Kidnapped (1971)

          Based on two Robert Louis Stevenson novels, Kidnapped (1886) and Catriona (1893), this medium-budgeted British adventure film gets off to a bumpy start, introducing the protagonist as a bit of a cipher while also failing to clearly explain the historical background of the Jacobite rebellion of the 17th and 18th centuries, during which Scots loyal to a deposed king waged battle against the occupational forces of the British government. However, once the movie introduces a key supporting character played by Michael Caine, the storyline achieves both clarity and vitality. By the end, when the protagonist has developed a personality and landed in the midst of a fraught sociopolitical conflict, Kidnapped becomes relatively engrossing. It helps that Caine’s performance gradually evolves from swashbuckling to something deeper, so even though there’s a bit of childish play-acting here—lots of running about with guns and swords—Caine’s natural gifts lend Kidnapped just the smidgen of gravitas it needs.

          At the beginning of the story, David Balfour (Lawrence Douglas), whose father recently died, arrives at a remote Scottish castle to claim his inheritance. He’s met by a half-crazed uncle, Ebenezer (Donald Pleasance), who tries to kill David and then arranges to have David kidnapped for indentured service on a vessel sailing to the American colonies. The boat rams a smaller ship piloted by Alan Breck (Caine), a fugitive soldier with the Jacobite cause. Circumstances including a shipwreck throw Alan and David together, so they begin a journey across the Scottish highlands, where rebels offer sanctuary even as British troops stalk Alan, who has a price on his head. Things get even more involved from there, but suffice to say that David transforms from bystander to participant, gaining a crucial role in the story of the Jacobite rebellion while also forming a life-changing friendship with the roguish Alan.

          In its best scenes, Kidnapped is an intelligent homage to the sort of pictures Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power used to make, heroism against a historical backdrop. While there’s an adequate amount of action, the focus is mostly on character interplay and political intrigue, so the climactic moment is a quiet scene of Alan choosing between national pride and personal safety. Yet one should not mistake Kidnapped for high art, since director Delbert Mann employs a workmanlike style. What’s more, the dialogue gets a bit much at times, with everything a “bonny” this or a “bonny” that. Some episodes come and go without leaving a mark, and leading lady Vivien Heilbron renders unmemorable work. Still, with Caine setting the pace and a raft of fine supporting turns—by Pleasance, Jack Hawkins, Trevor Howard, Freddie Jones, and Jack Watson—Kidnapped gets enough right to make for enjoyable viewing.

Kidnapped: GROOVY

Silver Bears (1978)

          Featuring noteworthy participants in front of and behind the camera, the international-caper comedy Silver Bears should work. Every so often, however, talented people miss the mark for reasons that defy comprehension, resulting in disappointments like this one. Silver Bears isn’t a disaster, and nobody in the movie does anything embarrassing, although costar Cybill Shepherd’s performance is iffy. Yet Silver Bears is inert. Despite being cowritten by one of Hollywood’s pithiest wordsmiths and despite starring the reliable Michael Caine, Silver Bears is too confusing, too silly, and too uneven to merit any reaction other than indifference.

          Here are the broad strokes of the convoluted storyline. English swindler “Doc” Fletcher (Caine) gets American mobster Joe Fiore (Martin Balsam) to buy a Swiss bank, using down-on-his-luck Italian aristocrat Gianfranco di Siracusa (Louis Jourdan) as a front. Gianfranco then convinces “Doc” to invest in an Iranian silver mine owned by Gianfranco’s cousins, Agha (David Warner) and Shireen (Stéphene Audran), as a means of bolstering the bank’s assets. This brings the group into the orbit of UK mogul Charlie Cook (Charles Gray), who helps control the world’s silver market. Later, American banker Henry Foreman (Joss Ackland) hears the Swiss bank is onto something big, so he sends underling Donald Luckman (Tom Smothers) to buy the Swiss bank. Donald brings his wife, Debbie (Shepherd), along for the ride, and soon “Doc” romances Debbie as part of an elaborate scheme to defraud nearly every other character in the storyline.

          Cowriter Peter Stone, who achieved caper-cinema immortality with the Cary Grant-Audrey Hepburn romp Charade (1963), sprinkles an amusing line here and there, since he presumably was hired to embellish an existing script by Paul Erdman. Alas, even Stone’s delicate touch isn’t enough to compensate for bewildering story elements, one-dimensional characters, and unbelievable plot twists. Shepherd’s character alone is a tangle of contradictory behaviors, because she’s mousy at one moment and promiscuous at the next. Caine and Jourdan try to slide by on charm, but the minute either actor steps offscreen, it becomes apparent that whatever he just said or did was nonsensical. Still, the assortment of actors in Silver Bears is beguilingly random. Charles Gray from The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)? David Warner from Straw Dogs (1971)? Tom—make that Tommy—Smothers??? Overseeing the whole mess is Czechoslovakian director Ivan Passer, who paces scenes briskly but shoots them without any special style, a problem exacerbated by Claude Bolling’s dorky musical score.

Silver Bears: FUNKY

1980 Week: Dressed to Kill

          Two of the least admirable qualities of Brian De Palma’s directorial style coalesced in this quasi-controversial thriller—his atrocious onscreen treatment of women and his shameless borrowings from Alfred Hitchcock’s bag of cinematic tricks. Beyond transposing a number of key elements from Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), Dressed to Kill is so hyper-sexualized that the picture’s extremes overshadow its meritorious elements. At its best, Dressed to Kill is pure cinema, with De Palma using only images, music, and sound effects for long stretches of screen time. These dialogue-free passages have a certain allure, even though the nonverbal bits are so simplistic that the film occasionally seems designed to communicate to children—that is, if children could watch a hard-R thriller with close-ups of razor blades slicing flesh, as well as nearly pornographic images of female masturbation. Yet that’s De Palma in full bloom, placing sophisticated techniques in the service of puerile subject matter.

