Deadhead Miles (1971)

More a series of vignettes than a story, the first original feature written by enigmatic filmmaker Terrence Malick follows an eccentric crook named Cooper as he drives a stolen big rig across the heartland, with a sardonic hitchhiker his sole companion during several peculiar misadventures. Alan Arkin, indulging his most flamboyant impulses, plays Cooper, while gangly Jeffersons costar Paul Benedict plays the hitchhiker, so the picture is infused with strange behavior, even by the permissive standards of ’70s cinema. Malick’s dialogue is equally bizarre. Consider this exchange between Cooper, popping Benzedrine to stay awake, and the hitchhiker. Cooper: “Sometimes I sit back, roll down the windows, and let Benny do the driving.” Hitchhiker: “Don’t they affect your brain?” Cooper: “I wish they would.” None of the individual episodes is especially memorable, except perhaps the random bit of Cooper trying to make time with a redneck woman until he realizes she’s chained to the furnace of her dilapidated shack, but the dialogue is flavorful throughout. “I got a good look at that feller—I see him again, I’m gonna stick ’im in the head with a fork.” Or, “I listen to the radio, and that’s how I learn about current events, most of which aren’t in the almanac.” Cooper is an inept sort of maniac, sparking loopy conversations with strangers and committing petty larceny everywhere he goes, but never accomplishing much of anything. The hitchhiker is a willing accomplice during most of the aimless journey, even though he never really gets the hang of tossing soda bottles at street signs the truck passes; Cooper’s a stone-cold pro at that. Interesting people float through the movie (watch for Charles Durning, Hector Elizondo, Loretta Swit, and cameo players Ida Lupino and George Raft), and director Vernon Zimmerman is an interesting Hollywood footnote because he made the amiable cult flick Fade to Black (1980). But the strongest appeal of this cheerfully pointless movie—which has never been released theatrically or on video—is spending 90 minutes inside a funhouse-mirror world of Malick’s creation.

Deadhead Miles: FUNKY

The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant (1971)

In actor Bruce Dern’s chatty autobiography Things I’ve Said, but Probably Shouldn’t Have, one of the chapters is titled “Star of the Second-Best Two-Headed Transplant Movie of 1971.” The man knows what he’s talking about. Whereas The Thing With Two Heads (which was actually released in 1972) is campy fun that tries to wring jokes from its absurd plot, Two-Headed Transplant plays the premise straight, with deadly results. Dern plays a riff on Dr. Frankenstein, but instead of obsessively performing an obscene experiment, he’s forced into the act by circumstances that make his character more or less sympathetic; this mealy-mouthed approach to dramaturgy underscores that the picture can’t decide what it’s trying to accomplish. Inappropriately plaintive (and poorly edited) music punctuates leisurely episodes leading to the fusion of a hulking simpleton with the head of a psychotic murderer. Why anyone might consider either patient a prime candidate for the operation is never properly explained in the godawful script, and by the time the bicranial creature starts its rampage two-thirds of the way through the movie’s dreary running time, it’s hard to care what happens next. Dern is on autopilot in this one, blandly reciting pointless dialogue and periodically trying to insert pathos into atrociously written and directed scenes. Famed DJ Casey Kasem appears as Dern’s bestie, which ups the kitsch factor but not the entertainment value, and the violent finale is so crudely shot that it’s hard to feel much of anything except shame for everyone involved.

The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant: LAME

Super Fly (1972) & Super Fly T.N.T. (1973)

