1980 Week: The American Success Company

          Writer-director William Richert displayed tremendous promise with his first fiction feature, Winter Kills (1979), a strange conspiracy thriller boasting an incredible cast and a lush look. Although the movie has as many problems as it does virtues, the style and verve of the piece seemed to bode well for Richert’s subsequent efforts. Alas, the filmmaker’s sophomore picture repeated nearly everything that was wrong with his debut while replicating virtually nothing that was right. Originally released in 1980 as The American Success Company but now primarily available in a director-approved recut version from 1983 more succinctly titled Success, the picture follows the misadventures of Harry (Jeff Bridges), a dorky young man who secures a comfortable life by marrying beautiful but cold Sarah (Belinda Bauer), the daughter of Mr. Elliott (Ned Beatty). Mr. Elliot runs the American Success Company, a doppelganger for American Express, so even though Mr. Elliot despises Harry, he ensures that Harry gets cushy executive jobs. Tired of being a doormat for his abusive father-in-law and his withholding wife, Harry assumes a new secondary identity as “Mack,” a flashy mobster who dresses in garish clothes, speaks in the Bogart/Cagney/Robinson mode, and walks with a cane. While pretending to be “Mack,” Harry purchases regular appointments with a sophisticated hooker, Corinne (Bianca Jagger), in order to improve his lovemaking. Concurrently, he contrives a scheme to embezzle money from his employer.

          As written by Richert and B-movie icon Larry Cohen, the script never explains Harry’s methods or motives in a satisfactory fashion, and the tone of the piece is awkward. Sometimes Richert goes for broad comedy and fails—the most effective running joke involves premature ejaculation—and sometimes Richert goes for high-minded satire, even though he misses that mark, as well. (In one scene, Harry, posing as “Mack,” proposes selling credit cards to an expanding market—little kids.) Beatty, Jagger, and John Glover give solid turns, benefiting from consistently written characterizations, but the leading performances by Bridges and Bauer are disastrous. Bridges clearly didn’t know whether he was playing a boob or a rake, and Bauer wobbles between incarnating a dolt and a shrew. Almost nothing works in The American Success Company, even with the wall-to-wall exposition of the 1983 version’s voiceover. Unsurprisingly, it took Richert years to score his next feature-directing gig, the middling teen-sex comedy A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon (1988). A decade after that, he helmed his last feature to date, an obscure 1998 version of The Man in the Iron Mask.

The American Success Company: LAME

The Iceman Cometh (1973)

         Whereas most of the esoteric movies released under the American Film Theatre banner in the early ‘70s were adaptations of then-contemporary plays, this sprawling production puts a 1946 Eugene O’Neill drama onscreen. In some ways, this is a monumental film, because veteran director John Frankenheimer steers an excellent cast comprising several significant Hollywood players. Moreover, while the sets are simple, Frankenheimer shoots scenes as if he’s making a big-budget feature, cleverly employing deep-focus camerawork and shadowy lighting to provide dimensionality and nuance. Excepting the way an unusually long running time makes viewers hyper-conscious that all the action takes place in one location, The Iceman Cometh bears none of the usual signs marking a pennywise stage-to-screen adaptation. However, that running time must dominate any discussion of the picture, since The Iceman Cometh is four hours long, with two intermissions providing respites along the way.
           Amazingly, even this sprawling duration doesn’t include all of O’Neill’s original text, which raises the question of why Frankenheimer and his collaborators didn’t cut even deeper. It’s easy to envision a more condensed version of this same project having even more impact, what with its abundance of fine acting and the innate value of O’Neill’s poetic monologues and tragic themes.

          Set in a New York City bar circa 1912, the story revolves around a gaggle of lost souls who drink themselves into oblivion rather than facing the hopelessness of their everyday lives. On one particular day, the barflies await the arrival of traveling salesman Hickey (Marvin), a bon vivant who enlivens the place with annual visits. Before his entrance, the story introduces several sad characters. Most prominent is Larry (Robert Ryan), an aging political radical now resigned to the inevitable approach of death. Despite his unkempt hair and scraggly whiskers, he comes across as the unsentimental intellectual of the group. Others making their presence known include the bar’s proprietor, Harry (Fredric March), who speaks with a thick Irish brogue; Rocky (Tom Pedi), the rotund bartender who moonlights as a pimp; and Don (Jeff Bridges), a young man whose activist mother was recently thrown in jail, leading him to seek aid from her onetime colleague Larry. By the time Hickey arrives, it’s clear that everyone is mired in some horrific personal crisis. They need the solace of their let-the-good-times-roll friend.

          No such luck.

          Things seem off the minute Hickey walks through the door, and he soon reveals that his wife died. What’s more, he’s adopted a callous new philosophy. In monologue after monologue, Hickey explains that his friends’ “pipe dreams” are merely distractions from the grim reality of life, and should be abandoned. In essence, he’s traded optimism for nihilism and become an evangelist for his new belief system. Revelations ensue, leading to a new tragedy and then, inevitably, to Larry’s painful epiphanies—as the deepest thinker in the group, his reaction to Hickey’s depressing spectacle speaks for the anguish buried inside the hearts of everyone at the bar.

          Setting aside questions of the literary worth—critics and scholars have spent decades debating where The Iceman Cometh belongs in its author’s canon—the film abounds with meritorious elements. Drawing on his experience staging dramas for live television, Frankenheimer uses his camera masterfully, sometimes juxtaposing two characters in tight frames and sometimes defining group dynamics with meticulous tableaux. He also  moves the camera well, especially when he underscores key moments with subtle push-ins.

