguably, the arrival of Field of Dreams (1989), the iconic TV movie Brian’s Song enjoyed an enviable status as the ultimate male-oriented tearjerker, combining the bittersweet tropes of the melodrama genre with the macho textures of sports cinema. Yet it would be wrong to dismiss Brian’s Song as a cheap exercise in audience manipulation—even though the film is too brief and schematic to dig particularly deep into the lives of its characters, Brian’s Song is a credible drama distinguished by a terrific leading performance and solid supporting turns. In fact, much of the picture’s power stems from the presence of James Caan in the title role, because at the time he made Brian’s Song, Caan was bursting with so much ambition and talent that his imminent ascendance to big-screen stardom was inevitable; all it took was an incendiary supporting performance in The Godfather, released a few months later, to complete Caan’s transformation from up-and-comer to household name.
          Based on pro football player Gale Sayers’ memoir about his friendship with doomed fellow Chicago Bears running back Brian Piccolo, Brian’s Song is a sensitive exploration of camaraderie in the face of hardship. Adapted with restraint and taste by screenwriter William Blinn and director Buzz Kulik, the picture begins with the arrival of Gale (Billy Dee Williams) to a Bears training camp. He’s immediately razzed by fellow newbie Brian (Caan), but the two subsequently bond. Later, Brian provides stalwart support when racists resist African-American Gale’s integration into the team. The budding friendship deepens further once Bears coach George Halas (Jack Warden) breaks a color barrier by making Brian and Gale roommates during trips for away games, and one of the warmest scenes in Brian’s Song revolves around Brian’s inability to make racist remarks even when he’s trying to motivate Gale during the painful recovery from a leg injury.

          Brian’s Song gets heavy during its second half, after Brian is diagnosed with cancer.  Suffice to say that only the most hard-hearted viewer could possibly get through the picture’s final scenes without shedding a tear, because the aim of Brian’s Song isn’t to bludgeon audiences with the pointless tragedy of a young life cut short, but rather to invigorate audiences by celebrating a friendship that outlasted death. Caan hits one right note after another here, blending sensitivity and toughness in a manner that later became his signature. Williams, never the most dexterous performer, benefits from a characterization based on reticence, so when the cracks in his character’s emotional armor finally show, the moments count. Warden, who won an Emmy for his performance, provides the definition of reliable support, grounding the film in the harsh realities of professional sports while also conveying a strong sense of innate decency.

Brian’s Song: RIGHT ON

Shamus (1973)

A routine detective thriller enlivened by chipper leading performances, Shamus should have initiated another crowd-pleasing Burt Reynolds franchise. Alas, the movie wasn’t interesting or successful enough to warrant a reprise, so we’ll never know how Reynolds might have built on his enjoyable turn as smartass private dick Shamus McCoy. Featuring the requisite array of comical quirks—his bed is a pool table, he looks after a stray cat, he operates his business from a dive bar—the Shamus character comes straight off the crime-fiction assembly line. Additionally, the plot of this movie is so bland it could have been the basis for an episode of Kojak. The story begins with a horrific murder, when a killer wearing a protective suit uses a flamethrower to murder victims before robbing their safe. After being hired to recover the stolen loot, Shamus uncovers a scheme to sell surplus Army weaponry on the black market. Leading lady Dyan Cannon plays the sister of someone involved in the scheme, so it takes a while for her and Reynolds to get together. Despite the blah narrative, Reynolds is charming and loose, while Cannon elevates a nothing role. When these two display their warm interplay in casual shared scenes, which isn’t often enough, Shamus nearly coalesces into something memorable. Additionally, Reynolds runs wild through the movie’s many action scenes, performing a number of his own stunts, so it’s easy to buy Shamus as a badass capable of taking on cops, criminals, and even the U.S. military. Director Buzz Kulik keeps the pace brisk, delivering the shoot-’em-up goods between vignettes of Reynolds pressuring informants and/or wooing ladies, but Shamus is merely a forgettable diversion, wasting any potential inherent to the main character. His big-screen career over, the Shamus McCoy character returned in 1976 for a TV movie called A Matter of Wife . . . and Death, with Rod Taylor taking over Reynolds’ role.

Shamus: FUNKY