Hit! (1973)

          Absurdly overlong given its slight storyline, the crime thriller Hit! somehow manages to sustain interest even though leading man Billy Dee Williams delivers one of his patented laconic non-performances, and even though the contrived plot gene-splices elements from the vigilante genre with tropes from The French Connection (1971). Directed by Sidney J. Furie, who has proven time and again that he’s allergic to logic and subtlety, Hit! thrives on texture. Extensive location photography in Canada, France, and the U.S. fills the movie with vibrant images of diverse places; the sizeable ensemble cast allows Furie to cut back and forth between subplots to ensure narrative variety; and some of the supporting actors, including Richard Pryor, deliver excellent work.

          The story begins in Chicago, where federal agent Nick Allen (Billy Dee Williams) attends the funeral of his teenaged daughter, who died of a drug overdose. Nick finds the pusher who supplied his girl with dope, then nearly kills the guy until the pusher says he’s just a street-level nobody. This plants the idea in Nick’s head of traveling to Marseilles, the headquarters of the heroin syndicate that feeds Chicago’s street trade. However, because Nick doesn’t have official sanction for his crusade, he tracks down criminals who have grudges against drug dealers and manipulates these folks into joining his team. This is where Hit! locks into a groove, because Nick’s operatives include a cold-blooded killer (Paul Hampton), an emotionally unstable mechanic (Pryor), an old Jewish couple (Janet Brandt and Sid Melton) whose son died of an overdose, and a sexy junkie (Gwen Welles). In other words, Nick’s team is forever on the verge of self-destructing.

          The middle of Hit! is an enjoyably unruly sprawl during which Furie lets his cameras roll while actors simply behave, instead of doing the rigid work of communicating story information. As such, the picture benefits from scenes of Pryor ad-libbing comedy bits, of Williams seething so quietly that he reveals the intensity beneath his supercool façade, and of key supporting players, especially Brandt, articulating anguished emotions. As for the film’s actual thriller elements, they’re derivative but effective. Furie shoots action scenes—as well as long sequences of Nick’s team training for their mission—with the loose verité style that William Friedkin employed for The French Connection. The resulting jittery camerawork invests the movie with tension and urgency, even during passages when the  story is treading water.

          Holding the whole thing together is the simplicity of Nick’s scheme—he doesn’t want arrests, he wants bodies. His team’s brazen goal is to slip into France, kill as many drug kingpins as possible, and get out. Watching Hit!, one can easily imagine a more rational treatment of the same material—a terse 90-minute thrill ride with an assertive badass like Fred Williamson in the lead. And while that version would have worked, the wide-open spaces of Hit! make a tale that should have seemed trite come across as fresh and visceral. The trick to enjoying the picture, of course, is surrendering to its leisurely rhythms.

Hit!: GROOVY

The Boys in Company C (1978)

          Despite a fuzzy script that glosses over important transitions, resulting in a disjointed and episodic storyline, The Boys in Company C deserves a respectable position in the history of movies about the Vietnam War. Not only was The Boys in Company C the first American feature to capture the madness of America’s disastrous involvement in Indochina—countering the jingoism of John Wayne’s vile The Green Berets (1968)—but The Boys in Company C provided two very important elements that Stanley Kubrick later repurposed for his powerful but problematic Full Metal Jacket (1987). Like the latter film, The Boys in Company C is divided into two parts, with the first section depicting basic training and the second section dramatizing life on the battlefield. The Boys in the Company C also includes the debut performance by R. Lee Ermey, the motor-mouthed ex-Marine who plays drill sergeants in both The Boys in Company C and Full Metal Jacket.