          The acting is just as skillful. Some performers, including Bridges and March, essay supporting roles with intensity and specificity, providing just the right colors to fill out the painting. Marvin, whom one might expect to be the standout given his flamboyant role and top billing, is good but perhaps not great, playing scenes with exquisite dexterity even though he never quite achieves the desired level of revelation and vulnerability. So it’s Ryan, surprisingly, who provides the soul of the piece. Once maligned as a wooden he-man, he revealed interesting dimensions in his later work, often imbuing villainous roles with cruelty and cynicism. Here, he’s a broken man desperately seeking reasons to put himself back together, then despairing when he can’t find any.

The Iceman Cometh: GROOVY

The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go (1970)

          A batshit-crazy conspiracy thriller that’s also a character drama and a broad comedy and a political drama and a travelogue—and probably several other incompatible things—The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go is about as much of a mess as you’ll ever encounter in the realm of movies involving brand-name Hollywood talent. The only theatrical feature that famed actor Burgess Meredith directed alone, this head-scratcher stars Broderick Crawford, Jack MacGowran, James Mason, and, in his first big-screen role, Jeff Bridges. Naturally, Meredith plays a part, as well. He and Mason portray Asians, complete with stereotypical makeup. Bridges plays a draft-dodger/wannabe playwright descended from James Joyce. These characters become embroiled in a wackadoodle plot about a high-tech laser cannon over which various criminals and governments seek to gain control.

          The title stems from a fantasy element, because the film suggests that Buddha, as in the actual deity, decides every 50 years to shoot humanity with a magic beam. The notion is that Buddha finds amusement by transforming one individual’s nature from his or her yin (e.g., good or bad) to his or her yang (the opposite of the preceding). As should be apparent by now, The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go is befuddling, incoherent, and random from its first frame to the last. Whereas some WTF movies bewitch viewers by functioning as windows into other planes of consciousness, The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go is merely a compendium of bad ideas that didn’t merit exploration. To wit, consider this monologue that Bridges delivers about two-thirds of the way through the picture: “I managed to split from the goddamned army, get shacked up good and safe with Ha Ling here—no sweat. I’m just writing, playing my music. Then you come along. My chick is thrown in jail, I start rough-trading faggots, blackmailing scientists, whipping around the air in helicopters, being chased by the CIA, super-macing Japanese bank presidents, getting slugged by a lesbian, spear-gunning a Chinese boogeyman!”
          In keeping with the film’s discombobulated style, the monologue trails off to nothing and the story moves onto the next pointless thing.

          Every aspect of The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go is wrong. The music is upbeat, even when the accompanying images depict murder and treachery. Many scenes look as if they were shot with synchronized dialogue, but the dialogue is absent from the soundtrack. Characters break the fourth wall by saying things like, “All Chinese villains offer tea and cakes before applying torture.” Every so often someone drops a lame joke, as when a joint is offered with the suggestion, “Puff—the magic dragon!” Homophobia and racism permeate the dialogue, while grungy nude scenes present Asian bit players as the human equivalent of set dressing. Through it all, Meredith exhibits no directorial vision whatsoever, seemingly trying a different camera style in every scene.

The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go: FREAKY

Lolly-Madonna XXX (1973)

          On the plus side, the dueling-rednecks picture Lolly-Madonna XXX features elegant cinematography, an impressive cast, a plaintive score, and a whopper of a final act filled with bloodshed and tragedy. For fans of melodramatic pulp, there’s a lot to savor in this fictional story that vaguely evokes the Hatfield-McCoy mythos. Nonetheless, the film’s weaknesses are plentiful. The basic premise is awkward and contrived, the middle of the movie is dull and uneventful, and many of the character relationships stretch credibility to the breaking point. One can feel the filmmakers trying to push all the pieces in place for a spectacular finale, but the elements never cohere dramatically or logically. Considering that the movie was co-written by future mystery-fiction queen Sue Grafton, who adapted Lolly-Madonna XXX from her own novel of the same name, it’s fair to say that Grafton was still learning how to construct plots.

          Here’s the iffy set-up. In backwoods Tennessee, two families have been fighting for years because one bought a piece of a land that previously belonged to the other. The Feathers are led by stoic patriarch Laban (Rod Steiger), while the Gutshalls answer to the highly principled Pap (Robert Ryan). One day, the Gutshall boys leave a postcard in the Feather mailbox, indicating that a young woman named Lolly Madonna is scheduled to arrive in the region, with plans to marry one of the Gutshall boys. The Feathers head to the bus station and kidnap a young woman named Roonie Gill (Season Hubley), whom they mistakenly believe is Lolly Madonna. In reality, there is no such woman, and the postcard was a ruse to get the Feathers away from their moonshine operation so the Gutshalls could vandalize the still. Despite Roonie’s vehement objections, the Feathers refuse to believe she’s not the intended bride of a Gutshall, so they try to leverage her as a hostage. Somehow, even though Roonie has no actual relationship with the Gutshalls, this scheme exacerbates the rivalry, triggering arson, rape, theft, and eventually murder. Does any of this hogwash make sense? No.

          But consider the vivacious actors populating the cast. Jeff Bridges. Gary Busey. Ed Lauter. Randy Quaid. Scott Wilson. Not too shabby. Moreover, director Richard C. Sarafian does his usual frustrating job, rendering richly textured images and staging individual scenes well even as he fails to convey a persuasive overarching story. At least the movie’s final half-hour is memorably grim, and it’s hard to shake the weird vignettes with Lauter—not only does the tough-guy actor pretend to give a rockabilly concert performance while standing alone in a hog pen, but he also plays a rape scene while wearing lingerie and makeup. You don’t see that sort of thing every day. Oh, and for what it’s worth, Bridges is terrific, as usual, giving a better performance than the movie probably deserves, even as Ryan underplays and Steiger thunders for the entertainment of those in the cheap seats.

