Linda Lovelace for President (1975)

Any hopes that Linda Lovelace for President might realize the satirical possibilities of its title disappear the instant the movie starts, because everything about this low-budget embarrassment is crude and inane. The first shot features Lovelace, the notorious actress from Deep Throat (1972), wearing just a helmet and a pistol belt in front of an American flag, evoking Patton (1970)—but instead of a pithy speech, the movie offers superimposed text: “This picture is intended to offend everybody.” If only. At a festival presented by offbeat special-interest groups (KKK, AAA, AA, “Suicide for Fun Committee,” etc.), leaders jokingly select Lovelace as their predidential candidate. Once Lovelace (who plays herself) gets told about the idea, she requests permission from her Uncle Sam (Robert Symonds), a patriotically dressed sleazebag obsessed with his niece’s breasts. After receiving Sam’s endorsement, Lovelace participates in a barnstorming tour that comprises most of the slapdash movie’s running time. Predictably, she pauses at regular intervals for sex. In one of many cringe-inducing sequences, Lovelace and her people visit a hillbilly compound. When Lovelace wanders into the nearby woods to bathe in a waterfall, she’s spotted by redneck tree dweller “Tarbo” and his pet chimp. Then, while Lovelace screws Tarbo, the chimp makes lascivious remarks by way of dubbed lines from a comedian. In the same sequence, Lovelace’s flamboyantly gay advisor Bruce (Danny Goldman) makes out with two yokels in an outhouse until the outhouse gets tipped over, causing three gay characters to get swathed in excrement. Ugh. (By my count, the movie has exactly one good joke—after Bruce raises campaign money by turning tricks at a frat house, he says, “I turned a rich fraternity into a poor sorority.”) Eventually, people threatened by Lovelace’s popularity recruit “The Assassinator,” a hit man played by comedian Chuck McCann, whose idiotic mugging is excruciating to watch. This movie’s script is a hyperactive barrage of unfunny gags, the direction is mindless, Lovelace can’t act, and the comedy professionals surrounding her demean themselves by participating. (Also appearing are Micky Dolenz, of the Monkees, and Scatman Crothers.) FYI, this movie was released in X- and R-rated versions, but both are softcore.

Linda Lovelace for President: LAME

The World of Hans Christian Andersen (1971)

          One of many foreign animated films retooled for US release during the ’70s, a period when original feature-length cartoons were a rarity for American movie companies, The World of Hans Christian Andersen betrays surprisingly few trades of its Japanese roots. Only the big doe eyes of the animals and children are obvious giveaways. Otherwise, the picture feels European, seeing as how the storyline is set in Andersen’s native Copenhagen. The picture’s fantastical imagery stems from stories Andersen wrote in the 19th century. Featured concepts include the Little Match Girl and Thumbelina, though the dominant magical character is Uncle Oley, who serves as a sort of ambassador to the land of imagination. Andersen himself is featured as a character, though he’s depicted as a young boy experiencing wondrous events that will inspire the stories he tells in later life. As for the plot, it’s mostly a trifle used to bind sentimental episodes. Embedded within the material is a certain grimness, given that young Hans and the girl next door, Elisa, both watch their impoverished parents and/or guardians receive economic abuse from wealthy people.

          As for the overall mawkishness, singling out The World of Hans Christian Andersen for special criticism isn’t really fair, because there was a lot of awful children’s entertainment in the ’70s. What’s more, most repurposed foreign cartoons of the period reflect the worst instincts of Hollywood storytellers. Better, therefore, to say that The World of Hans Christian Andersen is generically shabby—most contemporary adults would find the movie intolerable, and it’s a fair bet many contemporary kids would, as well. It’s all just too cutesy and dull and familiar. A magical savior flying into town using an umbrella for a parachute? Shades of Julie Andrews. A cat causing a ruckus at a formal event by chasing mischievous mice? Yawn. And those gee-whiz line readings by Chuck McCann, who codirected the American version in addition to voicing Uncle Oley? One line of dialogue, cooed to the Andersen character, should give you an idea of what to expect: “Let the children fly on your wonderful wings of happiness!” Nonetheless, it’s hard to get too upset about a project that, on some level, means well. The World of Hans Christian Andersen celebrates imagination and expresses kindhearted principles. So let’s leave it at that.

