1980 Week: Melvin and Howard

          Director Jonathan Demme finally escaped the genre-movie ghetto with his sixth feature film, Melvin and Howard, an offbeat character study that sprang from a strange real-life episode. As written by Bo Goldman, who won an Oscar for his script, the movie tells the story of Melvin Dummar, a truck driver who claimed that he once gave reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes a ride through the Nevada desert—and that after Hughes’ death, a mystery man discreetly provided Melvin with a handwritten will granting Dummar a chunk of Hughes’ fortune. Yet the most unique (and most frustrating) aspect of Melvin and Howard is that the Hughes connection is largely incidental to the overall story—it’s merely the most colorful episode in Melvin’s pathetic odyssey.

          Melvin and Howard opens with a quick bit of Hughes (Jason Robards) driving a motorcycle across the desert until he has an accident. Then Melvin (Paul Le Mat) drives by and discovers a bedraggled old man with wild hair lying immobile by the side of the road. Melvin offers the disoriented stranger a ride. During the ensuing trek, the passenger identifies himself as Howard Hughes, but Melvin is skeptical. After Melvin drops off his passenger, Melvin returns to his grim life, where he lives in a trailer with his volatile wife, Lynda (Mary Steenburgen). Melvin’s drinking, inability to hold a job, and lack of steady money drives Lynda away, so she eventually leaves him, taking their child along. Melvin rebounds by getting a job driving a milk truck, and he remarries, this time to the more stable Bonnie (Pamela Reed). Eventually, Melvin and Bonnie set up house in a domicile adjoining the rural gas station of which Melvin becomes the manager.

          And that’s where the mystery man (Charles Napier) deposits the handwritten will. A peculiar legal battle ensues, with court officials and lawyers accusing Melvin of fabricating both the will and the story about giving Hughes a ride. Concurrently, Demme and Goldman play narrative games that challenge the audience to guess whether or not Melvin’s version of events is sincere. Although Melvin and Howard deserves ample credit for giving attention to the types of people Hollywood usually ignores—bums and drunks and losers—it’s more than a little bewildering. Melvin isn’t particularly interesting or sympathetic, and neither are the people around him. Furthermore, because the real court case went against Melvin, raising the strong possibility that he made up his story, the movie represents a missed opportunity to tell a yarn about a brazen scam artist.

          In the end, Melvin and Howard feels a bit like a character study of the schmuck next door experiencing his 15 minutes of fame. The problem is that the movie runs a whole lot longer than 15 minutes, and Demme—as has been his wont throughout his career—often seems more interested in peripheral moments than in scenes that actually drive the main story. So, while there’s something fundamentally humane about the overall endeavor, there’s also something mildly exploitive, with the clueless have-nots from America’s heartland presented somewhat like freaks in a sideshow.

Melvin and Howard: FUNKY

Goin’ South (1979)

          Having been exposed to the image countless times during my years as a video-store drone, since it was replicated on the movie’s VHS sleeve, the poster shot for Goin’ South has always irked me. At first glance, it’s a striking shot of star Jack Nicholson smiling wickedly while his face is framed by a noose. Upon close inspection, however, it’s clear that Nicholson is holding the noose in place to achieve the effect. The intended illusion is thus made and dispelled simultaneously. And so it goes for the movie itself, because throughout Goin’ South, Nicholson’s techniques as actor and director are so apparent that the movie feels laborious when it should feel effortless. After all, Goin’ South is supposed to be a comedy—and a romantic comedy, no less.

          Set in Texas during the Wild West era, the picture stars Nicholson as Henry Moon, an excitable but not particularly bright outlaw. Captured by lawmen including Sheriff Kyle (Richard Bradford) and Deputy Towfield (Christopher Lloyd), Moon is strung up for hanging. However, thanks to an arcane law allowing unmarried women to save condemned men by agreeing to marry them, young landowner Julie Tate (Mary Steenbugen) becomes Moon’s bride. Having inherited a ranch from her father, she needs a man and likes the idea of being able to use Moon for a slave since he owes her his life.

          Even though it’s rather convoluted, this premise could easily have generated an opposites-attract farce. Unfortunately, nearly every element in Goin’ South misses the mark. The screenplay meanders through dull and repetitive scenes. Supporting characters lack dimension. Plot twists emerge arbitrarily as opposed to organically. Nicholson’s direction is fuzzy, so scenes lack internal rhythm and the tone of the piece wobbles between broad comedy and subtle satire. Worst of all, the performances are terribly out of sync with each other. Steenburgen, appearing in her first movie, mostly communicates gentle nuances, while Nicholson goes way, way over the top.

          In fact, it’s probably fair to describe the actor’s work in Goin’ South as some of the worst acting in his career. Whether he’s frowning with an open mouth to imply stupidity or widening his eyes to indicate lunacy, Nicholson is silly and tiresome in nearly every scene; virtually the only clever touch he employs is speaking at various intervals with a phlegmatic knot in his voice, suggesting a character for whom language does not come easily. And to say the leads lack chemistry is a huge understatement. It’s also irritating to see two potent comic actors—John Belushi (another actor making his big-screen debut in Goin’ South) and Danny DeVito—relegated to insignificant supporting roles. Really the only member of the Goin’ South gang whose work is consistently praiseworthy is cinematographer Nestor Almendros, who paints most scenes with an appealing golden glow.

Goin’ South: FUNKY

Time After Time (1979)

          Boasting an outlandish premise culled form the worlds of history and literature, Time After Time marked the auspicious directorial debut of Nicholas Meyer, who mined similar territory as the novelist and screenwriter of The Seven Per-Cent Solution (1976). Whereas the earlier film imagined a relationship between Sigmund Freud and Sherlock Holmes, Time After Time imagines one between legendary science-fiction author H.G. Wells and notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper.

          The movie begins in Victorian England, when H.G. (Malcolm McDowell) discovers that one of his society friends is actually the Ripper. Eager to evade capture, Jack (David Warner) steals the time machine that wells built the basement of his London flat—in Time After Time, H.G. isn’t just a fantasist but also an inventor. Honor-bound to bring his onetime friend to justice, H.G. chases Jack through time to 1979 San Francisco. Once there, the 19th-century gentleman tries to navigate 20th-century culture, with sweetly overwhelmed bank clerk Amy (Mary Steenburgen) serving as his guide and eventual love interest.

          Working from an imaginative story by Karl Alexander and Steve Hayes, Meyer demonstrates all of his storytelling strengths: clever literary references, pithy light comedy, and pure escapist fun. Despite its preposterous storyline, Time After Time is thoroughly engrossing, an old-fashioned yarn with the classic formula of drama, romance, and thrills. The love story between Amy and H.G. is charming, because he’s a relic unprepared for the concept of women’s lib, and she’s a modern woman who swoons at his traditional manners. We believe they were meant for each other, just like we believe that Jack represents an even greater menace in modern times than he did in his own era: As he says in one of the picture’s best lines, “Ninety years ago I was a freak—today I’m an amateur.”

          Warner is elegantly menacing, creating several moments of genuine suspense because we believe him capable of horrific acts, and McDowell thrives in one of his few romantic leading roles. Plus, if his rapport with Steenburgen seems particularly convincing, there’s a reason: The costars married after completing the movie and were together for a decade. In another interesting footnote, Meyer recycled some unused bits of culture-clash comedy when he wrote the present-day scenes of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), which placed the crew of the Enterprise in, you guessed it, modern-day San Francisco.

Time After Time: GROOVY