McCloud (1970)

          While not a direct continuation of the Clint Eastwood movie Coogan’s Bluff (1968), popular TV detective series McCloud was inspired by that film, hence Herman Miller’s credits as screenwriter of the Eastwood picture and creator of the TV series. Both projects employ the novel image of a cowboy cop transplanted to New York City, solving crimes with frontier toughness, old-fashioned common sense, and a warm charm that drives cosmopolitan women wild. Right from this first episode, which is sometimes known by the titles “Portrait of a Dead Girl” and “Who Killed Miss U.S.A.?,” star Dennis Weaver cuts a striking image, his tall frame swathed in a sheepskin coat and capped by a cowboy hat. Yet Marshal Sam McCloud of Taos, New Mexico, is not portrayed as a bumpkin. Quite to the contrary, he’s a tireless investigator whose courtly manners disguise an agile mind.
          The notion is that because he’s free of big-city hangups and pretentions, he sees things more clearly than his metropolitan counterparts, spotting holes in theories, logic problems in alibis, and omissions from crime reports. It’s worth nothing that he’s also smooth with the ladies, because one of this pilot film’s most enjoyable scenes is an exchange of erotic banter between Weaver and leading lady Diana Muldaur.
          Nonetheless, despite being cowritten by the reliable team of Richard Levinson and William Link, the first McCloud mystery isn’t especially memorable beyond the effective introduction of the protagonist. After capturing a fugitive in New Mexico, McCloud escorts his prisoner to New York, where the man is set to testify in a high-profile murder case. Criminals posing as cops kidnap the prisoner, compelling McCloud  to recapture the man and therefore restore his dignity as a lawman. This leads McCloud to explore the facts of the murder case, in which a Latino busboy stands accused of murdering a white beauty queen. Naturally, McCloud discovers problems with evidence incriminating the busboy and makes his way, slowly but surely, toward the identity of the real killer. Accompanying the marshal through his first New York adventure is Chris Coughlin (Muldaur), writer of a best-selling book about the case. At various times, McCloud encounters an activist priest, a jaded fashion model, a morally ambiguous lawyer, and other big-city types who provide stark contrast to the plain-talking protagonist.

          Even though the story underwhelms, the film is quite watchable. The acting is slick (watch forRaul Julia as the priest and Julie Newmar, of all people, as the model), while director Richard A. Colla gives everything an expensive look with blurry foreground objects and fluid camera moves. As for Weaver, he's in the zone from start to finish, channeling an aw-shucks Gary Cooper vibe without ever seeming artificial or cloying. Although McCloud never became a proper weekly series—like Columbo and McMillan and Wife, it aired as a series of telefilms—the franchise captured the public’s imagination, running from 1970 to 1977. Weaver reprised the role for 1989’s The Return of Sam McCloud.

McCloud: FUNKY

The Miracle Worker (1979)

          In a clever bit of stunt casting, the producers of The Miracle Worker, a made-for-TV remake of the celebrated 1962 film, hired Patty Duke to play the leading role of Annie Sullivan, the heroic real-life teacher who taught blind and deaf child Hellen Keller to communicate in the 1880s. Duke, of course, first gained fame by portraying Keller on Broadway in 1959 and then by reprising the role opposite Anne Bancroft (as Sullivan) in the aforementioned 1962 film. Duke won a Tony for the play, an Oscar for the movie, and an Emmy for this telefilm. All three of these versions of The Miracle Worker were written by William Gibson, who extrapolated the material from Keller’s autobiography. Gibson presents Sullivan’s work with Keller as a psychological duel, so the story provides fantastic opportunities for actors—Sullivan and Keller battle mentally and physically as the teacher tries to break through the student’s fear. And if Duke’s work as Sullivan is ultimately more pedestrian than her famous childhood performance as Keller, she generates palpable intensity with her telefilm costar, Little House on the Prairie actress Melissa Gilbert.

