The Wind and the Lion (1975)

          After making a name for himself by writing a number of imaginative films and then proving his directorial skills with the gangster flick Dillinger (1973), manly-man auteur John Milius swung for the fences with The Wind and the Lion, a grandiose adventure story in the David Lean tradition. Despite containing many powerful big-canvas visuals and exploring the collision between global tensions and personal agendas, the movie is undercut by, of all things, a sloppy script. Milius has always excelled at creating audacious scenes and memorable characters, but left unchecked, his stories get so ambitious that they lose focus. That’s certainly the case in The Wind and the Lion, which uses as its very loose inspiration a mostly forgotten historical incident.

          In 1904 Morocco, outlaw Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli (Sean Connery) kidnaps American Eden Perdicaris (Candice Bergen) and her two children. Although ostensibly seeking ransom for his hostages, the sly Raisuli actually wants to trigger an international crisis in order to topple Morroco’s government, which is controlled by various European factions. Meanwhile, U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt (Brian Keith) is campaigning for re-election, so he sends troops to rescue Eden, even though Roosevelt’s Secretary of State (John Huston) argues against getting involved. As if that wasn’t enough material, the picture also depicts the dangerous dithering of Morroco’s head of state (Marc Zuber); the pragmatic negotiations of an American diplomat (Geoffrey Lewis); and the valiant soldiering of a U.S. Marine captain (Steve Kanaly). To say that the story gets muddled is an understatement.

          Nearly every individual scene in The Wind and the Lion is of some interest, but taken together, they feel like disconnected episodes. The stuff with Roosevelt and his operatives is comical because Milius portrays Roosevelt as a blowhard more preoccupied with his hobbies than his job. The military material with Kanaly’s character is a rousing throwback to the stylized action films of the Douglas Fairbanks era. And the main story is a mess: Connery is absurdly miscast as a North African, and Bergen barely has any role to play. As such, their scenes ring false, especially when viewers are expected to believe they’ve bonded. So as either an international romance or an ambitious study of complex geopolitical issues, The Wind and the Lion is more windy than lionhearted.

          But as a beautifully filmed action movie, however, it’s quite effective. The scenes of Raisuli and his minions fighting on horseback are thrilling, particularly the mid-movie showstopper during which Raisuli single-handedly rescues Eden from a gang of thugs. The movie’s finale is even more spectacular, with two different battles taking place simultaneously as scimitars flail against Gatling guns. Moreover, even the dodgiest sections of this movie have considerable appeal: Bergen looks fantastic, Connery is regal, Kanaly is contagiously exuberant, and Keith is thoroughly amusing. One wishes these elements hung together more effectively, but there’s a lot to enjoy in The Wind and the Lion nonetheless.

The Wind and the Lion: FUNKY

Rape Squad (1974)

          Distaff vigilantism was all the rage in low-rent ’70s cinema, whether the avenger was Raquel Welch pumping hot lead into Old West varmints in Hannie Caulder (1971) or Pam Grier giving inner-city drug dealers what for in Coffy (1973). So it was probably just a matter of time before someone took the genre to a contrived extreme with a movie about a gang of women who join forces to strike back after they’ve endured too much abuse. Thus the tastefully titled Rape Squad (occasionally known by its somewhat more restrained title, Act of Vengeance), in which five ladies who were raped by the same criminal mete out justice when the actions of the local police prove unsatisfactory. Excepting its memorably sensationalistic premise, Rape Squad is a generic product off the American-International Pictures exploitation-flick assembly line, meaning that the acting, production values, and storytelling are rudimentary, and that shameless titillation is the highest priority. For instance, one long dialogue scene features an abuse victim explaining to the five members of the rape squad that she’s frustrated by the police department’s inability to catch her attacker—a conversation that would be easier to take seriously if the members of the rape squad weren’t all sitting naked in a hot tub at the time.

