Sharks’ Treasure (1975)

          American culture changed so profoundly—and so quickly—in the late ’60s and early ’70s that it’s often fascinating to discover artifacts demonstrating attempts by aging artists to update their styles. Cornel Wilde, who became a movie star in the ’50s and later branched into producing and directing films, was well into the twilight of his career when he made Sharks’ Treasure, a strange hybrid of contemporary exploitation-flick tropes and old-fashioned adventure. Wilde avoids coarse language and seems hesitant showing bloodshed and nudity, but he delves wholeheartedly into a subplot predicated upon implied homosexuality. And while the general aesthetic of the picture is so rudimentary and unattractive it looks like any other drive-in trash from the ’70s, Wilde’s old-timey taste manifests in the lone original song, which he composed—first played over a treasure-hunting montage, the cornball tune “Money, Money” seems like it was extracted from some Busby Berkeley musical of the 1930s.

          The plot is sufficiently contrived and pulpy to ensure watchability in all but the dullest scenes. In the tropics, eager young dude Ron (John Neilson) approaches cranky boat captain Jim (Wilde) with a proposal to visit a spot where Ron found a gold coin. Research leads Jim to believe that Ron happened upon the location of sunken treasure, so Jim agrees to lead a salvage mission. Joining them are cocksure diver Ben (Yaphet Kotto) and his simple-minded pal, Larry (David Canary). Meanwhile, authorities chase after several escaped convicts, led by homicidal creep Lobo (Cliff Osmond). After a long sequence of Jim’s crew collecting treasure from shark-infested waters, Lobo’s gang shows up to hijack the boat.

          To Wilde’s minor credit, the resolution of this storyline isn’t entirely a foregone conclusion, and the body count is fairly high, so Sharks’ Treasure isn’t without, well, teeth. That said, some mighty strange things happen along the way. Lobo is obsessed with his prison bitch, Juanito (David Gillam), whom Lobo forces to wear drag at one point, and the capper to their subplot is weirdly poignant. Clearly proud of his taut physique, Wilde spends most of the movie in tiny swim trunks and performs an exhibition of one-armed pushups. In the movie’s funniest non sequitur, the film cuts for no particular reason to a shot of Jim intently reading a book called Doomsday between salvage dives. If that was meant as foreshadowing, then it perfectly illustrates the clumsiness of Wilde’s artless filmmaking. If not, it’s one more wrong note in a movie full of them.

Sharks’ Treasure: FUNKY

Victory at Entebbe (1976) & Raid on Entebbe (1977)

          One of the Me Decade’s most startling real-life events occurred on July 4, 1976, when Israeli commandos raided an airport in Uganda to rescue more than a hundred hostages from Palestinians who hijacked a passenger plane. Filled with larger-than-life individuals, notably crazed Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, the story of “Operation Thunderbolt” helped define the era during which international terrorism first took root. Almost inevitably, Hollywood pounced on this material, with the first screen dramatization reaching American airwaves six months after the rescue, and a second version airing a month later. Both telefilms feature big-name casts.

          First to air was Victory at Entebbe, a rushed and schlocky melodrama that mostly focuses on dynamics among hostages during their tense incarceration in Uganda. Filmed by director Marvin J. Chomsky with garish lighting and unimpressive production values, Victory at Entebbe suffers badly for the choice to shove the biggest names possible into various roles, no matter the results. Good luck figuring out the genetic math by which parents Kirk Douglas and Elizabeth Taylor produce daughter Linda Blair—and have fun scratching your head while Anthony Hopkins plays Israeli Prime Minister Ytzhak Rabin opposite Burt Lancaster as his Minister of Defense. Helmut Berger does forgettable work as lead terrorist Wilfried Böse, and those playing the other hijackers stop just short of twirling moustaches.

          Portraying key passengers, Theodore Bikel, Severn Darden, Helen Hayes, Allan Miller, Jessica Walter, and others do what they can with florid dialogue and overwrought dramaturgy. Way too much screen time is devoted to Blair’s alternately cutesy and whiny performance as a young hostage, the Douglas/Taylor scenes feel like clips from a bad soap opera, and Julius Harris looks cartoonish playing Amin thanks to an ill-advised fat suit. Scenes set in Israel are better, though it’s hard to buy doughy Richard Dreyfuss as fierce commando Yoni Netanyahu. Worse, the Israeli scenes focus on procedural matters, mostly sidelining political ramifications. A final strike against Victory at Entebbe is the use of stock footage for airplane scenes, which greatly diminishes verisimilitude.