          Dressed to Kill begins with Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson), an unappreciated housewife living outside New York City. Desperately lonely, she comes on to her shrink, Dr. Robert Elliott (Michael Caine), who politely and professionally refuses the advance. Then Kate meets a handsome stranger and has a hot tryst with a tragic outcome—walking away from her lover’s apartment, Kate gets assaulted and killed by a mysterious assailant. The only witness to the murder is prostitute Liz Blake (Nancy Allen), who teams up with Kate’s teenaged son, Peter (Keith Gordon), to find the killer. Dr. Elliott gets dragged into the mix when it becomes apparent the murderer might be a patient.

          One of several movies that De Palma wrote in addition to directing, Dressed to Kill works fairly well as a whodunit, thanks to clever misdirection on De Palma’s part, but it fails in many regards as entertainment. Succumbing to a characteristic weakness, De Palma loses control of the story for long periods by indulging in visual excess, whether it’s the “shocking” opening sequence of Kate pleasuring herself or the endless scene of Kate and her would-be lover pursuing each other in a museum. With Ralf D. Bode’s gauzy cinematography and Pino Donaggio’s string-driven score creating a cottony milieu, De Palma generates something that walks a fine line between mainstream moviemaking and soft-core porn. The movie also suffers from a severe Caine shortage—the top-billed player isn’t in the movie all that much, and he sleepwalks through his scenes. Dickinson approaches her raunchy role with great verve, and Allen’s streetwise sexiness is appealing, but there’s a vacuum at the center of the movie. Nonetheless, Dressed to Kill is an important part of De Palma’s Hitchcock-tribute cycle; while his next Hitch homage, Blow Out (1981), is a much better movie, Dressed to Kill is a pure statement of impure thoughts.

Dressed to Kill: FUNKY

1980 Week: The Island

Despite the massive success of two films based on his books, Jaws (1975) and The Deep (1977), all it took to derail the building of Peter Benchley into a Hollywood brand name was the colossal failure of The Island. In fact, The Island did horrible things to the careers of nearly everyone involved, including star Michael Caine and director Michael Ritchie. Even though it was made on a significant budget of $22 million, the silly, turgid, and violent movie is little more than a second-rate exploitation flick, and the plot is so far-fetched as to border on camp. The “hero” of the piece is a prickly UK-born journalist named Blair Maynard (Caine), who travels to the Caribbean in order to solve the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. Inexplicably, given the possible dangers of the mission, Maynard brings along his estranged young son, Justin (Jeffrey Frank), hoping for some family bonding. The intrepid reporter soon learns that an island in the middle of the Triangle is home to an ancient band of French pirates, who have been attacking ships for centuries, building an insular society from plundered goods and perpetuating their line by inbreeding with a handful of females. The leader of the gang is a ruthless criminal named Nau (David Warner), who kidnaps Blair’s son and brainwashes the boy into becoming some sort of heir apparent. None of this makes much sense. Yet the ludicrous nature of The Island’s plot wouldn’t matter all that much if the movie provided thrills. Unfortunately, Ritchie was asleep at the wheel, filming events in the flat visual style of a ’70s TV show and letting performers veer into cartoony excess. Caine, for instance, delivers one of his patented “when all else fails, scream” performances. The film’s costumes and sets look cheap and random, with no overriding design aesthetic connecting the elements, and the story’s decent into Straw Dogs-style malarkey about a civilized man turning savage feels trite and unsavory. Worst of all, the movie’s dialogue is often alarmingly stupid. (There’s a reason Benchley’s original scripts for Jaws and The Deep were rewritten by professional screenwriters, but at least he shouldered the blame for this one alone.) Ultimately, the best thing about The Island may be the film’s slam-bang poster, which promises supernatural excitement that is not present in the movie itself.

The Island: LAME

Plaza Suite (1971) & California Suite (1978)

          During the ’70s, it seemed as if playwright/screenwriter Neil Simon was an industry rather an individual—every year except 1978, he unveiled a new play, and from 1970 to 1979 no fewer than 11 features were released with Simon credited as writer. When the man slept is a mystery. In fact, he even managed to crank out a quasi-sequel to one of his own hits. Plaza Suite premiered on Broadway in 1968 before hitting the big screen in 1971, and its follow-up, California Suite, debuted onstage in 1976 before becoming a movie in 1978. Neither project represents the apex of Simon’s artistry, but both are rewarding. The title of Plaza Suite is a pun, because the film comprises a “suite” of three mini-plays, each of which takes place within the same suite at the Plaza Hotel in New York City.

          In order of appearance, the vignettes concern a middle-aged couple breaking up when the husband’s infidelity is revealed; a tacky Hollywood producer inviting his childhood sweetheart, now married, to his room for a tryst; and another middle-aged couple going crazy when their adult daughter won’t leave the suite’s bathroom even though guests are waiting downstairs to watch her get married. The first sequence is a bittersweet dance, the second is bedroom farce with a touch of pathos, and the third is an explosion of silly slapstick. Plaza Suite grows more entertaining as it spirals toward its conclusion, finally achieving comedic liftoff during the third sequence, which is by far the most fully realized.

