Romance of a Horsethief (1971)

          One lesson every professional critic learns early is to compartmentalize personal reactions, because the way a critic responds to art should be just one component of a review. Just as important is consideration of intentions. Part of the critic’s job is to imagine how the people most sympathetic to the type of art in question might respond. Case in point: Romance of a Horsethief. I didn’t dig the movie, but I recognize how other people might. A multinational production set in early 20th-century Poland, the movie has a little bit of everything, because some scenes are adventurous, some are comedic, some are dramatic, and some, as the title promises, are romantic. The acting and production values are respectable, and there’s an appealing humanism to the way the film treats its characters. Yet the story is so diffuse that I couldn’t engage with the film on any meaningful level.

          The title character is Zanvill (Oliver Tobias), who steals horses alongside the older Kifke (Eli Wallach). They live in a small Jewish village. One day, regional military official Captain Stoloff (Yul Brynner) orders the seizure of all the village’s horses for military use. Doing so triggers intrigue and reprisals. Meanwhile, unrelated strife results from parents in the village trying to manage their kids’ love lives. Then wealthy Naomi (Jane Birkin) returns from travels abroad with ideas about rebelling against authority. Once all the storylines converge, Naomi’s dalliance with Zanvill escalates the conflict between villagers and Captain Stoloff’s troops into a mini-revolution.

          Tracking all the comings and goings of the plot is exhausting, and it’s no surprise Romance of a Horsethief was adapted from a novel. The book was penned by Joseph Opatoshu, whose son, the fine  actor David Opatoshu, wrote the script for this movie and plays a supporting role. It’s tempting to conjecture that he felt obligated to use everything his father created. Be that as it may, only some of what happens in Romance of a Horsethief is interesting, and it’s hard to tell whether the appeal stems entirely from the presence of charismatic actors. Not a single participant in this movie delivers exemplary work, though many—Brynner, Opatoshu, Wallach, costar Lainie Kazan—elevate individual scenes. That all of the Birkin-Tobias scenes fall flat says a lot, seeing as how they’re the movie’s least interesting performers. Viewers interested in the experiences of European Jews may find Romance of a Horsethief illuminating from a historical perspective, but viewers craving standard-issue period romance will be disappointed. While not a bad movie by any measure, Romance of a Horsethief is thoroughly underwhelming.

Romance of a Horsethief: FUNKY

The Light at the Edge of the World (1971)

          Possibly the grisliest adaptation of a Jules Verne novel ever made, The Light at the Edge of the World depicts the conflict between a gang of pirates and the lone survivor of a lighthouse crew on a remote island. Kirk Douglas plays the survivor with clenched-teeth intensity and nimble physicality, Yul Brynner offers an interesting contrast by portraying the main villain as a sadist with the courtly manners of a European gentleman, and the action unfolds on rocky terrain so barren that it might as well be the surface of the moon. Those seeking the lighthearted escapism one normally associates with Verne’s fiction should look elsewhere, because this is a brutal picture featuring a beheading, gang rape, and a horrific scene of a man being flayed alive. That could be why The Light at the Edge of the World fared poorly during its initial release, because viewers presumably expected something like Douglas’ previous Verne exploit, the family-friendly 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954).
          It should also be noted that The Light at the Edge of the World has no discernible thematic content, so it’s not as if the producers tried to elevate Verne’s pulpy storytelling. Viewed unfavorably, The Light at the Edge of the World is a Saturday-matinee adventure gone wrong. Viewed favorably, it’s a pirate picture that avoids romanticizing outlaws.

          The movie opens with the arrival of a three-man crew on a remote island. Assistant lightkeeper Will Denton (Douglas) is the crew’s outlier, since his companions are an old man at the end of his career and a young man just starting his. (Clues about Will’s tragic past are sprinkled throughout the movie, though the backstory payoff is underwhelming.) One day, a pirate ship sails into the island’s harbor, and marauders under the command of Jonathan Kongre (Brynner) murder Will’s compatriots. Despite briefly evading capture, Will is apprehended and used for sport by the vicious Jonathan. Only a brazen leap off a high cliff saves Will’s life. Eventually, the pirates dismantle the lighthouse and trick another ship into crashing upon deadly reefs. The pirates kill all the survivors except pretty Arabella (Samantha Eggar), whom Jonathan takes for a plaything, and the ship’s engineer, whom Will rescues. These two men plot revenge against the pirates.