          Blaxploitation drama Super Fly has so much flavor and grit that it’s tempting to cut the picture slack despite its shortcomings. Vividly photographed on the streets of Harlem, the movie has atmosphere to spare, and the dialogue is so frozen-in-amber ’70s that almost every scene captures the period’s singular patois: “I got somethin’ real heavy to lay on you, man,” or “You don’t own me, pig, and no motherfucker tells me when I can split.” The storyline is nervy as hell, because the protagonist, Priest (Ron O’Neal), is an unapologetic coke dealer looking to make a giant score so he can leave hustling behind; whereas many blaxploitation flicks feature righteous dudes trying to keep drugs off the streets, Super Fly makes a provocative sympathy-for-the-devil statement. As Priest’s partner says in one of the picture’s best exchanges about the drug trade, “I know it’s a rotten game—it’s the only one the man left us to play, and that’s the stone cold truth.”
          The movie’s strongest elements are several driving funk/soul tunes by Curtis Mayfield, who performs onscreen in one sequence, and Priest’s pimp couture: silky mane, giant sideburns, Fu Manchu moustache, wide-brimmed hats, garish leisure suits, floor-length coats. But even with such vivid flourishes, Super Fly is slow going. O’Neal isn’t particularly charismatic or skillful, and director Gordon Parks Jr.’s style is amateurish: He spaces action scenes too far apart, employs utilitarian camerawork, and lingers on aimless bits like a poorly shot sex scene and a long montage of still photographs taken by his famous dad, Gordon Parks Sr., who kick-started the blaxploitation craze by directing Shaft (1971).
          A year after Super Fly scored at the box office, O’Neal returned to the character, and took over as director, for Super Fly T.N.T., which boasts some thoughtful dialogue by screenwriter Alex Haley but can’t overcome a sluggish storyline and dirt-cheap production values. The dull first half of the picture is set in Rome, and the slightly less dull second half is set in Africa, where Priest takes up a new trade as gunrunner. Random highlight of the sequel: Future Benson star Robert Guillaume belting out a full-length rendition of the operatic aria “O Sole Mio” in a Roman café. Go figure.

Super Fly: FUNKY

Super Fly T.N.T.: LAME

They Only Kill Their Masters (1972)

In the years between his TV triumphs on Maverick in the ’50s and The Rockford Files in the ’70s, James Garner enjoyed an admirable career on the big screen, mostly in action flicks and light comedies. One of the pictures from this period, They Only Kill Their Masters, is of unique interest because it offers an early glimpse at the easygoing-detective vibe that made Garner so appealing as Jim Rockford. A slight (and slightly sleazy) whodunit with the offbeat gimmick of treating a Doberman Pinscher as a suspect, the picture takes place in a small coastal town in California, where charmingly grumpy Garner is the sheriff who keeps locals and tourists in line. When a woman is found in the ocean with her Doberman’s jaws clamped onto her body, Abel Marsh (Garner) believes the canine went crazy, but then a deeper mystery unfolds involving adultery, group sex, and, worst of all, out-of-towners. The salacious storyline helps the movie overcome its TV-grade production values, as does the presence of several big-screen regulars: Katharine Ross is alluring as a veterinarian who steers Garner away from rushing to judgment, Peter Lawford is pompous as an L.A. smoothie slumming in the small town, Harry Guardino scowls as a state cop eager to claim jurisdictional authority over Garner, and Hal Holbrook is wonderfully sympathetic as a character whose role in the mystery is, well, a mystery—at least until the surprising conclusion. FYI, the Abel Marsh character resurfaced in a pair of 1977 made-for TV movies, Deadly Game and The Girl in the Empty Grave; for those projects, Andy Griffith took over the role originated by Garner. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

They Only Kill Their Masters: FUNKY

Big Wednesday (1978)

          Although John Milius is closely associated with cinematic ultraviolence, as a screenwriter (Apocalypse Now) and as a director (Conan the Barbarian), one of his most assured endeavors in both capacities is the lyrical surfing drama Big Wednesday, which he cowrote with lifelong surfer Dennis Aaberg. Wonderfully pretentious from beginning to end, the picture uses the interwoven adventures of three surf-crazy friends as a metaphor for self-realization, with human drama unfurling across years defined by seismic social change. Big Wednesday is a grandiose symphony of destiny, masculinity, and transcendance, with poetic speechifying and taut musculature the dominant instruments. In other words, it’s pure Milius, only without the beheadings.

          Set primarily in Malibu, the picture begins in 1962, when three macho pals live carefree lives of chasing girls and riding curls. They are levelheaded Jack (William Katt), unhinged Leroy (Gary Busey), and reckless Matt (Jan-Michael Vincent). Surfing is the center of their lives, and Milius uses the endless blue of the Pacific to express how these young men see their lives stretching to infinity. Yet Milius also employs the danger of testing oneself against the ocean’s power to underscore life’s ephemeral quality—Jack strives to use time well, Leroy defines himself by cheating death, and Matt courts his own demise, as if the sureness of mortality robs existence of its sweetness. Despite the heaviosity running through the picture, moments of levity emerge, sometimes in the form of hormone-driven tomfoolery and sometimes in the form of speeches that are quintessentially Milius. “I like fights,” says Leroy, nicknamed “The Masochist” by his pals. “I’ve dove through windows, I’ve eaten light bulbs, I like sharks, any kind of blood. If you gave me a gun, I’d shoot you in the face just to see what it looked like when the bullet hit.” That’s Milius, ever the voice of maniacs with twinkles in their eyes. (As a side note, Leroy mostly disappears from the movie soon after this speech—it’s as if Milius had nothing left to say about the character.)