Lolly-Madonna XXX: FUNKY

1980 Week: Heaven’s Gate

          Writer-director Michael Cimino’s magnum opus about greed, which has ironically become shorthand for the profligate excesses of auteur filmmaking, boasts enough commendable elements for a dozen movies. The story is a thoughtful riff on a fraught period in American history, the performances are sensitive and textured, the production values are awesome, and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond’s images are rapturous. Had Cimino been able to wrestle this material into shape, either at the time of the film’s original release or prior to one of its many reissues, he could have made a classic Hollywood epic. Famously, however, he did not. In its most widely acclaimed version, Heaven’s Gate runs three hours and 37 minutes, which is not inherently hubristic; Lawrence of Arabia (1962) is only one minute shorter. The problem is that Heaven’s Gate features at least an hour of repetitive material that, no matter how beautifully filmed, adds nothing to the dramatic experience. Hence, now and forever, Heaven’s Gate is known as the debacle that nearly bankrupted United Artists, the disaster that ballooned from an original budget of $11 million to a final cost of $44 million, and the death knell for the freedoms that maverick directors enjoyed in the ’70s. Ouch.

          The movie begins with a pointless 20-minute prologue that introduces protagonist Jim Averil (Kris Kristofferson) during his graduation from Harvard in 1870. The excess of the prologue, which features innumerable extras in elaborate costumes, is a bad omen. Once the movie cuts 20 years ahead, to 1890 Wyoming, things get moving (more or less). Averil has become a marshal tasked with overseeing a county populated by impoverished Eastern European immigrants. In the first volleys of a land war, cattlemen led by Frank Canton (Sam Waterston) hire gunmen to kill immigrants based on trumped-up charges. Eventually, a love triangle emerges between Averil, prostitute Ella (Isabelle Huppert), and gunman Nate Champion (Christopher Walken). Amid various subplots, the narrative builds toward a showdown between the haves and the have-nots, with our Principled Antihero caught in between.

          Alas, Cimino’s writing is nowhere near as strong as his direction. When he aims for subtlety, he achieves muddiness, and when he reaches for profundity, he achieves pretentiousness. Supporting characters feel underdeveloped, relationships grind through repetitive rhythms, and everything is grossly overproduced. Some of the film’s gigantic scenes are powerful, including the final showdown, but some are laughable—notably the 10-minute roller-skating scene. Cimino’s missteps are especially disappointing because he gathered such an interesting cast and, for the most part, gave the actors viable emotions to play. Kristofferson fares the worst, since his understated screen persona exacerbates the movie’s lazy pacing, but he connects periodically. Walken fares the best, his innate eccentricity helping him forge an individualized character. Yet costars Jeff Bridges and Brad Dourif are almost completely wasted.

          Even though it’s possible there’s a great movie buried inside Heaven’s Gate, it becomes more and more difficult to see potential as the minutes tick by and the problems accumulate. Nonetheless, there’s some comfort it knowing the situation could have been worse. The first version of Heaven’s Gate that Cimino showed to understandably flabbergasted United Artists executives was five hours long.

Heaven’s Gate: FUNKY

Halls of Anger (1970)

          Years after Sidney Poitier blazed a path by playing righteously indignant African-American characters whose noble behavior shatters prejudice, the far less impressive actor Calvin Lockhart followed in Poitier’s footsteps by starring in this clunky but entertaining social drama about the forced integration of a primarily black school in Los Angeles. Lockhart, who cuts a handsome figure but twists dialogue in such a peculiar and stilted fashion that he’s unintentionally comical, plays Quincy Davis, a black teacher who escaped the ghetto for a job at a suburban school with white students. When redistricting integrates a tough school, officials recruit Quincy to become the school’s new vice principal—and to be the de facto ambassador between racial factions. Everything springing from this contrived scenario is as predictable as you might expect. Quincy clashes with the white principal, who feels black students should be herded like animals instead of treated like people. The angriest black student, J.T. (James A. Watson Jr.), decides to make an example of a white student, Doug (Jeff Bridges), by dragging Doug into fistfights. Meanwhile, Quincy heroically inspires black and white students alike to take their education seriously, employing such unconventional practices as getting male students excited about reading by introducing them to the sexy passages in D.H. Lawrence’s books.

          Halls of Anger also features such tired tropes as a basketball-game showdown between J.T. and Quincy—because, in the limited imaginations of the filmmakers behind Halls of Anger, all black men settle arguments with games of hoops—and a race riot that Quincy quells with his MLK-style homilies of nonviolence and understanding. Chances are that Halls of Anger already felt behind the times during its original release, and the movie seems positively primitive today. Nonetheless, it’s hard to actively dislike the picture, because it means well in a clumsy sort of way. Plus, for every weak element—including a cornball music score that makes onscreen events feel as frivolous as comic-book panels—there’s a redeeming quality. Chief among those redeeming qualities, of course, is the presence of Bridges, appearing in one of his very first features; although he doesn’t get an enormous amount of screen time, Bridges elevates his scenes with intensity and naturalism. Future TV stars Ed Asner and Rob Reiner appear in small roles, and DeWayne Jessie—best known for fronting the fictional R&B band Otis Day & the Knights in Animal House (1979)—contributes an enjoyable turn as a student whose education Quincy turns around.

