Rich Kids (1979)

          A tender character study about two children from entitled families reacting in different ways to the breakups of their respective families, Rich Kids does a lot with a little. The story is microscopic in scale, and the stakes are as small as the 12-year-old hearts that get broken when two households implode. Rich Kids is akin to same year’s Kramer vs. Kramer, but while Kramer made a serious statement about the impact of shifting gender roles on the nature of the American family, Rich Kids approaches the subject matter from a more lighthearted perspective. Perhaps that’s why the film, despite its convincing you-are-there textures, its endearing characterizations, and its wonderful acting, sometimes drags: Rich Kids is a piffle about a weighty topic.

          The film’s protagonist is Franny Phillips (Trini Alvarado), a wise-beyond-her-years preadolescent living in New York City’s tony Upper West Side. Her parents, Paul (John Lithgow) and Madeline (Kathryn Walker), have been separated for weeks, but they endeavor to hide that fact from their only child—for instance, Paul sneaks into the house around six o’clock every morning to create the illusion he’s waking up there, even though he resides elsewhere. Yet Franny has pieced clues together, so she shares her discoveries with Jamie Harris (Jeremy Levy), the new kid at school. Because his parents recently divorced, Jamie tells Franny what to expect, becoming Virgil for her travels through an emotional inferno. Almost inevitably, Franny and Jamie develop romantic feelings for each other, eventually creating a fake “marriage” with the idea of coupling more successfully than their parents.

          Directed by the sensitive Robert M. Young and overseen by Robert Altman, whose company produced the film, Rich Kids is filled with believable characters. Lithgow personifies a man struggling to reconcile his selfish qualities (he ditches his wife for a younger woman) with his selfless ones (he doesn’t want his daughter to become another sad victim of a broken home). Conversely, Terry Kiser—who plays Jamie’s dad—represents a midlife crisis in full bloom, right down to the bimbo girlfriend, the fast car, and the tricked-out bachelor pad. However, it’s the kids who truly resonate. Alvarado and Levy give fully realized performances, conveying depth and dimension without any hints of cloying cuteness. Rich Kids is far from perfect. Writer Judith Ross pulls her punches at regular intervals, just as she fails to deliver laugh-out-loud comic highlights; the movie is mildly amusing and mildly moving. That said, better to strive for those lofty sensations and nearly achieve them than not to try at all.

Rich Kids: GROOVY

Obsession (1976)

          Director Brian De Palma borrowed heavily from Alfred Hitchcock’s filmmaking style for Sisters (1973), a perverse story about murderous twins that featured a score by Hitchcock’s best composer, Bernard Hermann. So it was no surprise that a few years later, after the box-office failure of De Palma’s audacious musical fantasy Phantom of the Paradise, the director returned to the crowd-pleasing milieu of Hitchcockian suspense. In fact, De Palma took homage even further with Obsession, which borrows key themes from the Hitchcock masterpiece Vertigo (1958). So, by the time De Palma layered in old-school glamour photography (by the great Vilmos Zsigmond) and another moody score by Hermann, Obsession became a virtual copy of Hitchcock’s style, updated for the ’70s with a heightened level of sexual transgression and technical sophistication. Thus, while Obsession is an arresting movie, any appraisal must be somewhat muted given its overtly derivative nature—it’s merely a fine achievement in emulation.

          Written by the formidable Paul Schrader (from an original story he and De Palma concocted together), Obsession tells the tragic tale of New Orleans businessman Michael Courtland (Cliff Roberts0n). During a harrowing prologue set in 1958, Courtland’s wife and daughter are kidnapped and held for ransom. Bending to advice from police, Courtland delivers blank paper instead of the cash the kidnappers requested, so the kidnappers flee with Courtland’s loved ones. A police chase ensues, at the end of which the hostages and the kidnappers are killed. The story then cuts to the present day, when Courtland has rebuilt his life but never forgotten the traumas of the past—quite to the contrary, as the movie’s title suggests, Courtland is preoccupied with his dead wife and child. So when he encounters a young woman named Sandra (Geneviève Bujold) who is a living replica of his dead wife, Courtland seizes a chance at reclaiming happiness—he woos Sandra and tries to mold her in the image of the wife he lost. Alas, history repeats when Sandra is kidnapped under circumstances recalling the earlier crime. How Courtland responds to this crisis, and what he discovers while doing so, takes the story down a path only De Palma and Schrader would be nervy enough to explore.