          Early scenes of brawling and carousing work better than a long stretch during which the boys use creative lies to dodge the draft, but the movie eventually finds its groove—perhaps too much so—during an epic climax confronting the friends with the biggest waves of their lives, to the accompaniment of histrionic scoring by Basil Poledouris. From start to finish, the picture benefits from the great Bruce Surtees’s ominous photography (with significant assistance from the second unit), and the film’s principal actors contribute impassioned work despite the limitations of their skillsets. It’s poignant to see Busey and Vincent in their gleaming youth, given the damage ensuing years inflicted on both actors, and Katt complements them with the earnest Redford Lite vibe that, one year later, got him cast as a younger version of Redford’s signature character in Butch and Sundance: The Early Days.

          Ultimately, Milius’s choice to frame the movie as a Big Statement ensures the ocean is the most clearly defined individual in the film, but at least the ocean gives a hell of a performance—some of the surfing footage (captured in California and Hawaii) has terrifying power.

Big Wednesday: GROOVY

ABBA: The Movie (1977)

          Saying that the first (and only) theatrical feature film starring Swedish pop supergroup ABBA is not as embarrassing as one might expect is a case of damning with faint praise. That’s because ABBA, the purveyors of such ubiquitous ’70s earworms as “Dancing Queen” and “Mamma Mia,” were better heard than seen. Sure, fair-haired lead singer Agnetha Fältskog was as photogenic as any starlet of the era, but the band’s predilection for spangled jumpsuits and dorky choreography made their filmed appearances almost indefensible, even for the millions of folks who enjoyed listening to the group’s slick songwriting and production. For fans, the ABBA era was a happy time filled with catchy melodies. For detractors, ABBA’s run atop the pop charts was akin to a reign of terror. Viewed from either perspective, ABBA: The Movie serves a useful purpose by capturing a musical phenomenon at its apex.
          One of the first features helmed by fellow Swede and future Miramax golden boy Lasse Hallström, this documentary/fiction hybrid tries to recapture the vibe of Richard Lester’s manic Beatles movies, especially A Hard Day’s Night (1964), by contriving a simple plot that strings together loosely filmed live performances and elaborately mounted production numbers. The threadbare plot involves a stressed-out DJ (Robert Hughes) chasing the band across Australia in pursuit of an exclusive radio interview before the band’s down-under tour ends. The narrative scenes in ABBA: The Movie are forgettable, with the DJ evincing stupidity in his efforts to complete a simple task, although Hallstrom employs myriad cinematic tricks—from cross-cutting to split-screens—to enliven this material.
          The quality of the musical interludes is erratic. As in the narrative scenes, Hallström tries a little bit of everything to compensate for the lack of substance. Historically speaking, the most useful musical scenes are the simplest ones, capturing ABBA’s family-friendly stage show at the peak of the band’s popularity. Given their ability to generate dancefloor hits, it’s interesting to note that virtually the only concessions to sexualized disco culture that ABBA makes are moments when Fältskog boogies with her back to the audience, displaying the posterior that’s a topic of considerable discussion during the film. Concurrently, Hallström seems to gently poke the band’s sanitized image by including man-on-the-street remarks about ABBA being “clean” and “tidy.” That said, Hallström loses control of the film whenever he tries to get arty. An over-the-top sequence set to ABBA’s pulsing anthem “Eagle” is drenched with optical effects, wind machines, and general visual excess, as is the sequence representing the DJ’s dream of bonding with ABBA. (The latter sequence badly misuses one of ABBA’s most mature songs, “The Name of the Game.”)
          Suffice to say, viewers learn nothing about the band members beyond a few points of widely reported trivia—the goal of this officially sanctioned movie was to help sell ABBA, the product, not to help reveal Agnetha, Benny, Björn, and Anni-Frid, the people. At least the band didn’t skimp on production values, since the movie has a robust look thanks to glossy anamorphic-widescreen photography. Naturally, one’s ability to trudge through all of ABBA: The Movie depends upon one’s tolerance for the group’s happy-shiny tunes. A few of their winners get performed (notably “Dancing Queen,” which is positioned as the climax of the film) but way too much screen time gets burned up on such tiresome dreck as “Tiger” and “When I Kissed the Teacher.” 