Halls of Anger: FUNKY

The Last Picture Show (1971)

          While the career of novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry overflows with great accomplishments, there’s a special magic to the 1971 film The Last Picture Show, the screenplay for which McMurtry and director Peter Bogdanovich adapted from McMurtry’s semi-autobiographical novel. The elegiac film represents a magnificent fusion of two gifted storytellers, with Bogdanovich’s precocious classicism providing the perfect frame for McMurtry’s beautifully sad vision of a small Texas town in decline. The director provides elegant cinematography, taut dramaturgy, and vital performances; the author/screenwriter gives the piece its soul. The result of this combined effort is a wrenching little masterpiece about alienation, betrayal, disillusionment, loss, maturation, and sex. Shot in evocative black-and-white by master cinematographer Robert Surtees, The Last Picture Show is one of the highest accomplishments in screen art from any American studio in the ’70s.
          Based loosely on McMurtry’s memories of growing up in Texas during the postwar era, the film takes place in tiny Anarene, Texas, circa the early ’50s. Although it’s basically an ensemble piece, The Last Picture Show focuses on high school buddies Duane (Jeff Bridges) and Sonny (Timothy Bottoms). At first, Duane seems to have the world by the tail, because he’s a good-looking, popular jock who dates the prettiest girl in town, Jacy (Cybill Shepherd). Conversely, Sonny seems like a lost soul as he breaks up with his high-school girlfriend and commences an affair with Ruth (Cloris Leachman), the desperately lonely wife of his football coach. Yet as the months drag on, it becomes clear that Duane’s future isn’t so rosy; Jacy is a manipulative striver willing to do nearly anything to achieve her goal of marrying into money. Partially as a result of his entanglement with Jacy, Duane discovers not only his own personal limitations (culminating in a rueful instance of impotence) but also the bleak realities of the larger world.

          As they stumble from adolescence to adulthood, watching the town around them decay from neglect and population shifts, the boys occasionally receive life lessons from an older friend named Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson), owner of the local movie theater. The ways in which Sam and his beloved business suffer the ravages of time reveal profound metaphysical concepts that Duane and Sonny must come to understand. Bogdanovich and McMurtry weave a complex tapestry in The Last Picture Show, because the story also involves significant characters played by Ellen Burstyn, Clu Galager, Randy Quaid, and—most heartbreakingly—Sam Bottoms, the real-life younger brother of costar Timothy Bottoms. The irony that a story about a small town is densely populated provides just one of the literary nuances permeating The Last Picture Show. The film is also rich in allegory, metaphor, and subtext.

          Yet the movie is just as impressive in terms of cinematic technique. Bogdanovich shoots street scenes in a style heavily influenced by John Ford, so every dirty window and every wind-blown scrap of garbage says volumes. Similarly, the director films interiors with meticulous care, often framing one character prominently in the foreground, with others situated a distance behind, thereby accentuating the inability these people have to form real connections. And the performances! Johnson and Leachman both received Oscars, and rightfully so. Longtime screen cowboy Johnson unveils a lifetime of repressed feeling in his climactic monologue, and Leachman etches a poignant image of longing. Meanwhile, Timothy Bottoms conveys an unforgettably soulful quality, Bridges tempers his signature exuberance with hard-won wisdom, and Shepherd effectively illustrates the cost Jacy pays for her avarice. Fitting the bittersweet tone of McMurtry’s best writing, The Last Picture Show also features one of the most meaningful downbeat endings of the ’70s. Imprudently, most of the principals returned to the material for the 1990 sequel Texasville (again based on a McMurtry novel), but the follow-up is merely adequate, a faint echo of the original’s thunder.

The Last Picture Show: OUTTA SIGHT

Fat City (1972)

          No genre epitomizes the anything-goes spirit of the best American ’70s movies more than the downbeat character study, because during the ’70s, actors resembling real people were given opportunities to play characters resembling real people. Nothing could be further from traditional Hollywood glamour, for instance, than Fat City, the exceptional drama that revived director John Huston’s career. An ensemble piece set in the agricultural fields and skid-row neighborhoods in and around Stockton, California, Fat City is filled with dreamers, drunks, and losers. It’s a hymn to the hopeless. Whereas Huston had in the immediately preceding years lost his way by making bloated and/or misguided projects including The Bible: In the Beginning (1966) and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), the director used Fat City to return to his core strength of poetic narratives about people living on the fringes of society.

          Although he didn’t write the piece (Leonard Gardner adapted the script from his own novel), Fat City concerns themes that were deeply familiar to Huston, including alienation, boxing, drinking, and failure. So even if one doesn’t get the sense of the director seeing himself in the film’s characters, one intuits that he’s known the type of people whose sad exploits he puts onscreen. Working with a skillful crew including master cinematographer Conrad Hall, Huston generates utterly believable atmosphere, with every dirty location and every tattered piece of costuming accentuating the theme of people whose lives comprise hard-won dignity against a backdrop of desperation.

          Stacy Keach stars as Billy Tully, a washed-up boxer who decides to get himself together by going to a gym, where he meets promising young fighter Ernie Munger (Jeff Bridges). Emboldened by the idea of mentoring a beginner while restarting his own career, Billy initiates a pathetic quasi-romance with a drunk named Oma (Susan Tyrrell). As the story progresses, Billy waffles between his real life, which involves arduous work picking fruit for meager pay, and his imagined life, which involves optimistic notions about a future with a surrogate family including Ernie and Oma. Fat City is primarily concerned with the ways in which people who have nothing latch onto possibilities. Similarly to how Billy entertains foolish notions of being a better fighter in middle age than he ever was as a youth, Ernie buys into Billy’s encouragement, and Oma pretends that what she has with Billy is genuine—even though she’s already involved with another man. Yet Gardner’s story doesn’t oversimplify these desolate characters by focusing myopically on their inability to improve their situations; quite to the contrary, Gardner illustrates every self-destructive tendency of these characters, such as Billy’s habit of blaming his circumstances on bad management. Every person in Fat City seems achingly real.

