The Mind Snatchers (1972)

          Prior to achieving stardom with The Deer Hunter (1978), Christopher Walken played his first leading film role in this peculiar sci-fi drama based upon Dennis Reardon’s play The Happiness Cage. (The film is sometimes exhibited under the same title as the play.) While The Mind Snatchers is a frustrating piece of work thanks to half-baked ideas and a meandering narrative, it’s fascinating to watch Walken’s acting because he does not employ the affectations that later defined his screen persona. Bereft of his stop-and-start vocal rhythm and sudden gestures, Walken delivers a powerfully unadorned performance—even though, ironically enough, he portrays a character whom others perceive as being mentally unbalanced.
          Set in West Germany, the picture introduces U.S. Army Private James H. Reese (Walken) as a volatile troublemaker. He gets into fights with fellow soldiers, partygoers, and even his long-suffering European girlfriend. After Reese is brought to the attention of Dr. Frederick (Joss Ackland), the psychiatrist behind a mysterious experiment backed by the Army, Reese is transported to a remote hospital with only two other patients—talkative Southerner Sergeant Buford Miles (Ronny Cox) and a young soldier named Tommy, whose head is bandaged and whose only communication is involuntary screaming. Turns out Dr. Frederick designed an experimental probe that he inserts directly into the brain. The probe connects to antenna protruding through the subject’s skull, and the antenna relates to a switch the subject has at his disposal. Whenever the subject feels angry or depressed, the subject can hit the switch and stimulate a pleasure response. The film’s drama, such as it is, stems from the fact that Dr. Frederick wants only voluntary subjects, so he plays mind games with Buford and Reese in the hopes they will volunteer.
          That’s where the movie veers off-course. Reese comes across as a one-note rebel, patterned too closely after the protagonist of Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. (Kesey’s book was published in 1962, and Reardon’s play premiered in 1969.) Meanwhile, Buford is a compendium of writer-convenient extremes. The story also includes the dull cliché of a cold-hearted Army general who demands results no matter the human cost. (Old pro Ralph Meeker essays this role in a forgettable performance.) By the time The Mind Snatchers spirals into its highly predictable final act, logic problems have achieved crushing weight, and the repetitive cycles of the storyline have grown tiresome. That said, director Bernard Girard—a veteran of episodic television who made a handful of minor features—films scenes quite well, and Walken and Cox give the best imaginable renditions of poorly conceived characters.

The Mind Snatchers: FUNKY

The Car (1977)

          As directed by journeyman Elliot Silverstein, whose eclectic résumé includes the memorable films Cat Ballou (1965) and A Man Called Horse (1970), this Southwestern-set shocker boasts such impressive visuals as panoramic vistas and razor-sharp detail shots. Clearly, Silverstein studied the way Steven Spielberg shot Duel (1972), and copied many of Spielberg’s flourishes. The Car also cops gimmicks from another Spielberg picture, Jaws (1975), notably combining point-of-view shots and theme music to jack up scenes of the villain attacking victims. Unfortunately, the villain of this piece is—as the title suggests—a car. Not a driver who uses a car as a weapon, mind you, but a customized, driverless Lincoln Continental. Yes, The Car is about a demonically possessed automobile. Novelist Stephen King took the same notion a step further with his 1983 book Christine, which gave the titular vehicle both a personality and supernatural powers, but in The Car, the killer is merely that—a car. Sure, it does a few fancy tricks like leaping into the air and repelling bullets, but the Lincoln has zero impact as a malevolent screen presence.
          The plot follows the Jaws formula of a small town victimized by an unstoppable killer. James Brolin stars as likeable sheriff working in the Utah community where the car is murdering people, so he teams up with fellow cops to battle the four-wheeled monstrosity. Eventually, local Indians persuade Brolin’s character that the car is possessed by an evil demon, so the film climaxes with Brolin and his troops attempting to bury the car in a remote canyon. The Car would have been more enjoyable had it been trimmed down to something like 80 minutes, but at its full 96-minute length, the movie feels needlessly padded with pointless and/or repetitive scenes. Nonetheless, there are some campy highlights.
          For instance, the filmmakers try to mimic the classic Jaws scene of a shark eating its way through an ocean filled with Fourth of July swimmers. Thus, The Car features a ludicrous scene of the villainous vehicle chasing a high-school marching band from a football field to a cemetery. Later, the car soars through an entire house just to wipe out one victim. And the final scene is an unintentionally funny attempt at supernatural-cinema grandiosity. As for the acting, while Brolin is as weak as usual—moderately charming in quiet scenes, startlingly terrible in intense ones—he’s abetted by an okay supporting cast. Veteran character actor R.G. Armstrong steals the movie as a disgusting redneck who witnesses several of the car’s murders, Ronny Cox adds humanity as a deputy with an alcohol problem, and Kathleen Lloyd is appealing as the hero’s stalwart girlfriend. FYI, real-life siblings and future Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast members Kim Richards and Kyle Richards play the young daughters of Brolin’s character.

