1980 Week: The Hollywood Knights

          The career of writer, producer, and director Floyd Mutrux took another strange turn with The Hollywood Knights, a shameless—and shapeless—imitation of American Graffiti (1973) with none of that picture’s deft characterization and sociopolitical weight. The movie also cops from Animal House (1978) by depicting anarchistic youth-run-wild vulgarity. Whereas Mutrux’s earlier directorial efforts explored such themes as ambition, disconnection, drugs, and music, The Hollywood Knights is an ensemble sex comedy without any recognizable sense of purpose. The movie has endured on cable and home video largely because some its players achieved fame elsewhere, notably Tony Danza (a costar of the sitcom Taxi at the time this film was made) and Michelle Pfeiffer (who found her breakout role three years later in Brian De Palma’s gonzo drug epic Scarface). Yet it says a lot about The Hollywood Knights that the film’s real star is obnoxious standup-comedian-turned-character-actor Robert Wuhl, who made his big-screen debut here. As goes Wuhl’s charmless performance, so goes the rest of the picture.

          Set in 1960s Beverly Hills, the movie tracks the adventures of the Hollywood Knights, a white gang devoted to antagonizing cops, getting laid, and making mischief. The Knights’ principal prankster, Newbomb Turk (Wuhl), takes endless pleasure in doing things like breaking wind to the tune of popular songs or depositing flaming bags of excrement at people’s front doors. You get the idea. Over the course of one chaotic evening, local parents and police officers try to stop the Knights’ last hurrah, since the burger joint that serves as the gang’s HQ is closing and the gang marks the occasion with epic buffoonery. The “highlight” is Turk grabbing the microphone at a school assembly so he can perform “Volare” using flatulence for percussion. The movie also has anemic romantic subplots. In tiresome scenes that exist almost completely separate from the rest of the movie, macho Knight Duke (Danza) struggles to accept that his pretty carhop girlfriend, Suzie Q (Pfeiffer), has dreams of an acting career and might outgrow him. Elsewhere, Newbomb improbably talks Sally (future sitcom star Fran Drescher) into a tryst even though she spends the whole movie whining about how repulsive she finds his antics.

          All of this stuff is brisk and colorful, but none of it is particularly funny. Quite to the contrary, most of the gags sputter or thud. That said, The Hollywood Knights has a lush visual style that it doesn’t deserve, because top-shelf cinematographer William A. Fraker, the six-time Oscar nominee who shot Hollywood classics including Rosemary’s Baby (1968), lensed all five features that Mutrux directed.

The Hollywood Knights: FUNKY

The Christian Licorice Store (1971)

          Neither exceptional nor terrible, The Christian Licorice Store is perhaps most interesting as a compendium of New Hollywood affectations. Telling a downbeat story about an egotist who becomes a self-destructive asshole, and employing gimmicks ranging from self-referential material about cinema to stylized visual distortions, the movie epitomizes the adventurous and indulgent qualities shared by a whole generation of filmmakers. The picture celebrates its own artificiality even as it strives for heavy “realness.” Some viewers may find this sort of stuff impossibly dated, but for devoted ’70s fans, The Christian Licorice Store contains many small pleasures. And if the sum is less than the parts, so what?

          Beau Bridges stars as Franklin, a fast-rising professional tennis player who enjoys the perks of his job—fat paychecks, a loose lifestyle, and plentiful adoring women. At first, Franklin seems a bit lost but generally sincere, learning life lessons from his coach, suave former tennis star Jonathan (Gilbert Roland). Attending a painfully superficial Hollywood party one evening, Franklin meets beautiful photographer Cynthia (Maud Adams), and they travel to her house for a tryst. The evening blossoms into a relationship, even though Franklin still has eyes for other women. Just when it seems everything’s going well, however, Franklin suffers an existential crisis.

          Written by Floyd Mutrux—an iconoclast whose filmmography includes everything from the grungy drug saga Dusty and Sweets McGee (1971) to the insipid teen comedy The Hollywood Knights (1980)—The Christian Licorice Store is deliberately opaque. Among the film’s many pretentious elements is the title, which is never explained, although folksinger Tim Buckley appears in one scene and performs a song with lyrics containing the odd title phrase. On a deeper level, Mutrux and director James Frawley never illuminate what drives Franklin to excess, beyond the perfunctory remarks that Franklin makes about a withholding father. As in many I-gotta-be-me downers of the same vintage, the takeaway seems to be, “It’s the ’70s, man—just go with it.”

