The Sporting Club (1971)

          Things get weird fast in The Sporting Club, a wildly undisciplined adaptation of a novel by Thomas McGuane, who later became a screenwriter of offbeat films with Western themes. Here, the theme is actually Midwestern, though The Sporting Club certainly has enough eccentrics and iconoclasts to resonate with other films bearing McGuane’s name. The basic story is relatively simple. Rich white people gather at the Centennial Club, a hunting lodge in the Great Lakes region, for a drunken revel celebrating the club’s hundredth birthday. One of the club’s youngest members, an unhinged trust-fund brat named Vernur Stanton (Robert Fields), has a scheme to destroy the club from within while making a grand statement about class divisions in American society. Vernur fires the club’s longtime groundskeeper and hires a volatile blue-collar thug as a replacement, injecting a dope-smoking X-factor into the uptight culture of the Centennial Club. Yet the plot is only the slender thread holding the movie together. More intriguing and more prominent are myriad subplots, as well as bizarre satirical scenes featuring the aging members of the Centennial Club devolving into savagery.

          If it’s possible to imagine a quintessentially American film that should have been directed by British maniac Ken Russell, The Sporting Club is that movie. Like one of Russell’s perverse freakouts, The Sporting Club puts a funhouse mirror to polite society, revealing all the grotesque aspects that are normally hidden from view. And like many of Russell’s films, The Sporting Club spirals out of control at regular intervals.

          Here’s a relatively innocuous example. Early in the picture, Vernur and his best friend, James Quinn (Nicolas Coster), wander from the Centennial Club to a nearby dam, where the (unidentified) president of the United States makes a public appearance. Vernur and James sneak onto a tour bus left empty by Shriners watching the president, then trash the bus and commandeer it for a presidential drive-by during which Vernur moons the commander-in-chief. The scene raises but does not answer many questions related to character motivation and logistics. And so it goes throughout The Sporting Club. Outrageous things happen, but it’s anybody’s guess what makes the people in this movie tick or even, sometimes, how one event relates to the next. Very often, it seems is if connective tissue is missing. In some scenes, James makes passes at Vernur’s girlfriend, and in other scenes, he’s involved with the local hottie sent to clean his lodge. Huh? And we haven’t even gotten to Vernur’s fetish for vintage dueling pistols, the time capsule containing century-old pornography, or the climactic scene involving a machine gun and an orgy.

          As directed by journeyman Larry Peerce and written by versatile wit Lorenzo Semple Jr., The Sporting Club has several deeply interesting scenes and a few vivid performances. Coster, familiar to ’70s fans as a character actor, does subtle work in the film’s quiet scenes, even though the nature of his overall role is elusive. Conversely, the great Jack Warden is compelling to watch as the replacement groundskeeper, even though he’s spectacularly miscast—more appropriate casting would have been Kris Kristofferson, who plays a similar role in the equally bizarre Vigilante Force (1976). The lively ensemble also includes Richard Dysart, Jo Ann Harris, James Noble, and Ralph Waite.

          There’s a seed of something provocative hidden inside the bewildering action of The Sporting Club, and one imagines the folks behind the movie envisioned a provocative generation-gap farce. What they actually made is a disjointed oddity with lots of drinking, sex, violence, and pretentious speechifying.

The Sporting Club: FREAKY

The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker (1971)

          “That’s the main drawback of this particular hobby,” notes Bill Alren. “The feeling of shame.” Alren’s hobby is spying on women in various states of undress, whether that manifests at peeking up a coworker’s skirt while she bends over or using binoculars to ogle bikini-clad ladies on a beach near his house in Los Angeles. As you might imagine, Bill’s hobby is a source of friction in his marriage to the beautiful but anguished Lisa (Joanna Shimkus). Even though Bill makes a good living as a stockbroker and provides her with a comfortable home, she’s frustrated by the mindless rhythms of a childless housewife’s lifestyle, so the discovery of Bill’s proclivity for peeping is the final straw. Since she leaves Bill within the first half-hour of The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker, the bulk of the movie concerns Bill’s attempts to gain control over his lascivious impulses and to woo Lisa back into his life. Created by two of the key players behind The Graduate (1967), novelist Charles Webb and producer Lawrence Turman, this picture lacks the sociological heft of its predecessor, but it’s a respectable hybrid of comedy and drama with a few pithy observations about modern relationships.

