Bequest to the Nation (1973)

          It’s not accurate to say that making historical dramas insulates filmmakers from bad reviews, but it’s obvious that critics sometimes tread gingerly when analyzing posh costume pieces laden with unquestionable thematic weight—one never wishes to find oneself in the position of denigrating a piece for mustiness only to later learn that the piece has earned high marks for illuminating some chapter of the past with which the critic was previously unfamiliar. Conversely, occasional overcompensation is a factor, hence the dismaying tendency of some reviewers to dismiss all historical dramas as cheap ploys for accolades. These realities help contextualize Bequest to the Nation, which was made in the UK and released in America as The Nelson Affair. Despite somewhat lurid subject matter, the picture ticks many familiar costume-drama boxes, from high-wattage casting to lofty dialogue, so it’s plainly catnip for the Masterpiece Theater crowd.

          That does not mean, however, that it’s entirely a stuffed-shirt sort of a picture. Thanks largely to Glenda Jackson’s gleefully overwrought performance, Bequest to the Nation is entertaining and even a bit crass. Moreover, it’s only peripherally a history lesson, since the focus of the narrative is an unusual love story. In sum, Bequest to the Nation neither wholly ratifies nor wholly undercuts presumptions associated with its genre, so giving this one a fair shake requires close inspection. Revisiting historical episodes previously depicted in the Vivien Leigh/Laurence Olivier picture That Hamilton Woman (1941), Bequest to the Nation explores the relationship between Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson (Peter Finch), England’s greatest naval commander of the Napoleonic era, and his extramarital lover, Lady Hamilton (Jackson). Despite considerable scandal, Lord Nelson abandoned his wife and took up residence with Lady Hamilton, granting her a sort of title by default even though she was common.

          At the apex of England’s sea battles with Napoleon’s forces, according to the script by Terence Rattigan (who adapted his own play), Lord Nelson withdrew from military service for an extended idyll with Lady Hamilton because she had grown weary of waiting to hear whether Lord Nelson had died in battle. A duel over Lord Nelson’s soul ensues, with Lady Hamilton arguing for civilian life while a sense of duty to country gnaws at Lord Nelson’s conscience. Woven into the narrative is the question of what status Lord Nelson might be able to offer Lady Hamilton should he die in combat, since she doesn’t have the protection of marriage. As is the norm for most films adapted from plays, Bequest to the Nation is intimate and talky, but effectively so; Finch and costars including Michael Jayston and Anthony Quayle speak beautifully, lending the piece old-fashioned luster, while Jackson achieves something closer to alchemy, blending insouciance, wickedness, and vulnerability into a persuasive characterization.

          Although the dialogue tends toward the pretentious (“England has no need of a saint at this point in history, Master Matcham, but they have great need of a hero”), posh cinematography and scoring by, respectively, Gerry Fisher and Michel Legrand, helps the film unfold smoothly. Better still, the piece concludes on a suite of poignant notes rendered vividly by Jackson. Thus it’s wrong to reject Bequest to the Nation out of hand as some safe museum piece, because it’s made of tougher stuff than that, and yet the idiom of the film has the familiar rigidity of entertainment aspiring to literary heft. The ferociousness with which Jackson channels her character’s vulgarity ameliorates the picture’s most off-putting impulses.

Bequest to the Nation: GROOVY

Wuthering Heights (1970)

          Despite its enduring stature as one of the most exquisite novels ever written, Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1847) has yet to receive a definitive screen adaptation. If only by default, the most acclaimed version to date is a 1939 drama starring Laurence Olivier as brooding romantic antihero Heathcliff. Yet by dint of the era in which it was made, the Olivier movie is chaste, even though the level of implied sexual tension is high, so there was ample reason to revisit the material in the '70s, by which time restraints upon the depiction of taboo subjects had loosened. Ironically, however, pushing cinematic boundaries is not the defining characteristic of the 1970 Wuthering Heights, which was a rare venture into the world of highbrow cinema for B-movie specialists American International Pictures. Although Patrick Tilley's intelligent script both accentuates the lurid elements of Brontë's story and adds a few dark flourishes (such as intimations about Heathcliff's parentage), the movie is, by comparison to other pictures released at the same time, as restrained as the 1939 version was in its day.