          Within this constrained space, Bridges gives an adequate performance, capturing something about Franklin’s toxic blend of narcissism and self-loathing. Adams, largely decorative, shines during a party scene in which she delivers a murderous put-down to a sleazy producer. Onetime “Latin Lover” Roland was a peculiar casting choice, and it’s strange that legendary French filmmaker Jean Renoir basically takes over the movie for several minutes by playing himself, chatting up Adams’ character because she’s taken portraits of him. What does it all mean, especially in the context of the grim ending? It’s the ’70s, man. Just go with it.

The Christian Licorice Store: FUNKY

Cover Me Babe (1970)

          Released around the same time that real-life graduates from film schools began finding purchase in Hollywood, Cover Me Babe adroitly captures several interesting things—the influence of European aesthetics on young American directors, the insufferable quality of arrogant counterculture dudes, and the tensions running through academia because of clashes between new ideas and old-fashioned attitudes. The movie is ultimately somewhat less than the sum of its parts, because watching leading man Robert Forster play a heartless asshole for 90 minutes isn’t that much fun, and because the story lacks momentum. Nonetheless, Cover Me Babe evokes a specific time thanks to a tasty mixture of angst, art, and erotica. Forster plays Tony Hall, a prize-winning student at a Southern California film school. Best known for an experimental film peppered with nudity and surrealism, Tony is nearing graduation and is considered the frontrunner for another big award, which presumably will open the gates of Hollywood.

          Yet Tony resents everything connected with authority and convention, so over the course of the film, he burns every bridge that he had previously built. Tony destroys his relationship with a professor he sarcastically calls “Uncle Will” (Robert Fields), because the professor has the temerity to demand that Tony submit a script for his thesis project. Tony humiliates his sensitive girlfriend, Melissa (Sondra Locke), by commencing an affair with busty coed Sybil (Susanne Benton), and then Tony does a number on Sybil by asking her to have sex, on-camera, with their mutual friend Ronnie (Floyd Mutrux), who is ashamed of being gay and wants to make a go at heterosexual relations. While all this is happening, Tony wanders through Los Angeles with his trusty 16mm camera, stealing footage of strangers: a mother wailing in grief after her young son drowns at the beach, a depressed man jumping off a building, and so on. Tony also stages several shocking scenes, at one point hiring a female prostitute to masturbate on-camera. Eventually, Tony assembles the footage into an abrasive but pointtless montage that, he claims, illustrates the despair of life. (For punctuation, Tony inserts stock footage of Lee Harvey Oswald getting shot by Jack Ruby.)

          Headstrong boundary-pushers of Tony’s ilk are staples of film school, and many of them become interesting directors, so there’s a measure of authenticity in George Wells’ script. Additionally, director Noel Black (who peaked early with the fantastic 1968 teen noir Pretty Poison), approaches the material with artistry and craftsmanship, applying lyrical touches to sex scenes, and two songs by soft-rock band Bread give the picture unmistakable early-’70s atmosphere. In the end, however, Cover Me Babe is strangely uninvolving, which is partially attributable to Foster’s chilly performance and partially attributable to the off-putting nature of the lead character’s journey. Believable as the notion of a self-destructive diva may be, it’s a challenge to stay engaged while Tony inflicts pointless psychological wounds and recklessly squanders opportunities.

Cover Me Babe: FUNKY

Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)

          Few movies are more beloved by fans of ennui-drenched ’70s New Hollywood cinema than Monte Hellman’s enigmatic drama Two-Lane Blacktop, which for years was almost impossible to see. Glimpsed only fleetingly in late-night broadcasts or repertory screenings, the movie built a reputation throughout the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s as one of the lost masterpieces of its era. Now that the picture has been widely available for a decade, the shortcomings of Two-Lane Blacktop are as apparent as its virtues. Viewed through the lens of Me Decade angst, the tale of men drag-racing their way across the U.S. is a potent metaphor for the way some people felt adrift after breaking with traditional values—but taken merely at face value, the picture seems opaque and pretentious. Yet Two-Lane Blacktop somehow manages to justify both interpretations simultaneously. At its best, the movie says volumes about directionless lives, and at its worst, the movie itself is directionless.

          The narrative is almost mythical in its simplicity. The Driver (James Taylor) and the Mechanic (Dennis Wilson) zoom a hopped-up ’55 Chevy across America, picking up cash here and there by challenging strangers to races. Meanwhile, a slightly older man, G.T.O. (Warren Oates), identified only by the make of his yellow muscle car, cruises the highways in tandem with the heroes, occasionally bonding with them and occasionally clashing. G.T.O. has an interesting habit of picking up hitchhikers and telling each new passenger a different lie about his background. The other major player is the Girl (Laurie Bird), a drifter who spends most of her time in the Chevy and makes a vague romantic connection with the Driver, though she also ends up in the G.T.O. from time to time. (In a film populated by underdeveloped characters, hers is the most anemically imagined.)

