1980 Week: Coast to Coast

Throughout Coast to Coast, trucker Charlie Callahan (Robert Blake) drives a big-big cattlecar loaded with cows and steers, so remarks about this movie being a load of bullshit are wholly appropriate. Among the least charming romantic comedies ever made, the film tracks the adventures of Madie Levrington (Dyan Cannon), a high-strung woman who stumbles into a relationship with Charlie. Every note of their interaction is false, from the way he initially berates a woman who’s plainly experiencing an emotional crisis to the way they form an opposites-attract bond. And while the picture mindlessly follows the rom-com playbook, writer Stanley Weiser forgets to create the important third prong of a romantic triangle. Instead, Charlie and Madie face a number of one-dimensional villains, notably Madie’s vile husband, Benjamin (Quinn K. Redeker). In a prologue, he commits her to a mental institution as a means of circumventing expensive divorce proceedings, though much of what happens afterwards suggests she might actually be unhinged. Madie escapes the hospital and hitches rides with folks including Charlie, whom she offers to pay for cross-country transport. Since he’s badly in debt, with a repo man hot on his tail, Charlie accepts the offer and, later, considers turning Madie over to goons in Benjamin’s employ so he can collect a cash reward. Notwithstanding dumb car chases and physical-comedy scenes, most of this picture’s first hour comprises ugly vignettes of Blake and Cannon screaming at each other. The final half-hour, during which they connect, break up, and reconcile, is only marginally less irritating. Blake’s characterization is witless (his character’s catchphrase: “Oh, shit!”), and Cannon runs the gamut from hyper to shrill to vapid. Even with lively country-rock tunes by folks including Rita Coolidge, Johnny Lee, Bonnie Raitt powering the soundtrack, Coast to Coast is a road movie driving on stripped gears.

Coast to Coast: LAME

The Boxer (1972)

          An Italian production starring two American dudes and a Frenchwoman, The Boxer—also known as Ripped-Off, among other titles—is a thoroughly disposable crime drama about that most familiar of topics, a pugilist who gets in trouble when gangsters ask him to throw a fight. The sorta-kinda interesting twist here is that the fighter isn’t aware he’s expected to lose on purpose. Instead, crooks pressure his manager, who stubbornly refuses to pass along the lose-or-else message. This decision costs the manager his life, and circumstances make the boxer the prime suspect in his manager’s murder. Can our hero clear his name and avenge his loyal friend? If you’ve ever seen a movie before, you know the drill. Featuring a compendium of stock moments and trite characterizations, this painfully formulaic picture exists somewhere between background noise and comfort food, with the usual lost-in-translation problems (choppy editing, questionable dubbing) adding to an overall sense of mediocrity. Nonetheless, the presence of Robert Blake in the leading role lends the project a certain level of interest.

          He plays Teddy “Cherokee” Wilson, a short but muscular boxer with a long criminal record. In the opening scene, he discovers that a manager has ripped him off, so he brawls with the gun-toting crook and secures his freedom. Broke and homeless, Teddy encounters an old friend, Mike (Orazio Orland0), who connects Teddy with a new manager, leading to the aforementioned fight-fixing intrigue. After the murder, Teddy pleads his innocence to Captain Perkins (Ernest Borgnine), the cop leading the investigation. He also struggles to win the loyalty of his dead manager’s daughter, who may or may not have seen the real killer. All of this is just as bland and perfunctory as it sounds. While Borgnine is in and out of the movie so fleetingly as to barely register, Blake is in nearly every scene. His combination of pugnacity and sensitivity is always somewhat interesting, but he’s as undisciplined here as usual, over-decorating some scenes with actorly tics and underplaying others. Still, at least he engages with the material in a serious way. Whether the material actually deserves engagement is another matter.

The Boxer: FUNKY

Electra Glide in Blue (1973)

          An intriguing film loaded with offbeat characters and stylish moments but lacking a clear storyline, the crime drama Electra Glide in Blue was the first and (to date) last directorial endeavor by successful rock-music producer James William Guercio, who oversaw the first several years of the band Chicago’s ascension. Starring diminutive Robert Blake as a Southwestern motorcycle cop who dreams of becoming a plainclothes detective, the movie tracks a murder investigation connected to stolen loot, hippies, and crazy old hermits. There’s also a subplot involving a swaggering detective whose confidence disguises embarrassing inadequacies. This characterization epitomizes this film’s modus operandi, because Electra Glide in Blue is about the gulf between how people present themselves and what they actually have inside them.
          Blake is cast perfectly here. Setting aside his subsequent real-life legal troubles, Blake was a unique onscreen force back in the day, a muscular badass crammed into a tiny body. The role of Officer John Wintergreen fits the actor beautifully not only because Wintergreen has a massive inferiority complex but also because the role allows Blake to convey innocence and sweetness, qualities that later disappeared from the actor’s screen image.

          When the story begins, Wintergreen is a by-the-book beat cop who won’t let any violator get away without a ticket, and who barely tolerates the poor work ethic of his partner, Zipper (Billy “Green” Bush). When Wintergreen discovers a dead body that’s arranged to look like a suicide, his ambition compels him to find clues suggesting murder. Identifying a crime scene gets Wintergreen a gig as the temporary sidekick of Detective Harve Poole (Mitchell Ryan), a grandstanding investigator with a wide-brimmed cowboy hat and an ever-present cigar. In a strange way, the introduction of Poole is both the moment when Electra Glide in Blue gets really interesting and the moment when the movie runs off the rails. The middle of the picture gets lost in a morass of meandering character scenes, all of which are filled with insights and surprises, but the murder mystery becomes hopelessly obscured. Then, once the movie drifts into a final act defined by multiple tragedies, Electra Glide in Blue assumes the shape of a Big Statement but doesn’t actually make a Coherent Statement.