The Car: FUNKY

Bound for Glory (1976)

          A beautifully made biopic with a few peculiar flaws, Bound for Glory represented yet another artistic high point for editor-turned-director Hal Ashby, whose ’70s output was as eclectic as it was impressive. This time, Ashby tackled the life story of pioneering American folksinger Woody Guthrie, whose enduring anthem “This Land Is Your Land” reflected his humanistic fascination with the downtrodden people he met during his vagabond adventures circa the Great Depression. Perfectly timed to tap into counterculture themes of reappraising priorities and questioning authority, Bound for Glory could easily have become a vanilla celebration of an iconic singer. Instead, it’s a rougher piece, demonstrating the strange conflict between Guthrie’s devotion to “the people” and his inability to fulfill familial obligations.

          The story begins in small-town Texas, with Woody (David Carradine) working as a freelance sign painter even though his real passion is playing music (he moonlights as a honky-tonk band’s guitarist). After one day too many without making a living wage, Woody skips out on his wife (Melinda Dillon) and becomes a hobo, stealing rides in the cargo cars of westbound trains as he makes his way toward the promised land of Southern California. Along the way, Woody sees enough deprivation and hardscrabble dignity to inspire a lifetime’s worth of original songs, and he finds himself drawn to the plight of the working men who are oppressed by callous business owners.

          Once in California, Woody is radicalized through his friendships with a fruit picker (Randy Quaid) and a union-organizing country singer (Ronny Cox). Picking up a guitar again after a long musical drought, Woody starts writing incendiary rabble-rousers. Then, after he’s hired to perform on the radio, he stumbles into an existential crisis when he’s forced to choose between integrity and a steady paycheck. The willingness on the filmmakers’ part to display Guthrie’s unattractive qualities gives Bound for Glory gravitas, complicating our idea of what Guthrie represents.

          This storytelling choice also gives Carradine the most multidimensional role of his career. He seizes the opportunity with a vibrant performance, crooning and philosophizing his way to an earthy incarnation of Guthrie’s troubadour spirit. Ashby surrounds Carradine and the rest of the strong cast with wonderfully evocative physical details, from the antiseptic milieu of recording studios to the heartbreaking ugliness of labor camps. Capturing all of these rich visuals is cinematographer Haskell Wexler, a diehard lefty who actually knew the real Guthrie back in the day; Wexler’s graceful camera movements and naturalistic lighting make Bound for Glory look like classic Depression-era photographs come to life.

          That said, Bound for Glory has strange shortcomings. Ashby bizarrely cast Dillon in two roles (she also plays a country singer who performs on the radio with Guthrie), and the ending isn’t particularly satisfying. One gets the impression Ashby couldn’t decide whether Guthrie was a heel or a hero, or both. But if the worst that can be said about a movie is that it embraces ambiguity, is that really much of a criticism?

Bound for Glory: GROOVY

Deliverance (1972)

          Even though it contains one of the most infamous scenes of the ’70s, there’s so much more to John Boorman’s shattering action thriller Deliverance than “Squeal like a pig!” Adapted for the screen by poet James Dickey from his own novel, the picture follows four city-slicker Southerners during an ill-fated trip down the (fictional) Cahulawasee River in the dense wilderness of rural Georgia. Lewis (Burt Reynolds) is the de facto leader of the group because he’s a veteran outdoorsman, Ed (Jon Voight) knows his way around the woods but can’t match Lewis’ wild-man bravado, Drew (Ronny Cox) is a soft-spoken urbanite more comfortable with a banjo than a rifle, and Bobby (Ned Beatty) is an overweight everyman along for the ride. Spurred on by Lewis, the men decide to take a canoe trip before the river is dammed to create a lake; for Lewis, the challenge is conquering a disappearing wilderness, and for the others, the kick is escaping the urban grind.