          The telefilm opens by introducing Sullivan, who was partially cured of blindness during childhood and then devoted her life to teaching the visually impaired. She’s impassioned, strident, and willful. Then the picture introduces the Keller family. Living in a comfortable country house, parents Captain Keller (Charles Siebert) and Kate Keller (Diana Muldaur) treat Helen differently from their other children, resigned to the fact that Helen will never escape the private world of her disabilities. The Kellers hire Sullivan with low expectations, and Sullivan quickly alienates Helen’s parents by accusing them of spoiling Helen. Indeed, Helen gets her way by throwing tantrums. Sullivan pushes back against Helen’s demonstrative behavior, even matching Helen slap for slap when Helen attempts to scare her teacher away with violence. Eventually, Sullivan teaches Helen to use hand movements for communication, the “miracle” of the title.

          Gibson’s narrative is so solid that even the perfunctory nature of TV-movie acting and production values cannot diminish the story’s innate power. It’s moving, if unsurprising, whenever Sullivan makes progress with Helen, although the novelty of seeing Duke play opposite what amounts to a younger version of herself ultimately adds very little. In fact, Duke alone isn’t what makes this telefilm work, since interplay is the core of The Miracle Worker. Gilbert relies on commitment whenever her technique is insufficient, just as Duke imbues her characterization with intensity. Therefore, this version of The Miracle Worker may be about the work more than the miracle, but that’s good enough for achieving an acceptable level of quality.

The Miracle Worker: GROOVY

Charlie’s Angels (1976)

          Nearly all the elements that made the glossy detective series Charlie’s Angels popular are present in the feature-length telefilm that preceded the weekly show, and yet some early ideas that were later abandoned are in evidence, as well. The pilot is just as fluffy and silly as the rest of the series, although the T&A quotient is relatively tame considering how much focus was later given to displaying the series’ leading ladies in bikinis, cheerleader costumes, low-cut gowns, and such. Rather than cleavage and legs, the caveman-mentality focus is primarily on the “novelty” of beautiful women demonstrating competence as private investigators, although the distaff detectives get even more male supervision during the pilot than they usually did in their weekly adventures.

          The pilot introduces the three original protagonists—Jill Munroe (Farrah Fawcett-Majors), Kelly Garrett (Jaclyn Smith), and Sabrina Duncan (Kate Jackson)—receiving their first assignments from mysterious employer Charles Townsend (the never-seen character whose voice is provided by John Forsythe). In a brief prologue that later became the show’s iconic opening-credits sequence, viewers are told that the women graduated from the police academy only to be given thankless jobs, and then were hired to work for Townsend. The Angels, as Townsend calls them, take instructions from their direct supervisor, Woodville (David Ogden Stiers), a character who was dropped before the first regular episode. The ladies’ other male colleague is fellow detective John Bosley (David Doyle), portrayed in the pilot as a cheerful buffoon and later reworked as stalwart coworker.

          Written by series creators Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts—veteran screenwriters whose collaborative record stretches all the way back to the James Cagney classic White Heat (1949)—the mystery that the Angels explore in the pilot isn’t really a mystery. Undoubtedly bearing the fingerprints of producer Aaron Spelling, who made a fortune playing to the lowest common denominator of the American viewing audience, the narrative is spoon-fed to viewers, with every complication explained in a condescending manner. The daughter of a wealthy California vintner disappeared years ago, and now that the vintner has also disappeared, his estate may fall into the hands of his unscrupulous widow. It’s up to the Angels to determine whether anything shady is happening, thus prompting the usual cycle of Jill, Kelly, and Sabrina masquerading as various people in order to find information.

          The supporting cast features solid players Bo Hopkins and Diana Muldaur, as well as a young Tommy Lee Jones, and the whole thing drags a bit, not just because the thin story is stretched to almost 80 minutes but because composer Jack Elliot uses the series’ signature twinkling musical sting so many times the cue becomes annoying. Seeing as how Fawcett-Majors was the first season’s breakout star thanks to her dazzling barrage of big hair, erect nipples, and shiny teeth, it’s interesting to note that Smith gets the most screen time in this initial outing. As always, she’s lovely but vapid. In any event, Charlie’s Angels the pilot movie is exactly as disposable as any episode of Charlie’s Angels the series, so the appeal of watching the piece (besides eye candy) is the opportunity to examine the unremarkable beginnings of an enduring pop-culture franchise.