          Still, the ride is worthwhile, partially because of the vivid performances—Ryan is especially good, conveying the fragility hidden behind a he-man’s façade—and partially because of the spectacular cinematography by Conrad Hall. A master at creating both evocative indoor environments and sweeping outdoor panoramas, Hall runs away with the movie, since his photographic style is more consistent than Guercio’s scattershot directorial approach. Fans of world-class movie imagery can happily groove on this film just for the compositions and movements that Hall applies to every scene. There’s also something to be said, no surprise, for the eclectic rock-music soundtrack, which culminates in a powerful original song, “Tell Me,” which plays over the final scene. Unfolding in tandem with one of the most fabulously pretentious closing shots in all of ’70s cinema, the tune features orchestral sweep and a titanic vocal by Chicago’s Terry Kath.

Electra Glide in Blue: GROOVY

Corky (1972)

          One of the very best things that happened in American movies during the late ’60s and early ’70s was that filmmakers began telling stories about losers on a regular basis. Utilizing such unconventional leading players as Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, and Al Pacino, bold directors explored the complex life experiences of men living on the fringes of modern society, thus broadening the spectrum of what was considered acceptable in mainstream cinema. But, as the saying goes, you’ve got to break some eggs to make an omelete. So, for every groundbreaking story about an offbeat protagonist, there were plenty of failed attempts. Hence Corky, a bummer drama about an asshole who dreams of becoming a top racecar driver. As portrayed by the diminutive but volatile Robert Blake, Corky Curtiss is a foul-mouthed, ignorant, narcissistic redneck who abandons his family, endangers his coworkers, objectifies women, punches his friends, and eventually succumbs to sociopathic madness. And while there’s a school of thought that says any character capable of provoking strong reactions is inherently interesting, the problem with Corky Curtiss—and with Corky as a whole—is that the character’s behavior becomes so repetitive and ugly that, eventually, the only possible reactions are fatigue and indifference.

          The story gets off to a shaky start. Corky works in a garage and moonlights as a demolition-derby driver on the team run by the garage’s owner, Randy (Patrick O’Neal). Corky’s dangerous antics behind the wheel get him fired from both jobs, so Corky tells his wife, Peggy Jo (Charlotte Rampling), that he’s leaving town, ostensibly to make money on the racing circuit. Yet Corky spends all of his time away from home boozing, brawling, and gambling. Then, when he finally returns home (spoiler alert), he gets angry that Peggy Jo has moved on with her life and he goes on a shooting spree. Good luck finding anything edifying here, especially since key elements of the movie are maddeningly distracting: The music is gooey and weird; the intermittent flashbacks illuminate nothing; and Rampling, the epitome of icy European beauty, is laughably miscast as a barefoot-and-pregnant redneck housewife. Were one to strain in the effort to find something praiseworthy in Corky, it could be said that Blake’s commitment to his performance is impressive—but then again, wouldn’t Blake’s intensity have been more impressive if his character came across as sympathetic instead of merely repulsive?

Corky: LAME

Busting (1974)

          One of the first examples of what later became known as the “buddy cop” subgenre, Busting exemplifies the subgenre’s virtues and weaknesses. When buddy-cop flicks ruled the box office in the ’80s, for instance, movies like Walter Hill’s 48 Hrs. (1982) alternated wildly between broad humor and brutal violence. That same tendency is on display throughout Busting, which features a pair of scruffy vice cops determined to take down an arrogant crime lord who lubricates his operation with payoffs to powerful city officials. In some scenes, Busting feels like an out-and-out comedy, with leading players Robert Blake and Elliot Gould trading amusingly cynical quips. Yet in other scenes, Busting is a full-on action thriller, featuring intense shootouts and scary car chases. The piece doesn’t hang together perfectly, and the story meanders a bit in the middle, but Busting is nonetheless fascinating as a rough draft for a type of movie that soon became ubiquitous.

          Like Richard Rush’s outrageous Freebie and the Bean, which was released almost a year after Busting, writer-director Peter Hyams’ Busting presents cops who disrespect authority as much as the crooks they pursue. Detectives Farrel (Blake) and Keneely (Gould) are veteran LAPD officers tired of pinching perverts and prostitutes only to see the worst offenders set free because underworld boss Carl Rizzo (Allen Garfield) has so much pull downtown. So even though the cops know Rizzo is protected on every level, they go after him anyway, harassing his nightclubs, stalking him while he drives around town, and waiting for the day they catch him making a connection with his drug supplier.

          Throughout the first hour of the movie, this is all quite entertaining, because Gould’s world-weary routine is delightful. “We could be good bad guys,” he opines at one point. “Pays better. Better hours. More cooperation from the police.” Blake, later famous as TV’s Baretta (and as an alleged felon in private life), ratchets down his signature intensity, and he’s surprisingly effective as a straight man. Garfield is suitably slimy, especially in a long scene when the cops get in Rizzo’s face during a boxing match.

          The movie goes dark around the one-hour mark, losing a bit of its liveliness as it speeds toward an unsatisfying conclusion—yet even when it’s tonally awkward, Busting is impressive to watch. Hyams, a former photographer who closely supervises the look of his films, gives Busting a grimy feel with lots of wide shots filled with atmospheric detail; the only recurring visual hiccup is a device of extremely wide dolly shots for which the camera is positioned so far ahead of the actors that the camera rounds corners before the talent, leaving empty frames onscreen for long beats. Given how flatly many ’70s crime films were shot, however, noting that Busting has overly ambitious imagery is a compliment instead of a criticism. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Busting: FUNKY