1980 Week: The Man With Bogart’s Face

          Nostalgia for the golden era of film noir infused a number of movies in the ’70s and ’80s, from Roman Polanski’s provocative Chinatown (1974) to Carl Reiner’s silly Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982) and beyond. Yet perhaps the strangest tip of the cinematic fedora was The Man With Bogart’s Face, a lighthearted mystery flick starring Humphrey Bogart lookalike Robert Saachi. Ostensibly a comedy, the picture has an innately surreal quality not only because of Saachi’s eerie resemblance but also because of the bizarre way that writer/producer Andrew J. Fenaday addresses the resemblance within the storyline. The flick begins with Sam Marlowe (Saachi) in a doctor’s office, having bandages removed from his head. The idea is that Sam, or whatever his real name might be, is so nuts for Bogie that he had his features surgically altered. Sam also starts a private-eye business, drives around in a car from the 1940s, and wears a trenchcoat reminiscent of Bogart’s costume from the final scene of Casablanca (1942). People often ask what’s wrong with his face whenever Sam mimics Bogart’s signature tic of flexing his lips. And so on. But because Fenaday never provides any backstory for the leading character, The Man With Bogart’s Face dodges the big question of whether the title character is a raving lunatic.

          Vexing mysteries about the leading character aren’t the only issues plaguing this film, which is overlong but otherwise pleasant to watch thanks to an eventful storyline and the presence of familiar supporting actors. The biggest problem is the limp nature of the picture’s comedy. Sight gags and verbal jokes fall flat on a regular basis. That said, it’s possible to consume The Man With Bogart’s Face as a goofy mystery and overlook the weak attempts at hilarity. As one might expect from a genre homage, the plot is formulaic—several clients hire Sam for cases that turn out to be interconnected, and everyone’s after a priceless treasure. Sam’s pithy voiceover connects scenes of betrayal, seduction, suspense, and violence, all of which are played for lukewarm laughs. Providing the movie’s eye-candy quotient are Sybil Danning, Olivia Hussey, Michelle Phillips, and Misty Rowe. Lending various shades of villainy are Victor Buono, Herbert Lom, Franco Nero, George Raft, and Jay Robinson. As for Saachi, his mimicry is smooth enough to complete the weird illusion created by his dopplegänger appearance.

The Man With Bogart’s Face: FUNKY

The Twist (1976)

Recalling the production of this obscure European sex comedy in his memoirs, Bruce Dern admits “I didn’t really get what the movie was getting at until about two-thirds of the way through.” In fact, most of the chapter Dern devotes to The Twist concerns meals, Parisian weather, director Claude Chabrol’s preoccupation with complicated camera movements, and a weird episode with Ann-Margret and her husband at a nightclub. Watching The Twist, you’ll quickly understand why the circumstances of the picture are more interesting than the picture itself. A dull would-be farce about rotten people cheating on each other, the movie concerns an American writer (Dern), his French wife (played by Chabrol’s real-life spouse, Stéphane Audran), and their various extramarital entanglements. Ann-Margret plays the writer’s mistress. The wife fantasizes about killing the mistress, and the husband has a fever dream about all the women in his life—including his hot stepdaughter—molesting him before the wife shows up to cut off his manhood with a pair of scissors. (Not exactly Mr. Subtlety, Chabrol juices this sequence with a closeup of a fake penis becoming engorged, lest the audience somehow misread the wife’s intentions when she shows up with the scissors.) The Twist is not wholly negligible, because Dern plays his role with intensity (perhaps too much so); the production values are slick; and there’s a lot of fodder for the male gaze, with Sybil Danning as a flirty secretary and Sydne Rome as the stepdaughter. Additionally, scenes depicting the marital dynamic between the main characters exude believable hostility, with the husband coming across as a self-involved prick while the wife comes across as a shrew desperate to be tamed. (Wait, you’re surprised that a sex farce from a French director born in 1930 has gender politics from the Stone Age?) Nonetheless, beyond those eager to see everything Chabrol or Dern ever made, it’s hard to imagine many viewers finding the stamina to endure all 107 minutes of The Twist.

The Twist: LAME

Bluebeard (1972)

          One of the many strange things about this thriller starring Richard Burton as a serial killer whose victims are his gorgeous wives is that Bluebeard was released near the apex of the Women’s Lib movement—not exactly the right moment for a piece about the ultimate misogynist. Similarly, make what you will of Burton’s casting, seeing as how he shot Bluebeard toward the end of his first tumultuous marriage to Elizabeth Taylor. Knowing that Burton had considerable friction with the woman whom he reportedly called “Miss Tits” lends strange connotations, especially during scenes in which Burton’s character is repulsed by the sight of bared breasts. Oh, and Bluebeard—which features as much gore and nudity as the raciest Hammer flicks—was among the final films directed by Hollywood veteran Edward Dmytryk (The Caine Mutiny).

          Based on the 17th-century story by Charles Perrault but set during the 1930s, Bluebeard is about Baron von Sepper (Burton), an Austrian aristocrat whose facial hair turned blue following exposure to chemicals during a fighter-plane crash in World War I. (Because that happens.) After the Baron’s current wife dies under mysterious circumstances, he falls for a spunky American showgirl, Anne (Joey Heatherton). After they marry, Anne discovers a trove of corpses in the Baron’s castle, so she persuades the Baron to explain the circumstances of his past murders in order to buy time before she becomes his latest victim. This prompts long flashbacks, one per wife.