          Although the star power of Raid on Entebbe is not quite as impressive as that of the preceding film, the performances are much better. Martin Balsam, Charles Bronson, Horst Buchholz, Peter Finch, John Saxon, Sylvia Sidney, Jack Warden, and others deliver restrained work, letting the story speak for itself. Only a few players—including Tige Andrews and Stephen Macht—succumb to melodramatic excess. More importantly, Raid on Entebbe has Yaphet Kotto. He’s  dazzling as Amin, conveying the madman’s grandiosity, moodiness, and narcissism. Directed by the versatile Irvin Kershner with docudrama simplicity and the occasional subtle flourish—a sleek camera move here, a dramatic lighting pattern there—Raid on Entebbe unfolds methodically. The opening scene depicts the hijacking without sensationalizing events, and thereafter the movie cuts back and forth between Israel, where officials plan their response, and scenes involving hostages and their captors.

          Eventually, the film resolves into three parallel narratives. The first involves Rabin (Finch) rallying support for military intervention, despite his government’s propensity for endless debate. The second involves the hostages, of whom Daniel Cooper (Balsam) is the unofficial spokesman, watching their fates transfer from the hands of religious zealots to those of an unpredictable tyrant. The third involves units of the Israeli military—under the command of Generals Gur (Warden), Peled (Saxon), and Shomron (Bronson)—figuring how to achieve the impossible. The level of detail in Barry Beckerman’s teleplay is extraordinary, so despite its lengthy running time (two and a half hours), Raid on Entebbe is interesting and thoughtful from start to finish. Better still, the presence of marquee-name actors never eclipses the solemnity of the narrative. (Special note should be made of Finch’s fine performance as Rabin, because this was his last project. He died a week after Raid on Entebbe aired.)

          Yet another dramatization of these historic events emerged soon after the dual telefilms, this time from Israel. Directed by Menaham Golan, Operation Thunderbolt features a mostly Israeli cast, although the intense German actor Klaus Kinski plays Böse and the voluptuous Austrian starlet Sybil Danning costars. Operation Thunderbolt received an Oscar nomination as Best Foreign Film.

Victory at Entebbe: FUNKY

Raid on Entebbe: GROOVY

Night Chase (1970)

          David Janssen, the king of the pained facial expression, plays a different sort of fugitive in Night Chase, a somewhat compelling thriller that anticipates the premise of the Tom Cruise movie Collateral (2004), but follows through on the premise with a story that makes a whole lot more sense. Running 95 minutes, long by ’70s-telefilm standards, Night Chase gets repetitive and slow at times, so viewers who enjoy seeing vintage footage of Southern California will get more out of the experience than others. That said, the script is clear and efficient, Jack Starrett’s direction sets an understated tone that suits the material, and costar Yaphet Kotto’s performance is so loose and vivid that he greatly elevates the material. Ultimately, Night Chase isn’t consequential in terms of social relevance or themes, so it’s just a disposable thriller with welcome aspects of humanism. Nonetheless, with so many pointlessly nihilistic thrillers out there, the compassion infusing Night Chase makes watching the picture mildly edifying.

          As in Collateral, the story gets underway when a mysterious white man flags down a black cab driver for a ride. Specifically, Adrian (Janssen) grabs a taxi from the Los Angeles International Airport after his flight gets cancelled. Ernie (Kotto) gets the fare, and he’s surprised when Adrian asks for a 200-mile ride to San Diego. Once the men are in close quarters, Ernie catches disturbing clues—blood on Adrian’s shirt, skittishness whenever police cars pass the cab. Eventually, it emerges that Adrian shot a man in Baltimore, and he’s on the way to Mexico, where he plans to use his gun again.

          The remaining details are best discovered as the story unfolds, but the gist is that Adrian feels tortured by not only what he’s already done but by what he’s contemplating doing next. Although saying that Janssen’s performance is infused with nuance would require considerable overstatement, he mimics anguish well, and his intensity is sufficiently persuasive that it’s believable when he makes everyone around him nervous. Kotto’s work exists on a different level. At the beginning of the picture, he conveys affability and world-weariness in equal measure, and as the story progresses, he hits notes of despair, heroism, and terror. Night Chase is yet another reminder of his incredible power and versatility. While the film is mostly a two-hander, Elisha Cook Jr., William Katt, and Victoria Vetri all do strong work in small supporting roles.

