Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came? (1970)

          Partly an antiwar film reflecting the counterculture perspective and partly a squaresville pro-military picture promulgating Greatest Generation attitudes, the misshapen comedy/drama Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came? depicts an explosive conflict between the soldiers occupying a U.S. Army base and the citizens of the hick town neighboring the base. The movie features myriad subplots and several principal characters, so for about the first hour of the film’s running time, it’s hard to tell who or what the story is about. Once things come into focus—or at least as much so as they ever do, which is not a lot—the sum is less than the parts. Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came? includes some amusing performances, as well as fine production values and fleeting passages of snappy dialogue, but the script is simultaneously overpopulated and underdeveloped. Interesting ideas fade into the ether, silly tropes rise to the fore, and it all congeals into a kind of cinematic sludge.

          The basic gist is that a career soldier named Officer Michael Nace (Brian Keith) gets tasked with handling community relations between the base and the town. That’s easier said than done, because troublemaking Army personnel including drunken womanizer Sergeant Shannon Gambroni (Tony Curtis) have made enemies of the town’s sadistic top cop, Sheriff Harve (Ernest Borgnine). As the film progresses, tensions between citizens and soldiers grow worse and worse, eventually inspiring Mace to lead an armed assault on the town. The town fights back not just with police but also with a private militia funded and overseen by megalomaniacal idiot Billy Joe Davis (Tom Ewell).

          This short synopsis excludes easily half of the film’s narrative threads, because characters played by Don Ameche, Bradford Dillman, Ivan Dixon, and Suzanne Pleshette—among others—also have significant amounts of screen time. Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came? is such a mess that it’s not worth expressing frustration that certain elements almost work. Borgnine adds another scenery-chewing monster to his gallery of screen villains, and Keith is entertainingly grumpy, but their efforts are stymied by the general formlessness. As Borgnine says in his autobiography, “We had a lot of fun doing it and I got a paycheck, even though it turned out terrible.”

Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came?: FUNKY

The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973)

          Two years after maverick auteur Melvin Van Peebles unleashed his film about a black revolutionary undermining white power structures, Sweet Sweetback’s Baaadasssss Song (1971), similar subject matter hit screens in this provocative movie, which was—amazingly—released by a major studio. Even more amazingly, The Spook Who Sat by the Door was one of the only ’70s studio movies both starring and directed by African-Americans. Co-written by Sam Greenlee, upon whose novel the picture is based, The Spook Who Sat by the Door presents the story of Dan Freeman (Lawrence Cook), a black man recruited to be the CIA’s first officer of color as part of a political stunt. At first, Dan plays the role of an Uncle Tom, accepting demeaning assignments and patronizing treatment while trudging through five years of running a copy machine at CIA headquarters—his work station is by a doorway, hence the title, which boldly mixes two meanings of the word “spook.” Once Dan leaves the CIA, however, he employs his government training to build a revolutionary army intent on toppling the white establishment. The story culminates, inevitably, with a riot that Dan sees as the first battle in an outright race war.

          Although it’s ostensibly an action/thriller of sorts, with dialogue exchanges about conspiracy theories and plenty of violent scenes (especially toward the end), The Spook Who Sat by the Door can be watched in many ways. Thanks, in part, to cartoonish portrayals of white people—shown to be so arrogant that they can’t detect sedition in their midst—the picture is something of a social satire. And yet it’s also a call to arms and/or a warning, depending on where the viewer stands on the issues being explored. Alas, while it’s tempting to credit the filmmakers with far-ranging sophistication, as if the intention was to make a complex cinematic artifact, it’s equally possible that Greenlee and the film’s key creative personnel—including director Ivan Dixon, best known as a cast member on the long-running sitcom Hogan’s Heroes (1965-1971)—arrived at such complexity not through discipline but rather through the opposite. The Spook Who Sat by the Door is all over the place in terms of storytelling and tone, which makes it difficult to consider most of what occurs on screen completely deliberate. The acting is uneven, the photography is flat, and the narrative rhythm is erratic. Kudos to jazz great Herbie Hancock for his ballsy score, though, because his signature electronic flourishes accentuate the nerviness of the story.

          Ultimately, the mere existence of The Spook Who Sat by the Door is the most remarkable aspect of the picture, because it’s not as if Hollywood studios were regularly in the business of manufacturing revolutionary propaganda, even during the anything-goes ’70s. In fact, it’s especially interesting to consider The Spook Who Sat by the Door side-by-side with The Man (1972), a studio picture imagining what happens when a black man becomes president via line of succession. Whereas The Spook Who Sat by the Door is unquestionably a byproduct of the Black Power/Black Pride movement, The Man is a Rod Serling-penned melodrama in which the hero expresses constant ambivalence about being asked to represent his race. Together, the films offer a troubling vision of a fraught moment in American sociopolitical life. On its own, The Spook Who Sat by the Door is as subtle as a hand grenade.

The Spook Who Sat by the Door: GROOVY

Trouble Man (1972)

Whereas most blaxploitation flicks take place in the dingy milieu of dealers, junkies, pimps, and streetwalkers—making exposed flesh, outrageous fashions, and tough slang important elements of their sleazy appeal—Trouble Man belongs to a more restrained crime-picture tradition. Excepting the color of the lead character’s skin, the presence of a soul-music score, and the use of terms like “honky” and “motherfucker,” Trouble Man is basically an old-fashioned potboiler in the Bogart tradition. The lead character, Mr. T. (Robert Hooks), is a take-no-guff private eye who gets framed for murder by ambitious gangsters, so he calls upon his ample resources of a clever mind, a fast gun hand, and plentiful contacts within the police force and the underworld to extricate himself from a sticky situation. Along the way, he clashes with a mixed-race pair of hoodlums (played by an overacting Ralph Waite and a hard-working but underused Paul Winfield), and he enjoys a few moderately interesting arguments with policeman Joe Marx (William Smithers). Mr. T also shares a few pointless scenes with his girlfriend, Cleo (Paula Kelly), and he hangs out in his groovy lair—a back office in a pool hall. Presenting an African-American environment free from blaxploitation’s usual clichés makes Trouble Man mildly refreshing, but the movie’s storyline is disappointing. The deadly first hour comprises lots of convoluted exposition, so, ironically, the sensationalistic extremes found in other blaxploitation flicks are missed. Things pick up a bit in the end, but not quite enough. This is a shame, not only because the picture avoids reducing African-Americans to cartoonish stereotypes, but also because director Ivan Dixon employs solid camerawork and lighting, giving the piece a polished look. Plus, Hooks is a formidable leading man who seems as if he could’ve done something with better material. Yet even the silky score, by Motown legend Marvin Gaye, lacks sufficient energy; only the main theme has a lingering groove.

Trouble Man: FUNKY