ABBA: The Movie: FUNKY

King Kong (1976)

          With director John Guillermin’s austere camerawork and screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr.’s tongue-in-cheek wordplay leavening the histrionics producer Dino De Laurentiis obviously had in mind, this notorious picture tries to rethink a Hollywood classic as a blend of social commentary and epic tragedy. (Chances are you don’t need to be reminded that the 1933 original is a creature feature depicting the discovery and capture of a giant ape living on a remote island.) The most effective bit of updating is providing a credible reason for American explorers to visit mythical, mist-enshrouded Skull Island: the promise of untapped oil reserves. The picture was made just after the 1973-1974 gas crisis, so the lust for crude was prominent in the American consciousness.
          The least effective bit of updating is the application of Ms. Magazine feminism onto Jessica Lange’s character Dwan, an admirable but failed attempt to make the female lead more assertive than Fay Wray was in the 1933 original. Playing a shipwreck victim who joins the oil expedition and captures the big primate’s heart once she goes ashore with the crew, Lange is so pretty and curvaceous it’s not hard to understand why the ape goes ape. Unfortunately, her performance is as cringe-worthy as Dwan’s dialogue, so King Kong nearly ended the actress’ career before it began.
          However, the portrayal of Kong is heartfelt in a clunky sort of way, especially with John Barry’s alternately menacing and sweeping score jacking up the emotional stakes, and some the movie’s jolts work just like they should. The hit-and-miss special effects feature silly gimmicks like monkey specialist Rick Baker cavorting in an ape suit, plus impressive animatronic monsters created by Carlo Rimbaldi; one memorable scene features a bloody fight between Kong and a ginormous snake with Dwan caught in the middle of the carnage. All of this made a big impression on me as a ’70s kid, which might explain why I still enjoy the movie—but as it happens, I’ve gotten into an embarrassing situation or two by admitting my admiration, like the time I shared my secret Kong shame with classic-cinema champion Leonard Maltin. He was a good sport as I explained that I first saw the movie when I was 7, but he wasn’t buying what I was selling.
          Nonetheless, in defense of this much-maligned movie, I can attest that the 1976 Kong looks gorgeous because Guillermin knows how to fill a widescreen frame like nobody’s business, and Jeff Bridges, all hippy-dippy shaggy as a bleeding-heart naturalist who stows away on the ship headed for Skull Island, contributes an energized performance. Charles Grodin is terrifically hammy as the villain who unwisely tries to exploit Kong, and familiar ’70s players Rene Auberjonois and John Randolph lend flavor as members of his crew. Furthermore, the ending of the 1976 version amplifies the intensity of the original film’s conclusion, replacing a daytime dogfight atop the Empire State Building with an eerie nighttime shootout atop the then-new World Trade Center.
          So, while not a great movie by any stretch, the 1976 Kong has more going for it than you might remember—but keep the fast-forward button handy for the awkward romantic scenes between Kong and Dwan. You’ve been warned.

King Kong: FUNKY

The Godfather (1972) & The Godfather: Part II (1974)

          When Paramount decided to make a film of Mario Puzo’s pulpy novel about a Mafia family, the subject matter was considered déclassé at best, the domain of such grimy quickies as The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967). But the success of the novel (something like 2 million copies sold in the first two years after publication) convinced ambitious Paramount boss Robert Evans to give The Godfather the A-list treatment. After the usual dance of overtures to other filmmakers (Peter Bogdanovich, Sergio Leone), Francis Ford Coppola was hired as director and as Puzo’s cowriter on a script about the ascension of crime boss Michael Corelone. Gobs of plot from the novel were cut (and later repurposed for the first sequel), notably patriarch Vito Corleone’s backstory. Getting the movie cast was an ordeal, especially because Paramount hated Al Pacino for Michael even more than they hated Marlon Brando for Vito. The studio pitched such unlikely alternates as Ryan O’Neal for the son and Danny Thomas for the father.