          As in most twisty thrillers, the plotting of Obsession isn’t necessarily the strong suit—the storyline is predicated on people making foolish decisions, after all—so what makes the picture effective is its insidious mood. Zsigmond imbues images with haze and shadows that embody the story’s psychological implications, and nobody uses music to create a menacing environment better than Hermann. De Palma contributes elements including elegantly probing camera moves and an appropriately suffocating degree of nonstop intensity. (De Palma also showcases supporting player John Lithgow, in one of his first major film roles.) Bujold and Robertson wisely underplay early scenes depicting their characters’ modern-day courtship, since each character hides dark secrets, and later, they both do well portraying people subject to the cruel vicissitudes of fate. (Available through Columbia Screen Classics via WarnerArchive.com)

Obsession: GROOVY

The Big Fix (1978)

          The Big Fix attempts so many interesting things, and demonstrates such a high level of craftsmanship and intelligence, that it’s completely worthwhile despite significant flaws. Adapted by Roger L. Simon from his own novel, the movie introduces viewers to Moses Wine (Richard Dreyfuss), a former ’60s activist now settled into humdrum ’70s adulthood. A divorcé with two kids, Moses makes a sketchy living as a private investigator, mostly doing unglamorous stakeout work for corporate clients. Life is constantly humiliating for Moses until he encounters an old flame from college, Lila (Susan Anspach), who reminds him of the beautiful ideals they espoused in the ’60s.

          However, to Moses’ great disappointment, Lila has sold out to work on the gubernatorial campaign of a stuffy politician, and she needs help because someone is spreading rumors that her candidate associates with an Abbie Hoffman-esque radical named Howard Eppis. Moses reluctantly takes the case, but soon realizes he’s stumbled onto something heavy.

          The Big Fix is ostensibly a comedy, with gentle gags like the various explanations for the cast on Moses’ hand, and Simon provides appealing banter for Moses and the peculiar characters he meets. Yet the movie is also a detective thriller with a body count, and years before writer-director Lawrence Kasdan explored similar subject matter in The Big Chill (1983), this film asks why some ’60s activists joined the Establishment they once fought. In fact, the movie sometimes lurches awkwardly between light farce and murderous drama. What holds the thing together is Dreyfuss, who also co-produced the picture.

          Operating at the height of his considerable powers, Dreyfuss showcases Moses’ emotional journey—the character starts out bored and tired, gets jazzed by adventure, and ends up revitalized by the discovery that he hasn’t truly betrayed his old principles. Dreyfuss has many dazzling scenes, whether he’s hyperventilating after a shooting or demonstrating unexpected courage during an interrogation. It’s probably a better performance than the material deserves, but great work is always a joy to watch.

          Another strength of The Big Fix is the terrific supporting cast: F. Murray Abraham, Bonnie Bedelia, Jon Lithgow, Ron Rifkin, and Fritz Weaver each contribute something memorable and unique. Director Jeremy Paul Kagan moves the camera smoothly, shapes a number of good performances, and uses locations well, but as in most of his features, the pieces never fully cohere; The Big Fix is more a collection of enjoyable scenes than a well-told story. Nonetheless, the film’s virtues are many, and its offbeat take on the subject of ’60s counterculture is consistently interesting.

The Big Fix: GROOVY

Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (1972)

          With its focus on low-level drug peddlers and “tune in, turn on, drop out” college culture, the lengthily titled Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues could easily have been made in the mid-’60s instead of the early ’70s, and the picture’s approach to characterization is so Spartan that the people in the movie feel like counterculture-era abstractions instead of flesh-and-blood individuals. That’s not a bad thing, however, since Dealing is like an injection of pure period vibe, from the pervasive theme of lawlessness to the happenin’ lingo to the potent male fantasy of a with-it hippie chick who grooves on the hero’s scene.

          Dealing isn’t deep or provocative, and it isn’t really about anything except the vague implications of a contraband-fueled adventure in the anything-goes ’70s, but it’s atmospheric, attractively shot, and loaded with far-out tunes (including drop-the-needle pop cuts and an eclectic score by Michael Small). Stripped of any aspirations to redeeming social value, the movie is like a sleek catalog of vintage textures.

