Hart to Hart (1979)

          Frothy romantic intrigue somewhat the vein of the old Thin Man movies, Hart to Hart was the pilot movie for a series that ran from 1979 to 1984. (Eight reunion movies came afterward, airing from 1993 to 1996.) With former 1950s matinee idol Robert Wagner in the leading role, the Hart to Hart series never aimed for hipness or relevance, instead presenting the lighthearted adventures of jet-setting millionaire and his beautiful wife as they solve crimes for a hobby. Seen today, the pilot movie is creakier than ever, so it’s actually more interesting to note behind-the-scenes trivia than to explore the onscreen content. Two of Wagner’s famous paramours appear in the telefilm. His wife at the time of filming, Natalie Wood, makes a goofy cameo as an actress in a Southern-belle costume, and his future wife, Jill St. John, plays a supporting role. The series was created by novelist Sidney Sheldon, and the pilot was cowritten and directed by the prolific Tom Mankiewicz, who scribed many of James Bond’s ’70s outings and contributed to Superman (1978). Overseeing the whole project were producers Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg, the titans of trash TV in the ’70s and ’80s.

          Anyway, after a friend dies under mysterious circumstances, dashing businessman Jonathan Hart (Wagner) promises the friend’s widow that he will investigate. Clues connect the dead man to a pricey health farm, so Jonathan hits the road in his jaunty sports car. Along the way, he gets into a playful road race with a beautiful redhead, who leaves him in the dust when he gets pulled over by a cop. Jonathan reaches the health farm and encounters the redhead again, so they spar verbally—and yet that night, she slips into his room and his bed. Because, to the surprise of absolutely no one, she’s actually his wife, Jennifer (Stefanie Powers), recently returned from a European trip. The Harts investigate the health farm together, discovering a conspiracy to brainwash rich guests in order to steal their money. Concurrently, Jonathan flirts with yet another beautiful redhead, Sylvia (St. John), ostensibly to find more clues.

          All of this plays out in tedious fashion. The elaborate introduction to Jennifer’s character feels like a cheap attempt at a Hitchcockian flourish, and Mankiewicz’ would-be pithy dialogue is like champagne that’s lost its fizz. As for the leads, they’re both so vacuous that they seem more like gregarious party hosts than actual performers. Meanwhile, supporting players including James Noble, Michael Lerner, Roddy McDowall, Stella Stevens, and Mankiewicz favorite Clifton James play forgettable roles with bloodless professionalism, and future series regular Lionel Stander, who portrays Jonathan’s gravel-voiced butler, Max, is underused. Judging from the longevity of the franchise, the folks behind Hart to Hart obviously did something right, but it’s hard to determine what that is by watching this thoroughly enervated pilot.

Hart to Hart: FUNKY

The Eagle Has Landed (1976)

Representing a middling finale to an impressive career, The Eagle Has Landed was the last movie directed by action guy John Sturges, whose previous output included such classics as The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963). Considering Sturges’ skill and the caliber of the film’s cast, The Eagle Has Landed should be terrific, but the story is hopelessly convoluted, and the film never quite overcomes the problem of featuring Nazis as protagonists. Based on a novel by Jack Higgins and written by Bond-movie veteran Tom Mankiewicz, who was generally better suited to tongue-in-cheek escapist fare, the narrative concerns an outlandish Third Reich plot to kidnap British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the height of the war’s European action. Some of the Germans behind the scheme are, in descending order of rank, Hitler confidante Heinrich Himmler (Donald Pleasence), an officer named Radl (Robert Duvall, complete with eye patch), an IRA double-agent named Devlin (Donald Sutherland), and a disgraced Nazi officer named Steiner (Michael Caine). The overcooked plot also includes American soldiers (played by, among others, Larry Hagman and Treat Williams), plus a British lass (Jenny Agutter) who shares romantic history with Devlin. (In case you’ve already forgotten, he’s the IRA guy.) Just describing the plot of The Eagle Has Landed is exhausting, and while watching the movie is not quite as much of a chore as this synopsis might suggest, The Eagle Has Landed lacks the jaunty quality of Sturges’ best action pictures. On the bright side, there’s some low-wattage fun to be had in watching Caine play a snotty officer who openly expresses contempt for his superiors, or in watching Sutherland play one of his signature romantic rogues. Plus, Duvall has a few strong moments as the put-upon Radl, a mid-level officer who endeavors to follow orders while slyly working the Third Reich political system to protect himself from punishment in the event of failure. Good luck, pal!