          Walter Matthau somewhat improbably plays the lead roles in all three sequences, and he’s terrific—chilly as the adulterous husband, smarmy as the producer, enraged as the would-be father of the bride. His primary costars are a poignant Maureen Stapleton in the first sequence, a delicately funny Barbara Harris in the second, and an entertainingly frazzled Lee Grant in the third. Plaza Suite drags a bit, and it’s tough to get revved up for each new sequence, but the fun stuff outweighs everything else.

          California Suite wisely takes a different approach—although the play of California Suite featured four separate stories, in the style of Plaza Suite, the film version cross-cuts to create momentum. And while Matthau is back (in a new role), California Suite benefits from a larger cast and more use of exterior locations. The film is primarily set in the Beverly Hills Hotel, but Simon (who wrote the screenplays for both adaptations) includes many places beyond the hotel. One thread of the story involves a New York career woman (Jane Fonda) bickering with her estranged screenwriter husband (Alan Alda) over custody of their daughter. Another thread concerns a British actress  (Maggie Smith) in town for the Oscars, accompanied by her husband (Michael Caine), a gay man she wed in order to avoid gaining a reputation as a spinster. The silliest thread involves a Philadelphia businessman (Matthau) trying to keep his wife (Elaine May) from discovering the prostitute in their room. And the final thread depicts the deteriorating friendship between two Chicago doctors (Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor), who bicker their way through a catastrophe-filled vacation.

          Smith won an Oscar for California Suite, and her storyline benefits from the way Caine and Smith expertly volley bitchy dialogue. The Alda/Fonda scenes are more pedestrian, and they’re also the most stage-bound pieces of the movie; still, both actors attack their roles with vigor. Matthau’s vignettes are quite funny, with lots of goofy business about trying to hide the hooker behind curtains, under beds, and so forth. Plus, as they did in A New Leaf (1971), May and Matthau form a smooth comedy duo. Only the Cosby/Pryor scenes really underwhelm, not by any fault of the actors but because both men have such distinctive standup personas that it seems limiting to confine them within the light-comedy parameters of Simon’s style. Unlike its predecessor, California Suite eventually sputters—the funniest scenes occur well before the end.

          As a final note, it’s interesting to look at both pictures and see how two very different filmmakers approached the challenge of delivering Simon’s work to the screen. For Plaza Suite, Arthur Hiller simply added close-ups and camera movement to accentuate the rhythms of the stage production, and for California Suite, Herbert Ross took a more holistic path toward realizing the work as cinema. Yet in both cases, of course, Simon’s wordplay is king.

Plaza Suite: GROOVY

California Suite: GROOVY

Sleuth (1972)

          In some ways, criticizing the offbeat mystery film Sleuth is a pointless exercise—the picture asks viewers to accept so many contrivances that it’s as if Sleuth exists in its own alternate universe. Adapted by Anthony Shaffer from his Tony-winning play and featuring only two actors, both of whom were nominated for Oscars, Sleuth presents clever performances in the service of outlandish writing, making such considerations as believability and substance secondary. Viewers turned off by the prospect of watching two actors speaking almost nonstop for 138 minutes needn’t expose themselves to a single frame of Sleuth, whereas fans of the leading actors—Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier—will find so much to delight them that the movie’s weaker elements won’t impede enjoyment. In other words, anyone who willingly commits to watching Sleuth is likely to be rewarded in some way, even though the movie is pure fluff.

          The set-up is deceptively simple. Handsome young English-Italian hairdresser Milo Tindle (Caine) arrives at the sprawling country estate of rich mystery-novel writer Andrew Wyke (Olivier), per Andrew’s invitation. In short order, it’s revealed that Milo is the secret lover of Andrew’s estranged wife, and that Andrew has summoned Milo to make a bizarre proposition. Claiming he’s eager to be rid of his wife—because Andrew himself has a lover with whom he’d like to set up housekeeping—Andrew suggests that Milo stage a break-in at the estate’s mansion and steal valuable jewels. Then, Andrew says, Milo can fence the jewels while Andrew reclaims their cash value from his insurance company. In essence, Andrew will pay Milo to take the missus off his hands.

          If you find that premise hard to accept, then brace yourself for dozens of other equally far-fetched contrivances, because Sleuth comprises an elaborate game that the two characters play with each other. Andrew runs a scheme on Milo, who outwits his opponent, so Andrew conjures another scheme, and so on. Every element of Sleuth is overwrought, right down to production designer Ken Adam’s sets, which are stuffed to the brim with eccentric tchotchkes. And while the biggest lark in Sleuth won’t be spoiled here, suffice to say that the second half of the story is predicated on a “secret” that is not sufficiently withheld from the audience. By the end of the movie, Sleuth has become so silly that the whole enterprise borders on camp.

          Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz—no stranger to dialogue-heavy dramaturgy after making classics including All About Eve (1950)—presents Shaffer’s talky tale in as dynamic a fashion as possible, sending cameras probing and prowling through confined spaces in order to find unexpectedly dramatic compositions. (The less said of the way the movie periodically cuts to inanimate objects in order to wriggle free of editing traps, the better.) As for the film’s two performances, they’re royally entertaining. Olivier provides technically meticulous artifice—happily flying way over the top at regular intervals—while Caine grounds the movie with more realistic textures of amusement, fear, and greed. Both actors have done better work elsewhere, but Sleuth may contain the most acting either performer ever did in a single film. And since the whole movie’s a confection anyway, why not overindulge?