          The story was adapted from a novel by “Michael Douglas,” the shared pseudonym for bestselling author Michael Crichton and his brother, Douglas Crichton. Peter (Robert F. Lyons) is a directionless Harvard law student not particularly interested in his studies. He regularly makes cross-country trips to fetch dope for his pal John (John Lithgow), an urbane drama teacher/dealer with a talent for coldly exploiting young people. In Berkeley for a connection, Peter meets pretty druggie Susan (Barbara Hershey), and before long, they get together in a recording studio, bonding over a few lines of coke and a bit of the old in-out. (He playfully introduces himself to Susan as “Lucifer,” having rocked out to the Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” on his Buck Rogers-looking stereo headset earlier in the movie.)

          Eventually, once Peter makes his way back to Boston, he persuades John to hire Susan for a run so she can join her new lover on the East Coast. The plan goes awry when Susan gets busted at Logan Airport by a corrupt detective, Murphy (Charles Durning), who swipes half her cargo. Realizing the cop stole drugs, John and Peter try to hustle Murphy in order to get Susan released, and this endeavor soon evolves into full-on intrigue: After John bails when the danger level gets too high, Peter finds himself stuck between corrupt cops and vengeful drug dealers in a violent showdown. The movie ambles through mellow situations until Peter’s predicament percolates, at which point a fair amount of suspense develops, and the big finish in a snow-covered nature preserve is exciting and weird.

          Although journeyman TV actor Lyons is a weak link, the stiffness of his performance is partially negated by the fact that his character is a cipher, and the rest of the cast is strong. Hershey comes across well in a mostly ornamental role; Durning is appropriately insidious; and Lithgow’s amusing characterization runs the gamut from perverse to pathetic. Adding considerably to the movie’s offbeat appeal is the complete absence of sympathetic characters—Peter and Susan are more appealing than the killers and sleazebags they encounter, but they’re still losers, which makes them unique choices to occupy the romantic center of a Hollywood movie. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues: GROOVY

All That Jazz (1979)

          Inspired by Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2  (1963), All That Jazz is Bob Fosse’s arresting rumination on the limitations of his own character and talent, seen through the prism of an onscreen doppelganger. The movie depicts a tumultuous chapter in the life of film director/choreographer/theater director Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider), who juggles the challenges of transforming a hokey stage musical into something fresh with long hours spent obsessively refining his latest movie, a biopic about a comedian that echoes Fosse’s Lenny (1974). Gideon also juggles intense relationships with several women, including a wife (Leland Palmer) and a girlfriend (Ann Reinking) driven to distraction by Gideon’s infidelities. Yet the protagonist’s true love might actually be Death, portrayed as an angelic beauty by Jessica Lange, because since his earliest days as a youth performer in raunchy burlesque shows (as shown in stylized dream sequences/flashbacks), Gideon’s been fascinated by the high-wire act of risking disastrous failure in order to chase extraordinary success. He’s also deeply aware of his own shortcomings, afraid of being discovered as a fraud who squanders his talent, and, as one insightful friend notes, terrified that in the final analysis, he might be—horror of horrors!—“ordinary.”
          The plentiful parallels to Fosse’s real life accentuate just how unflattering a self-portrait Fosse paints: Gideon is a perfectionist, philandering, pill-popping pain in the ass whom friends and colleagues somehow love anyway, because he’s so damn interesting and talented. So like Gideon, Fosse does a high-wire act, seeking to balance ego-tripping narcissism and merciless self-analysis. As a result, All That Jazz a film of rare psychological complexity and depth. Scheider gives the most nuanced and surprising performance of his career, beautifully depicting every contradictory aspect of the main character; the decidedly nonmusical performer even dives headfirst into a full-on musical number, and looks graceful guiding dancers through their moves (with a cigarette dangling from his lips, Fosse-style). Fosse cast real-life dancers Palmer and Reinking in the principal female roles, because their characters communicate with Gideon through exquisite body language, and few films integrate dance as fully into storytelling as All That Jazz, which seethes with the eroticism of artists whose bodies are their lives.
          Fosse justifies his razzle-dazzle reputation by presenting tasty clips from Gideon’s film-in-progress as well as a handful of jaw-dropping musical numbers, the standout of which is “Take Off With Us,” a nudity-drenched showstopper about casual sex that only the wicked Fosse could conceive and execute. All That Jazz tends to polarize viewers, with some dismissing it as an overwrought exercise in navel-gazing, but I’m among the partisans who consider it one of the sharpest character studies ever filmed. Watch for Wallace Shawn in a funny bit as a bean-counting producer, John Lithgow as a pompous theater director forever overshadowed by Gideon’s accomplishments, and the great actor/dancer Ben Vereen as an entertainer who takes showbiz obsequiousness to an otherworldly extreme.

All That Jazz: OUTTA SIGHT