          Making this stylistic choice even more surprising is the involvement of director Robert Fuest, who later made his name helming gory but visually inventive thrillers including The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971). Rather than running with the supernatural elements of Brontë's tale, Fuest and his collaborators offer a straight transposition of the novel, albeit with a handful of additions to and/or deletions from the original narrative. What emerges from this creative process is a movie that's perhaps a bit too respectable. The image-making, mood-setting, and storytelling are all exemplary, but leading actors Anna Calder-Marshall and Timothy Dalton fail to generate the necessary romantic heat. Make no mistake, this isn't some uptight Masterpiece Theatre take on Brontë. Quite to the contrary, this Wuthering Heights is filled with betrayal and cruelty and heartbreak, often pitched at a high level of emotional intensity. The minor but important caveat is simply that the actors living inside Fuest's artfully composed frames don't reach the transcendent heights, no pun intended, to which they aspire.

          Still, there's a lot to admire here. The underlying story, of course, is remarkable—a twisted ordeal of capricious fate, overpowering love, and spiteful violence set against the metaphorically rich backdrop of remote estates dotting the hills and valleys of the English moors. Contributing fine elements to the movie are cinematographer John Coquillon, whose claustrophobic and crisp images capture the story's inherent fusion of danger and intimacy; composer Michelle Legrand, whose plaintive melodies speak for the characters' tortured souls; and title designer Maurice Binder, who sets the atmosphere perfectly with grim tableux of ragged peaks juxtaposed with overcast skies. Plus, even if Calder-Marshall and Dalton seem too controlled to get lost inside their animalistic characters, the performers look their parts thanks to unruly hair and wild eyes—the image of Cathy and Heathcliff as two halves of one otherworldly entity comes across clearly.

Wuthering Heights: GROOVY

Summer of ’42 (1971) & Class of ’44 (1973)

          Featuring one of the most lyrical love scenes in all of ’70s cinema, Summer of ’42 is an offbeat romance involving a teenage boy and a grown woman. Compassionately directed by Robert Mulligan, the film takes a bittersweet look at characters moving through profound life changes, conveying a sense of how deeply two people can comfort each other in times of need despite coming from different worlds. Screenwriter Herman Raucher, who adapted his original story into a novelization after completing the script—the book version eventually became a best-seller, just like the movie eventually became a sleeper hit—has said that the tale is autobiographical.

          According to Raucher, he was a confused 15-year-old vacationing with his family on Nantucket Island during World War II, and he became friends with a beautiful woman named Dorothy and her husband, a U.S. soldier. After the soldier was summoned to active duty, young Raucher remained friendly with Dorothy. Then, one afternoon, young Raucher arrived at Dorothy’s house moments after she learned of her husband’s death in combat. Distraught and lonely, she took young Raucher to bed, and then departed the island the next day, leaving her adolescent lover only a note.

          In the film version of this story, young Raucher is “Hermie” (Gary Grimes), a curious and kind-hearted teen spending the summer with his pals Benjie (Oliver Conant) and Oscy (Jerry Houser). Dorothy is portrayed by the mesmerizingly beautiful model-turned-actress Jennifer O’Neill. The teen high jinks that comprise much of the movie’s first half are forgettable, but all of the scenes with O’Neill have a certain magic. Not only does Mulligan guide O’Neill to a higher performance level than she ever reached in another project, but Mulligan captures the wonderment Hermie feels at connecting with a sophisticated adult. The entire movie has a nostalgic feel, with cinematographer Robert Surtees capturing the stark beauty of East Coast shorelines and composer Michel Legrand contributing tender melodies. Yet the appeal of the picture stems almost entirely from that one key scene—handled with unusual elegance and restraint, Hermie’s encounter with Dorothy is beautiful and bewildering and sad. The sequence is poetry.

          Alas, the success of the movie compelled Raucher to write a thoroughly unnecessary sequel titled Class of ’44, which was produced and released two years after the original film. Neither director Mulligan nor costar O’Neill returned, though Grimes reprised his role as Hermie. (Conant and Houser return, as well, portraying Hermie’s pals, but they remain in supporting roles.) Set during Hermie’s college years—which are heavily fictionalized extrapolations of Raucher’s real-life experiences—the bland and meandering picture primarily concerns Hermie’s romance with Julie (Deborah Winters), a high-strung coed. Julie comes off as difficult and domineering, and Winters’ performance is strident, so it’s difficult to get excited about the prospect of these two forming a lasting bond.