Sleuth: GROOVY

The Eagle Has Landed (1976)

Representing a middling finale to an impressive career, The Eagle Has Landed was the last movie directed by action guy John Sturges, whose previous output included such classics as The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963). Considering Sturges’ skill and the caliber of the film’s cast, The Eagle Has Landed should be terrific, but the story is hopelessly convoluted, and the film never quite overcomes the problem of featuring Nazis as protagonists. Based on a novel by Jack Higgins and written by Bond-movie veteran Tom Mankiewicz, who was generally better suited to tongue-in-cheek escapist fare, the narrative concerns an outlandish Third Reich plot to kidnap British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the height of the war’s European action. Some of the Germans behind the scheme are, in descending order of rank, Hitler confidante Heinrich Himmler (Donald Pleasence), an officer named Radl (Robert Duvall, complete with eye patch), an IRA double-agent named Devlin (Donald Sutherland), and a disgraced Nazi officer named Steiner (Michael Caine). The overcooked plot also includes American soldiers (played by, among others, Larry Hagman and Treat Williams), plus a British lass (Jenny Agutter) who shares romantic history with Devlin. (In case you’ve already forgotten, he’s the IRA guy.) Just describing the plot of The Eagle Has Landed is exhausting, and while watching the movie is not quite as much of a chore as this synopsis might suggest, The Eagle Has Landed lacks the jaunty quality of Sturges’ best action pictures. On the bright side, there’s some low-wattage fun to be had in watching Caine play a snotty officer who openly expresses contempt for his superiors, or in watching Sutherland play one of his signature romantic rogues. Plus, Duvall has a few strong moments as the put-upon Radl, a mid-level officer who endeavors to follow orders while slyly working the Third Reich political system to protect himself from punishment in the event of failure. Good luck, pal!

The Eagle Has Landed: FUNKY

Too Late the Hero (1970)

          After making an influential and popular World War II action picture, The Dirty Dozen (1967), it was inevitable that eclectic filmmaker Robert Aldrich would return to the milieu, and almost just as inevitable that his foll0w-up picture would fall short of the high bar set by its predecessor. While Too Late the Hero features the same muscular combination of provocative drama and slick production values that made The Dirty Dozen so vital, Too Late the Hero suffers from a diffuse storyline and a padded running time, to say nothing of an ineffectual leading performance. So, although the picture is more or less watchable, even if one is tempted to hit the fast-forward button during repetitive sequences, Too Late the Hero fails to make much of an impression.

          Cliff Robertson stars as Lt. Lawson, an American junior officer whose assignment as a command-center translator in the Pacific theater keeps him away from combat. The cushy gig doesn’t last, however, because Lawson gets reassigned to a British commando unit tasked with taking out a Japanese radio installation. Serving under uptight Capt. Hornsby (Denholm Elliot), Lawson and his new comrades trudge through dense jungle, avoiding Japanese patrols, until a series of skirmishes change their circumstances for the worse. Eventually, Lawson and a snarky British enlisted man, Hearne (Michael Caine), inherit responsibility for completing the mission, forcing the unlikely predicament of Lawson becoming a valiant leader. The idea of the movie is strong—exploring the question of whether heroes are born or made—but the execution is not.

          Aldrich, who also co-wrote the picture, lets the narrative drag through unnecessary sequences (there are lots of marching montages), and his contrivance of a combat-averse protagonist means the main character spends a great deal of time watching other people do interesting things. Exacerbating the problem, Robertson simply isn’t expressive enough here to make Lawson’s journey fascinating—in fact, both Caine and Elliot upstage Robertston whenever the British actors share screen time with their American leading man. Caine is largely underused until the last stretch of the picture, when his acidic line deliveries become meaningful on a story level, and Elliot actually comes off the best of the three by portraying a stalwart man whose desire to demonstrate bravery leads him to take foolish risks.

Too Late the Hero: FUNKY

The Last Valley (1970)

          Though he’s best remembered as the author of sweeping historical novels including 1975’s Shogun, James Clavell also enjoyed a significant career in film, co-writing The Great Escape (1963) and directing To Sir, with Love (1966), in addition to working on several other projects. Notwithstanding his subsequent screenwriting contributions to TV adaptations of his books, however, Clavell’s last film work was writing, producing, and directing the intense epic The Last Valley. Big on every level, from the scale of its visuals to the scope of its themes, the picture has many admirers among fans of historical dramas, partly because it dramatizes an obscure chapter in world events and partly because it treats its subject matter with intelligence and respect.

          Set in the early 17th century, the movie involves minor players in the Thirty Years War, a conflict revolving around religious disputes between Catholics and Protestants. Based on a novel by J.B. Pick, Clavell’s screenplay takes place in a secluded, sparsely populated German valley. When the story begins, a mysterious man named Vogel (Omar Sharif) flees through plague-infested Europe until stumbling onto the valley, which has escaped the ravages of illness and war. Unfortunately, a roving armada of mercenaries, led by a character known only as the Captain (Michael Caine), finds the valley at the same time.

          The Captain’s soldiers claim the valley as their private empire, demanding food and women in exchange for not slaughtering the locals. As the convoluted narrative unfolds, the Captain plays his subjects against each other to tighten his stranglehold, with Vogel emerging as the voice of compassion when a local aristocrat (Nigel Davenport) and a local priest (Per Oscarsson) rail against the Captain’s oppression—and the officer’s cavalier attitude toward religion. God is a major topic of discussion throughout the movie, which gets heavily philosophical during many long interludes of extended dialogue; although Clavell spices up the picture by with bloody vignettes at quasi-regular intervals, The Last Valley is primarily an intellectual exercise.