          All of the characters hint at goals they want to accomplish, but in reality they seem addicted to the freedom of the road, presumably as interested in running away from something as running toward something. Obviously, there’s a lot of thematic heft implied by this situation, and in one of the movie’s best lines, Oates articulates what’s stirring inside these rootless racers: “If I’m not grounded pretty soon,” he says, “I’m gonna go into orbit.” In another scene, Oates toasts Taylor by saying, “Here’s to your destruction.” Taylor’s reply: “Same to you.”

          Are these characters seeking oblivion or salvation? Director Hellman and the movie’s writers (Will Corry, Floyd Mutrux, and Rudy Wurlitzer) aren’t interested in answers. Instead, the filmmakers focus on the day-to-day reality of moving down the road from one hamburger stand to the next, stopping only for sleep or to fix a broken engine; the clear implication is that the road is life, and the characters represent all of us trying to find our way even though we don’t know where we’re supposed to go. Other movies made similar points with greater clarity and depth, but the symbolic nature of the characters in Two-Lane Blacktop still speaks to sympathetic viewers decades after the film’s original release. Part of the appeal is undoubtedly the presence of real-life rock musicians Taylor and Wilson, since this was the only time either gave a significant acting performance. Neither is particularly revelatory, but they’re both handsome and intense, representing a certain romantic ideal of with-it masculinity circa early-’70s America.

Two-Lane Blacktop: FUNKY

Dusty and Sweets McGee (1971)

          Writer-director Floyd Mutrux displayed a great gift for capturing atmosphere in his early films, even if his eye for evocative details sometimes distracted him from presenting compelling plots. His style came together beautifully in his second film, the lovers-on-the-run drama Aloha Bobby and Rose (1975), though some fans understandably prefer his debut feature, Dusty and Sweets McGee, which offers an unvarnished look at the drug culture in early-’70s Los Angeles. As photographed by the venerable William A. Fraker, who shot all of Mutrux’s ’70s pictures, Dusty and Sweets McGee has texture to burn, thanks to languid montages of characters doing everyday activities while stoned.

          Fraker photographed much of the picture through soft haze filters, so it’s as if the story is seen through the fog of a narcotic-induced stupor. In fact, verisimilitude was the priority during production, since the film is half-documentary, half-narrative. Much of the movie comprises real addicts describing their lives, and these nonfiction moments are intercut with a loose plot about casual users Tip (Clifton Tip Fredell) and Nancy (Nancy Wheeler) drifting deeper into the heroin scene as their addictions grow more powerful.

          Some recurring characters appear in their storyline, like a mysterious white-bearded dealer (played by Fraker in his only significant acting role), but mostly the picture meanders through the controlled-substances netherworld, giving viewers a sense of how often the stoner scene shifts from mellow to malevolent. In an effective directorial flourish, Mutrux uses a tasty soundtrack of pop songs to provide a kind of Greek Chorus commenting on the moods of particular moments; featured songs include Blues Image’s rousing “Ride Captain Ride,” Van Morrison’s seductive “Into the Mystic,” and Del Shannon’s driving “Runaway,” plus a handful of doo-wop/Motown numbers that seem to sing for the characters’ heartsick souls.

          Viewed strictly as a narrative, Dusty and Sweets McGee is slow and uneventful, with long strings of seemingly inconsequential scenes merging into a steady hum of grime and self-destruction. But as a snapshot of a historical moment, the picture is virtually peerless, a West Coast counterpoint to the similarly atmospheric New York-set heroin picture The Panic in Needle Park, which was also released in 1971. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Dusty and Sweets McGee: GROOVY

American Hot Wax (1978)

          Someone could make a great movie from the story of Alan Freed, the celebrated 1950s disc jockey who coined the term “rock and roll” and became a music-industry superpower before getting snared in a payola scandal. And, indeed, director Floyd Mutrux comes awfully close with his lively comedy American Hot Wax. Exploding with atmosphere, energy, and great music, American Hot Wax offers a romanticized snapshot of what Freed’s life was like while he was on top of the world, defying authorities by staging giant shows featuring what was still called “race music”; in Mutrux’s rose-colored vision, Freed is the pied piper of the youth movement, bringing black and white kids together through their shared love of tunes by wild men like Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis.

          American Hot Wax is structured around the build-up to a major concert in New York, so Mutrux follows Freed (Tim McIntire) and his cronies as they cut records, form bands, score pay-for-play deals, and generally enjoy what later came to be known as the sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll lifestyle. When American Hot Wax really connects, it creates a believable illusion that Freed is the center of the pop-culture universe, supervising recording sessions or working alone in his radio-station booth, drinking and chain-smoking while he lays down patter between the platters.

