Two-Minute Warning (1976)

          The premise of Two-Minute Warning couldn’t be more appealing for fans of cheesy ’70s blockbusters: A sniper takes a position in the clock tower of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during a crowded football game, so cops led by Captain Peter Holly (Charlton Heston) must take the sniper out. Chuck Heston versus a psycho against a backdrop of tragic melodrama—pass the popcorn! Unfortunately, the title of Two-Minute Warning is itself a warning (to viewers), since virtually nothing exciting happens until the last two minutes of the game that provides the film’s narrative structure. Most of the movie comprises a long slog of “character development” in the superficial disaster-movie style, meaning Two-Minute Warning is nearly all foreplay with very little payoff.

          That said, if you dive into the movie aware that it’s a slow burn, the combination of enterprising location photography and enthusiastic performances might be enough to keep you interested. The main relationship in the movie is between Captain Holly, who spends most of his time watching the sniper through a video feed originating in the Goodyear Blimp (!), and hotshot SWAT team commander Chris Button (John Cassavetes). Holly wants to remove the sniper without gunplay, whereas Button is itching for a shootout. Watching these alpha males clash provides a smidgen of macho entertainment, though one wishes the filmmakers had found a way to make their conflict more dynamic. The lack of strong leading characters lets supporting players run away with the picture. Brock Peters stands out as a Coliseum maintenance man who tries to be a hero, and Beau Bridges has some sorta-affecting moments as an unemployed dad fighting with his wife and kids in the stands, unaware of the danger lurking behind the end zone.

          Two-Minute Warning hews so closely to the disaster-movie paradigm that the story also includes an aging pickpocket (Walter Pidgeon), a football-loving priest (Mitchell Ryan), and a bickering couple (played by David Janssen and Gena Rowlands). Yes, it’s the old “Who’s going to live, who’s going to die?” drill. Director Larry Peerce rounded out the cast with his then-wife, Marilyn Hassett, the star of his maudlin The Other Side of the Mountain movies, although casting his missus appears to be as close as he got to emotionally investing in this trifling potboiler. Since the Coliseum figured prominently in ’70s pop culture (it was used for Heaven Can Wait, North Dallas Forty, and innumerable TV episodes), the venue provides as comforting a presence as any of the name-brand actors, and Peerce shoots the location well. Overall, however, Two-Minute Warning is a missed opportunity given all the possibilities suggested by the premise. Fumble!

Two-Minute Warning: FUNKY

Harry in Your Pocket (1973)

          Nimble ensemble acting and sprightly direction give the character-driven crime picture Harry in Your Pocket humanity and vitality. Exploring the dynamics dividing and uniting a quartet of thieves who roam the U.S. and Canada, picking pockets and living in high style wherever they travel, Harry in Your Pocket is the only movie that Mission: Impossible creator Bruce Geller ever directed, and it’s a shame he never built upon the film’s promise. Particularly when he’s orchestrating tricky scenes, Geller displays great confidence with camerawork, performance, and storytelling. As a result, he creates a cohesive vibe in which every major character presents a surface of self-serving pragmatism in order to hide that greatest of weaknesses in criminal enterprise—compassion.

          Michael Sarrazin, his gangly masculinity as oddly appealing as ever, plays Ray, a small-time pickpocket plying his trade in a Seattle train station. His would-be victim, Sandy (Trish Van Devere), realizes he lifted her watch and then confronts him, but in so doing leaves her purse and suitcase unattended. When those items are stolen (by someone else), Ray feels responsible and offers to pay for her passage out of Seattle—just as soon as he fences loot for the necessary cash. So begins an offbeat romance, with Ray discovering vulnerability through his affection for Sandy and Sandy discovering a rebellious streak through her affection for Ray.

          Eventually, these two learn that a veteran thief named Harry (James Coburn) is looking for assistants, so they meet with Harry and his older associate, Casey (Walter Pidgeon). Harry’s a cocky crook prone to dictatorial declarations, but Ray accepts the humiliating work circumstances because he’s eager to learn from a master. Thus, Ray and Sandy become “stalls” responsible for distracting victims while Harry—the crew’s “cannon”—makes the “dip” (theft) and immediately deposits the “poke” (loot) into Casey’s hands. Because, you see, “Harry doesn’t hold,” and never keeping stolen goods in his hands for more than a few seconds explains why he’s never been arrested.

          Revealing the mechanics of a covert crew plays to Geller’s strengths, so he accentuates the effervescent rhythms of the movie’s script, which was written Ronald Austin and James Buchanan. Plus, the storyline ends up having a smidgen of emotional heft, because while Ray and Sandy grow into their new roles as first-class robbers, Harry’s icy professionalism is compromised by the development of personal connections. The pefectly cast actors dramatize these nuances well, because Coburn exudes macho standoffishness while Pidgeon radiates elegant likeability, with Sarrazin representing hotheaded youth and Van Devere adding grown-up sexiness. One could quibble that Harry in Your Pocket lacks the climactic payoff of a big heist sequence—the denouement is as understated as the rest of the picture—but the movie has abundant charms nonetheless, however humble they may be. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Harry in Your Pocket: GROOVY

The Neptune Factor (1972)

The ’70s generated plenty of “bad” movies that are fun to watch, and on first blush one might expect The Neptune Factor to fall into that category. A thriller about the crusade to rescue a group of people from an underwater research station surrounded by giant sea creatures, the picture should offer a kitschy sci-fi spin on The Poseidon Adventure. Not so. Instead of campy melodrama in the Irwin Allen mode, this interminable flick features bored actors reciting pointless dialogue on cheap sets, plus ridiculous “special effects” shots of real fish swimming around poorly photographed miniature models of submersibles. Were it not for the presence of recognizable actors, this would seem like an inept student film that somehow found its way into the mainstream marketplace. The plot, which makes the picture sound much more exciting than it actually is, involves an undersea lab getting dislodged from its normal position by an undersea earthquake. A high-tech submarine is dispatched to rescue (or recover) the scientists in the lab, resulting in a handful of close encounters with “giant” sea creatures living in the ocean’s lower depths. Painfully boring on its way to becoming absolutely forgettable, The Neptune Factor stars a quartet of actors not generally known for safeguarding their cinematic legacies: Ernest Borgnine, Ben Gazzara, Yvette Mimieux, and Walter Pidgeon. Suffice it to say that none surmounts the worthless material, although Borgnine tries to keep things watchable with his usual indiscriminate intensity. The other performers merely sleepwalk through the stupidity, although it’s amusing to watch Gazarra strut around with his signature smugness—what, exactly, is there to be smug about when you’re sharing the screen with the residents of a household aquarium?

The Neptune Factor: SQUARE