          Among the film’s strongest elements are Richard Benjamin’s leading performance and the intelligent (if occasionally glib) screenplay by Lorenzo Semple Jr. Benjamin and Semple operate on the same level, articulating melancholy from the safety of a sarcastic remove, but because the central character is in some ways experiencing his own life from an outside-in perspective—he’s aware of the damage he inflicts but can’t or won’t stop himself—the arm’s-length style works. Turman, making his directorial debut, generates unhurried pacing that allows the gently plaintive textures of Fred Karlin’s score to add emotional dimensions. Yet Turman misfires a few times, especially during the climax, so there’s a reason a decade elapsed before he helmed another film: His work is adequate but not special. The same could be said of the film overall. It’s a little bit amusing, a little bit insightful, and a little bit sexy, but one strains to define any area in which the content or execution is superlative. Still, there’s a lot to enjoy here, and the cast is colorful: Elizabeth Ashley plays Lisa’s sister, Adam West plays the husband of Ashley’s character, and B-movie queen Tiffany Bolling plays a mysterious seductress.

The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker: FUNKY

1980 Week: Flash Gordon

          For many geeks of a certain age, Flash Gordon conjures warm memories of seeing the film in theaters, listening endlessly to the soundtrack LP featuring original songs by Queen, and revisiting the picture during its regular airings on cable. Over the years, the movie has generated not only a large cult following but also plentiful ancillary material—action figures, DVD reissues, a loving tribute nestled inside the comedy blockbuster Ted (2012), directed by Flash Gordon superfan Seth McFarlane. That’s quite an afterlife for a flick that producer Dino Di Laurentiis extrapolated from on old Saturday-matinee serial in order to capitalize on the success of Star Wars (1977). Even though Di Laurentiis spent lavishly on costumes, sets, and special effects, Flash Gordon originally seemed destined for oblivion after its lukewarm box-office reception. Many critics and fans embraced the picture as a kitschy delight, but others merely rolled their eyes at the silliness of the enterprise.

          After all, it’s hard to take a movie seriously when it includes corny dialogue, one-dimensional characterizations, and a terrible leading performance by former Playgirl model Sam J. Jones. But then again, that’s the weird fun of Flash Gordon—the movie embraces its own goofiness, in essence presenting an outer-space adventure while simultaneously satirizing outer-space adventures.

          Flash Gordon’s plot recycles narrative elements from the original serials, so the story begins when outer-space tyrant Ming the Merciless (Max Von Sydow) rains catastrophic ruin onto Earth for sport. Through convoluted circumstances, eccentric scientist Hans Zarkov (Topol) kidnaps New York Jets quarterback Flash Gordon (Jones) and stewardess Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) for a trip to space, because Hans plans to confront Earth’s tormentor. Upon reaching the planet Mongo, which comprises several distinct realms (each with its own climate), Flash pisses off Ming but wins the favor of Ming’s slutty daughter, Princess Aura (Ornella Muti). She frees Flash from Ming’s prison even as Ming prepares to marry Dale, with whom he’s become smitten. After several death-defying adventures, Flash rallies several “princes of Mongo,” including the Robin Hood-like Barin (Timothy Dalton), for a revolution against Ming’s oppressive rule.

          The filmmakers’ tongue-in-cheek approach doesn’t always work, but Flash Gordon has a vibe uniquely its own. The juxtaposition of ’30s-style production design with ’70s-style arena rock is bizarre, the clash between bombastic supporting performance by classical actors and inept work by Anderson and Jones is jarring, and the presence of the great Von Sydow lends something like credibility to certain scenes. Plus, to give credit where it’s due, some of the movie’s ridiculous action scenes are genuinely exciting, such as a mano-a-mano duel that takes place on a giant revolving disk filled with spikes and an epic air battle involving flying “bird men,” souped-up “rocket cycles,” and phallic-looking spaceships. Best of all, perhaps, is the movie’s opulent color scheme, since Di Laurentiis went to the same pop-art well from which he drew the look of Barbarella (1968).

          Ace screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr., who earned nerd-culture immortality by writing the pilot for the 1966 Batman TV series and thus creating she show’s campy style, brings a playful sensibility to his script for Flash Gordon. The plotting is deliberately adolescent, with heavy play given to the boy-friendly themes of heroism and lust. Semple also jams the script full of jokes, some cringe-worthy and some sly. Meanwhile, director Mike Hodges—a hell of a long way from the gritty noir of Get Carter (1971)—mostly tries to mimic the way George Lucas mimicked serials while shooting Star Wars.