          Huston cast the picture beautifully, getting letter-perfect work out of nearly everyone in the film. Keach’s unique combination of a bruiser’s physicality and a romantic’s soul transforms the actor into Billy; within his first few scenes, Keach erases any audience knowledge of his aptitude for classical dialogue, creating the complete illusion of a broken-down slob living on the streets of Stockton. Tyrrell gives an equally powerful performance (for which she earned an Oscar nomination), her raspy voice and wild eyes conveying a woman lost to alcohol but not robbed of her humanity, while Bridges and costar Candy Clark provide youthful counterpoints to the main characters. (It’s not hard to imagine the people played by Bridges and Clark becoming like Billy and Oma later in life.) As for Huston, his artistic rejuvenation continued—although he made a few turkeys in the years after Fat City, he also made some of his most interesting pictures, including the challenging chamber pieces Wise Blood (1979), Under the Volcano (1984), and The Dead (1987), all of which are thematic cousins to Fat City.

Fat City: RIGHT ON

Somebody Killed Her Husband (1978)

          Representing Farrah Fawcett-Majors’ first attempt to translate her popularity on the TV show Charlie’s Angels into big-screen stardom, Somebody Killed Her Husband is an old-fashioned farce blending romance with a murder mystery that’s played for laughs instead of thrills. (Although most of the picture comprises verbal humor, scenes with broad-as-a-barn physical jokes include the finale, which involves a warehouse full of runaway Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade floats.) With the right person playing the female lead, perhaps Sally Field or Goldie Hawn, Somebody Killed Her Husband could have become a charming piffle. And, indeed, male lead Jeff Bridges works overtime to make the material work. Alas, he ends up putting on the equivalent of a solo show, because Fawcett-Majors is so vapid that whenever she’s asked to do more than smile or toss her hair, the movie grinds to a halt. Fawcett-Majors eventually morphed into a somewhat respectable actress, but at this point in her career she was nothing more than a pinup in search of a persona.

          Anyway, the story concerns Jerry Green (Bridges), a likeable nerd who works in the toy department of the Macy’s flagship in Manhattan while nurturing dreams of becoming a children’s-book author. Although Jerry’s not a no-strings-attached sexual relationship with a coworker, he’s not in love until he sees Jenny Moore (Fawcett-Majors) shopping in the store one afternoon. Instantly smitten, Jerry talks his way into Jenny’s life, and they fall for each other—notwithstanding the minor inconvenience of her being married. Later, when someone murders Jenny’s husband, the lovers realize they must solve the murder before bringing it to the attention of authorities, lest they get branded as suspects because of their adulterous activities. Soon, the amateur sleuths uncover a scheme involving stolen jewelry, which leads to shenanigans involving hidden corpses, silly disguises, and tricky blackmail maneuvers.

          Bridges has some great moments here, mixing boyish charm with grown-up exasperation; in one particularly amusing bit, he engages an infant in “conversation” while he talks out loud to deconstruct the mechanics of an insurance swindle. The script by versatile veteran Reginald Rose (of 12 Angry Men fame) has flashes of real wit, too; at one point, Jerry proclaims to Jenny, “I can offer you instant poverty plus an employees’ discount at Macy’s.” Also helpful is the presence of deft comic actors John Glover and John Wood in supporting roles. Nonetheless, a romantic soufflé only rises if all the ingredients are just right, and none of the efforts by the cast, by Rose, or by skilled journeyman director Lamont Johnson can make up for the absence of a magical leading lady.

Somebody Killed Her Husband: FUNKY

Rancho Deluxe (1975)

          Because novelist/screenwriter Thomas McGuane’s literary voice was such an enjoyably eccentric component of ’70s cinema (his big-screen work tapered off in subsequent decades), it doesn’t really matter that ’70s films bearing his name have weak stories. What the pictures lack in narrative momentum, they make up for in personality. Rancho Deluxe, written by McGuane and directed by the adventurous Frank Perry, is an offbeat modern Western that’s a comedy by default—which is to say that while the movie has amusing elements, it’s primarily a character study. Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston play Jack and Cecil, low-rent cattle rustlers plaguing a ranch owned by the vituperative John Brown (Clifton James). Eventually, John gets fed up with losing livestock and hires thugs to apprehend the rustlers. First come inept ranch hands Burt (Richard Bright) and Curt (Harry Dean Stanton), both of whom are too horny and lackadaisical to devote much energy toward criminal investigation. Then John brings in a thief-turned-detective, Henry (Slim Pickens), whose idiosyncratic approach mostly involves setting traps and waiting for the rustlers to stumble across his path. Also thrown into the mix are John’s short-tempered wife, Cora (Elizabeth Ashley), and Henry’s hot-to-trot daughter, Laura (Charlene Dallas).

          McGuane mostly eschews dramatic tension, opting instead for closely observed scenes of quirky characters behaving in ways that reveal their nature. There’s a great bit, for instance, when Jack and Cecil kidnap a car and shoot it full of holes, partially to make a point and partially to pass the time. In moments like this, McGuane’s script captures the slow rhythms of rural life, as well as the bedrock Western virtue of rugged individualism. In scene after scene, McGuane ensures that his characters evince surprising dimensions. Consider party girl Mary (Maggie Wellman), who reveals unexpected cultural sophistication with her comment about a dinner spread: “This is a weird mixture of yin and yang—so many animal karmas have bit the dust here.” Elsewhere, Stanton’s character tries to look macho while standing outside John’s mansion and running a vacuum over an Indian rug per instructions from the lady of the house. Virtually every minute of Rancho Deluxe is interesting in some way or another, but that’s not quite enough to compensate for the generally aimless feel of the piece. Nonetheless, there’s a lot to enjoy thanks to McGuane’s quirky writing and the generally lively performances. Pickens and Stanton are the standouts, with Pickens’ down-home bluster and Stanton’s laconic vibe suiting the material especially well, though Bridges, James, and Waterston each provide likeable characterizations.