          Unfortunately, vague characterizations diminish the story’s potential impact. Vogel is a cipher, and the Captain so clearly represents Big Ideas that he never emerges as an individual. A clash in acting styles is problematic, as well: Caine tries to employ his usual virile naturalism, but he’s held back by the metaphorical quality of his role and by his shoddy German accent, while Sharif preens through a competent but superficial performance. Still, the pluses outweigh the minuses. Clavell presents many handsome 70mm vistas, and John Barry’s muscular score amplifies the story’s emotions. Furthermore, while The Last Valley sometimes seems like a dry history lesson, the film’s merciless final act underscores the insanity of shedding blood in God’s name.

The Last Valley: GROOVY

Ashanti (1979)

          Briskly entertaining, shallow, and slightly trashy, Ashanti hides its lurid nature behind a veneer of social relevance—since the thriller concerns modern-day slavery in Africa, ponderous opening text suggests the film will be a serious exposé, when in fact Ashanti is simply an old-fashioned potboiler. Taken for what it is, however, the picture is fun to watch (or least as much fun as a movie exploring distasteful subject matter can be), because it boasts ample star power, exotic locations, and a zippy storyline. Sure, some of the plot twists are a bit convenient, but not to such a degree that they disrupt the B-movie flow of what’s happening.

          Michael Caine stars as Dr. David Linderby, a World Health Organization physician working in a remote African village with his beautiful, African-born wife, Anansa (Beverly Johnson). Because Anansa is black and dressed in regional clothing, she’s mistaken for a local girl by an Arabian slaver, Suleiman (Peter Ustinov), whose minions kidnaps her along with several villagers. The movie then cuts back and forth between Anansa’s attempts to escape captivity and David’s efforts to rescue his bride. David’s principal accomplice is a mysterious Brit named Brian Walker (Rex Harrison), who introduces David to a series of mercenary helpers; eventually, Brian puts David together with Malik (Kabir Bedi), a nomad who wants revenge against Suleiman for the death of his family.

          As directed by the versatile Richard Fleischer, Ashanti zooms along from one colorful episode to the next, with Ustinov’s flamboyant performance providing the main driving force. Cooing his lines in a mellifluous accent and peppering his savagery with courtly manners, Ustinov makes Suleiman into an oversized villain straight out of a comic book. Bedi counters him nicely with steely-eyed intensity, and Johnson—famous offscreen as the world’s first black supermodel—smartly operates within her comfort zone of evocative poses and intense glances. Harrison, William Holden, and Omar Sharif provide the comfort of familiar faces during their brief appearances.

          And if Caine gets a bit lost in the shuffle for much of the movie—Ashanti was made around the time he segued to phone-it-in mode for popcorn pictures—that’s fine because he brings the requisite action-hero heat during the pulpy climax. To be clear, Ashanti isn’t special or even all that credible, but it accomplishes everything it sets out to accomplish and it ends before wearing out its welcome. When a movie has nothing to say (despite any intimations to the contrary), there’s a lot to be said for efficiency.

Ashanti: GROOVY

X, Y & Zee (1972)

          Yet another shrill melodrama from the bleakest period of Elizabeth Taylor’s screen career—the wasteland between her triumphant performance in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and her ascension to grande dame status in the ’80s—X, Y & Zee features Taylor and Michael Caine as hateful spouses battling over issues including the husband’s myriad dalliances. In other words, it’s nearly 110 minutes of Taylor screaming, threatening, and whining. Set in London, the movie tracks the relationship between unfaithful architect Robert Blakely (Caine) and his disturbed wife, Zee (Taylor). They fight virtually from sun-up to sundown, with Zee constantly promising to kill herself and/or Robert; meanwhile, Robert alternates between joining the sparring matches and numbing himself with booze. At a lavish party one night, Robert meets Stella (Susannah York), an elegant and seemingly untroubled young woman, with whom he begins an affair. However, as Robert’s feelings for Stella blossom into love, a threatened Zee lashes out by stalking the lovers, tossing Robert’s possessions into the street, and, finally, attempting suicide.

          Then, while recovering in the hospital, Zee requests that Stella visit her, and Stella, quite stupidly, accepts the offer. Zee starts playing mind games with her husband’s mistress, who inexplicably reveals to Zee her deepest personal secret. And so it goes—to quote a line Stella delivers to Robert at one point, “It’s all very brittle and boring and trite.” She’s talking about Zee’s behavior, but she could just as easily be talking about X, Y & Zee itself. Caine is fine here, since he does icy nastiness better than just about anyone, though York is merely decorative, while Taylor is an outright embarrassment. She overacts ridiculously; she’s slathered with whorish eye makeup; she wears flamboyant costumes like muumuus and ponchos, presumably to mask her expanding waistline; and she sports silly fashion accoutrements like, at one point, a gold headband that looks like a leftover from her days playing Cleopatra. (Available through Columbia Screen Classics via WarnerArchive.com)

X, Y & Zee: LAME

The Destructors (1974)

          A thriller without any real thrills, The Destructors is nonetheless quite watchable simply because of narrative economy, production values, and star power. Shot on location throughout picturesque Marseille and Paris, the movie zips along at a strong pace, throwing together an assassin, a drug dealer, and a pair of policemen in a plot filled with deception and intrigue. The film has enough beautiful women, fast cars, and shootouts at unusual locales for a James Bond flick, and its cast is topped by three big names: Michael Caine, James Mason, and Anthony Quinn. Plus, as photographed by the great British DP Douglas Slocombe, the movie is slick and occasionally beautiful, with scenes set at dusk featuring particularly interesting qualities of light. What’s missing? Well, that would be tension, of course.