          McIntire, so vivacious in Mutrux’s Aloha Bobby and Rose (1975), is supercharged throughout American Hot Wax. In fact, the rest of the cast merely peeks out occasionally from behind McIntire’s shadow, but it’s interesting to see a trio of famous comedians early in their careers: Fran Drescher plays Freed’s assistant, Jay Leno plays Freed’s driver, and original Saturday Night Live star Laraine Newman plays a wannabe songwriter sorta-modeled on Carole King. (Several real-life music pros play bit parts, including then-Rolling Stone correspondent Cameron Crowe and record producers Bob Ezrin and Richard Perry.)

          The characterization and plotting could be better, since Mutrux seems more interested in generating a cool vibe, but the movie does an decent job of building tension by demonstrating how badly law-and-order types wanted to knock Freed off his pedestal. Better still, the storyline about Newman’s character joining forces with a black vocal group illustrates that Freed’s enthusiasm emboldened legions of kids to pursue rock-and-roll dreams. The movie’s climax, during which Berry and Lewis play themselves, is filled with hot music but dodgy dramaturgy—for instance, the portrayal of Berry as a self-sacrificing mensch clashes with his real-life reputation as a cold-blooded businessman. Nonetheless, American Hot Wax is more than the sum of its parts. Even though the movie doesn’t have much depth, it features so many great scenes that it’s well worth watching, especially for hardcore music fans.

American Hot Wax: GROOVY

Aloha, Bobby and Rose (1975)

          Although the ’70s produced a seemingly endless stream of dramas about mixed-up kids roaming the country and getting into trouble, many of these films felt as aimless as their protagonists. Aloha, Bobby and Rose is an exception. Atmospheric, credible, deliberate, and sensitive, the picture is a sharply observed story about a young man destined for difficulty and the damaged single mother who’s vulnerable enough to get drawn into his world.

          Bobby (Paul Le Mat) is a wiseass auto mechanic who bluffs his way through a pool game with tough East-LA Latinos until they discover he doesn’t have the cash to pay off his gambling debts. They give him a beating and promise there’s more to come if he doesn’t return the following evening with money. Bobby hustles friends for the bread but can’t put it together, then gets distracted when pretty young Rose (Dianne Hull) brings her car into the shop where he works. Characteristically ignoring his responsibilities, Bobby spends the day and evening courting Rose when he should be assembling a bankroll, and then he really gets into trouble—when Bobby pretends to stick up a convenience-store clerk, ostensibly for Rose’s amusement, the previously unseen store owner emerges with a gun and fires. The gunshot kills the clerk, and Rose instinctively whacks the owner on the head.

          Bobby and Rose flee, afraid they won’t be able to prove their innocence. Demonstrating that she’s cut from the same cloth as Bobby, Rose skips out on her kid to run away with Bobby, and during their travels they meet unruly Texans Buford (Tim McIntire) and Donna Sue (Leigh French); the couples spend a wild night in Tijuana before Bobby and Rose decide to retrieve her son from LA. This being an angst-ridden ’70s drama, suffice to say things don’t go according to plan.

          As in his debut picture, 1971’s Dusty and Sweets McGee, writer-director Floyd Mutrux swaths this movie in rich atmosphere. Every grimy wall and every banged-up prop feels right, and a long sequence of Bobby and Rose cruising the Sunset Strip—zooming past billboards for iconic ’70s rock albums—creates a vivid sense of a lost time. Cinematographer William A. Fraker, an old-school Hollywood pro best known for slick studio films, lends the same palpable realism to this picture than he gave to Dusty and Sweets McGee; his soft filters simulate the steamy haze that envelops Southern California on hot days. The soundtrack is terrific, annotating the heroes’ sad journey with tunes by Bob Dylan, Elton John, and various Motown artists (Little Eva’s “Locomotion” is used to ironic effect during a key scene).

          As for the performances, they’re naturalistic and vivid. Le Mat works the James Dean-wannabe groove typical to this type of picture, adeptly illustrating Bobby’s charms and shortcomings; Hull is frayed as a girl not yet ready for adult obligations; and McIntire is a force of nature as Buford, a crazy man who dances on tables, urinates in cars, and talks a great line of bullshit. Yet, even with all of these virtues, the beauty of Aloha, Bobby and Rose is that it’s so focused: Instead of trying to make a grand statement, it’s nothing more than a sensitively crafted drama filled with insights about the restless hearts of the young.

Aloha, Bobby and Rose: RIGHT ON