Charlie’s Angels: FUNKY

Chosen Survivors (1974)

          A gonzo hybrid blending creature-feature elements with the tropes of post-apocalyptic melodrama, Chosen Survivors features a doozy of a plot—several individuals who were unknowingly handpicked by the government to restart the human race get kidnapped, drugged, and stashed inside an underground fallout shelter just before a devastating nuclear attack, only to discover that the shelter is infested with vicious vampire bats. Predictably, the pressure of the horrific situation brings out the best in some people and the worst in others, so Chosen Survivors ends up borrowing narrative DNA from a third major genre, the disaster movie. Given the far-fetched premise, it should come as no surprise to say that Chosen Survivors fails to achieve anything resembling credibility. This thing is outrageous and even a little bit silly from start to finish. Nonetheless, what Chosen Survivors lacks in quality, in makes up for in vibe. The picture is dark, fast, and nasty, so it feels a bit like an early John Carpenter movie, right down to the lean and ominous musical score. Enjoying the movie requires that viewers ignore major lapses in logic, but it’s a fun ride for those willing to follow Chosen Survivors down its bizarre path.

          The movie begins enigmatically, with helicopters landing in a remote site and discharging the principal characters, who are then roughly escorted into an elevator shaft by military personal. The drugged states of the characters are depicted with distorted slow-motion images, jarring edits, and weird music, so the long trip the characters take from the surface to their new subterranean home is fairly trippy. Eventually, the caretaker of the fallout shelter, Major Gordon Ellis (Richard Jaeckel), explains that the “chosen survivors” were doped because there wasn’t time to risk the participants refusing to cooperate. According to Ellis, the surface of America has been obliterated by nuclear bombs, so the “chosen survivors” must live underground and procreate until it’s safe to emerge from the shelter. Among the eclectic gang are scientists Lenore Chrisman (Barbara Babcock), Alana Fitzgerald (Diana Muldaur), Peter Macomber (Bradford Dillman), and Steven Mayes (Alex Cord); wealthy businessman Raymond Couzins (Jackie Cooper); and Olympic athlete Woody Russo (Lincoln Kilpatrick).

          Friction between these people materializes even before the first bat attack, with Cooper’s unhinged character trying to bribe others into releasing him because he doesn’t believe a nuclear attack occurred. Then, once the bats start biting, people go completely off the deep end. Cooper’s character tries to rape one of the female doctors, Dillman’s character retreats into analytical mode by observing the dissipation of the group instead of helping solve problems, and Cord’s character becomes morbidly philosophical. (In one of the movie’s most quintessentially ’70s moments, Cord purrs hippy-dippy musings about the inherent faults of the human race: ‘”The world’s too big. People don’t have time. People don't even have time for people. That's why I got so hyped on this place. It’s not too big.”)

          Interspersed with the quiet scenes are wild action/horror sequences, some of which gain a surreal quality thanks to the use of cheesy and unconvincing special effects. In fact, whenever Chosen Survivors hits a groove of optically inserted bats chomping victims to the accompaniment of jittery electronic music, the picture becomes cartoonishly nihilistic—think Saturday-matinee action viewed through the prism of a nightmare. Further, the movie is stylishly shot, with lots of claustrophobic compositions and dense color filters and oppressive shadows, while the cast of mostly B-level actors contributes appropriately over-the-top acting. Dillman is enjoyably twitchy, and Kilpatrick has a great moment when his character makes a sweaty climb up the elevator shaft while besieged by bats.

Chosen Survivors: GROOVY

Genesis II (1973) & Planet Earth (1974) & Strange New World (1975)

          Following the demise of the original Star Trek series in 1969, writer-producer Gene Roddenberry spent the ’70s trying to launch a new TV show, as well as moonlighting in features. None of his wilderness-years projects clicked, so once Star Trek was revived in 1979 with the first of myriad feature films (and, later spinoff TV shows), Roddenberry resigned himself to being the godhead of a franchise. Within this context, it’s interesting to look at this trifecta of TV movies, each of which represents a fresh attempt at repurposing the same underlying material. Given the similarity between the underlying material and the ethos of Trek, these movies prove that certain themes and tropes were ingrained into Roddenberry’s DNA.