Flash Gordon: FUNKY

Hurricane (1979)

          The romantic epic Hurricane received a poor reception from audiences and critics during its original release, and its stature has not grown during the intervening years. Yet while the picture definitely has major problems, it also has interesting virtues. Extensive location photography in the South Pacific, complete with onscreen appearances by natives from islands in the area, gives certain scenes the texture of a National Geographic documentary. The underlying storyline, extrapolated from a 1936 novel, dramatizes a culture clash that speaks to issues of imperialism and intolerance. The final 30 minutes of the picture, during which producer Dino De Laurentiis unleashes a massive storm by way of intricate special effects, is genuinely spectacular. And giving the whole piece an elegant patina that it may or may not deserve is luminous and naturalistic imagery generated by cinematographer Sven Nykvist.

          Previously filmed in 1937 by legendary director John Ford, the James Norman Hall-Charles Nordoff novel Hurricane tells the story of an island king who falls in love with an American woman but then runs afoul of the American legal system; the titular storm provides both an action-adventure climax and a tidy metaphor representing the whirl of events surrounding the characters. As interpreted by De Laurentiis, screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr., and original director Roman Polanski—who developed the project until legal troubles made his continued involvement impossible—the 1979 version of Hurricane unfolds as a melodrama about star-crossed lovers.
          In 1920s Pago Pago, U.S. Navy officer Captain Bruckner (Jason Robards) is the regional governor, overseeing natives under the control of the U.S. government. One stormy night, Bruckner’s adult daughter, Charlotte (Mia Farrow), arrives for a visit. She’s immediately taken with the Captain’s native servant, Matangi (Dayton Ka’ne), who is handsome, insolent, and proud. When Matangi becomes chief of his tribe through hereditary succession, he immediately asks Captain Bruckner to release several natives who are being held for infractions of American law. Meanwhile, Charlotte and Matangi become lovers even though he’s betrothed, by way of an arranged marriage, to a native woman. These and other plotlines converse during the film’s elaborate climax, which involves chases and fights and tragedies amid the monstrous storm.

          Hurricane looks great from start to finish, because Nykvist eschews the glossy look usually associated with romantic epics. However, tonal dissonance is a recurring problem. Ka’ne gives a terrible performance, since he was obviously cast for his looks, and Farrow isn’t much better—the lack of chemistry between the stars is stupefying. Screenwriter Semple doesn’t do them any favors by periodically lapsing into his signature jokey style. During the most cringe-inducing scene, a wide-eyed Charlotte and a shirtless Matangi stand in the rain, staring at each other. “I see you are getting very wet,” he says. “No wetter than you,” she replies. In another scene, Farrow has to spit out the awful line, “Don’t ask me to marry you—just love me!” Director Jan Troell, who replaced Polanski late in the development process, fails to pull performance styles together, and while composer Nino Rota contributes many regal themes, the work of regular De Laurentiis composer John Barry is badly missed. Too often, the movie strives for operatic intensity and instead achieves soap-opera silliness.

Hurricane: FUNKY

Papillon (1973)

          This minor classic, which tells the real-life story of a Frenchman who endured 10 years of harsh imprisonment in South America during the 1930s, arose from a turbulent development process. After screenplay drafts by writers on the order of William Goldman were rejected, the film went into preproduction with a script by the fine popcorn-movie scribe Lorenzo Semple Jr. By that point, Steve McQueen was committed to play the title character. Then Dustin Hoffman agreed to co-star in the picture, only there wasn’t a role for him to play. Enter Oscar winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was hired to weave Hoffman into the picture. Trumbo’s writing continued well into production—he was generating pages just a few days ahead of when they were being shot—so after Trumbo fell ill, someone had to finish the work, fast. Trumbo’s son, Christopher, did the job, writing the movie’s poignant final scenes. Thus, if the resulting movie has a bit of a patched-together feel, there’s a good reason—and it’s a testament to the skill of everyone involved that despite the convoluted gestation, Papillon works.

          The film was adapted from a memoir by French criminal Henri Charrière, whose claim to fame was escaping from Devil’s Island, the infamous prison in French Guyana. (Never mind that many people have questioned the veracity of Charrière’s recollections.) When the story begins, Charrière (Steve McQueen) is convicted for a murder he did not commit, and then sent across the ocean to a lifetime term on Devil’s Island. (Charrière is nicknamed “Papillon,” French for “butterfly,” and an image of the winged insect is tattooed across his chest.) While in transit to Devil’s Island, Charrière befriends a bespectacled crook named Louis Dega (Dustin Hoffman), who has money but isn’t physically formidable. Charrière, on the other hand, is a tough guy, so they strike a protection deal. Yet what begins as a pragmatic arrangement evolves into a full-blown bromance over the course of several years; among other incidents, Charrière protects Dega from assailants and Dega smuggles food to Charrière while Charrière endures inhumane solitary confinement.