Rancho Deluxe: FUNKY

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)

          Clint Eastwood’s tough-guy screen persona had solidified by the mid-’70s, as had his stringent control over projects—even when he wasn’t also directing, Eastwood ensured that his films were brand-consistent and supremely efficient. Given this closely held authority, it’s interesting to look at the handful of ’70s pictures for which Eastwood gave other filmmakers more latitude than usual. A good case in point is Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, the directorial debut of Michael Cimino, whose subsequent films—notably The Deer Hunter (1978) and Heaven’s Gate (1980)—are known for their epic scale. Obviously, “epic” wasn’t going to fly with Eastwood, so Cimino, who also write Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, confined his ambitions to a tight storyline, although Cimino’s taste for big-canvas cinema is evident in the John Ford-style panoramic shots of various Montana locations.

          A straightforward crime picture with an undercurrent of fatalism, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot begins when exuberant young car thief Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges) encounters a country preacher (Eastwood) who is inexplicably running from a maniac with a machine pistol. After helping the preacher escape, Lightfoot learns his new pal is actually the infamous bank robber known as “Thunderbolt” because he once used a cannon to bust into a vault. The man trying to kill Thunderbolt is a former accomplice, Leary (George Kennedy), who mistakenly believes Thunderbolt stole the haul from a heist they committed together. Eventually, Leary catches up with Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and accepts Thunderbolt’s story that the money was lost, so the three men—together with Leary’s nervous wingman, Goody (Geoffrey Lewis), conspire to rob another bank and replace the missing cash. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot isn’t precisely a buddy movie or a heist picture, nor is it merely a car-chase flick or a thriller. Rather, it’s an ingenious amalgam of all of those genres, a sampler plate of manly-man tropes.

          Individualization is generally kept to a minimum so characters can function as archetypes, although Brudges’ buoyant performance distinguishes Lightfoot from everyone else—he’s brash and irresponsible, yet so full of life he makes even the worst situations feel like exciting adventures. Cimino avoids romanticizing the lifestyles of his characters, accentuating the collateral damage criminals inflict and illustrating the cost criminals pay for making dangerous choices. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is so offbeat and so well made, from the atmospheric production values to the painterly cinematography, that it’s tempting to read deeper meanings into the material, especially when Bridges’ vibrant acting raises Eastwood’s game in their shared scenes. Alas, this is really just an elevated brand of escapism, which means its virtues are, on close inspection, quite modest. That said, the picture is highly rewarding for viewers with appropriately calibrated expectations.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot: GROOVY

The Last American Hero (1973)

          Based on a nonfiction story by Tom Wolfe, which was in turn based on the career of real-life NASCAR driver Junior Johnson, The Last American Hero is a solid character piece elevated by the documentary-style realism of its racing sequences and by uniformly good acting. The screenplay, by William Roberts, is a bit on the thin side, relying on broad characterizations and a hackneyed structure, but the aforementioned strengths help smooth over shortcomings in the writing.

          Jeff Bridges stars as Junior Jackson, the movie’s fictionalized version of Johnson. He’s a willful young man living in the Deep South, working in the family business of running moonshine. Junior’s skill behind the wheel comes in handy for evading cops, but because local police know all about the Jackson’s operation, Junior’s father, Elroy (Art Lund), is in and out of jail on a regular basis. When the legal bill related to one of Elroy’s arrests exceeds what the family can afford, Junior steps up deliveries but also joins demolition-derby races organized by an unscrupulous promoter (Ned Beatty).

          Soon, Junior graduates to the big time of the NASCAR circuit, where he competes with a super-confident champion (William Smith) and courts a racetrack groupie (Valerie Perrine). The story gains dimension once Junior starts running with a big-city crowd, because his aspirations to independence and integrity wither upon exposure to pressures like the need for sponsorship. In particular, Junior gets into an ongoing hassle with Burton Colt (Ed Lauter), a hard-driving entrepreneur who sets usurious terms and expects humiliating deference. All of this interesting material serves the concept encapsulated by the Jim Croce-sung theme song, “I Got a Name,” because the thrust of the story is Junior’s search for identity.

          Bridges is great, as always, winningly essaying Junior’s transition from naïveté to worldliness, and the supporting actors fit their roles perfectly. Lund and Geraldine Fitzgerald provide earthy gravitas as Junior’s parents, while a young Gary Busey adds an impetuous counterpoint as Junior’s brother. Perrine, all blowsy exuberance, captures the damaging caprice of a woman caught in fame’s tail winds, and Smith is understated as a man who realizes his moment in the spotlight is slipping away. Lauter rounds out the principal cast with his petty villainy, providing a formidable obstacle for the hero to overcome.

          Much of the credit for this ensemble’s work must go to director Lamont Johnson, whose handling of the movie’s visuals is as strong as his guidance of the actors. Though usually an unassertive journeyman, Johnson surpasses expectations by elevating Roberts’ humdrum script into something memorably humane.

The Last American Hero: GROOVY

Winter Kills (1979)

          By the end of the ’70s, conspiracy thrillers had started to evolve from provocative political thrillers to wild escapist romps, because as fictional conspiracies grew more outlandish, the derring-do required to survive them grew to equally unbelievable proportions. For instance, consider the credibility gap separating the best-known adaptation of a Richard Condon conspiracy novel, 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate, and the least-known adaptation of a Richard Condon conspiracy novel, 1979’s Winter Kills. Whereas the former is a chilling story about political assassination made just before the real-life death of John F. Kennedy, the latter is a whimsical oddity made at the end of a decade during which the public overdosed on real-life political corruption. In fact, Winter Kills somehow manages to be both a conspiracy movie and a spoof of conspiracy movies, delivering a narrative so preposterous that it provides sardonic commentary on the whole premise of searching for wheels within wheels while scrutinizing the body politic.