          Worse, Hermie emerges as a deeply ordinary collegiate who neither changes significantly during the course of the story nor has a major impact on those around him. Yes, he suffers a few coming-of-age blows, such as the death of his father, but these events feel trite compared with the transcendent experience Hermie had in Summer of ’42. The likeable Grimes does what he can with bland material, however, leavening the story’s inherent navel-gazing quality with admirable toughness. In sum, while the execution of Class of ’44 is more or less acceptable—particularly in terms of period details and production values—the whole enterprise feels perfunctory.

Summer of ’42: GROOVY

Class of ’44: FUNKY

The Outside Man (1972)

          Although technically a French film (original title: Un homme est mort), the contemplative thriller The Outside Man was shot in America with most of the dialogue spoken in English, and several Hollywood stars appear in the cast, so it plays like a U.S. film with Gallic flair. The picture begins with French hit man Lucien Bellon (Jean-Louis Trintignant) arriving in L.A. to kill a mobster. Bellon performs his task efficiently, but then things get strange when it becomes apparent that an American assassin, Lenny (Roy Scheider), has been hired to whack Bellon. Instead of fleeing back to his homeland, Bellon lingers in California—realizing he’s been used as a pawn in a larger game, Bellon is determined to take out his enemies lest he remain a perpetual target.

          Since the French gave us the word ennui, and since that anguished state was the dominant flavor in so many ’70s movies about people searching for meaning in a turbulent world, it’s fitting that a French filmmaker came to America to make a crime picture as cynical as anything from William Friedkin or Walter Hill or Sam Peckinpah. Veteran director Jacques Deray shoots The Outside Man in a minimalistic style, positioning Bellon as a cold-blooded cipher who functions perfectly in an amoral universe so long as his criminal counterparts behave predictably—thus, when his lawless world is jostled, he’s as adrift as everyone else in the topsy-turvy ’70s, desperately grasping for the terra firma of a lost reality that will never return.

          If all of this sounds a bit lofty for a hit-man thriller, rest assured that Deray’s thematic implications live mostly in the film’s subtext, since The Outside Man comprises brisk, exciting scenes of Bellon avoiding danger and forming peculiar allegiances. The Gallic gunman’s main crony is a gangland moll named Nancy Robson (Ann-Margret), who provides information and shelter, although Deray accentuates Nancy’s initial reluctance to get pulled into Bellon’s crisis. The movie also features a witty subplot involving a single mother (Georgia Engel) whom Bellon abducts—on top of never demonstrating the hysterics one might expect from someone in her situation, she eventually becomes titillated by the proximity to death, a sly commentary on how starved for excitement “average Americans” can become.

          Deray guides his actors toward restrained work that speaks to his theme of people deadened by life’s repetitive rhythms, so the diverse cast feels unified. Trintignant is lethal in a gentlemanly sort of way, Ann-Margret is amiably jaded (and sizzling, thanks to her cleavage-baring dresses), Scheider is elegantly savage, and Engel is subtly funny. (Other featured players include Angie Dickinson, as the murdered gangster’s wife, and a very young Jackie Earle Haley, as the son of Engel’s character.) The Outside Man is saturated with dense ’70s texture, from the brooding funk/jazz score by Michel Legrand to the extensive location photography that captures early-’70s L.A. in all of its sun-baked seediness. This is crime cinema at its most nihilistic, but there’s also a surprising current of human connection running through the story.

The Outside Man: GROOVY

Le Mans (1971)

          Virtually an experimental film despite its big budget and marquee star, Le Mans is actor Steve McQueen’s most ardent cinematic love letter to auto racing. Although fast-moving cars played important roles in previous McQueen flicks, notably Bullitt (1968), vehicles are more important to Le Mans than actors, including McQueen himself. Shot on location during the 1970 edition of the grueling 24 Hours of Le Mans road race, the picture has very little characterization, dialogue, or plot. Instead, it’s an impressionistic assembly of exciting footage that plays out like a blend of documentary and European art film.