           It’s hard to tell whether screenwriter Judd Bernard or director Robert Parrish dropped the ball, but whatever the case, The Destructors might be the politest movie ever made about killers. Nobody ever seems especially upset about being targeted for murder, and only Caine summons a smidgen of intensity during his most dangerous scenes. Still, if likeable actors and pretty locations are enough to make so-so romantic comedies palatable, can’t those qualities be enough to make a so-so thriller palatable?

          The story itself isn’t the problem, because the same narrative material treated with more passion could have rendered livelier results. Steve Ventura (Quinn), an American drug-enforcement agent stationed in Europe, decides to seek revenge for the murders of several colleagues by operatives of an aristocratic French drug kingpin, Jacques Brizzard (Mason). Acting on a sly tip from a French cop, Ventura hires jet-setting hit man John Deray (Caine)—who turns out to be an old friend of Ventura’s—to kill Brizzard. Deray then seduces Brizzard’s sexy daughter, Lucienne (Maureen Kerwin), as a way of gaining access to the highly protected criminal. Meanwhile, Ventura figures out a way to snare Brizzard legally, so he tries to call off the hit. Double-crosses and other twists ensue.

          Caine is great fun as Deray, all smiles during off-hours and all business when taking out victims—his handling of a rooftop hit is pricelessly nonchalant—and Mason is appropriately oily in his small part. However, Quinn is just awful, mugging and quipping his way through an amateurish performance. He’s not quite enough to sink the movie, though it sure seems as if that’s his goal. FYI, watch for former JFK speechwriter Pierre Salinger, in one of his only acting roles, playing an extended cameo as Ventura’s boss. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

The Destructors: FUNKY

Peeper (1976)

          Yet another film-noir spoof, as if there weren’t enough of those in the ’70s, Peeper is a trifle that goes down smoothly because of charismatic actors and skilled filmmakers, even though it’s among the least memorable pictures ever made by its participants. Director Peter Hyams, who tried his hand at several genres before eventually finding his groove with larky conspiracy thrillers in the late ’70s, wasn’t the right man to helm a lighthearted parody, so his assertive visual style clashes with the material from beginning to end. That said, screenwriter W.D. Richter (working from a novel by Keith Laumer) was in the early days of an equally eclectic career, so his script misses the mark just as widely as Hyams’ direction. Richter capably emulates some tropes of ’40s private-eye movies, notably caustic narration, but his screenplay isn’t clever or funny enough to make an impression. Nonetheless, Hyams’ sophisticated approach to image-making and Richter’s cockeyed dialogue style are interesting in any context, so their behind-the-scenes efforts ensure that Peeper has style, albeit not the correct style.

          Better still, Peeper has Michael Caine. Even though the charming Cockney rogue coasts through this picture, it’s pleasurable to listen to him deliver snotty rants like this one: “My having the photo bothers you, you being bothered bothers me, and the fact that I haven’t been thrown out of here sooner bothers me even more.” And, yes, the plot of Peeper is so murky that Caine’s speech actually makes sense in context. The gist of the story, which takes place in the ’40s, is that second-rate private eye Tucker (Caine) has been hired to find a man’s long-missing daughter, who is now an adult. Tucker discerns that the woman might have become part of the Pendergast family, a wealthy clan living in Beverly Hills, and Tucker sets his eyes on Ellen (Natalie Wood) as a likely prospect. Intrigue and shenanigans ensue, none of them particularly distinctive or intriguing, though the stars do exactly what’s expected of them. Caine is bitchy and suave, while Wood is aloof and gorgeous. So, if you want a minor jolt of star power delivered in attractive packaging, Peeper might entertain you—just remember to adjust your expectations.

Peeper: FUNKY

The Romantic Englishwoman (1975)

          A closely observed character drama with a few thriller elements thrown in for added tension, The Romantic Englishwoman has all the hallmarks of director Joseph Losey’s best work: evocative European locations, immaculate performances, subtle writing, and an undercurrent of menace. So, even though the story is nominally about Elizabeth (Glenda Jackson), the dissatisfied wife of successful novelist Lewis (Michael Caine), it’s also about Thomas (Helmut Berger), a German freeloader who claims to be a poet but really makes his living as a drug courier. These characters muddle through life, the Brits narcotized by their boring routine and the German energized by the dangerous unpredictability of his existence, until their collision produces an emotional explosion with lasting repercussions.

          Elizabeth, for instance, is so tired of Lewis’ withholding quality that she does things like walking across her lawn naked in full view of a neighbor—anything to rebel against the numbing status quo. When she meets Thomas while on holiday in Germany, Elizabeth inadvertently broadcasts so much need that Thomas senses an opportunity. Then, after Thomas loses a drug shipment and flees the continent to avoid reprisal, he arrives at Elizabeth’s doorstep pretending to be a fan of Lewis’ work. Handicapped by an artist’s ego, Thomas savors the younger man’s fawning attention (well, as fawning as this cold-blooded operator can be), even though Lewis senses the physical charge sparking between his houseguest and his wife.

          Working his signature slow-burn vibe, Caine meticulously illustrates the way Lewis drives himself crazy with visions of his wife’s possible infidelity; when Elizabeth and Thomas finally consummate their attraction, it’s as if Lewis has perversely willed the event into being. Jackson, flying high during the most vibrant stretch of her career, paints a complex portrait of a woman driven by guilt, insecurity, longing, and regret—she’s a loving mother to her young son, but also a short-tempered harridan who attacks her nanny when she believes the nanny has captured Thomas’ affections.

