Sweet Revenge (1976)

          Allegedly conceived and marketed as a comedy, Sweet Revenge is instead an über-’70s character study about a woman who supports herself by stealing cars, and who uses myriad fake identities to avoid being captured by authorities. It’s an odd little picture, neither funny enough to work as a comedy nor serious enough to cut very deeply as a drama, but it’s executed at a high level of skill behind and in front of the camera. So even though Sweet Revenge is sluggishly paced, tonally uneven, and generally lacking a clear sense of purpose, the film contains some mildly interesting stuff. That said, Sweet Revenge is only truly recommended for fans of one or more of the key participants, since casual viewers are likely to lose interest fairly quickly.

          Stockard Channing, in one of her few leading roles, plays Vurria Kowsky, an eccentric young woman who lives in a hovel and spends her time hotwiring cars so she can sell them for cash. Her big goal in life is gaining enough wealth to buy a Ferrari. Vurria, who often uses the name “Dandy,” has accumulated a few lowlife friends, especially fellow small-time crook Edmund (Franklyn Ajaye), who drives a pimped-out car that he calls “Sweet Revenge.” Eventually, Vurria gets caught during one of her robberies, so a public defender named Le Clerq (Sam Waterston) is assigned to her case. Much of the film depicts his attempts to help her, even as she pushes him away with pathological dishonesty stemming from her generalized distrust of authority. In a meandering and shapeless way, Sweet Revenge tells the story of an outsider learning how to rejoin society, but viewers are likely to feel the way Le Clerq does, which is moderately sympathetic until Vurria lies about having an abusive background. Put bluntly, she ain’t got no class.

          Had the filmmakers treated this material dramatically, Sweet Revenge could have evolved into a tough little piece about a driven individual creating a private world outside of society’s restrictions, but because the approach is quasi-lighthearted, everything feels  pointless and superficial. After all, a comedy without laughs isn’t really much of anything. Perhaps the strangest aspect of Sweet Revenge is the participation of director Jerry Schatzberg, whose previous films—including The Panic in Needle Park (1971) and Scarecrow (1973)—were gritty dramas. Schatzberg’s collaborator on Scarecrow, masterful cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, shot Sweet Revenge with his signature blend of elegance and moodiness, though his shadowy frames don’t quite suit the flavor of the material.

Sweet Revenge: FUNKY

The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979)

          Designed to transform NBA hero Julius “Dr. J.” Erving into a movie star, the tepid comedy The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh weaves astrology, basketball, disco, and surrogate fatherhood into a dubious underdog story. Erving, who wisely never made another movie after this project revealed his inability to act, stars as Moses Guthrie, the high-priced marquee player of a (fictional) team called the Pittsburgh Pythons. The Pythons endure an epic losing streak until the team’s precocious towel boy, Tyrone Millman (James Bond III), seeks advice from a psychic named Mona Mondieu (Stockard Channing). Tyrone and Mona contrive the bizarre idea of replacing all the players on the Pythons with new athletes who share Moses’ aquatic star sign. Therefore, after an open tryout that attracts hordes of wanna-bes and weirdos, the Pythons are renamed “The Pittsburgh Pisces.” Then Moses leads the new ragtag group through a predictable but implausible winning streak.
          If the preceding description makes you suspect that The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh lacks dramatic conflict, then you’ve guessed the movie’s main problem—rather than a proper story, it’s a flat and repetitive series of vignettes featuring people accomplishing impossible things with marginal effort, although the smooth soundtrack by celebrated Philly-soul writer/producer Thom Bell gives the onscreen silliness a thumping backbeat. Every so often, the movie latches onto something good, especially during the exciting sequence of a scrappy Pisces player nicknamed “Setshot” (Jack Kehoe) forcing opposing players to foul him so he can score points with free throws. Mostly, however, the movie squanders the talents of people including character actors Michael V. Gazzo, Nicholas Pryor, and M. Emmett Walsh, comedy icons Flip Wilson and Jonathan Winters, and Harlem Globetrotters star Meadowlark Lemon. Only Debbie Allen, who plays a small role as a raunchy fan, makes much of an impression.
          Reflecting the absence of an interesting main storyline, lots of time is wasted on servicing boring, one-dimensional characterizations (a Native American player is named “Winston Running Hawk”), and the love story between Moses and Tyrone’s sister, Toby (Margaret Avery), is pathetic because Erving can’t muster the illusion of human connection. In fact, Erving’s most soulful scene involves him shooting basket after basket in an outdoor court at night while Avery watches him in awe. At its worst, The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh is merely a showcase for spectacle. Before the climactic game, the Los Angeles Lakers (including Kareem Abdul Jabar) enter the arena through a laser/smoke tunnel, and the Pisces descend from a hot-air balloon while wearing silver-lame uniforms. R&B group the Spinners serenades both teams. Oh, well. At least there’s lots of dunking and passing on the court, with real ’70s athletes sprinkled throughout the cast, and the game scenes are photographed relatively well.