Night Chase: FUNKY

Bone (1972)

          One of the reasons B-movie auteur Larry Cohen’s career is so unique is that he often invested his work with more social significance than was necessary. After all, the easy path when making exploitation flicks is simply to concentrate on girls, gore, and guns—all of which were elements of Cohen’s movies. Yet Cohen regularly delivered something extra, namely satirical commentary about culture, politics, and race. Therefore, even if Cohen’s handling of lightning-rod material is occasionally clumsy or even crude, he deserves lots of credit for endeavoring to imbue his drive-in pictures with meaning. Cohen’s 1972 movie Bone, for instance, fuses comedic and dramatic aspects in an offbeat manner. Originally subtitled A Bad Day in Beverly Hills, the movie begins with a bizarre sequence of a car dealer named Bill (Andrew Duggan) hallucinating about auto wrecks while acting in a cheesy TV ad. This sets the tone for Cohen’s exploration of how fantasy and reality collide when the fairy-tale existence of rich Beverly Hills whites is disrupted by the intrusion of a black criminal scarred by racism.

          Specifically, Bill and his unhappy wife, Bernadette (Joyce Van Patten), lounge around the pool one afternoon until Bill discovers a rat stuck in the pool’s drain. Then Bone (Yaphet Kotto), a towering African-American dressed in ragged clothes, appears from nowhere. Mistaking him for an exterminator, Bill asks Bone to remove the rat—which he does, by hand. Turns out the invader was casing the joint for a robbery, so Bill is sent away from the house to collect cash while Bone holds Bernadette hostage under threat of rape and murder. After this intense setup, Cohen takes the story in unexpected directions, presenting not only Bernadette’s Stockholm Syndrome-style fascination with her tormentor but also Bill’s craven attempts at maneuvering the situation for maximum advantage. Cohen’s goal, of course, is to skewer myths: the black man as savage; the suburban white man as heartless opportunist; the unsatisfied white woman as easy prey for a virile African-American; and so on.

          None of this quite works, simply because Cohen’s attempts at dark humor result in arch characterizations that are hard to believe, but Bone boldly engages a number of controversial issues. (Cohen even riffs on horny hippies by way of an odd sexual interlude between Bill and an eccentric girl played by Jeannie Berlin, known for her role in the 1972 comedy The Heartbreak Kid.) And even though Bone eventually loses narrative focus, it hangs together on a performance level. Duggan and Van Patten capably incarnate different shades of self-loathing, and Kotto plays a huge range of qualities—at various times, his character is cunning, funny, philosophical, and sadistic. FYI, Cohen fans should pay close attention to the scenes set in Bill’s mansion, since Cohen used his own palatial Beverly Hills home as a location.

Bone: FUNKY

The Monkey Hu$tle (1976)

There’s an interesting and offbeat blaxploitation movie buried somewhere inside The Monkey Hu$tle, but the film’s meritorious elements are suffocated by an incoherent script and half-assed postproduction. For fans of actor Yaphet Kotto, the movie is worth a look because he gives a charming performance as a flim-flam man with funky jargon and a natty wardrobe; Kotto even seems like a credible romantic lead in his too-brief scenes with underused costar Rosalnd Cash. Unfortunately, the movie isn’t primarily about Kotto’s character—instead, The Monkey Hu$tle has about five different characters jockeying for pole position, just like the movie has about five different storylines competing for attention. As a result, the picture is a discombobulated mess, a problem made worse by lazy scoring that features the same enervated funk jams over and over again. Set in Chicago, the movie begins with Daddy Foxx (Kotto), a con man who enlists local youths as accomplices/apprentices. Daddy Foxx’s newest aide is Baby ’D (Kirk Calloway), much to the chagrin of the boy’s older brother, Win (Randy Brooks), a musician who’s had troubles with the law. Each of these three characters has a romantic partner, and the movie also presents Goldie (Rudy Rae Moore), a hustler who’s alternately Daddy Foxx’s friend and rival, plus other subplots including the threat to a black neighborhood posed by impending construction of a freeway. Amid all of this, the single thread that receives the most screen time, inexplicably, relates to Win securing a set of drums. Although The Monkey Hu$tle is so shapeless that it feels like the movie’s still just getting started by the time it’s over, some of the acting is fairly good and the production values are excellent; as a travelogue depicting inner-city Chicago circa the mid-’70s, the movie has value. However, the realism of the settings is undercut whenever the ridiculous Moore comes onscreen, with his atrocious acting and his costumes that seem like leftovers from a Commodores show. Had producer/director Arthur Marks built a solid film around Kotto’s endearing characterization, he might have had something. Instead, The Monkey Hu$tle merely contains glimmers of a legitimate movie.