The Eagle Has Landed: FUNKY

Mother, Jugs & Speed (1976)

          With a more coherent script work and a better actress playing the female lead, this insouciant comedy about misfits working for low-rent ambulance companies might have been a solid entry in the M*A*S*H-inspired subgenre of outrageous medical comedies. As is, the picture’s redeeming qualities get drowned out by muddy storytelling and tonal inconsistencies.
          Bill Cosby stars as Mother, a driver at the wildly unethical F+B Ambulance Company. Boozing it up behind the wheel and packing a .357 Magnum for sticky situations, Mother regularly intercepts calls for other ambulance companies so F+B can collect the fares. Raquel Welch costars as Jennifer, better known as “Jugs” (for obvious reasons); she’s the F+B receptionist who longs for gender equality in the workplace. Eventually, Harvey Keitel shows up as Speed, a police detective who needs to make extra cash while on suspension for alleged corruption. These three characters, along with other oddballs like Murdoch (Larry Hagman), a scumbag prone to stunts like trying to rape unconscious female patients, form a tapestry of human weirdness that’s occasionally very funny.

          Screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz, known for his lighthearted contributions to Roger Moore’s early 007 movies and the first two Superman pictures, contrives lively banter, although the fact that Cosby delivers most of the best lines suggests the actor did some on-set embellishing. When the movie is really cooking, which doesn’t happen very often, Mother, Jugs & Speed cleverly riffs on the idea of trying to remain sane in a world gone mad. Unfortunately, the movie gets derailed as frequently as it stays on track.

          One big problem is the characterization of Jennifer. After she transitions from her secretary role to working in the field, the movie’s focus shifts to the angst she suffers upon encountering the Big Bad World. Jennifer also falls into a sudden (and not particularly credible) relationship with Speed, despite rebuffing the advances of every other dude she meets. Exacerbating matters is the fact that when Mother, Jugs & Speed goes dark, it goes very dark, to the tune of major characters getting shot and killed. Even with reliable director Peter Yates calling the shots, this picture simply isn’t solid enough to sustain whiplash changes in tone.

          Still, there’s plenty for casual viewers to enjoy in the brisk 95-minute film, from Cosby’s impeccable timing to Allen Garfield’s sweaty performance as F+B’s cheapskate proprietor. Fellow supporting players Hagman, Bruce Davison, and L.Q. Jones deliver vivid work, and Keitel is appealing in one of his few real romantic leads. As for Welch, she thrives during light-comedy bits but is startlingly awful during dramatic scenes.

Mother, Jugs & Speed: FUNKY

Diamonds Are Forever (1971) & Live and Let Die (1973) & The Man With the Golden Gun (1974) & The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) & Moonraker (1979)