          Directed by Sidney J. Furie, who cowrote the picture with Rick Natkin, The Boys in Company C opens with a mosaic of scenes introducing five new USMC recruits: streetwise drug dealer Tyrone Washington (Stan Shaw), naïve hick Billy Ray Pike (Andrew Stevens), longhaired war protestor Dave Brisbee (Craig Wasson), scheming slacker Vinne Fazio (Michael Lembeck), and would-be war chronicler Alvin Foster (James Canning). Foster’s narration, representing entries in his combat journal, ties the film together. The men bond during six weeks of harrowing training under the command of instructors including Staff Sergeant Loyce (Ermey), then encounter pure lunacy in Vietnam once they fall under the command of Captain Collins (Scott Hylands). A gung-ho fool who regularly endangers his men by pursuing pointless missions, Collins earns enmity from all of his subordinates, even his seasoned second-in-command, Lieutenant Archer (James Whitmore, Jr.).

          The drama of The Boys in Company C stems from the tactics that enlisted men use to keep their lives—and their sanity—while fighting a losing battle in which commanding officers are as dangerous as the enemy. During one memorable incident, for instance, the soldiers suffer heavy casualties while escorting a convoy, only to discover that the trucks they’re escorting are full of luxury goods intended as gifts for a U.S. general. The picture culminates with a soccer game, of all things, and the climactic scene falls somewhere between the brilliant satire of the football game in M*A*S*H (1970) and the surrealism of the surfing sequence in Apocalypse Now (1979).

          While The Boys in Company C ultimately comes together well, it’s a bumpy ride. Furie has a tendency to skip important phases in the development of relationships, so characters often shift from adversaries to friends with little explanation. The director also introduces several subplots via exposition instead of proper scenes, so it feels as if big chunks of the movie are missing. That said, the acting is consistently vibrant, if not especially subtle. Overlooking the fact that he’s too old for his role, Stevens does some of the best work of his early career, especially during his many tense standoffs with Shaw, who dominates the picture with his intensity. Wasson adds soul (even crooning a tender ballad at one point), while Canning perfectly incarnates a certain kind of irresponsible junior officer. As ambitious as it is undisciplined, The Boys in Company C is compelling and frustrating in equal measure.

The Boys in Company C: GROOVY

Lady Sings the Blues (1972)

          Slick and tough—or at least tough enough to avoid accusations of whitewashing history—this biopic of legendary singer Billie Holiday benefits from casting kismet. By the early ’70s, Motown star Diana Ross was emerging as a major solo artist after having led the quintessential “girl group,” the Supremes, through a string a pop hits in the ’60s. Public fascination with Ross was at a peak when Motown kingpin Berry Gordy decided to introduce her as an actress, and Gordy took a big risk by presenting Ross in a complex role as an iconic historical figure. Ross rewarded his confidence with a star-making performance that earned Ross not only a second career as a film star but also an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Comparisons to the multimedia career of Barbra Streisand, another ’60s singer who scored on the big screen, are inevitable, but the differences are telling—Streisand emerged from musical theater, so she transitioned easily to a multifaceted screen career.

          Ross, conversely, seemed to have just one memorable acting performance inside of her, perhaps because she found some special insight into Holiday’s troubled soul. Plus, of course, the fact that Ross sings much of her role—effectively delivering such angst-ridden Holiday compositions as “Don’t Explain” and “Strange Fruit”—means that the diva known as “Miss Ross” played to her strengths.

          Presented in the standard biopic style of episodic flashbacks connected by a wrap-around vignette depicting Holiday’s worst moment of crisis, Lady Sings the Blues is ordinary in conception and execution. Lavish production values are used to convey historical periods, and every juncture of the protagonist’s emotional life is articulated so clearly it’s impossible to see Holiday as anything but a troubled heroine. Whether she’s subverting the dehumanizing treatment of singers in a Harlem nightclub by refusing to sexualize her performances, or losing her soul to the heroin addiction she picks up during a rigorous touring schedule, Holiday is idealized as a once-in-a-lifetime talent whose songs emanated from deep emotional scars. Thanks to this oversimplification, Holiday the person gets subverted into Holiday the role. The name of the game is giving Ross dramatic things to do, and she does them well enough to make an impression.