The Monkey HuStle: LAME

Across 110th Street (1972)

          This gritty crime picture crams a dizzying number of characters, storylines, and themes into 102 frenetic minutes. Ostensibly a police thriller about two mismatched detectives investigating a Mafia-related shooting in Harlem, the racially charged movie also devotes considerable screen time to infighting among criminals. Based on a novel by Wally Ferris and written for the screen by Luther Davis, the film does a great job of taking viewers inside the minds of hoodlums, thereby conveying a morally gray picture of life in the big city. However, because the detectives are the lead characters, the potential impact of this humanistic approach to criminality is dulled—it’s hard for viewers to know whether they’re being asked to root for the heroes, the villains, both, or neither. In short, Across 110th Street has great texture but lacks a clear point of view.

          When the movie begins, black street crooks deliver a cash payoff to white Mafia lieutenants in a dingy Harlem apartment. Then uniformed police offers “raid” the apartment—but it turns out the cops are robbers in disguise. The theft goes smoothly until a crook reaches for a gun, at which point the lead robber, Jim Harris (Paul Benjamin), gets trigger-happy. Jim and his two partners, Joe (Ed Bernard) and Henry (Antonio Fargas), escape with the Mafia’s cash, leaving a pile of bodies behind.

          Two factions respond to the incident. The first is the Mob, represented by Nick D’Salvo (Anthony Franciosa), a godfather-in-waiting who’s reached middle age without proving himself; Nick becomes obsessed with killing the robbers in order elevate his standing. Also responding is the NYPD, specifically a veteran white cop named Capt. Mattelli (Anthony Quinn) and a younger black cop named Lt. Pope (Yaphet Kotto). Mattelli wants to handle the investigation his usual way (abuse informants until secrets are spilled), but Pope—who is given jurisdiction over the case for political reasons—wants to exercise post-Miranda Act restraint.

          The most interesting material in this overstuffed movie concerns the disintegrating relationships between the robbers, who react in varied ways as pressure mounts for their capture. Benjamin commands the movie with a jittery, raging performance as a black man robbed of life choices by hard circumstance, so whenever he’s onscreen, the movie sizzles. And even when the storyline meanders, director Barry Shear and cinematographer Jack Priestley create a vivid sense of place with the use of grungy locations and verité-style shooting on New York streets. Across 110th Street is a mess, but it’s an interesting mess.

Across 110th Street: FUNKY

Truck Turner (1974)

          Blaxploitation flicks came in so many flavors that fans of the genre can have many favorites—best martial-arts adventure, best Pam Grier joint, best Fred Williamson thriller, best installment of Shaft, and so on. Therefore, when I say that Truck Turner is my overall favorite blaxploitation picture, what I really mean is that the movie’s 91 slam-bam-stick-it-to-the-man minutes encapsulate every tacky, wonderful thing I dig about blaxploitation. Other movies in the genre have better moments, and other movies in the genre have better stories, but Truck Turner’s got enough action, murder, pimps, urban fashion, and vituperative vulgarity to make other blaxploitation pictures look wimpy by comparison. Isaac Hayes, of all people, stars as Truck Turner—excuse me, Mack Truck Turner—a pistol-packin’ bounty hunter on the trail of a pimp named Gator who skipped bail. If that synopsis doesn’t get your blood pumping, read no further. But if you’re catchin’ what I’m sendin’ your way, man, then let’s rap a while about this groovy jam.
          Hayes, the deep-voiced soul/funk musician who previously earned his blaxploitation bona fides by composing and performing the Oscar-winning “Theme from Shaft,” made an easy transition to acting with Truck Turner. Even though he’s not the most persuasive thespian—his line deliveries range from phony to silly—Hayes posesses such a strong natural presence, and such panache for investing dialogue with badass swagger, that his lack of real acting ability isn’t a hindrance. Simply put, the dude is cool. So, as the movie progresses, and as Turner’s pimpquest turns deadly, it’s tremendous fun to watch Hayes ice bad men and seduce good ladies.
          Director Jonathan Kaplan, who was slowly working his way up the American International Pictures exploitation-movie food chain, exhibits a slick touch with action scenes and urban culture—Truck Turner is a cartoon, but it’s lively as hell. For instance, where else can viewers see Nichelle Nichols, better known as Lt. Uhura from the original Star Trek series, playing a tough madam? (Here’s Nichols describing her ladies: “These are all prime cut--$238,000 worth of dynamite. It’s Fort Knox in panties.”) And where else can viewers see Hayes square off with the powerful Yaphet Kotto, who plays a flesh peddler named Harvard Blue? Because, ultimately, Truck Turner is all about Hayes striking don’t-mess-with-this-motherfucker poses—he’s at his best when stripped to the waist, wearing just jeans and a shoulder holster, while blowing away hired killers with his cannon-sized .44 Magnum. Unsurprisingly, Hayes also provided the soundtrack for the movie, and his song titles give a good flavor of the movie’s down-and-dirty appeal: “Pursuit of the Pimpmoble,” “A House Full of Girls,” “Give It to Me,” and the extra-succinct “Drinking.”