          After scoring in the ’60s on the strength of Sean Connery’s he-man swagger, the James Bond franchise spent the ’70s creeping toward self-parody with a series of gimmicky films that tried to latch onto then-current trends, often with embarrassing results. Luckily, two solid entries appear amid the dreck. Having previously ceded the Bond role to the underrated George Lazenby (the franchise’s only one-time 007), Connery was lured back with a big paycheck for the forgettable Diamonds Are Forever. Also returning to the series was Goldfinger director Guy Hamilton, who helmed Diamonds as well as the next two 007 flicks. Dull and garish, Diamonds features an overused Bond villain (Ernst Blofeld) in one of his least interesting incarnations, a vulgar choice of setting (Las Vegas), and crass flourishes like Bond’s showdown with two high-kicking kung fu babes. The movie is also incredibly mean-spirited, right down to the offensive characterizations of two gay hit men who trail Bond across the globe. Even leading lady Jill St. John’s outrageous body, which is on ample display, can only sustain interest for so long. Especially since the previous film in the series, the Lazenby-starring On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), is one of the best-ever 007 flicks, it’s depressing to watch Connery sleepwalk through an entry as halfhearted as its leading actor’s performance.
          Then came Roger Moore, the debonair British actor previously known for the Bond-ish TV series The Saint. Moore cut a great figure with his raised eyebrow, tailored wardrobe, and velvety speaking voice, and at least at the beginning of his run he seemed intense enough to wield 007’s license to kill. Unfortunately, along with Moore came a new style largely set by screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz, who inserted so many verbal and visual winks that Bond started to become more of a joke machine than a killing machine. Moore’s first Bond outing, Live and Let Die, was designed to piggyback on the blaxploitation craze with a turgid story that begins in drug-infested Harlem and continues down to the voodoo-drenched Caribbean, but the producers hedged their bets by featuring a Caucasian leading lady, Jane Seymour, whose presence in the storyline makes no sense. The combination of a rotten musical score (excepting Paul McCartney’s kicky theme song) and stupid puns (Bond visits the “Oh Cult Voodoo Shop”) makes Live and Let Die feel flat, and main villain Yaphet Kotto was miscast as a speechifying mastermind. Worse, the insipid “comedy” scenes featuring Clifton James as a redneck sheriff illustrate how far the film deviates from what makes a Bond movie a Bond movie.
          Team 007 got back to basics with the next entry, The Man With the Golden Gun, which flips the usual Bond formula by making 007 the hunted instead of the hunter. Hammer horror stalwart Christopher Lee costars as suave assassin Francisco Scaramanga (whose distinguishing characteristic is a third nipple!) and future Fantasy Island sidekick Hervé Villechaize plays Scaramanga’s diminutive henchman, Nick Nack. When Bond lands on Scaramanga’s hit list, 007 begins an unauthorized investigation, taking place mostly in Hong Kong, to smoke out his would-be killer. Hamilton stages several stylish sequences, notably the bookend scenes in the assassin’s funhouse hideout; the picture features colorful locations including a fortress inside a half-sunken ocean liner; and the focus on a worthy mana-a-mano duel keeps the storyline tight. The movie gets a bit logy during the climax, but Moore plays the material straight (for once) and Lee actually musters enthusiasm during several scenes, a rarity for the generally stoic performer. Best of all, The Man With the Golden Gun eschews the distractions of gadgets and murky subplots, focusing instead on the core elements of death-defying escapes, exciting fight scenes, and smooth seductions. Happily, the reprise of Clifton James’ redneck character is fleeting.
          When Bond returned to the big screen three years later in The Spy Who Loved Me, producers added tremendous visual opulence in the form of grandiose location photography and cutting-edge special effects. By far the most visually impressive of Moore’s 007 flicks, Spy has a silly plot and a forgettable villain (something about stolen nuclear submarines and an international extortion scheme), but it boasts one of the best opening sequences in the franchise’s history. That spectacular bit, a ski chase concluding with an amazing skydive, is complemented by a moody foot pursuit through the Egyptian pyramids, as well as an exciting shootout in a submarine bay (at the time the largest set ever constructed for a movie). And then there’s Jaws (Richard Kiel), the towering assassin with the metallic mouth; he’s such a preposterous character that he’s amusing every time he walks onscreen. Spy also features one of the series’ best attempts to match Bond with a woman who equals him in every way. Lovely Barbara Bach, who in real life later became Mrs. Ringo Starr, appears as a Russian agent out to avenge her lover, who died at 007’s hands. Bach isn’t up to the task of portraying the character’s shadings, but it’s still a relief to see a woman in the franchise who is more than a sexual plaything.
          Sadly, everything that went right in Spy went wrong in Moonraker, a pathetic attempt to capitalize on the success of Star Wars by sending Bond into space. Poor Lois Chiles has to play a character named “Holly Goodhead,” and during the climax, extras limply float around the exterior of a space station while shooting laser guns at each other. The highlight, if that's even the right word, is a scene of Moore getting trapped in a G-force simulation chamber, his jowls flapping as his capsule zooms around a circular track at insane speeds; in addition to the way the scene demonstrates the series’ growing reliance on production values over narrative inspiration, the scene’s unflattering closeups illustrate how quickly Moore was aging out of the 007 role. It all got much worse in the ’80s, but Moonraker represented the nadir of the franchise up to that point. Still, Bond’s ’70s adventures are fascinating when screened in sequence, because viewers can see the production team trying to completely rethink the series with each new movie.

Diamonds Are Forever: LAME

Live and Let Die: FUNKY

The Man With the Golden Gun: GROOVY

The Spy Who Loved Me: GROOVY

Moonraker: LAME