          The Romantic Englishwoman takes its time getting where it’s going, so the first hour of the movie often seems repetitive and unfocused. However, once all the pieces are in place, the second hour gains intensity because romantic intrigue is coupled with the threat of Thomas’ drug-business associates targeting him for revenge. One might argue that Thomas Wiseman, who wrote the novel upon which the film is based and cowrote the script with Tom Stoppard, should have cut a few subplots to make the story flow more smoothly, and it’s true that Losey indulges his penchant for slow pacing by exploring narrative discursions. Nonetheless, when The Romantic Englishwoman connects, it’s quite potent, particularly in the domestic scenes of Elizabeth and Lewis pouring salt in each other’s psychological wounds.

The Romantic Englishwoman: GROOVY

The Man Who Would Be King (1975)

          After spending much of the ’60s in the creative wilderness, director John Huston rebounded in the early ’70s with the acclaimed character drama Fat City and the eccentric Western The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, both released in 1972. Still, it seemed unlikely he would ever make another classic equal to his studio-era masterpieces The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and The African Queen (1951), both of which starred Humphrey Bogart. It also seemed unlikely he would ever find the right actors for his adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s story The Man Who Would Be King, since Huston originally meant to make the picture with Bogart and Clark Gable. Yet Huston gracefully achieved both goals: Engrossing, spectacular, and thoughtful, his film of The Man Who Would Be King is among the all-time great adventure movies, perfectly meshing a once-in-a-lifetime onscreen duo with a timeless parable about man’s lust for gold.

          Michael Caine and Sean Connery play English soldiers in late 19th-century India, when the country was still part of the British Empire. Determined to improve their lot and emboldened by their belief in the superiority of white Christians over dark-skinned pagans, Peachy (Caine) and Danny (Connery) quit the army and venture to the remote terrain of Kafiristan, which is rumored to harbor untold treasures. Employing their army training, the lads help bolster the defenses of a remote village against violent marauders, and then a chance occurrence elevates their stature.

          During an attack, Danny is hit by an arrow but doesn’t flinch, convincing the locals he must be a god. (In fact, the arrow struck his leather bandolier.) Soon, Danny is summoned to a nearby holy city, with Peachy in tow, and another chance occurrence secures their illusion of divinity: The locals mistake Danny’s Freemason crest for a symbol of Alexander the Great, thus mistaking him for a reincarnation of the fabled conqueror. A palace filled with gold is handed to the soldiers, but when Peachy suggests they grab as much loot as they can carry and leave before their ruse is discovered, a power-mad Danny insists on staying.

          The stage thus set, Huston elegantly stages the duo’s inevitable fall from grace. The film’s climax is beautifully realized thanks to committed acting, crisp storytelling, and dazzling stunt work. Huston and co-screenwriter Gladys Hill capture the dangers and delights of Kipling’s style throughout the picture, so scenes in crowded India are chaotic and fast, while scenes in sprawling mountaintop temples are meditative and resplendent. Furthermore, veteran cameraman Oswald Morris’ lush photography makes locations like a vertiginous mountaintop staircase and a terrifying rope bridge seem like legends come to life. Huston employs a quasi-documentary feel for the most exotic scenes, creating a sense that Caine and Connery wandered into a never-before-seen wonderland; this intoxicating atmosphere is accentuated by the presence of Caine’s real-life wife, Guyana-born beauty Shakira Caine, in her only significant acting role. (Christopher Plummer appears in enjoyable framing sequences as Kipling.)

          As for Caine and Connery, they live up to the grandiose production surrounding them. Trading working-class banter like blokes sharing a pint, the actors convey the quality of deep friendship, so watching avarice cleave their relationship feels like observing great tragedy. That the actors never reunited onscreen defines The Man Who Would Be King as a singular document of their cinematic camaraderie.

The Man Who Would Be King: OUTTA SIGHT

The Black Windmill (1974)

          The Black Windmill is a straightforward thriller distinguished by the onscreen participation of Michael Caine and the behind-the-camera participation of director Don Siegel. Caine grounds the picture in his understated performance brimming with just-below-the-surface intensity, and Siegel makes sure the movie stays laser-focused on the task of generating tension. So, even though the plot is quite ordinary and the ending is a bit on the abrupt side, it’s hard to argue with results, and The Black Windmill is consistently compelling, exciting, and nerve-jangling. It may not be what the poster promises (“The ultimate experience in controlled terror”), but it’s a solid potboiler.

          Caine plays Major John Tarrant, a British covert operative under the supervision of unctuous spymaster Cedric Harper (Donald Pleasence). Violent crooks led by a mysterious Irishman (John Vernon) kidnap Tarrant’s son, then use their hostage for leverage to pressure Harper into handing over a cache of diamonds his agency is holding. (Rest assured this seems a lot less convoluted when it unfolds onscreen.) The story twists in interesting ways as Tarrant realizes his superiors value their financial assets more highly than the life of his son, so Tarrant steals the diamonds and attempts to outsmart the crooks. While still leaving room for a touch of nuance here and there, the picture builds steadily from one nasty situation to the next while Tarrant drifts further into illegality.

          As always, Caine excels at illustrating on-the-fly calculations; watching him assess situations and change strategy is pure pleasure, because subtle fluctuations dart across his expressive features like lightning sparking in the night sky. Pleasence is terrific as well, playing a heartless survivor whose mousy demeanor hides lethal ambition, and Vernon delivers another of his enjoyably florid turns as a cold-blooded monster. Joss Acklaland, Clive Revill, and chilly European starlet Delphine Seyrig also appear, and Nicholas and Alexandra Oscar nominee Janet Suzman gives an emotional performance as Tarrant’s estranged wife, who finds herself drawn back to Tarrant because of their family’s harrowing circumstances. Thanks to all of these virtues, it doesn’t matter that The Black Windmill isn’t really about anything, because the movie does exactly what it’s supposed to do and nothing more.