Truck Turner: GROOVY

Report to the Commissioner (1975)

          Back in my college days, when I lived in Manhattan, I was friendly with an NYPD homicide detective who was also a movie buff, and he hipped me to this little-seen drama, praising it as one of the most accurate depictions he’d ever seen about how ugly the gamesmanship within a police force can get. And, indeed, even though Report to the Commissioner is fictional—it’s based on a novel by James Mills—the picture radiates authenticity. Extensive location photography captures the dirty heat of summertime New York City; intense performances burst with streetwise attitude; and the vicious storyline is driven by cynicism, duplicity, and politics. Told in flashback following some sort of terrible clusterfuck of a shootout at Saks Fifth Avenue, the picture reveals how an ambitious undercover detective and a rookie investigator cross paths, with tragic results.

          Michael Moriarty, appearing near the beginning of his long career, stars as hapless Detective Bo Lockley, a newcomer to the NYPD investigative squad who gets paired with a seen-it-all partner, African-American Richard “Crunch” Blackstone (Yaphet Kott0). In a telling early sequence, Lockley watches Blackstone lean on black suspects, even going so far as to spew racial epithets, which clues Lockley into the level of moral compromise required of NYPD lifers. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Lockley, undercover narcotics cop Patty Butler (Susan Blakley), a pretty blonde WASP who uses her looks to undercut suspicions that she’s a police officer, gets a lead on a well-connected dealer named Thomas “Stick” Henderson (Tony King). Smelling an opportunity for a high-profile bust that will help his career, Butler’s commanding officer, Captain D’Angelo (Hector Elizondo), approves a dangerous plan for spying on Stick. Soon afterward, Lockley gets pulled into the situation—without being given crucial information—and things go to hell. The movie climaxes with a tense hostage situation inside Saks, during which high-ranking cops put more energy into covering their asses than saving innocent victims.

          This is dark stuff, making Report to the Commissioner a fine companion piece to Sidney Lumet’s various ’70s pictures about cops and criminals in New York City. And while Report to the Commissioner is far from perfect—the script meanders into subplots and some of the characters could have been consolidated for the purpose of clarity—the movie has myriad virtues. The atmosphere sizzles, with cinematographer Mario Tosi using haze filters and wide lenses to depict grungy exteriors and sweaty interiors. Director Milton Katselas, best known as an acting teacher, demonstrates a real gift for integrating actors into spaces and thereby creating verisimilitude. Best of all, though, are the film’s potent performances. Blakely’s sharp in a smallish role, King is physically and verbally impressive, and Moriarty’s weirdly twitchy energy is compelling. Furthermore, it’s hard to beat the roster of eclectic supporting players—beyond Elizondo and Kotto, the picture features Bob Balaban, William Devane, Dana Elcar, Richard Gere (in his first film role), and Vic Tayback. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Report to the Commissioner: RIGHT ON

Blue Collar (1978)

          After making his name with the incendiary screenplay for Taxi Driver (1976), Paul Schrader capitalized on his Hollywood heat by setting up his directorial debut, Blue Collar. (Schrader co-wrote the script with his brother, Leonard, from source material by Sydney A. Glass.) A tough morality play about corruption worming its way through an auto company and the labor union supposedly protecting the company’s workers, Blue Collar echoes the 1954 classic On the Waterfront, but it has an unmistakably ’70s patina of drugs, racial tension, sex, and vulgarity.

          The story follows three friends whose frustration with their working conditions at an auto plant reaches a boiling point when they realize their disreputable union reps are making side deals with management. The trio breaks into the union office, hoping to steal several thousand dollars they believe is hidden there, but all they get is petty cash. And that’s when the story gets really interesting: Union officials claim tens of thousands of dollars were stolen, setting an insurance-settlement scam in motion, so the workers-turned-thieves realize they have an opportunity to blackmail their oppressors. How this bold maneuver affects the three men leads to a climax of unusual complexity and intensity.