          Right from the opening frames, Boorman creates an ominous atmosphere, best exemplified by the legendary “Dueling Banjos” scene. When the gang pulls up to a riverbank settlement, Drew engages an odd-looking (and presumably inbred) boy in a banjo-picking contest, but the musical bond shatters when Drew tries to shake the boy’s hand; the scene perfectly conveys that Lewis’ group has gone someplace where they don’t belong. Ignoring these portents, the gang hits the river and encounters rougher water than expected, figuratively and literally. Before long, their weekend of “roughing it” devolves into a violent nightmare when the boys find themselves at odds with violent locals.
          In the unforgettable “squeal like a pig” scene, for instance, Bobby is sexually assaulted by a vicious redneck (Bill McKinney), an act that compels Bobby’s compatriots to seek bloody revenge. The great accomplishment of Deliverance is that Boorman and Dickey convey the disturbing notion that nature itself is battling the interlopers—the rednecks are like antibodies battling invading toxins. Boorman also creates a dreamlike quality, notably when a wounded Ed climbs a sheer cliff as the sky undulates with unnatural colors behind him. Throughout the film, Boorman treats merciless rapids like a special effect, showing how easily a river can swallow a man.
          Realizing Boorman’s vision perfectly, cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond found innovative ways to shoot in difficult situations and captured the terrifying beauty of a resplendent backwoods milieu. As for the acting, all four leading players contribute some of the best work of their careers. Voight is humane and vulnerable, perfectly illustrating a man driven beyond his natural capacity for violence by an insane situation, while Beatty and Cox present different colors of modern men whose animal instincts have been dampened so thoroughly they cannot withstand nature’s onslaught.
          Yet the picture in many ways belongs to Reynolds, who instantly transformed from a lightweight leading man to a major star with his appearance in Deliverance. Funny and maddening and savage, he’s completely believable as a he-man whose bluster hides a deep need to prove his own virility. The physicality of Reynolds’ performance is incredible, whether he’s steering a canoe or working a bow and arrow, and Reynolds went just as deep psychologically.
          Deliverance is hard to watch given the intensity of what happens onscreen, but the acting, filmmaking, and writing are so potent that it’s impossible to look away. Accolades showered on the film included Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Editing.

Deliverance: OUTTA SIGHT

Harper Valley P.T.A. (1978)

Starring former I Dream of Jeannie sexpot Barbara Eden as a sassy Southern single mom, drab comedy Harper Valley P.T.A. was of course extrapolated from the 1968 story-song “Harper Valley P.T.A.,” which was written by Tom T. Hall and sung by Jeannie C. Reilly. Hall’s pithy little narrative about a woman who gives small-town busybodies a good talking-to after they criticize her parenting was a No. 1 smash on both country and pop radio. The first 15 minutes of the movie adaptation deliver the story content of the song right down to featuring lyrics in dialogue; fans of the tune can rest assured that Eden recites the song’s familiar put-down, “This is just a Peyton Place, and you’re all Harper Valley hypocrites!” After the song’s narrative runs its course, the filmmakers contrive a thin story about the heroine’s tormenters—the members of the titular Harper Valley Parent Teachers Association—ostracizing Stella Johnson (Eden) after her angry speech. She returns the favor by staging humiliating pranks that expose the P.T.A. members as drunks, liars, nymphomaniacs, thieves, and so on. Subplots, such as they are, involve Stella falling for a local businessman (Ronny Cox) and nurturing her ugly-duckling daughter (Susan Swift). The movie’s production values are passable, but the acting is lifeless, the dialogue is trite, the physical comedy is crude without actually being outrageous, and the plotting is moronic, so there’s not much reason to watch Harper Valley P.T.A. except to wallow in predictability and to admire Eden’s famous figure, which is on (fully clothed) display in every scene.

Harper Valley PTA: LAME