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

The Great Santini (1979)

          Robert Duvall was mostly known for brilliant supporting performances until the title role in this melodramatic family story finally allowed the singular actor to display a full spectrum of colors. Portraying U.S. Marine Corps pilot Lt. Col. “Bull” Meechum, Duvall showboats while displaying the character’s mischievous side, torments innocents when exhibiting the man’s mean streak, and unravels while revealing the character’s deep-rooted psychological turbulence. Duvall was entrusted with only one more equally dimensional role—in the poetic character study Tender Mercies (1983)—before slipping into a long run of high-paying but largely unchallenging supporting roles in the ’80s and early ’90s. Given this set of circumstances, The Great Santini and Tender Mercies remain two of the most important artifacts demonstrating Duvall’s unique gifts at full power.

          Adapted by Lewis John Carlino (who also directed) and Herman Raucher from a semiautobiographical novel by Pat Conroy, The Great Santini takes place in 1962 South Carolina. Meechum, whose nickname is “The Great Santini” even though he’s Irish, is a hard-driving soldier who feels lost between wars. Unable to take out his aggressions on enemy combatants, Meechum bullies his family even as his wife, Lillian (Blythe Danner), and their four kids adjust to life in a new city. Receiving special abuse is Meechum’s oldest son, Ben (Michael O’Keefe), a high-school basketball player struggling to understand why his father is such a hero on the battlefield and such a monster at home.

          Carlino, who only directed three films (the others are the erotic 1976 drama The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sa and the flimsy 1986 teen-sex comedy Class), presents Conroy’s narrative in a beautifully unvarnished way, so the best moments in The Great Santini are the most intimate ones. For instance, it’s hard to forget the brutal scene of Meechum repeatedly bouncing a basketball against Ben’s head, forcing the boy to cry as a means of validating Meechum’s alpha-male role. In fact, nearly every scene featuring Duvall is memorable, because he creates such a full-blooded characterization—Duvall preens, rages, struts, yells and generally releases his character’s sociopathic id, incarnating a mini-Patton without a worthy adversary. And yet for all of the flamboyance the actor brings to the role, the true beauty of Duvall’s performance is the deep sympathy he conveys for Meechum; with Duvall as our guide into this man’s troubled soul, we learn to love a character who does hateful things.

          Young costar O’Keefe, appearing in one of his fist features after several years of TV work, gives as good as he gets, offering plaintive sincerity to counter Duvall’s masterful blend of personality traits. The elegant Danner, meanwhile, reveals the fortitude that allows her character to thrive in a difficult marriage. The Great Santini is so dramatically compelling and emotionally truthful that it seems a shame to note its flaws, but there’s no denying the contrived nature of a subplot involving Ben’s black friend, Toomer (Stan Shaw). Injecting wobbly elements of racism, sacrifice, and tragedy into the story, the subplot eventually leads someplace important, but getting there isn’t the smoothest ride. That said, Shaw’s work is deeply affecting, and costar David Keith, who figures in the subplot, makes a vivid bad guy. The bottom line, however, is that The Great Santini is robust entertainment powered by extraordinary acting. Like its main character, the movie is imperfect and impossible to ignore.

The Great Santini: RIGHT ON

T.N.T. Jackson (1974)

A failed attempt to generate another female blaxploitation icon in the vein of Cleopatra Jones and Foxy Brown, this very short feature combines the worst elements of blaxploitation with the worst elements of Asian-themed martial-arts flicks. It’s two shitty movies for the price of one! Lovely Jeannie Bell plays T.N.T. Jackson, a young woman who travels to Hong Kong after her brother dies there under mysterious circumstances. Using her ass-kicking karate skills, she impresses members of the local underworld and learns that her brother was involved with heroin dealers including Charlie (Stan Shaw). T.N.T. seduces Charlie to get close to him and learn about his operation, and T.N.T. clashes with another female American in Charlie’s circle, pretty blonde Elaine (Pat Anderson), who turns out to be an undercover cop. (Rest assured that she’s a karate expert, too, just like nearly everyone else in the movie.) Over the course of 68 dull and grungy minutes, T.N.T. gets vengeance and upsets a far-reaching drug operation. She also gets naked repeatedly, as in an absurdly exploitive topless karate scene. (Watch for the continuity error during that scene in which her black panties suddenly become white for one shot.) Badly acted, cheaply filmed, sluggishly paced, and ugly on nearly every level, T.N.T. Jackson isn’t the worst movie of its type, but it’s a far cry from the Pam Grier-starring films it was presumably intended to emulate. While the story makes sense, more or less, the myriad karate scenes get mind-numbing very quickly. As for the cast, Bell is appealing if not particularly memorable, Anderson is sexy as her adversary-turned-ally, and it’s a bummer to see the sensitive actor Shaw stuck in a one-note role as a cocksure thug.

T.N.T. Jackson: LAME