          Considering this was his first movie, Schrader is remarkably assured behind the camera, using a classical camera style that’s neither showy nor timid; abetted by cinematographer Bobby Byrne, Schrader gives the picture a look as gritty as the assembly line on which the main characters labor every day. The blues-inflected soundtrack, including original music by the great Jack Nitzsche, suits the material perfectly, and in fact the whole movie feels like a raw soul record come to life: When characters sit around a local dive, swigging beer and bitching about their troubles, Blue Collar offers a window into a secret world.

          Yet Schrader’s two-fisted storytelling would be for naught if the movie lacked powerhouse performances, and, luckily, the three leads deliver. Yaphet Kotto, working his singular mix of blazing anger and world-weary sarcasm, is compelling in every scene. Harvey Keitel, slickly translating his Noo Yawk edge to a volatile Midwestern vibe, is equally potent as the conscience of the group. And Richard Pryor is explosive, leaving any idea that he’s merely a funnyman in the dust. Never this good in a movie before or afterward, he channels deep veins of indignation and resentment into an unforgettable characterization. (Available as part of the Universal Vault Series on Amazon.com)

Blue Collar: RIGHT ON

Friday Foster (1975)

          First, the good news. In the last of her ’70s blaxploitation star vehicles, leading lady Pam Grier looks fantastic, and she displays an endearing quality during the film’s too-few comedic bits. She’s also supported by an eclectic cast: Godfrey Cambridge, Scatman Crothers, Julius Harris, Yaphet Kotto, Thalmus Rasulala, Carl Weathers, and the always-bizarre Eartha Kitt. There’s even room for erstwhile Love Boat bartender Ted Lange, who plays a pimp named “Fancy Dexter” in a spectacularly bad performance.

          Now, the bad news. Friday Foster is a silly adventure story adapted from a family-friendly newspaper comic strip, but with the requisite level of sex and violence to earn its blaxploitation bona fides—meaning it’s too rough for lightweight escapism, and too soft to be a real action picture. The characters are cardboard, the plot is clumsy, and the storytelling is so numbingly obvious that the whole thing feels like an episode of Wonder Woman (which is not a compliment).

          Friday (Grier) gets assigned to photograph a possible sighting of Blake Tarr (Rasulala), known as “the black Howard Hughes.” Instead of grabbing a paparazzi shot, however, she photographs an assassination attempt, drawing her into a conspiracy targeting leading members of the black community. If that sounds promising, prepare for disappointment, because Friday’s unauthorized investigation, with cranky PI Colt Hawkins (Kotto) at her side, comprises a clichéd string of close calls with incompetent would-be killers and convenient discoveries of clues that only make sense when one of the characters provides a recap of the plot thus far. It’s all very garish and labored, so it’s impossible to care what happens, even in the rare instances when the storyline is decipherable.

          What makes this so unfortunate is that Grier is actually stronger than usual here; she clearly relished the chance to try something a bit outside the grimy blaxploitation norm. It’s also fun to see Kotto playing a gruff charmer instead of one of his ususal menacing roles. Yet, no matter how likeable Grier and Kotto are in fleeting moments, they can’t make up for the flat filmmaking and tedious narrative.

Friday Foster: LAME

The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970)

          The last movie directed by the great William Wyler, The Liberation of L.B. Jones is one of several nervy race-relations pictures made in the wake of In the Heat of the Night (1967). Like that Oscar-winning film, L.B. Jones is s a thriller exploring the dangers of a black man seeking justice in the South, only this time the protagonist is not a cop or even a lawyer, but rather an undertaker. In a small Tennessee community, L.B. Jones (Roscoe Lee Browne) is the most affluent black citizen, which generates grudging respect from well-to-do whites and seething resentment among poor whites. When Jones discovers that his years-younger wife, Emma (Lola Falana), is sleeping with a white cop, simple-minded redneck Willie Joe (Anthony Zerbe), Jones’ attempt to amicably dissolve his marriage unexpectedly triggers a fusillade of horrific violence.

          Based on a novel by Jesse Hill Ford, who co-wrote the script, the picture’s tricky plot weaves together nearly a dozen major characters, each of whom reflects a facet of racism or its impact. The formidable Lee J. Cobb plays Oman Hedgepath, the white lawyer Jones hires to handle the divorce; Hedgepath tries to resolve the matter outside of court by working angles with Willie Joe and the town’s do-nothing mayor (Dub Taylor), but he only makes matters worse. Lee Majors, of all people, plays Oman’s idealistic nephew, a clean-cut voice of reason whose words are drowned out by pervasive prejudice. And in the picture’s linchpin role, a very young Yaphet Kotto plays Sonny Boy, an angry young black man who has returned to his hometown after a long absence because he wants revenge against the racist white who beat him as a child. Barbara Hershey pops up in a tiny role as Majors’ wife, and dancer Fayard Nicholas, of the famed Nicholas Brothers, appears as well, in his only dramatic performance.