The Black Windmill: GROOVY

The Swarm (1978)

          Hollywood’s master of disaster, producer Irwin Allen, was well into the unintentional self-parody phase of his career by the late ’70s, less than a decade after he first started mining mass misfortune for mass entertainment. Instead of the towering infernos and upside-down cruise ships of yore, he restored to demonizing insects in The Swarm, an undercooked comin’-at-ya picture in which killer bees, mostly depicted as animated blotches roaming across the skyline, attack a small town in the Southwest before heading to Houston. Filled with all the usual tropes of Allen’s pictures, from large mobilizations of rescue forces to trite melodramas playing out against the backdrop of tragedy, The Swarm also features one of Allen’s trademark hodgepodge casts.

          Michael Caine, starting his slide into ridiculous paycheck gigs, stars as a bug specialist who takes command of the government’s response to the bees, and he’s accompanied by Richard Widmark (as a general who wants to blow up everything in sight), Henry Fonda (as a wheelchair-bound immunologist), Richard Chamberlain (as a Southern-fried scientist/crankypants whose sole function seems to be scowling at Caine), and Katharine Ross (as a scientist/love interest who gets stung by more than Cupid’s arrow), plus Patty Duke Astin, Olivia de Havilland, Bradford Dillman, Jose Ferrer, Lee Grant, Ben Johnson, and Fred MacMurray.

          Even though a few elements are respectable, like Jerry Goldsmith’s exciting score, The Swarm is, well, swarming with ludicrous highlights, because the movie’s so preposterously straight-faced it plays like a comedy. The plotting is, of course, extraordinarily stupid, with Caine regularly leaving his post as the government’s top man during a major crisis to run inconsequential errands with Ross so they can share cutesy patter while driving around the countryside. Better still, from the perspective of amusing awfulness, is the outrageously limp dialogue, which nails the audience with clunky exposition as mercilessly as the bees zap their victims. “Just because you’re the mayor of Marysville, that doesn’t make you an engineer,” Johnson barks to MacMurray, who replies, “Look, nobody asked you to leave Houston and come here to retire, you know.” Ouch.

           In its most hysterically insipid moments (which are, sadly, outnumbered by long stretches of flat tedium), The Swarm approaches full-on camp, like the bee attack on a nuclear power plant or the colorful bit of Caine running through the small town, screaming, “The killer bees are coming! Everybody get inside!” (On a less amusing note, Widmark takes to referring to the Africanized bees as “Africans,” leading to icky lines like, “By tomorrow, there will be no more Africans in Houston!”) The movie’s best moment, though, is undoubtedly the scene in which Caine coaches a young bee-sting victim through a bout of hysterics by convincing the boy that the giant bee floating in front of his head—depicted, with goofy obviousness, by a giant superimposed bee—is a hallucination.

          For good or ill, The Swarm is no hallucination, because this two-and-a-half-hour venom blast of a gloriously bad creature feature really exists. And, yes, you read that right: Though originally released at 116 minutes, there’s an extended version of The Swarm clocking in at 155 minutes. Rest assured the whole damn mess was endured for the sake of this review. Anti-venom, please!

The Swarm: FREAKY

Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976)

          Despite a fantastic cast, the would-be farce Harry and Walter Go to New York falls flat because only a handful of the movie’s myriad one-liners, sight gags, and slapstick routines actually elicit laughter. A failed attempt to blend the Vaudevillian style of silent-era comedy with the elaborate con-man plotting of The Sting (1973), the ineptly written but lavishly produced picture follows a pair of nincompoop 19th-century crooks who fall into the orbit of a world-famous master criminal, then try to rob a bank before the criminal gets there first.
          James Caan and Elliot Gould play Harry and Walter, small-time robbers who get caught picking pockets during one of their low-rent song-and-dance routines. Meanwhile, gentleman thief Adam Worth (Michael Caine) gets tossed into the same jail as our heroes, but Adam’s so rich that he gets a private cell appointed with velvet curtains and silver table settings. Harry and Walter discover—and accidentally destroy—Adam’s prized blueprints for an ambitious bank job, then escape and get enmeshed with activist reporter Lissa Chestnut (Diane Keaton). Through convoluted circumstances, Harry, Walter, and Lissa end up trying to rob the bank the same night as Adam’s gang, leading to silliness like Harry and Walter stalling for time with an improvised musical number.

          As photographed in a nostalgic glow by Laszlo Kovacs, Harry and Walter looks great, and the leads are complemented by a gaggle of ace supporting players, including Val Avery, Ted Cassidy, Charles Durning, Jack Gilford, Carol Kane, Lesley Ann Warren, and Burt Young. Unfortunately, the material just isn’t there. The characters are underdeveloped, the comedic situations don’t percolate, the dialogue doesn’t sparkle, and the narrative conceit that the idiotic Harry and Walter keep stumbling into good fortune feels like a cheat. Still, it’s impossible not to find commendable elements with this much talent involved, and those high points range from the intentionally awful musical passages featuring Caan and Gould to Caine’s peerless delivery of sardonic dialogue. Providing one of the movie’s few real laughs, he dismisses the heroes by explaining that “They’re not oafs—they would require practice to become oafs.”

Harry and Walter Go to New York: FUNKY