          Tonally, Bluebeard is so inconsistent that it’s likely each participant thought he or she was making a different movie. Burton plays his scenes like high camp, as if he’s Boris Karloff or Vincent Price, while Heatherton purrs and slinks like she’s starring in a softcore picture. (Although her acting is hilariously bad, she looks great whether clothed or, as is frequently the case, not.) Supporting players incarnating the roles of the Baron’s wives/victims deliver a dizzying range of styles. Nathalie Delon exudes sincerity playing the naïve Erika (that is, until her steamy lesbian fling with buxom costar Sybil Danning). Virna Lisi croons her way through a cartoonish turn as “The Singer.” And Raquel Welch embarrasses herself with stilted line readings suitable for a high school play while portraying Magdalena, a nymphomaniac-turned-nun.

          The film’s horror aspects are silly, thanks to the use of unrealistic-looking mannequins for corpses, and the application of cheap Freudian psychology to explain Bluebeard’s motivations is tacky. As a result, good luck figuring out whether Bluebeard is a failed comedy, a failed thriller, or a horribly misguided hybrid. Despite all of these faults, however, Bluebeard is weirdly watchable because of opulent production values, a steady procession of naked beauties, and the odd rhythms of Burton’s performance, which has moments of credible intensity amid overall hamminess. Capping the whole psychosexual experience is a gonzo musical score by the inimitable Ennio Morricone.

Bluebeard: FREAKY

1980 Week: Battle Beyond the Stars

          Roger Corman’s most successful attempt at riding the coattails of Star Wars (1977), this somewhat enjoyable space adventure represents an important juncture in several cinematic careers. It was the last of several projects that John Sayles wrote for Corman, because Sayles graduated to working for bigger producers in addition to writing and directing his own independent films. Perhaps more significantly, Battle Beyond the Stars was the first big FX job for James Cameron, who was just a handful of years away from directing his first proper feature, The Terminator (1984). Both men contributed strong elements to Battle Beyond the Stars, notably Sayles’ dry wit and Cameron’s visual ingenuity, but that shouldn’t give anyone the impression that Battle Beyond the Stars is a good movie. Quite to the contrary, it’s typical Corman junk, rushed and silly, but it has better production values than one might expect, and the combination of a familiar plot and a lively cast generate some interest.
          After all, the movie is a shameless sci-fi riff on The Magnificent Seven (1960), which in turn was a remake of the Japanese classic Seven Samurai (1954), so the underlying narrative is rock-solid even if the campy execution is not.

          Battle Beyond the Stars revolves around farmers who live on the planet Akir and are terrorized by an interstellar villain named Sador (John Saxon). The farmers send one of their own, naïve young Shad (Richard Thomas), into space so he can hire mercenaries. Eventually, Shad gathers a crew including Gelt (Robert Vaughn), an assassin hiding from outer-space authorities; Saint-Exmin (Sybil Danning), a Valkyrie seeking battlefield glory; Space Cowboy (George Peppard), an intergalactic trucker with a grudge against Sador; and others, including the predictable coterie of anthropomorphized robots. Hiring Magnificent Seven veteran Vaughn accentuates the connection to the earlier film, as does James Horner’s rousing score, which emulates the spirit of Elmer Bernstein’s famous Magnificent Seven music.

          As should be apparent by now, very little in Battle Beyond the Stars is even remotely original, and the movie’s recycled quality is as problematic as the episodic story structure. Making matters worse is the all-over-the-map acting. Peppard gives an amiable turn as the wisecracking antihero and Vaughn is suitably icy as the killer seeking redemption, but Danning is amateurish and Saxon operates on moustache-twirling autopilot. (In Danning’s defense, the voluptuous actress contributes some of the most spectacular cleavage ever seen outside of a Russ Meyer movie.) Even the effects are a mixed bag. While some design elements are interesting, Corman cuts far too many corners, so battle scenes that should be epic end up feeling anticlimactic. Plus, the movie falls victim to the usual sci-fi foible of too many goofy-sounding names and silly-looking aliens. Still, Battle Beyond the Stars has enough colorful elements to merit a casual viewing, especially for space-opera junkies.

Battle Beyond the Stars: FUNKY

God’s Gun (1975)

A boring spaghetti Western arriving so late in the genre’s dubious life cycle as to lack any significance, God’s Gun pairs two of America’s favorite leather-faced B-movie stalwarts, Jack Palance and Lee Van Cleef, for a violent romp through the usual muck of religion-drenched vendettas. Produced by the notorious hacks at Golan-Globus, and co-written and directed by Sabata helmer Gianfranco Parolini (using his Americanized pseudonym “Frank Kramer”), God’s Gun doesn’t look like the usual spaghetti-Western schlock. Instead of rolling hills and parched deserts, the picture is mostly set in an ersatz Western town, complemented with overly lit soundstages that give the picture a Hollywood feel. These contrivances make God’s Gun more garish than grungy, which is not an improvement over the genre’s norm. Yet the worst aspects of spaghetti Westerns are present in full force, such as atrocious dubbing, which replaces the actors’ on-set performances with studio-recorded impersonations by substitute performers. (Why hire name actors and not use their voices?) The embalmed plot begins when a gang led by Sam Clayton (Palance) invades tiny Juno City. Since the sheriff (Richard Boone) is an ineffectual non-presence, the municipality’s real muscle is Father John (Van Cleef), a gunfighter-turned-preacher. Father John acts as a surrogate father for wide-eyed teenager Johnny (Leif Garrett), the son of a buxom saloon hostess (Sybil Danning). When Clayton’s goons kill Father John, Johnny flees into the wilderness and stumbles across his late mentor’s twin brother, Lewis (also played by Van Cleef). And so it goes from there: Lewis exacts revenge, the baddies are brought to justice, et cetera. Ineptly written, haphazardly filmed, and acted with suffocating disinterest, God’s Gun is a chore to sit through and not worth the effort. It says everything you need to know about the picture that the linchpin dramatic performance is given by the talentless Garrett, then at the beginning of his uninteresting run as a teen heartthrob.

God’s Gun: LAME