          Director Sidney J. Furie, a competent storyteller but never a great artist, keeps things moving quickly, though the blandness of his approach is particularly visible in the film’s supporting performances. Billy Dee Williams is saddled with a one-dimensional part as Holiday’s long-suffering boyfriend, so the actor relies on charm and swagger to carve a niche for himself. Despite similar limitations, comedian Richard Pryor—who plays Holiday’s sidekick and fellow addict, known simply as “Piano Man”—nearly steals the movie with his tragic final scene. As for “Miss Ross,” she mostly squandered the opportunity created by Lady Sings the Blues. After starring in the widely panned melodrama Mahogany (1975) and the equally derided musical flop The Wiz (1979), she withdrew from acting until appearing in two minor movies during the 1990s.

Lady Sings the Blues: GROOVY

The Lawyer (1970)

          Combining lurid subject matter with an offbeat protagonist, The Lawyer tells the story of a sensationalistic murder trial in a brisk fashion, with plenty of humor and surprises to keep things lively. Since the film does not relate a real-life incident, one could argue that a few of the story’s myriad episodes could have been jettisoned in order to shorten the piece (The Lawyer runs a full 120 minutes), but nearly every scene has something amusing or colorful or trashy to offer. Barry Newman, an energetic leading man of the early ’70s whose career never caught fire, stars as Tony Petrocelli, a slick attorney from the East Coast who now works in the Southwest. (The picture’s a little fuzzy on how he ended up in this unlikely milieu, but his backstory is incidental to the main narrative.) A cocksure overachiever, Petrocelli comes on strong in every aspect of his life, driving his beat-up camper like a maniac, slithering his way past parking restrictions, and valiantly defying the local powers-that-be. Petrocelli’s latest client is Jack Harrison (Robert Colbert), a handsome lawyer accused of brutally murdering his wife. Harrison contends a stranger broke into his home while Harrison was incapacitated, and that the stranger committed the homicide. Because the killing occurred in a small town, the ensuing trial becomes a media circus, so Petrocelli must face not only his wily courtroom opponent—deceptively folksy prosecutor Eric Scott (Harold Gould)—but also a prejudicial jury pool.

          Director/co-writer Sidney J. Furie employs a quick-cut visual style that echoes Petrocelli’s rat-a-tat verbal approach, so the movie shifts locations frequently and utilizes a broad supporting cast. The best scenes involve detailed depictions of Petrocelli’s flashy legal technique, whether he’s guiding his aides through hours of arduous research or dueling in court with Scott, and Newman plays Petrocell with an appealing brand of seen-it-all snark. The picture also includes sexy flashbacks to the night of the murder, which are told, Rashomon-style, from several different perspectives; these vignettes have more blood and nudity than one might expect. The supporting performances are generally just okay, thanks to smooth professionals including Diana Muldaur (playing Petrocelli’s wife), though Gould steals the movie at regular intervals. While his aw-shucks country-lawyer shtick is unoriginal, Gould blends charm, sarcasm, skepticism, and wisdom into a tasty stew. Elements like Gould’s performance ensure that The Lawyer is consistently entertaining, despite the fact that the picture is never more than a solid programmer. FYI, Newman reprised his resourceful character several years later for the short-lived TV series Petrocelli (1974-1976), nabbing a Golden Globe nomination for his work on the show. The stand-alone TV movie Night Games (1974), with Newman as Petrocelli, was a de facto pilot that immediately preceded the weekly series.

The Lawyer: GROOVY

Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970)

          In Michael Feeney Callan’s 2011 biography Robert Redford, there’s a brief but illuminating examination of Redford’s involvement in Little Fauss and Big Halsy, a deservedly obscure flick costarring the gleaming blonde Californian and diminutive oddball Michael J. Pollard. According to Callan, Redford picked the project as his follow-up to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) for perverse reasons of wanting to undercut his likeable image. And, indeed, Redford plays a right proper son of a bitch in this meandering movie about two losers who make their way through the Southwestern dirt-bike circuit. Halsy (Redford) is a narcissist who swindles everyone he meets, but rarely thinks past his next meal or sexual conquest. During his travels, Halsy seemingly befriends insecure white-trash troll Fauss (Pollard), but it turns out Halsy’s got an agenda—he injures Fauss during a race, then persuades Fauss to become an on-call mechanic rather than a competitor. Meanwhile, Halsy gets involved with a string of women and dangles the possibility that he’ll get Fauss laid.