          The best of the telefilms, though that’s not saying a whole lot, is the first one, Genesis II (pictured above). At the beginning of the story, near-future scientist Dylan Hunt (Alex Cord) is put into suspended animation as part of an experiment. An earthquake buries the laboratory surrounding Dylan’s chamber, so he’s revived more than a century later by citizens of PAX, a peaceful society living underground in the postapocalyptic future. Things get dull quick, because Dylan is smothered with exposition from PAX official Isaac (Percy Rodrigues) and from Lyra-a (Mariette Hartley). Turns out Lyra-a is not from PAX; instead, she’s a mutant from the country of Terrania. Before long, Dylan and Lyra-a flee PAX, because the mutant has convinced the 20th-century man that PAX is secretly warlike. Upon reaching Terrania, however, Dylan discovers that humans are used by Terranians as slaves, so he leads a rebellion against Lyra-a’s people.

          Repeating mistakes from the worst Trek episodes, Genesis II features ridiculous costumes suitable for a cabaret show on Fire Island, overwrought discussions of morality, and turgid storytelling devoid of humor. (Sample dialogue: “You will find it profitless to lie to us, human! Will you repair our nuclear generator?”) Cord is stalwart but stilted, while Hartley’s sexy in a soccer-mom sort of way, but it’s fun to groove on the voices of Trek veterans Ted Cassidy (“Lurch” from the ’60s Addams Family series) and Rodrigues (who later narrated the iconic Jaws trailer). Genesis II contains interesting concepts, but the presentation is far too clinical.

          Predictably, the next version of the material, Planet Earth, is lustier in every sense of the word. Re-conceived by Roddenberry as an action show, instead of a show about ideas, Planet Earth replaces Cord with campy he-man actor John Saxon in the role of Dylan Hunt. The story skips the set-up and gets right to Dylan leading a team of PAX adventurers into a land ruled by cruel amazons, with the nominal goal of rescuing a doctor who’s needed back at PAX for emergency surgery. The vibe of Planet Earth evokes Trek even more than the vibe of Genesis II did. Hunt contrives elaborate strategies, employs flying tackles, and makes out with two different women. (One is Janet Margolin, who would have been a series regular, and the other is guest star Diana Muldaur.) Hunt even narrates the onscreen action in voiceover via “log entries.” Still, the added testosterone means that Planet Earth is significantly dumbed-down from its predecessor, although Planet Earth seems like the most viable launching pad for a series of any of these three flicks.

          The final—and most lavish—spin on this material, Strange New World, was made without Roddenberry’s involvement. (That’s the cost of selling a concept to a network.) Saxon returns, now playing the new role of Anthony Vico, and this time the story involves three modern-day people thrust into the future. The explanation this time is that a meteor shower hit the Earth while the trio were in suspended animation aboard a space station. The pacing of Strange New World is painfully slow, even though two separate adventuress are crammed into 97 minutes. The first involves Anthony’s team encountering the people of Eterna, who survive using clones and other medical miracles but need blood from normal people. The second story dramatizes a clash between Anthony’s team and groups of savages living in a forest and a zoo, respectively. In both narratives, endless exposition and tiresome fight scenes ensue.

          It’s all quite flat and talky, but the photography is atmospheric, the outer-space shots look great, and the supporting cast is colorful: Avuncular Keene Curtis and lovely Kathleen Miller play the teammates of Saxon’s character, and guest stars include Catherine Bach, Martine Beswick, Reb Brown, Richard Farnswoth, Gerrit Graham, Bill McKinney, and James Olson. (Hardcore ’70s junkies will recognize all of these names.) There’s also an amusing contribution to the annals of sci-fi vehicles, because the characters tool around postapocalyptic Earth in the space-age equivalent of a Winnebago.