          An obvious riff on the Kennedy clan’s woes, the picture follows directionless young blueblood Nick Kegan (Jeff Bridges), the younger brother of assassinated U.S. President Timothy Kegan. Nearly 20 years after the killing, Nick meets a dying man who claims to have pulled the trigger, which starts Nick down an investigative road that reveals how deep the roots of political murders reach. As written for the screen and directed by the clever William Richert, the picture follows Nick into a quagmire involving a crazy millionaire with a private army (Sterling Hayden), a tweaked behind-the-scenes power-monger who operates out of a computerized secret lair (Anthony Perkins), and other strange characters who are all vaguely connected to Nick’s super-rich father, Pa Kegan (John Huston), a modernized doppleganger for legendary patriarch Joseph Kennedy. Nick also gets involved with a mysterious woman (Belinda Bauer) who may or may not be a femme fatale, and he spends plenty of time getting assaulted, shot at, and threatened by various bad guys.

          Richert’s script is brilliant in flashes but muddy overall, providing a number of memorable scenes even though the main narrative is unnecessarily convoluted. Still, the whole thing goes down quite easily thanks to splendid widescreen cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond, and thanks to a number of thoroughly entertaining performances. Bridges is exasperated and intense, desperately trying to prove his manhood while he’s digging for the truth, and Bauer is powerfully seductive (that nude scene!) in her first movie role. Huston, by this point in his career a seasoned pro at playing oversized villains, barks and growls in that special style of avuncular menace he did so well. The supporting players are just as good. Hayden is funny as a militaristic kook, recalling his role in Dr. Strangelove, while Perkins is slyly robotic, coolly delivering dialogue even as he withstands physical assault. As an added bonus, watch closely for Elizabeth Taylor, whose droll cameo is one of the movie’s sardonic highlights.

Winter Kills: GROOVY

Stay Hungry (1976)

          First, the bad news: Bob Rafelson’s Stay Hungry is a hodgepodge of incompatible elements; the tone is completely out of control, ping-ponging between heavy drama and silly comedy; and Arnold Schwarzenegger gives one of the movie’s most nuanced performances. That said, Stay Hungry is so willfully weird that it merits examination, even if curious viewers aren’t necessarily rewarded with consistent entertainment.

          The strange story revolves around Craig Blake (Jeff Bridges), a wealthy young Southerner whose parents died in an accident, leaving him ownership of a small estate in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. The directionless Craig has gotten involved with a cartel of unscrupulous real-estate developers, and he’s been charged with persuading the owner of a local gym to sell his property. Instead of accomplishing his dubious goal, however, Craig becomes enmeshed in the dysfunctional culture of the gym, befriending drunken owner Thor Erickson (R.G. Armstrong), bonding with star bodybuilder Joe Santo (Schwarzenegger), and falling for Santo’s on-again/off-again girlfriend, Mary Tate (Sally Field).

          Once all of these characters are introduced, director/co-writer Rafelson wanders somewhat aimlessly through disassociated vignettes. Craig slums with working-class Mary Tate, enjoying carnal bliss at home but ignoring her in public. Craig goes on adventures with Joe, leading to the bizarre scene of humungous Austrian Schwarzenegger visiting a gaggle of backwoods buddies for fiddle practice. (Later in the movie, Schwarzenegger performs a full-on fiddle concert.) Also thrown into the mix is a convoluted subplot about a bodybuilding contest. Some of the bits in Stay Hungry are enjoyably odd, like the sequence of toupee-wearing Thor and his pure-as-driven-snow sidekick (Roger E. Mosley) entertaining a pair of hookers in the gym, but much of the movie is abrasive. For instance, Craig is a shallow son of a bitch, so it’s boring to watch him mistreat the amiable Mary Tate and display his “friend” Joe like a freak.

          The slapdash quality of the storyline is exacerbated by Rafelson’s tonal indecision, since he waffles between celebrating and satirizing his characters. The ending is especially sloppy, with various plot threads resolving against a backdrop of half-dressed bodybuilders parading through downtown Birmingham. (At one point, several of them ride atop a city bus, posing and preening in Speedos.) Though ultimately a blip in the careers for most of its participants, Stay Hungry was significant for Schwarzenegger, since it was his first dramatic role in a big-budget movie; combined with his appearance in the documentary Pumping Iron, released the following year, Stay Hungry demonstrated Schwarzenegger’s powerful charisma, setting the stage for his success as an action-movie star.

Stay Hungry: FUNKY

Bad Company (1972)

Continuing the groove of their previous scripts Bonnie and Clyde (1968) and There Was a Crooked Man . . . (1970), screenwriters Robert Benton and David Newman explore colorful crooks from yesteryear in Bad Company, a soft-spoken adventure following a pair of hapless young Civil War-era draft dodgers (Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown) who become outlaws in the wilderness that eventually became middle America. Benton also made his directorial debut with the picture, which is tasteful and understated almost to a fault. A very ’70s story about wandering losers who puff themselves up with bluster and pretense, the movie is gorgeously photographed by Gordon Willis (The Godfather) as a series of moody tableaux, and composer Harvey Schmidt links the film’s episodes with an old-timey score played on solo piano. Presenting the picture as a museum piece delivers sumptuous artistry but sometimes undercuts the wit of the storyline; moments with potential to explode into broad comedy, like a ridiculous brawl in a kitchen, play too seriously because of the gravitas of the photography and storytelling. Yet some funny bits connect just like they should, especially the scenes with priceless character player David Huddleston as the cranky leader of an incompetent criminal gang. Tonal peculiarities aside, Bad Company has many admirable qualities: The dialogue is appealing and authentic from start to finish; Bridges and Brown effectively inhabit their respectively arrogant and sensitive characters; and a very young John Savage appears as one of the heroes’ ill-fated cohorts. Somewhat randomly, Bad Company also contains a tart homage to legendary All About Eve writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who helmed Benton and Newman’s script for Crooked Man. As the capper to his final scene, Huddleston spouts a line that infamous cynic Mankiewicz often used to describe himself: “I’m the oldest whore on the block.” Like many things in Bad Company, the line is slightly out of place but nonetheless memorable.