          This strange movie becomes less and less plot-driven as it progresses, so the second half of the film comprises interchangeable scenes involving Fauss, Halsy, and Halsy’s main girlfriend, Rita (Lauren Hutton), a vapid hippie who eventually becomes pregnant. Although the story doesn’t go anywhere, Little Fauss and Big Halsy is moderately interesting for its offbeat texture. Most of the film was shot outdoors, so grim, sun-baked terrain becomes a visual signifier for the going-nowhere characters. Country-music legend Johnny Cash sings a number of original songs, which comprise the entire musical score. And then there’s Redford, playing one of the most extreme roles of his career—while showcasing his matinee-idol looks by appearing shirtless in many scenes, he also captures the reckless way self-centered studs strut through life.

          For instance, at one point Halsy slips out of a motel room the morning after a threesome, claiming he’s got no use for chicks who go both ways: “Once it’s cool, twice it’s queer!” Seeing Redford play a carefree monster is bracing, so it’s a shame the movie doesn’t rise to his level of commitment. Part of the problem is director Sidney J. Furie, who builds individual scenes competently but can’t seem to find a shape for the overall narrative, and part of the problem is the lack of star power complementing Redford. Bonnie and Clyde Oscar nominee Pollard presents a compendium of tics instead of a performance, moping and pulling weird faces, while former model Hutton is dull and whiny.

Little Fauss and Big Halsy: FUNKY

Gable and Lombard (1976)

          Gable and Lombard, a romantic drama about the illicit love affair and subsequent marriage of real-life Golden Age movie stars Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, is so preposterously fictionalized that it’s a pointless endeavor. Among many other howlers, the movie features a climactic scene in which Lombard (Jill Clayburgh) testifies on behalf of Gable (James Brolin) at a court hearing related to his divorce from the woman to whom he was married when he began keeping company with Lombard. Not only did this testimony never happen, but the filmmakers portray Lombard as such a crude loudmouth that when asked to describe her relationship with Gable, she proclaims, “Me and that big ape over there have been hitting the sack every night, and I’ve got a sore back to prove it!” Yet Gable and Lombard lacks the courage of its convictions—instead of going wholeheartedly down the road of tabloid tawdriness, the movie is meant to be some sort of loving tribute to once-in-a-lifetime passion. Unfortunately, Barry Sandler’s inept screenplay and Sidney J. Furie’s unsophisticated direction makes the leading characters look like sex-crazed buffoons instead of incandescent lovers.

          This tone-deaf portrayal is exacerbated by performances that are, to say the least, uneven. While Clayburgh is grandiose and shrill, it’s possible to discern some of the emotional realities she’s attempting to communicate. However, Brolin is laughable, growling and smirking through a paper-thin impersonation of Gable’s most obvious onscreen tics. When these dissonant performances merge during interminable dialogue scenes—Gable and Lombard runs a deadly 131 minutes—the result is loud, superficial nonsense. It’s also impossible to know whom this movie was meant to please: The picture’s narrative is far too bogus to please diehard Gable-Lombard fans, and far too cliché-ridden to work as a standalone romance. Yes, the movie is handsomely produced, but so what? Even the supposed appeal of re-creating Old Hollywood is wasted, since the only other major character drawn from history is studio chief L.B. Mayer (played unpersuasively by Allen Garfield). As the real Lombard’s onetime secretary told syndicated columnist Dick Kleiner at the time of the Gable and Lombard’s release: “I couldn’t associate a single scene with anything that I’d lived through. Nothing in it is right, not even the clothes.”

Gable and Lombard: LAME