Genesis II: FUNKY

Planet Earth: FUNKY

Strange New World: FUNKY

The Lawyer (1970)

          Combining lurid subject matter with an offbeat protagonist, The Lawyer tells the story of a sensationalistic murder trial in a brisk fashion, with plenty of humor and surprises to keep things lively. Since the film does not relate a real-life incident, one could argue that a few of the story’s myriad episodes could have been jettisoned in order to shorten the piece (The Lawyer runs a full 120 minutes), but nearly every scene has something amusing or colorful or trashy to offer. Barry Newman, an energetic leading man of the early ’70s whose career never caught fire, stars as Tony Petrocelli, a slick attorney from the East Coast who now works in the Southwest. (The picture’s a little fuzzy on how he ended up in this unlikely milieu, but his backstory is incidental to the main narrative.) A cocksure overachiever, Petrocelli comes on strong in every aspect of his life, driving his beat-up camper like a maniac, slithering his way past parking restrictions, and valiantly defying the local powers-that-be. Petrocelli’s latest client is Jack Harrison (Robert Colbert), a handsome lawyer accused of brutally murdering his wife. Harrison contends a stranger broke into his home while Harrison was incapacitated, and that the stranger committed the homicide. Because the killing occurred in a small town, the ensuing trial becomes a media circus, so Petrocelli must face not only his wily courtroom opponent—deceptively folksy prosecutor Eric Scott (Harold Gould)—but also a prejudicial jury pool.

          Director/co-writer Sidney J. Furie employs a quick-cut visual style that echoes Petrocelli’s rat-a-tat verbal approach, so the movie shifts locations frequently and utilizes a broad supporting cast. The best scenes involve detailed depictions of Petrocelli’s flashy legal technique, whether he’s guiding his aides through hours of arduous research or dueling in court with Scott, and Newman plays Petrocell with an appealing brand of seen-it-all snark. The picture also includes sexy flashbacks to the night of the murder, which are told, Rashomon-style, from several different perspectives; these vignettes have more blood and nudity than one might expect. The supporting performances are generally just okay, thanks to smooth professionals including Diana Muldaur (playing Petrocelli’s wife), though Gould steals the movie at regular intervals. While his aw-shucks country-lawyer shtick is unoriginal, Gould blends charm, sarcasm, skepticism, and wisdom into a tasty stew. Elements like Gould’s performance ensure that The Lawyer is consistently entertaining, despite the fact that the picture is never more than a solid programmer. FYI, Newman reprised his resourceful character several years later for the short-lived TV series Petrocelli (1974-1976), nabbing a Golden Globe nomination for his work on the show. The stand-alone TV movie Night Games (1974), with Newman as Petrocelli, was a de facto pilot that immediately preceded the weekly series.

The Lawyer: GROOVY

Ordeal (1973)

Although its content couldn’t be simpler—a cuckolded husband gets abandoned in the desert by his wife and her lover, and the husband’s lust for revenge compels him to survive—Ordeal has a sweaty intensity that makes it a bit more charged than the average early-’70s telefilm. It’s also unrelentingly dark, since each character in the picture is an awful human being, so the movie’s morality is enjoyably gray. And if the piece sputters to a halt with the kind of unsatisfying non-ending that plagued many small-screen movies in the ’70s, so be it—a five-minute letdown shouldn’t completely erase 85 minutes of solid buildup. Arthur Hill, the veteran stage actor whose big-screen credits include The Andromeda Strain (1971), stars as Richard Damian, a domineering son of a bitch whose callous ways have sucked the life out of his marriage to the icily beautiful Kay (Diana Muldaur). One day, Richard and Kay head out for a desert getaway with greasy local Andy Folsom (James Stacy) as their guide, even though Richard really considers Kay excess baggage during his various macho adventures. Turns out Kay has seduced Andy, so when an “accident” leaves Richard stranded on a high cliff, Kay and her lover flee with no intention of sending help. Thereafter, the movie enters a long and surprisingly compelling sequence of Richard trying to withstand dehydration, exhaustion, exposure, and the various ailments stemming from a leg injury. Director Lee H. Katzin comes up with several enterprising camera setups to keep things visually interesting, and his focus on Richard’s desire for payback ensures the movie is consistently tense. Meanwhile, cutaways from Richard’s travails to scenes of Andy and Kay reveal the disintegration of their tenuous bond. Even without a potent climax, Ordeal is an edgy exploration of the ways people abuse each other.