          We eventually grasp the major threads of the piece, particularly the psychological damage that stoic American driver Michael Delaney (McQueen) suffered after his involvement in a crash at the previous year’s race. We also get glimpses of Delaney’s strained relationships with other drivers and the women who form an emotional constellation around the racetrack. Yet these supporting characters, played by minor European actors, all fade into the background—McQueen’s star power ensures that his is the only personality to emerge from the noise.

          Still, it’s possible that no degree of character definition would have made this piece more distinctive, since there’s a long tradition of auto-racing movies in which actors are overwhelmed by the sturm und drang of their roaring engines. Plus, it’s so clear in every frame of this picture that McQueen gets off on the mechanics of auto racing that it seems likely he got this picture made for his own satisfaction, with the idea of entertaining anyone but hardcore racing fans a secondary consideration. Thus, Le Mans is impressive but soulless.

          Some of the racing footage is undeniably exciting, showing low-riding speed machines blasting around French streets in dangerous conditions like darkness and inclement weather, so it’s impossible not to react viscerally while waiting for the inevitable catastrophes. (The movie’s crash scenes are compelling, with finely tuned vehicles crumbling to scrap given their speeds at the moment of impact.) Furthermore, director Lee H. Katzin’s team employs some truly extraordinary editing, using devices like audio dropouts and jump cuts to maximize the drama of key moments within races, and composer Michel Legrand’s jazzy, Golden Globe-nominated score turns some sequences into the equivalent of slick music videos. However, one longs for a greater sense of the men behind the wheel and the women who love them.

Le Mans: FUNKY

Ode to Billy Joe (1976)

          A thoughtful drama adapted from country singer Bobby Gentry’s 1967 song of the same name, Ode to Billy Joe has a great first hour before it unravels. So even though viewers are given a plausible explanation for why the song’s tragic protagonist, Billy Joe McAllister, jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge—the mystery that made Gentry’s song a pop-culture phenomenon—muddy storytelling dilutes an otherwise poignant experience.
          Producer-director Max Baer and screenwriter Herman Raucher build their story around Bobbie Lee Hartley (Glynis O’Connor), a precocious teenager living in rural Mississippi circa 1953. Bobbie Lee is filled with curiosity about romance and sex, but her parents won’t let her date until she’s 16. Meanwhile, Bobbie Lee’s childhood friend, the slightly older Billy Joe McAllister (Robby Benson), is feeling hormonal surges of his own, so he courts Bobbie Lee relentlessly while still respecting her boundaries. The flirting scenes in particular are filled with entertainingly ornate dialogue: “I think I’m either adopted or depraved,” O’Connor remarks at one point. “Of the two, I prefer depraved.” (Even such minor characters as Bobbie Lee’s mother get atmospheric lines: “Mosquitoes always did take to you on in the thick heat,” Mom says.)
          Baer, who played Jethro on the ’60s sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies, displays a sensitive feel for the rhythms of Southern life, so his storytelling thrives during quiet scenes. Alas, it falters elsewhere. Most problematically, Baer introduces a major plot element without sufficient clarity, making the next 20 minutes of the picture frustratingly cryptic in a manner that’s out of step with what came before. (It should also be noted that the movie’s big reveal, while appropriate to the period of the story, has not aged well.) The presence of these narrative flaws is a shame, because so many things in the movie are worth watching. O’Connor is terrific, a spitfire bristling against constricting social expectations, and Benson adds dark dimensions to his patented puppy-dog persona. Joan Hotchkis and Sandy McPeak are authentic and warm as Bobby Lee’s parents, with Hotchkis radiating maternal understanding and McPeak wearing male pride with dignity. Rounding out the family, Terence Goodman is solid as Bobbie Lee’s testosterone-crazed older brother.

          Composer Michel Legrand provides a mournful score that evokes the arrangement of Gentry’s song for stylistic unity (half the song plays over the opening credits, setting up the story, and half plays at the end, tying up loose ends). On the visual front, cinematographer Michael Hugo makes the most of authentic locations like the decrepit span used for the Tallahatchie Bridge. So even with its flaws, Ode to Billy Joe is praiseworthy for its heady mixture of atmosphere, sensitivity, and tragedy.

Ode to Billy Joe: FUNKY