The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh: FUNKY

Lucan (1977)

          Long ago, I stopped trying to understand why certain pop-culture artifacts have remained lodged in my cranium for decades. Instead, I just embrace my indiscriminate nostalgia. For example, I must have enjoyed watching episodes of a short-lived ’70s series called Lucan, about a boy who was raised by wolves, because I’ve remembered the damn thing for the ensuing 40-ish years. Having recently tracked down and the series’ feature-length pilot episode, I’m happy to report that it’s not awful, even if the reasons why Lucan never became a hit are plainly evident. The central notion of the show was simply too gentle and small. Picking up Lucan’s story after 10 years of living in civilization, the pilot introduces him as a Kwai Chang Caine-type nomad, helping people as he tries to understand the strange ways of modern man.

          Written by series creator Michael Zagor, the pilot begins with voice-over and newsreel footage explaining that Lucan was abandoned in a Minnesota forest by his parents at an early age. Then he lived with wolves during a decade of feral existence. Discovered by hunters at age 10, Lucan was entrusted to the care of kindly Dr. Hoagland (John Randolph), who taught the boy language and socialization. Yet Lucan retained many wild ways, including a nocturnal sleep cycle. When the story catches up to the present, Lucan, now 20, has grown eager to seek out his birth parents. Therefore, when Dr. Hoagland is hospitalized following a car accident, Lucan hits the road. In his first adventure, he gets a job on a construction site overseen by builder Larry MacElwaine (Ned Beatty). Lucan befriends Larry’s misfit daughter, Mickey (Stockard Channing), while becoming enemies with Larry’s hardass crew foreman, Gene Boone (William Jordan).

          In short order, Lucan battles with a vicious guard dog, defeats several motorcycle-riding assailants, teaches Mickey to respect herself, and uncovers corruption. At various points, he manifests his quasi-canine nature by making slight transformations—his eyes turn yellow, his unibrow thickens, and he starts growling and pouncing. Not quite a werewolf, but close. Benefiting from terrific guest stars and a plaintive musical score, the Lucan pilot episode is a bit slow but otherwise quite earnest and watchable. There are even glimmers of humor, as when Lucan says, “I’m always tired if I don’t get a good day’s sleep.” Furthermore, star Kevin Brophy is perfectly cast, thanks to his athleticism, sincerity, and slightly primitive-looking features. Still, there’s not much cause for excitement here, so it should be considered a minor victory that Lucan became a weekly series and lasted 10 regular episodes before retiring to the great wolf den in the sky.

Lucan: FUNKY

The Girl Most Likely To . . . (1973)

          Long before she evolved into her current role as a tart-tongued fashionista, Joan Rivers was a groundbreaking female stand-up comic who briefly dabbled in Hollywood features. Not only did she direct and co-write the theatrical release Rabbit Test (1978), she co-wrote this darkly comedic TV movie. Starring Stockard Channing as an ugly duckling who transforms into a beautiful murderess, The Girl Most Likely To . . . plays out like a revenge fantasy for women who are undervalued by society because they’re not conventionally pretty. At the beginning of the story, Miriam (Channing) is a chubby college coed with blotchy skin and ghastly eyebrows, so she’s treated like a worthless troll by attractive classmates. Even childhood friend Herman (Warren Berlinger), a plumber whom Miriam figures eventually will propose to her because he’s no prize either, fails to appreciate Miriam’s bright mind and sharp wit. After suffering a series of indignities, culminating in a nasty prank staged by medical student Ted (Fred Grandy), Miriam tries to kill herself in an auto crash. Instead, she survives and receives extensive plastic surgery, which morphs her into a hottie. (The effect is achieved by freeing Channing from her ugly-girl drag and slathering her with such sexy signifiers as glamorous makeup and slinky dresses.) Newly emboldened by her ability to turn men’s heads, Miriam goes on a vengeful killing spree, staging elaborate murder scenarios to get back at everyone who treated her badly.

          Obviously, this is meant to be broad satire rather than anything based in reality, so director Lee Phillips presents everything in a breezy, farcical style. Some actors hit the darkly comic vibe better than others, with pros including Ed Asner, Jim Backus, and Joe Flynn finding the right campy groove, while lesser talents—notably Grandy, who later achieved fame as a Love Boat crew member and a U.S. Congressman—opt for over-the-top mugging. Channing, no surprise, is the best thing about The Girl Most Likely To . . . Her cheerfully acidic line deliveries make even the lamest lines connect. (The jokes here are strictly middlebrow, so they’re never laugh-out-loud funny but they’re plentiful enough to create a jovial atmosphere.) The Girl Most Likely To . . . also benefits from a droll ending, and because the whole movie runs its course in 73 minutes, the wicked little piece never overstays its welcome.