          The movie combines intense scenes of prison suffering with thrilling escape attempts. Along the way, Charrière earns the respect of nearly everyone he meets by displaying superhuman determination. In one vivid but far-fetched vignette, the hero even curries favor with the charismatic leader (Anthony Zerbe) of a leper colony.

          Despite extraordinary production values and the sure hand of director Franklin J. Schaffner guiding the story, Papillion drags somewhat at a bloated length of two and a half hours. Ironically, however, the narrative’s most expendable element is also one of the movie’s strongest virtues: Hoffman’s character. Because the myriad scenes of Charrière’s imprisonment are painful to watch (at one point, he eats bugs for survival), producers were wise to add the leavening agent of a major friendship. Hoffman is oddly appealing, affecting a cerebral, sarcastic quality while peering out through Coke-bottle glasses. Better still, his tightly wound energy complements McQueen’s he-man stoicism, giving the picture contrast it would otherwise have lacked. (The last scene between the main characters also has an undeniable emotional tug.) Is Papillon overlong and repetitious? Sure. But is it beautifully made and sensitively acted, with a reassuring theme of man’s indomitable spirit? Yes. And that’s what matters, at least in terms of what this memorable movie offers and delivers.

Papillon: GROOVY

The Parallax View (1974)

          Starring Warren Beatty as a reckless reporter who stumbles into a nefarious scheme involving political assassinations and governmental cover-ups, The Parallax View is the quintessential ’70s conspiracy thriller. With its heavily metaphorical images of people dwarfed by gigantic structures, its insidious musical score that jangles the nerves at key moments, and its sudden explosions of violence, director Alan J. Pakula’s arresting movie set the template for decades of imitators. More importantly, it set the template for Pakula’s next movie, the exquisite journalism drama All the President’s Men (1976). Working with the same cinematographer (Gordon Willis) and the same composer (Michael Small) he used on Parallax, Pakula sharpened his conspiracy-thriller style to absolute perfection while telling the story of how reporters uncovered the Watergate scandal. In sum, The Parallax View is required viewing for anyone who wants to understand ’70s cinema, even though the picture is far from perfect.

          Based on a novel by Loren Singer and written for the screen by the formidable trio of David Giler, Lorenzo Semple Jr., and Robert Towne, the movie begins with an assassination inside the Seattle Space Needle, then continues with a grim scene of a Warren Commission-type panel issuing a “lone gunman” explanation for the killing—even though we, the viewers, saw more than one person collaborating in the murder. The movie then cuts three years ahead. Seattle-based Joe Frady (Beatty) is an unorthodox reporter with a nose for conspiracies. His friend Lee Carter (Paula Prentiss), who witnessed the Space Needle assassination, is terrified because she believes witnesses are being systematically killed. Joe is skeptical until Lee herself dies under questionable circumstances. Then Joe asks his editor, Bill (Hume Cronyn), for permission to investigate. The doubtful editor says okay, but gives Joe a short leash. Soon, however, Joe uncovers clues leading him to the Parallax Corporation, which appears to be in the business of recruiting assassins. Obsessed with following a hot story, Joe endangers himself and everyone he knows by trying to infiltrate Parallax.

          From start to finish, The Parallax View is exciting and tense. Pakula and Willis shoot the picture masterfully, using creative foreground/background juxtapositions, deep shadows, and long lenses to evoke disturbing themes. The movie also employs an effective trope of portraying villains as even-tempered men in suits, rather than hysterical monsters, and the notion of business-as-usual murder is chilling. The acting is uniformly great, with Cronyn a dryly funny standout among the supporting cast and Beatty putting the self-possessed diffidence of his unique screen persona to good use.

          All that said, the story hits a few speed bumps along the way. An extended sequence in a small town called Salmontail includes scenes one might expect to find in a Burt Reynolds romp, from a bar brawl to a comedic car chase, and some stretches of the movie are so subtle they’re actually difficult to parse. The finale, in particular, is clever but needlessly convoluted and sluggish. Throughout its running time, the movie waffles between taking itself too seriously and not taking itself seriously enough. Yet all is forgiven whenever The Parallax View hits the conspiracy-thriller sweet spot. For instance, consider this exquisite dialogue exchange between Brady and ex-spy Will Turner (Kenneth Mars). Turner: “What do you know?” Brady: “I don’t know what I know.” That’s the stuff.