Ordeal: FUNKY

The Other (1972)

          Considering that it’s an entry in the long and dubious genre of creepy-kid horror movies, The Other has an awfully posh pedigree. The film’s director is Robert Mulligan, of To Kill a Mockingbird fame, and the star is Uta Hagen, the revered acting teacher whose book, Respect for Acting, is a sacred text for thespians. Fittingly, The Other favors backstory and character development over straight-out scares, though the narrative is actually quite lurid.

          In Connecticut circa 1935, twin boys Niles and Holland Perry (played by real-life twins Chris Udvarnoky and Martin Udvarnoky, respectively) engage in boyhood mischief with an edge. Niles is psychic and Holland is sadistic, so they seem strange from the moment they’re introduced cavorting in bowl cuts and short pants. Their relatives are just as peculiar: The boys’ mother (Diana Muldaur) is a basket case who rarely leaves her bedroom, and their grandmother, Ada (Hagen), is a superstitious immigrant who teaches Niles how to sharpen his special abilities.

          As the story progresses, Holland’s violent side grows more dangerous, leading to a series of deaths, and Ada slowly realizes that Niles is complicit in his brother’s activities; this leads to a huge plot twist in the middle of the movie that shouldn’t be spoiled. There’s nothing egregiously wrong with the story, by actor-turned-writer Tom Tryon (who adapted the script from his own novel), but many questions can be raised about the way Mulligan tells the story.
          First off, The Other is painfully slow, and the picture drags through long and uninteresting idylls whenever Niles and Holland get embroiled in deep conversations. The Udvarnovky twins are fine, as child actors go, but Mulligan simply can’t make their surface-level exchanges compelling enough to keep the momentum going between jolts. Mulligan also seems preoccupied with creating nostalgic atmosphere, lavishing attention on details of clothing, décor, and furnishing. While it’s admirable whenever a filmmaker treats a horror story with as much care as a “real” movie, the priority is supposed to be generating tension, not showcasing production design.

          Still, the acting by the grownups is generally strong. Hagen is a bit florid, using stagey flamboyance as she speaks with a thick accent and suffers operatic emotional upheavals, and Muldaur is believably pained but underused. Victor French is similarly wasted in his role as the Perry family’s unlucky handyman, and John Ritter shows up in a minor role. The Other has its fans, and none can dispute that the film was made with care, but for many viewers, the picture will be far too slow and unsatisfying to justify digging for its hidden pleasures.

The Other: FUNKY

One More Train to Rob (1971)

Bland and slow-moving but harmless, the action/comedy Western One More Train to Rob benefits from the casting of leading man George Peppard in his natural idiom, because Peppard shines while alternating between smooth displays of virility and casually dispatched wisecracks. He plays Harker Fleet, a gentleman thief who gets double-crossed by his partner, Timothy Nolan (John Vernon), after a train robbery—Timothy steals not only Fleet’s loot but also his high-maintenance lady friend, Katy (Diana Muldaur), so Harker ends up in jail while Timothy enjoys the life that should have been Harker’s. Later, when Harker gets out of incarceration, he reconnects with his former friend and discovers that Timothy is scheming to rob gold from a group of Chinese miners. (The immigrants need the gold to support sick relatives living in San Francisco.) As should be obvious by now, the storyline of One More Train to Rob spins in a new direction with almost every scene as Harker’s characterization conveniently evolves from that of a charming rogue to that of an unlikely hero. To say that these narrative twists lack credibility misses the point, since the purpose of an escapist piffle like One More Train to Rob is stringing together fistfights and gunfights. However, there aren’t enough fistfights and gunfights; the film gets so mired in laying narrative pipe that much of the screen time is consumed by expository conversation. Furthermore, the themes are so generic that the picture feels like a highlight reel of Western tropes, and flat lighting gives the movie the look of bad episodic TV from the same era. (Even some of the supporting players, including Robert Donner, France Nuyen, and Soon-Tek Oh, are mostly familiar from small-screen fare of the early ’70s.) Peppard’s charisma and Andrew V. McLaglan’s efficient direction ensure that watching One More Train to Rob isn’t unpleasant, but everything about the movie is so artificial and irrelevant that the picture fades from memory the instant it’s over.

One More Train to Rob: FUNKY