The World of Hans Christian Andersen: FUNKY

They Went That-a-Way & That-a-Way (1978)

The second of two pictures that funnyman Tim Conway made for a short-lived outfit called the International Picture Show Company, this abysmal would-be farce tries to present Conway and Chuck McCann as a bumbling comedy duo. The actors get the bumbling part right, but if either of them actually does anything funny in the course of the picture’s painfully stupid 95 minutes, it escaped my view. Sadly, Conway also penned the flick—one of the only feature-length projects for which he took a solo writing credit—so one fears They Went That-a-Way & That-a-Way represents his best guess at what makes people laugh. To say Conway was someone who benefitted when collaborators raised his game is an understatement. The story concerns a pair of idiot small-town cops (Conway and McCann) going undercover as convicts in order to uncover corruption among prison officials, but mostly the script is a vessel for delivering one sequence of physical comedy after another. Even from the first scene, the gags in They Went That-a-Way & That-a-Way bludgeon the senses with their ineffectiveness. In the opening bit, Conway and McCann sit in a patrol car, and Conway tries to start the car. The failure of the engine to ignite is meant to be funny—during five repeated attempts. And yet then, when a suspect drives by, Conway starts the car without any difficulty, as if the previous five gags hadn’t happened. Unimaginably, it gets worse. The bad guy (played by a valiant Dub Tayl0r) is named “Warden Warden,” the lead characters prove incapable of using such simple devices as potato peelers and tape dispensers without causing chaos, and the “high point” of the picture involves an extended Carol Burnett Show-style sketch of Conway’s character attempting to perform dentistry on the bad guy while repeatedly injecting himself with Novocain. Oh, and the climax involves Conway and McCann disguised as, respectively, a buck-toothed Japanese dignitary and his geisha companion—because, apparently, the film’s various portrayals of brainless rednecks weren’t sufficiently offensive.

They Went That-a-Way & That-a-Way: SQUARE

C.H.O.M.P.S. (1979)

A pathetic attempt by Hanna-Barbera Productions to mimic the Disney style of special-effects-driven family comedies, C.H.O.M.P.S. has nothing going for it except for glossy production values, a perky leading lady (Valerie Bertinelli), and a scruffy canine star. In fact, the only thing more dispiriting than the picture’s cliché-riddled storyline is the imbecilic dialogue. The plot cobbles together stock elements familiar to anyone who’s seen live-action Disney pictures from the ’70s. Successful entrepreneur Ralph Norton (Conrad Bain) owns a security company, and one of his employs is a ne’er-do-well inventor, Brian Foster (Wesley Eure), who is, of course, in love with Norton’s daughter, Casey (Bertinelli). After Brian gets fired, he shows Casey his new invention, C..H.O.M.P.S., a robot dog designed for home security. Complications of the dullest sort ensue when one of Norton’s competitors, Gibbs (Jim Backus), tries to steal C.H.O.M.P.S. before Norton recognizes the value of the invention. The movie also features inane subplots involving bumbling crooks (played by Red Buttons and Chuck McCann) and a mean neighborhood dog with whom C.H.O.M.P.S. tussles. C.H.O.M.P.S. is crammed with cloying music that erupts into disco jams during chase scenes, suggesting an unholy convergence of Carl Stalling and Giorgio Moroder, and the cast overplays cartoonishly, right down to Backus presenting a black-hat riff on his old Gilligan’s Island characterization. The picture also presents gruesome images irresponsibly. This is the sort of movie where villains get caught in explosions but walk away with nothing but ash-covered faces and ripped clothing; similarly, the bit where Brian rips off his robot dog’s head to display the inner workings to Casey seems unnecessarily savage. Yet the weirdest element is the presence of minor, PG-rated vulgarity (which was excised from G-rated release prints). Monster, the nasty dog who fights with C.H.O.M.P.S., “speaks” in voiceover, saying things like “Up your poop, granny.” If one strained to find a single meritorious aspect of this misbegotten movie, it could be noted that Bertinelli was as the apex of her girl-next-door adorableness—but fans of the actress would do better to scratch that particular itch by watching a One Day at a Time rerun.

C.H.O.M.P.S.: LAME

The Projectionist (1971)

Well-meaning but clumsily made, writer-director Harry Hurwitz’ homage to the movies concerns a New York City movie-theater projectionist whose fantasy life runs amok as he imagines himself into various scenarios inspired by the movies he shows. The premise is straightforward, and Hurwitz clearly delineates the different elements (“real” scenes are in color, fantasies are in black-and-white), but the picture’s jumbled tone and pointless narrative add up to tedium. The “real” scenes are the most effective, with Hurwitz’ grainy low-budget photography lending seedy realism to vignettes inside a projection booth and a theater lobby, as well as scenes of the projectionist (Chuck McCann) strolling around bad old Times Square or relaxing in his tiny hovel of an apartment. In fact, the movie is probably too effective at conveying the dismal nature of the projectionist’s life: The character always seems one bad experience away from going postal, especially when he’s getting yelled at by his skinflint boss (Rodney Dangerfield). The second layer of the picture, comprising original fantasy footage shot by Hurwitz, is the least effective. The overweight McCann dons a silly superhero suit to portray “Captain Flash” in broadly comic bits inspired by serials and silent movies. These scenes go on forever, and McCann’s mugging feels desperate. Even more problematic are gimmicky scenes cutting new shots of McCann into clips from Casablanca (1942) and other Hollywood classics—a device executed with much more flair a decade later in the Steve Martin comedy Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982). The Projectionist has some fans in the cinephile crowd, who appreciate the picture’s film-geek nostalgia and handmade quality, but for most viewers, Hurwitz’ sole feature will simply seem amateurish and dull.

The Projectionist: LAME