          Despite being overlong at two hours and change, The Light at the Edge of the World is quite consistent. Not only do the filmmakers steer clear of swashbuckling fluff, but they allow the story to grow darker as it progresses—in one demented scene, Jonathan’s sexually ambiguous henchman cross-dresses so he can torment Arabella with a weird dance. Although Douglas has never been the subtlest of actors, he fares well in this milieu, conveying a mixture of brokenhearted angst, righteous anger, and sheer terror. Brynner, conversely, camps it up by grinning and laughing while his character commissions one atrocity after another. Naturally, these two big-screen alpha males have at each other during the requisite action-packed finale.

The Light at the Edge of the World: GROOVY

The Ultimate Warrior (1975)

          Something of a precursor to the Mad Max franchise, this interesting but problematic sci-fi/action picture follows a principled mercenary in postapocalyptic New York City. Written and directed by Robert Clouse of Enter the Dragon fame, the story suffers from underdeveloped characters, so it unfurls as a series of incipient notions stretched out to feature length and padded with chases and fights. Had a little more brainpower been devoted to the script, the movie could have evolved into something special; as is, the picture loses momentum somewhere around the two-thirds mark and never fully recovers.

          In The Ultimate Warrior’s grim futuristic vision of New York, small factions of people band together for survival. One group, which resides inside a heavily fortified apartment building, is a pacifistic enclave led by the Baron (Max von Sydow). The Baron’s son, Cal (Richard Kelton), has genetically engineered seeds for growing vegetables—which were nearly wiped off the planet during a nuclear war—so the Baron has fantasies of relocating his group to a safer environment where they can restart civilization. Also operating in New York is a roving band of killers and thieves led by the brutal Carrot (William Smith); Carrot’s crew looms outside the gates of the Baron’s facility as a constant existential threat. Enter Carson (Yul Brynner), a muscular fighter who offers his services to the highest bidder. The Baron woos Carson with an offer of extra rations and female companionship, so Carson engages in a series of battles with Carrot’s people before leading a desperate escape mission.

          In principle, this basic storyline should work just fine—good versus evil, with a morally ambiguous avenger caught in the middle. Unfortunately, the narrative is riddled with plot holes. Carson seems to be the only mercenary working the circuit. Security at the Baron’s place is ridiculously weak. Carson proves ineffective at preventing tragedy, basically undercutting the entire premise of the movie. Carrot’s thugs behave nonsensically, threatening the very people whose agricultural experiments could ensure their survival. Worse, a number of subplots about friction within the Baron’s crew show promise, only to be discarded in favor of a trite mano-a-mano showdown between Carrot and Carson. The Ultimate Warrior isn’t awful, by any stretch, thanks to tasty production design and a zippy score by Gil Melle, to say nothing of Von Sydow’s gentle performance. However, the picture isn’t nearly what it could be, Brynner’s impassiveness gets tiresome after a while, and B-movie stalwart Smith is underused.

The Ultimate Warrior: FUNKY

Fuzz (1972)