The Girl Most Likely To . . . : FUNKY

The Cheap Detective (1978)

          Yet another of the myriad film-noir spoofs that proliferated during the ’70s, The Cheap Detective is surprisingly underwhelming given its all-star cast and brand-name writer. Neil Simon, opting for broad farce instead of his usual domestic dramedy, weaves together storylines and stylistic tropes from assorted ’40s detective movies, mostly those starring Humphrey Bogart. Peter Falk stars as Lou Peckinpaugh, a San Francisco private eye who gets embroiled in a plot that’s a little bit Casablanca, a little bit Maltese Falcon, and a little bit of everything else. His partner gets killed, villains search for a cache of super-sized diamonds, and Lou juggles romantic intrigue with several dizzy dames. The movie’s gags are so silly that characters have names like Betty DeBoop, Jasper Blubber, and Jezebel Dezire.

          Based on this movie and Neil Simon’s other noir spoof from the same era starring Peter Falk, 1976’s Murder by Death, one gets the impression that Simon was trying to outdo Mel Brooks at the anything-goes approach to lampooning movie genres, but Simon simply couldn’t match the inspired lunacy that made Brooks’ spoofs so delirious. By trying to keep dialogue crisp and plotting rational, Simon’s attempt at this style falls somewhere between the extremes of proper storytelling and wild abandon. Thus, The Cheap Detective is fluffy without being truly irreverent and goofy without being truly insane—it’s like a second-rate Carol Burnett Show sketch, needlessly extended to feature length. What’s more, the movie is hurt by flat direction, as TV-trained helmer Robert Moore lacks the ability to generate exciting visuals.

          Yet another problem is the all-over-the-map acting. The most enjoyable performances, by Falk and supporting players Eileen Brennan, Stockard Channing, Madeline Kahn, and Fernando Lamas, wink at the audience without tipping into Borscht Belt excess. The most tiresome turns, by players including Ann-Margret, James Coco, Dom DeLuise, and Marsha Mason, fall into exactly that trap. (Though it must be said that Sid Caesar kills during one of the movie’s dumbest scenes, thanks to his legendary comic timing.) Some actors, however, seem completely adrift: Louise Fletcher, John Houseman, and Nicol Williamson strive to find consistent tonalities for their work, apparently receiving little guidance from Moore or the slapdash script. With this much talent involved, The Cheap Detective has a few bright spots, but the total package is quite blah.

The Cheap Detective: FUNKY

The Fortune (1975)

          If not for its stellar pedigree, The Fortune might have passed muster as a silly homage to old-school cinematic farce—but given the monumental talent involved, it’s incomprehensible that the movie is so charmless. The names on the marquee are impressive: Mike Nichols directs Warren Beatty, Stockard Channing, and Jack Nicholson in a script written by Five Easy Pieces scribe Carole Eastman (working under the alias Adrien Joyce). Playing against a backdrop of lavish early 20th-century costumes and production design, Beatty delivers an uninspired spin on his usual flummoxed-lothario routine, Nicholson does a gruesome caricature of his wild-and-crazy shtick (complete with Bozo the Clown hair), and Channing grates in a thankless role as the heiress both men try to swindle. This ensemble’s idea of hysterical farce is having Beatty sweet-talk Channing on a plane while Nicholson climbs onto the wing and mugs through the window like a lunatic peering into someone’s living room. According to movie lore, Beatty put the movie together as an audience-friendly complement to his risky pet project Shampoo (1975), then stipulated that Columbia Pictures could only have The Fortune if the studio financed Shampoo as well. Nichols said yes because the project seemed like it could be the box-office hit he needed after two major flops, and Channing was hired when Nichols nixed first-choice leading lady Bette Midler. As for Beatty’s offscreen buddy Nicholson, he slid the picture into his schedule while waiting to shoot One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975).
          Befitting its calculated genesis, The Fortune is soulless product that emanates contempt for the audience—it’s as if viewers are expected to laugh out of gratitude for seeing this much star power assembled in one place. Even the plot is tired. The story hinges on the Mann Act, which forbade the transportation of women across state lines for immoral reasons, so of course the filmmakers contrive feeble reasons for Beatty and Nicholson to ferry Channing from one state to the next, thus making them fugitives in addition to scoundrels. It’s been widely reported that filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen are fond of this picture, which makes sense given their affection for screwball comedy, but like some of the Coens’ weak screwball flicks (such as Intolerable Cruelty), The Fortune is an hour and a half of unpleasant people doing stupid things for vile reasons. Some might regard this approach as sophisticated because it doesn’t pander to the audience, and, indeed, The Fortune is quite tart—but aren’t comedies supposed to be fun? If that’s the benchmark, then The Fortune is a bust.