The Parallax View: GROOVY

Three Days of the Condor (1975)

          While elitists often cite the collaboration of actor Robert De Niro and director Martin Scorsese as the prime example of a ’70s star/auteur mind-meld, it’s unwise to overlook a partnership that manifested in glossier movies—that of actor Robert Redford and filmmaker Sydney Pollack. While the films these men created together have never enjoyed the critical adoration of the De Niro-Scorsese pictures, the Redford-Pollack movies were, generally speaking, more popular with audiences and, in very different ways, just as thematically rich. Around the time De Niro and Scorsese were shooting their seminal psychological drama Taxi Driver, for instance, Redford and Pollack were enjoying the success of a slick escapist movie, Three Days of the Condor. Based on a novel by James Grady, and adapted for the screen by reliable popcorn-movie guy Lorenzo Semple Jr. and go-to Pollack rewriter David Rayfiel, Condor is a great yarn.

          Joseph Turner (Redford) is a CIA analyst whose days are spent reading books and documents for clues that might benefit the American intelligence community. Though he’s got the code name “Condor,” he’s not a covert operative. One day, Turner walks into his office and discovers that all of his co-workers have been assassinated. Someone in Turner’s unit uncovered top-secret data, so now Turner, as the unit’s only survivor, is a target. He spends the rest of the movie on the run, with ice-blooded European hit man Joubert (Max von Sydow) in pursuit. And since Turner isn’t sure he can trust his main CIA contact, Higgins (Cliff Robertson), he seeks refuge with a stranger, Kathy (Faye Dunaway). This being a Pollack movie, Kathy falls for Turner, so she gets pulled into his dangerous world even as Turner tries to unravel the conspiracy.

          As in most great thrillers, the mechanics of the plot are simultaneously crucial and disposable—we get enough detail to play along with Turner as he solves mysteries, but the actual information being pursued by characters within the story is inconsequential. The real fun comes from the moment-to-moment suspense of Turner trying to figure out whether people want to help or kill him. Aided by collaborators including master cinematographer Owen Roizman (The French Connection), Pollack does some of his best work here, keeping the story moving at a fast clip while still generating his signature romantic intensity. Redford plays to his strength of immaculately defining tiny shifts in mood and thought, his subtlety adding dimensions to the plot, and Dunaway is arguably warmer here than in any other movie. (Robertson, von Sydow and John Houseman are all entertaining, though their roles have fewer facets.) Exciting, sexy, and surprising, Three Days of the Condor is a great case study in how a well-matched actor and filmmaker can complement each other to produce highly enjoyable cinema.

Three Days of the Condor: RIGHT ON

The Super Cops (1974)

          To get a sense of how The Super Cops uses wiseass humor to satirize rampant police corruption, think Serpico with jokes. Directed by blaxploitation vet Gordon Parks and written by the witty Lorenzo Semple Jr. (from a book by L.H. Whitemore), The Super Cops depicts the early adventures of real-life New York City cops David Greenberg and Robert Hantz. Hungry to become detectives, the boys started making busts while they were still cadets, which put them in opposition with the corrupt cops pervading the NYPD in the days before the storied Knapp Commission cleaned house.

          At first, cadets Greenberg (Ron Leibman) and Hantz (David Selby) are mistaken for shady operators looking for payoffs, but when it becomes clear they’re genuine do-gooders, the folks profiting from the status quo target the eager newbies as threats. After graduating from the police academy, Greenberg and Hantz get assigned to a dangerous precinct in Brooklyn, where drug dealers hire gunsels to take out overzealous cops. Undaunted, Greenberg and Hantz make like cowboys by staging brazen busts. Their swaggering ways make waves in the district attorney’s office, so Greenberg and Hantz run into trouble getting convictions. Eventually, the resourceful heroes engineer a bold double-cross, framing crooked cops who are trying to frame them.
          All in all, the adventures of Greenberg and Hantz are thoroughly entertaining (although their characterizations were undoubtedly whitewashed for dramatic effect), and Semple’s playful dialogue gives the movie whimsical flair. Parks does well meshing the tough realism of his blaxploitation pictures with the pithiness of Semple’s approach, ensuring that the movie zooms along.

          That said, the story is episodic and the ending is anticlimactic. Furthermore, Leibman and Selby try hard to develop a buddy-movie dynamic, but their vibes are incompatible; Leibman is consistently cocky and overbearing, while Selby waffles between macho stoicism and streetwise sensitivity. The supporting cast is merely passable, with Sheila Frazier the standout as a world-weary hooker/informant and Dan Frazer providing amusing work as the boys’ skittish commanding officer (“Get me outta this meshugana precinct!”). Oddly, however, the weakest element of The Super Cops is probably its title, which suggests a broad comedy. Nonetheless, it’s easy to understand why the most likely alternative wasn’t a viable option: On the street, Greenberg and Hantz were known as “Batman and Robin.” (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

The Super Cops: 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