Although it’s confusing, dull, and unpleasant, the crime comedy Fuzz boasts ample star power, with Burt Reynolds playing the cranky leader of a group of undercover cops and Raquel Welch busting out of her sweaters as one of his colleagues; furthermore, the supporting cast features the laconic Tom Skerritt and the irascible Jack Weston playing cops, plus the stoic Yul Brynner as a villain. There’s even a big name behind the scenes, because screenwriter Evan Hunter adapted the story from one of the acclaimed “87th Precinct” novels he wrote under the pen name Ed McBain. However, even calling the narrative of Fuzz a story is exaggerating—to quote the Bard, this picture is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The main plot involves a deaf criminal (Brynner) murdering Boston city officials as a means of extorting payments from the government, but there’s also an ugly subplot about homeless people getting set on fire, and yet another subplot about a string of robberies. Additionally, the film offers a cursory nod to then-current Women’s Lib issues by having Welch’s character fend off horny suitors while trying to prove she’s as qualified to wear a badge as any man. In fact, it’s almost easier to list things that aren’t included in this overstuffed flick than to itemize its components. Worse, the excessive approach is exacerbated by whiplash-inducing tonal shifts. In certain scenes, Fuzz is horrific, as when people are burned alive, and in others, Fuzz is silly, as when Reynolds goes undercover in a nun’s habit despite sporting his signature moustache. Given screenwriter Hunter’s long history of writing police stories, either the serious version of Fuzz or the stupid version of Fuzz might have worked, but this disjointed hybrid is a dreary mess. And that’s a shame, because the leading players (with the exception of the ever-vapid Welch) present interesting personas, and the movie has fleeting moments of amusing interplay and/or dynamic action. However, these glimmers of entertainment hardly merit sitting through 92 minutes of tacky pandemonium.

Fuzz: LAME

Westworld (1973) & Futureworld (1976)

           Best-selling author Michael Crichton made his feature-film directorial debut in 1973 with Westworld, based on his original script about a high-tech amusement park for adults. It’s a crudely made film, both in terms of narrative structure and production values, but the idea is so fascinating and the visuals are so rich that it’s one of the most memorable sci-fi pictures of the decade, especially since it contains a relentless villain who undoubtedly provided some inspiration for the Terminator character that Arnold Schwarzenegger first played a decade later. The story takes place at Delos, a super-expensive resort divided into three elaborate environments: Medieval World, Roman World, and Westworld. A grown-up spin on Walt Disney World, these realms are populated by lifelike robots that engage in realistic combat with guests, allowing visitors to feel as if they’re emerging victorious from gladiatorial contests, jousts, and shootouts.

            The movie follows two city-slicker businessmen, played by James Brolin and Richard Benjamin, who travel to Westworld for an exotic getaway. However, as tends to happen in cautionary tales, something goes wrong, so the robots start turning on the guests. The biggest menace is Gunslinger (Yul Brynner), a robot dressed as a black-garbed Old West outlaw, and as in the Terminator movies, part of the thrill of watching Gunslinger’s rampage is seeing his faux flesh ripped away to reveal glimpses of the technology underneath. Characterization and plotting are thin, and Benjamin struggles to infuse his role with a semblance of individuality, but the movie zooms along during 88 brisk minutes, providing just enough escapist jolts to make Westworld a fun ride.
          The movie did well enough to justify a sequel, made without Crichton’s participation. Futureworld lacks the no-nonsense gusto of its predecessor, tackling a somewhat more complex story as it sprawls over 108 leisurely minutes. Although the acting in Futureworld is much better than that in Westworld, the convoluted conspiracy-themed plot drags. Blythe Danner and Peter Fonda play reporters who travel to a new Delos attraction, Futureworld, in order to investigate why a journalist was killed when trying to expose something about the Delos organization. The movie drifts through several sorta-exciting scenes, including an unimpressive bit set in a room simulating the weightlessness of space, before becoming a straight-ahead thriller as Danner and Fonda strive to escape Futureworld with their lives. (In the movie’s weakest moment, Brynner reprises his Gunslinger role for a pointless dream sequence.) Futureworld ends on a strong note, with Fonda brandishing his signature antiestablishment attitude, and Danner is credible and lovely throughout, offering a strong counterpoint for Fonda’s easygoing persona.

          However, neither Westworld nor Futureworld truly lives up to the potential of Crichton’s underlying premise, so it’s no wonder plans for a remake of Westworld have been underway for years. (Futureworld is available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Westworld: FUNKY

Futureworld: FUNKY

Adios, Sabata (1971) & Return of Sabata (1971)

          After more than a decade of playing routine roles in undistinguished features and TV shows, squint-eyed tough guy Lee Van Cleef finally found fame in a pair of Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns, For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966). No fool, he seized the day by starring in a string of European-made cowboy flicks until the spaghetti-Western trend ran its course in the mid-’70s. Van Cleef’s boldest attempt at creating a gunslinger franchise all his own was Sabata (1969), a tongue-in-cheek adventure that tried to blend James Bond-style gadgetry with the usual spaghetti-Western tropes of elaborate heists, histrionic music, and unsavory supporting characters. Slight and unmemorable, the picture somehow did well enough to warrant both an ersatz sequel and legitimate follow-up.