The Fortune: LAME

Grease (1978)

          The ’50s-themed musical Grease never piqued my curiosity back in the day, so it wasn’t until 2011 that I finally watched the thing start to finish, having seen only tiny excerpts previously. And though the following remark is useless as film criticism, the only fair assessment I can offer is that I don’t get what the fuss is about. Grease was gigantic hit in 1978, and it remains so eternally popular that sing-along screenings are regularly held at world-class venues including the Hollywood Bowl. That’s not even mentioning the considerable staying power of the stage musical upon which the film is based, which is a perennial favorite in community theater and high school productions. So while I can easily identify some of the pop-culture factors that contributed to the movie’s success—the ’50s nostalgia boom that began with American Graffiti (1973), the ascendance of leading man John Travolta, who scored a career-making hit with Saturday Night Fever (1977) the year before Grease was released—I don’t see anything in the actual content of the movie that screams “all-time classic.”
          In fact, several gigantic flaws seem more glaringly obvious to me than the movie’s limited charms. The actors playing teenagers at all-American Rydell High are too old for their roles (leading lady Olivia Newton-John was almost 30 when she shot the picture), the storyline is suffocatingly sexist (she wins Travolta’s heart by proving she can dress like a slut!), and the celebrated soundtrack is schizophrenic, because the mock-’50s tunes from the original stage show are complemented by an anachronistic country-pop ballad (“Hopelessly Devoted to You”) and an even more anachronistic disco thumper (the Barry Gibb-penned title song). Furthermore, the jokes are juvenile, the story is a pastiche of ’50s clichés like soda-fountain food fights and hot-rod drag races, the choreography is uninspired and crudely filmed, and the music production is sloppy, with most of the tracks suffering from poor mixes in which vocals are amped up way too highly.
          On the plus side, the central opposites-attract romance between a good girl who’s secretly naughty and a greaser who’s secretly decent has universal appeal, Travolta’s dancing is terrific, and the whole thing is served up with such an overdose of sugar-coated exuberance that its eagerness to please is appealing in a desperate, puppy-dog sort of way. (The insidiously catchy climactic number, “You’re the One That I Want,” epitomizes the chirpy vibe.) But when all of these disparate elements unspool one after another, Grease feels like a sloppy rough draft. Tangents including the downbeat Rizzo subplot (Stockard Channing plays a loose woman who goes all the way with a bad boy, then faces the consequences) dissipate the clarity and impact of the main romantic storyline, and extended dance numbers like “Greased Lightning” and “Born to Hand Jive” lack the ironic wit of stronger tunes like “Beauty School Drop-Out” and “Look at Me I’m Sandra Dee.” So while a few things in Grease work the way they should, close inspection reveals that they don’t, to quote one of the movie’s famous songs, “go together.”

Grease: FUNKY

The Big Bus (1976)

It’s not hard to see why The Big Bus seemed like a good idea at the time. Mel Brooks had just turned spoofs into big business, with Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein (both 1974), and the disaster movie was all the rage, making it an ideal satirical target. But even with good timing, a decent budget, and a cast filled with rock-solid comedy pros, this minor effort from the usually impressive producing team of Julia and Michael Phillips is thoroughly forgettable. From a film-history perspective, however, it’s interesting to examine The Big Bus as the first attempt to do what Airplane! did so much better few years later. The missing secret ingredient seems to be lunatic non sequiturs, because every joke in The Big Bus is hindered a laborious setup. The picture’s intentionally stupid plot concerns the maiden voyage of a giant nuclear-powered bus, which is fraught with problems like a crazed passenger who wants to kill the driver because she thinks he ate her father (and 109 other folks) after a bus crash in the boonies years ago. The caliber of the humor is summed up by a sequence in which the driver accelerates the bus to test whether it overcomes wind resistance, finally exclaiming, “We’ve done it! We’re breaking wind at 90 miles an hour!” The movie is borderline watchable because it’s handsomely produced, blasts from start to finish in 88 minutes, and includes lots of fun people: Rene Auberjonois, Ned Beatty, Joe Bologna, Stockard Channing, Bob Dishy, José Ferrer, Harold Gould, Larry Hagman, Sally Kellerman, Richard Mulligan, Lynn Redgrave, Stuart Margolin. There’s even room for Ruth Gordon of Harold and Maude fame, doing the sort of vulgar-old-lady shtick Betty White does today.

The Big Bus: FUNKY