          Amazingly, The Liberation of L.B. Jones doesn’t feel overstuffed, although some actors are left gasping for screen time; the clockwork script allocates time wisely, sketching characters just well enough for viewers to understand why people choose their paths. Wyler orchestrates the various elements so that when things get ugly, horrible events explode like the stages of carefully coordinated fireworks display. Not everything that happens in the picture is credible, and the material portraying Emma as a capricious nymphomaniac is stereotypical, but The Liberation of L.B. Jones is filled with memorable nuances. It’s also filled with memorable acting, because the film’s cast offers a spectrum of performance styles. Browne is elegant and nuanced; Cobb is fiery and intense; Zerbe is wonderfully squirrely and perverse; and Kotto bounces between sweet and menacing, effectively portraying the wounded boy within the dangerous man. As for Falana, she’s so sexy that it’s easy to see why the men in her life are driven to distraction. (Available through Columbia Screen Classics via WarnerArchive.com)

The Liberation of L.B. Jones: GROOVY

Drum (1976)

A quasi-sequel to the trashy hit Mandingo (1975), Drum has a doozy of a plot. New Orleans madam Marianna (Isela Vega) gets pregnant by a slave, so she pretends the resulting child, Drum, is that of her servant/lesbian lover. Twenty years later, muscle-bound Drum (Ken Norton) is a slave in Marianna’s whorehouse, where unsavory customer DeMarigny (John Colicos) forces him to brawl with another slave, Blaise (Yaphet Kotto), because DeMarigny gets off on sweaty black men. When Drum violently rebuffs DeMarigny’s sexual advances, Marianna protects her son from reprisal by selling Drum (and Blaise) to Hammond (Warren Oates), who runs a stud farm for breeding slaves. Hammond’s got headaches with his shrewish fiancée, Augusta (Fiona Lewis), who wants to reform her crass husband, and his horny daughter, Sophie (Cheryl Smith), who can’t keep her hands off male slaves. When Hammond discovers that Blaise dallied with his daughter, he threatens castration, so Blaise leads a bloody revolt. As the movie speeds toward its violent finale, there are countless nude scenes, brawls, and whippings, plus utterances of the n-word in every conceivable context. The trouble with critiquing a movie like Drum is that even though it’s awful because of its incessant bad taste, it’s entertaining for the same reason. Appraised solely as overwrought melodrama, Drum is a rousing success: Even while cringing at the movie’s political incorrectness, it’s hard to deny the guilty-pleasure value of a flick in which Norton utters the line “No white man could ever love you like I will!” Norton, an ex-boxer who also starred in Mandingo, looks great but can’t act, so others handle the heavy lifting—Oates is gleefully disgusting, Kotto gives the picture’s best performance with his signature intensity, and Colicos is spellbindingly terrible, matching campy mannerisms with a ridiculous French accent. It should come as no surprise that Dino de Laurentiis produced this lowbrow spectacle, which boasts one outrageous moment after another; watch for the bit during the boxing match when Norton pulls a Mike Tyson and chews on Kotto’s ear.

Drum: FUNKY

Man and Boy (1971)

          After scoring in the ’60s as a comedian and TV star, Bill Cosby tried expanding his popularity to movies in the early ’70s, beginning with this Western about a former cavalryman who embarks on a dangerous quest with his young son. Perhaps because the movie cast Cosby in a purely dramatic role, Man and Boy failed to connect with audiences, but it’s actually a fairly strong piece of work, blending life lessons with violent action and rich characterizations. As the title suggests, the story is shot through with themes of male identity, and specifically African-American male identity; throughout the movie, the protagonist uses deeds instead of words to convey notions of duty, honor, integrity, and loyalty in a world that expects black men to behave like second-class citizens. As directed by journeyman TV helmer E.W. Swwckhamer, Man and Boy makes the most of a thin budget by employing vivid locations and a lively supporting cast. Reliable players including Yaphet Kotto, Dub Taylor, and Henry Silva enliven small roles, while young George Spell, who plays the protagonist’s son, effectively conveys the experience of a youth discovering the troubling complexities of the adult world.