Bad Company: GROOVY

Hearts of the West (1975)

One of several nostalgic ’70s movies set during the early days of Hollywood filmmaking, Hearts of the West is a flawed but charming romantic adventure boasting clever characterizations and a terrific cast. Jeff Bridges stars as Lewis Tater, a naïve Iowan obsessed with becoming a Western pulp writer in the mode of Zane Gray. Through convoluted circumstances, he ends up making his way to Los Angeles circa 1930-ish, where he falls in with a group of crusty cowboy types who make their living doing stunts for a low-rent production company. The rangy story involves an avuncular veteran stuntman with a mysterious past, an eccentric book publisher, gun-toting con men, a hot-tempered studio boss, a wisecracking secretary, and other colorful types. Even with such an overstuffed plot, writer Rob Thompson and director Howard Zieff try to give every character unique flavor, like the unlucky stuntman who always takes the first bullet in onscreen gunfights. As was the case in many of his early pictures, Bridges is powered by enthusiasm and raw talent rather than refined skill, and it’s unfortunate that the dorky vocal style he adopts makes his work feel contrived in comparison with the naturalistic acting of the other players. Blythe Danner, at her liveliest and loveliest, is endearing as the secretary, and Alan Arkin connives and shouts his way through a funny performance as the mood-swinging studio boss. Donald Pleasence contributes memorable weirdness in his brief turn as the publisher, and the rest of the cast is filled out by impeccable character players including Matt Clark, Herb Edelman, Burton Gilliam, Anthony James, Alex Rocco, and Richard B. Shull. Topping all of this off is the venerable Andy Griffith, giving a loose and authoritative performance as the veteran stuntman; in a series of plot developments reflecting this picture’s surprising depth, Griffith’s character takes Tater under his wing but then grows to occupy an unexpected role in the young man’s life. Hearts of the West has big problems (the cartoonish music score is awful, the pacing is inconsistent, and the story relies on overly convenient plot twists), but it’s thoroughly appealing nonetheless. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Hearts of the West: GROOVY

King Kong (1976)

          With director John Guillermin’s austere camerawork and screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr.’s tongue-in-cheek wordplay leavening the histrionics producer Dino De Laurentiis obviously had in mind, this notorious picture tries to rethink a Hollywood classic as a blend of social commentary and epic tragedy. (Chances are you don’t need to be reminded that the 1933 original is a creature feature depicting the discovery and capture of a giant ape living on a remote island.) The most effective bit of updating is providing a credible reason for American explorers to visit mythical, mist-enshrouded Skull Island: the promise of untapped oil reserves. The picture was made just after the 1973-1974 gas crisis, so the lust for crude was prominent in the American consciousness.
          The least effective bit of updating is the application of Ms. Magazine feminism onto Jessica Lange’s character Dwan, an admirable but failed attempt to make the female lead more assertive than Fay Wray was in the 1933 original. Playing a shipwreck victim who joins the oil expedition and captures the big primate’s heart once she goes ashore with the crew, Lange is so pretty and curvaceous it’s not hard to understand why the ape goes ape. Unfortunately, her performance is as cringe-worthy as Dwan’s dialogue, so King Kong nearly ended the actress’ career before it began.
          However, the portrayal of Kong is heartfelt in a clunky sort of way, especially with John Barry’s alternately menacing and sweeping score jacking up the emotional stakes, and some the movie’s jolts work just like they should. The hit-and-miss special effects feature silly gimmicks like monkey specialist Rick Baker cavorting in an ape suit, plus impressive animatronic monsters created by Carlo Rimbaldi; one memorable scene features a bloody fight between Kong and a ginormous snake with Dwan caught in the middle of the carnage. All of this made a big impression on me as a ’70s kid, which might explain why I still enjoy the movie—but as it happens, I’ve gotten into an embarrassing situation or two by admitting my admiration, like the time I shared my secret Kong shame with classic-cinema champion Leonard Maltin. He was a good sport as I explained that I first saw the movie when I was 7, but he wasn’t buying what I was selling.
          Nonetheless, in defense of this much-maligned movie, I can attest that the 1976 Kong looks gorgeous because Guillermin knows how to fill a widescreen frame like nobody’s business, and Jeff Bridges, all hippy-dippy shaggy as a bleeding-heart naturalist who stows away on the ship headed for Skull Island, contributes an energized performance. Charles Grodin is terrifically hammy as the villain who unwisely tries to exploit Kong, and familiar ’70s players Rene Auberjonois and John Randolph lend flavor as members of his crew. Furthermore, the ending of the 1976 version amplifies the intensity of the original film’s conclusion, replacing a daytime dogfight atop the Empire State Building with an eerie nighttime shootout atop the then-new World Trade Center.
          So, while not a great movie by any stretch, the 1976 Kong has more going for it than you might remember—but keep the fast-forward button handy for the awkward romantic scenes between Kong and Dwan. You’ve been warned.

King Kong: FUNKY