          The fake successor came first. Originally titled Indigo Black, the film released in the US as Adios, Sabata stars Yul Brynner instead of Van Cleef—dialogue was re-recorded during editing to give Brynner’s character the same name as Van Cleef’s, presumably to cash in on a successful brand. Although helmed by the same director as the original picture, Gianfranco Parolini (billed as “Frank Kramer” on all three Sabata flicks), Adios has none of the wink-wink novelty of Sabata. Instead, it’s the usual mean-spirited formula of revenge and robbery, and the only colorful element is the prissy villain, an Austrian colonel with mutton-chop sideburns who gets orgasmic joy from murdering people with offbeat weapons. Brynner, who looks like a lost member of the Village People with his open-chested shirt and head-to-toe fringe, gives a performance that makes his later appearance as a robot in Westworld (1973) seem dynamic by comparison. Like all three pictures bearing the Sabata brand, this one is also interminably long, even though it’s only 104 minutes.

          After this bizarre detour, the real Sabata returned in, well, Return of Sabata. With Van Cleef back in his dandyish duds (a fun change of pace from the usual spaghetti-Western grunginess), Return of Sabata is the most interesting movie of the three, even though it’s terrible. What gives the picture energy is not the middling story, but rather the wall-to-wall gonzo energy of Parolini’s direction. Seemingly afflicted with the cinematic equivalent of ADD, Parolini goes overboard with whiplash zooms in all three pictures, but Return of Sabata is shot like the whole crew was jacked up on crank. The opening sequence is incredibly arch, a candy-colored shootout photographed with tricks from the Fellini playbook (clowns, fisheye lenses), and there’s some very strange business later with acrobats using slingshots and trampolines during a heist. The usual spaghetti-Western shortcomings add to the weirdness, from awkwardly dubbed dialogue to narrative leaps that suggest whole scenes were snipped during editing or simply never filmed. Wackadoodle filmmaking isn’t quite enough to make the trite script palatable, however, and Van Cleef does a lot more posturing than he does performing—but at least there’s something cooking inside Return of Sabata, which is more than can be said for the other pictures.

Adios, Sabata: LAME

Return of Sabata: FUNKY

Catlow (1971)

Who knew the world needed a grisly Louis L’Amour adaptation featuring a nude scene by Mr. Spock? What’s that you say? The world didn’t need a movie like that? Well, too bad, because for better or worse (mostly worse), Catlow exists. Yul Brynner plays the title character, an outlaw who gets wind of when and where a group of soldiers are transporting a shipment of gold. Catlow’s decision to make a play for the loot puts an understandable strain on his friendship with a U.S. Marshal (Richard Crenna), so chrome-domed Catlow finds himself in the crosshairs of the law, the soldiers, and even a hired killer (Nimoy). Seeing the once-and-future science officer of the starship Enterprise in an offbeat context is about the only novelty value that Catlow offers, because the picture is a shoddily produced and thoroughly mean-spirited Western made at a time when such films were churned out by the dozen, especially in Europe. Brynner does his usual stoic bit and Crenna delivers his standard clenched-teeth performance, so only Nimoy gets to do something outside his wheelhouse. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seize the opportunity. For all of about five minutes, it’s a kick to see him Nimoy a full beard and grimly mowing down everyone in his path, but he doesn’t have a character to play, and his performance is restrained to the point of catatonia. (I blame the circumstances, because he was great in the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.) The only moment Nimoy gets lively is the aforementioned bare-ass bit, a nasty brawl that begins when his character is taking a bath, but Catlow is so poorly made that in half the shots of this scene, Nimoy’s wearing an anachronistic black Speedo, while in the other half sloppy editing leaves Nimoy adrift in compromising angles. When a scene filled with technical errors is the only one that makes an impression, that’s generally not considered a good sign.

Catlow: LAME