         In the first act, we meet Caleb Revers (Cosby), a proud man struggling to make his small farm viable, despite meager resources and pressure from racist neighbors. Through a fortunate circumstance, Caleb comes into possession of a fine horse, which aggravates whites who resent blacks becoming property owners. One day, because of carelessness on the part of Caleb’s son, Billy (Spell), the horse is stolen, so Caleb takes Billy on a trek to recover the animal. Most of the film depicts their adventures out on the frontier. An encounter with an old enemy of Caleb’s turns violent, forcing Billy to grapple with the idea of standing up to thugs, and a visit with a lonely widow who comes on to Caleb stretches Billy’s understanding of the way men and women relate to each other. During the picture’s final act, the travelers cross paths with a black outlaw named Lee Christmas (Douglas Turner Ward), giving Billy a harsh view of life outside the law.

          In some ways, Man and Boy is obvious and schematic, as if the filmmakers made a list of lessons they wanted George to experience, then contrived a narrative situation for each lesson. And, indeed, the storytelling hits a few bumps as the storytellers move too conveniently from one episode to the next. But because screenwriters Harry Essex and Oscar Saul avoid easy sentimental payoffs, the picture feels relatively credible and tough all the way through. Cosby’s performance helps create the desired illusion. Imbuing his portrayal with equal parts idealism and world-weariness, Cosby creates a portrait of a man with one foot in the cold truths of everyday reality and another foot in the empowering possibilities of dreams. Regrettably, Cosby’s next attempts at drama netted similarly middling results, though he’s excellent in the TV movie To All My Friends on Shore (1972) and intriguing in the theatrical action picture Hickey & Boggs (also 1972), so he mostly ditched serious acting once he returned to comedy in the mid-’70s. It would have been interesting to see how his dramatic chops evolved.

Man and Boy: GROOVY

Alien (1979)

          Writer Dan O’Bannon was a film-school pal of John Carpenter’s, but his career foundered after the duo expanded Carpenter’s thesis film into the commercial feature Dark Star (1974). While Carpenter was making the low-budget shockers that launched his career, O’Bannon was mired in stillborn projects like an unproduced version of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel Dune, and at he ended up living on his friend Ron Shusett’s couch. Luckily, Shusett was an aspiring writer-producer intrigued by O’Bannon’s idea for a claustrophobic sci-fi/horror flick about an outer-space critter that preys upon a spaceship’s crew. (The concept borrows liberally from myriad sources, with the 1958 B-movie It! The Terror from Beyond Space often cited as a direct influence.) O’Bannon and Shusett fleshed out the story, which at one point was titled Star Beast, then sold the package to producers Gordon Carroll, David Giler, and Walter Hil, whose new company Brandywine Productions had access to Twentieth Century-Fox. Giler and Hill, both screenwriters, did more narrative tinkering, but Fox didn’t get excited until the studio’s Star Wars (1977) exploded at the box office. Alien was the next outer-space picture on deck at Fox, so the project finally got momentum—and as more people joined the party, the level of artistic ambition continued rising.
          Ridley Scott, then a veteran of countless TV commercials but only one little-seen feature, was hired because of his keen visual sense. Just as importantly, Swiss artist H.R. Giger, who worked on the same stillborn version of Dune as O’Bannon, was recruited for creature and set designs; his creepy “biomechanics” style infused the resulting film’s alien scenes with perverse grandeur. Representing a rare case of the development process doing what it’s supposed to do, Alien kept evolving, rather like the creature in the story, until finally, on May 25, 1979, audiences got their first look at a perfect marriage of exploitation-flick elements and art-film craftsmanship. Scott fills every frame of the picture with meticulous details, building excruciating tension by keeping the titular beastie almost completely offscreen until the film’s finale. He also created one of scare cinema’s greatest jolts with the unforgettable “chest-burster” scene.
          So despite underdeveloped characters and an occasionally murky storyline, nearly everything in Alien works on some level, from the sleek title sequence by R/Greenberg Associates to the terrifying climax featuring Sigourney Weaver wearing the smallest panties in the known universe. The production design’s mix of utility and grime is utterly credible; the score by Jerry Goldsmith is eerily majestic; and the interplay between actors Veronica Cartwright, Ian Holm, John Hurt, Yaphet Kotto, Tom Skerritt, Harry Dean Stanton, and Weaver nails under-pressure group dynamics. The movie that O’Bannon and Shusett once pitched as “Jaws in space” sits comfortably alongside Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster as one of the most cinematically important horror shows ever made.

Alien: OUTTA SIGHT

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