          On one level, the movie is crudely watchable because it’s easy to root for the women when they shame a scumbag him by destroying his apartment and dyeing his privates so he’s “marked” for identification the next time he commits a sex crime. But on every other level, Rape Squad is just plain vulgar. At one point, future Dallas costar Steve Kanaly, playing the boyfriend of the squad’s leader, Linda (Jo Ann Harris), berates her with the Neanderthal taunt, “You’re gonna get killed if you don’t stop trampin’ around like a diesel dyke!” The movie’s main criminal, Jack (Peter Brown), forces his victims to sing “Jingle Bells” while he attacks them, and he’s prone to boasts like, “I’m the honcho of the hump!” Plus, of course, the filmmakers seem to believe that lingering close-ups of breasts are somehow compatible with their theme of trauma stemming from sexual violation. Rape Squad is so brazen that the movie occasionally offers unintended amusement, but it’s impossible to find real virtue in a picture that treats this particular topic so crudely. (Available, under the title Act of Vengeance, as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Rape Squad: LAME

Dillinger (1973)

          Action auteur John Milius couldn’t have picked better subject matter for his maiden voyage behind the camera. A gun nut with an astonishing gift for imbuing dialogue with macho poetry, Milius clearly found kindred spirits in the real-life figures of Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger and his relentless pursuer, FBI agent Melvin Purvis. Crafting one of his finest scripts (high praise, considering he wrote Apocalypse Now and Jeremiah Johnson), Milius deftly parallels Dillinger’s heyday as the scourge of the Midwest with Purvis’ methodical annihilation of public enemies. Milius depicts Dillinger as a flamboyant iconoclast doomed by his greed and his sociopathic rage, and he depicts Purvis as a patient lawman who never hesitates when he gets a crook in his crosshairs. So even as the film hurtles through exhilarating crime-spree passages, there’s a sense of impending doom that colors everything down to leading man Warren Oates’ animalistic performance as Dillinger. As a result, the whole movie feels like a slow burn leading to the legendary explosion of violence that happened in 1934 when Purvis came face-to-face with his elusive quarry outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater.
          Making the most of the minimal production resources available to this tightly budgeted American International Pictures production, Milius employs a spare visual style in order to focus on the Spartan elegance of his dialogue and the violent ballet of his expertly staged gunfights. Incisive lines permeate the picture, like Purvis’ plan of attack (“Shoot Dillinger and we’ll find a way to make it legal”) and a bystander’s rationale for why a group of strangers must be gangsters (“Decent folk don’t live that good”). Keeping his tendency for romanticism in check, Milius integrates ugly elements like Dillinger’s rough treatment of women, the excruciating deaths of gunshot victims, and the carnage visited upon innocent bystanders. So while the filmmaker clearly gets a charge out of the larger-than-life duel between Dillinger and Purvis, he can’t be accused of making the outlaw life attractive. Oates commands the screen, presenting a potent strain of dangerous charisma in every scene, and iconic Western actor Ben Johnson is a perfect complement as Purvis—Johnson’s stoicism sharply contrasts Oates’ hyperkinetic quality.
          Playing members of Dillinger’s gang are an eclectic bunch of actors, including Richard Dreyfuss, Steve Kanaly, Frank McRae, and John P. Ryan; the standout sidekicks are Geoffrey Lewis and Harry Dean Stanton, both of whom deliver funny, tragic performances. Cloris Leachman pops in for a tasty cameo as the infamous “Lady in Red” who accompanied Dillinger to the Biograph, and gorgeous pop singer Michelle Phillips (of the Mamas and the Papas) is unexpectedly good in her first real role, as Dillinger’s longtime girlfriend, Billie Frechette. FYI, a year after this feature was released, a TV pilot called Melvin Purvis: G-Man hit the small screen, with Dale Robertson taking over Johnson's role; Milius co-wrote the script and Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis was the producer-director. A second Robertson pilot, made by Curtis without Milius’ involvement and titled The Kansas City Massacre, appeared in 1975, but the proposed series never materialized.

Dillinger: RIGHT ON