          Making the film was fractious for all involved, with Coppola and Pacino constantly at risk of termination—the director was targeted for overspending, the actor for underplaying. Yet behind-the-scenes disharmony wasn’t enough to inhibit the creative process, because The Godfather represents a career high for everyone involved. As entertaining as it is intelligent and soulful, the picture comfortably ranks among American cinema’s true masterpieces. Working with famed cinematographer Gordon Willis, nicknamed “The Prince of Darkness” for his moody lighting style, Coppola created a unique look that evoked vintage sepia-toned photographs. Drawing on his own Italian American heritage, Coppola blended his cast into a tight unit, thereby creating a sense of familial connection that counterbalances the film’s violent storyline.

          As for the narrative itself, that should be familiar to all ’70s-cinema fans, so here’s a brief sketch for those who haven’t yet had the pleasure. As aging Mafia boss Vito Corleone struggles to maintain old codes of conduct during the changing times of the World War II era, his three sons follow different paths. Heir apparent Sonny (James Caan) is a hothead who advocates violence, ne’er-do-well Fredo (John Cazale) evinces cowardice, and golden boy Michael (Pacino) avoids the family business until circumstances force him to embrace his destiny. Standing to the side of the action is lawyer Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), an outsider who’s nearly a fourth son to Vito, and Kay Adams (Diane Keaton), Michael’s WASP fiancée.

          The genius of The Godfather is that internal friction causes as much trouble for the Corleones as external forces, so the film becomes a meditation on betrayal, disappointment, family, honor, and countless other epic themes. The acting is amazing, from the stars to the perfectly selected bit players whom Coppola employs to imbue every scene with gritty flavor. And although it’s essentially Pacino’s movie, no one actor dominates, since The Godfather is an egalitarian ensemble piece. It also features more classic scenes than nearly any other single movie, from the canoli to the horse’s head and beyond. It’s not enough to describe The Godfather as one of the essential films of the ’70s, because The Godfather is one of the essential films of all time.

          Astonishingly, Coppola and co. nearly topped themselves with the sequel. Both ’70s Godfather films won Oscars as Best Picture, a feat that’s unlikely to ever be repeated. In fact, many fans argue that The Godfather, Part II is the rare sequel to surpass its predecessor, though I don’t share that opinion. Make no mistake, The Godfather, Part II is remarkable in both ambition and execution, with artistic and technical aspects either matching or exceeding those of the original film. Moreover, the film’s painful storyline about a battle between brothers cuts as deeply as the first picture’s depiction of a father trying and failing to save his favorite son from a life of crime. So when I offer my opinion that The Godfather, Part II is incrementally inferior to The Godfather, it’s with the caveat that nearly all films, even great ones, are inferior to The Godfather.

          As has been analyzed and celebrated by countless people before me, the big play that Coppola made in The Godfather Part II was telling two stories at once. In present-day scenes, hapless Fredo makes a series of foolish decisions, forcing Michael to exercise his authority over the family in heartbreaking ways. Meanwhile, in operatic flashbacks, Robert De Niro plays the younger version of Brando’s character from the first film. As such, The Godfather, Part II parallels the formation of the Corleone family with its ultimate damnation, brilliantly illustrating how the fateful choices that Vito made as a young man triggered a chain of events continuing through generations. For my taste, the nettlesome flaw of The Godfather, Part II stems from directorial self-indulgence, which would eventually become a major problem in Coppola’s career. As gorgeous and poetic as they are, the De Niro scenes linger a bit too long, since it feels as if Coppola fell in love with every artistic composition and balletic camera move that he and Willis created together. Even the presence of famed acting teacher Lee Strasberg in a crucial supporting role feels a bit precious, as if The Godfather, Part II is overly aware of its own significance as a compendium of extraordinary performance techniques. That said, we should all be so lucky as to suffer from an embarrassment of riches, and the highest points of The Godfather, Part II (“I know it was you, Fredo”) are breathtaking.

          Regarding the subject of the much-maligned cash-grab threequel The Godfather, Part III (1990), I choose to pretend there are only two movies about the Corleone family. FYI, compendium releases bearing titles including The Godfather Saga and The Godfather: A Novel for Television put all the scenes from the first two pictures, alongside previously unseen footage, into chronological order. Yet another version, The Godfather Trilogy: 1901–1980, integrates the third film and its attendant deleted scenes. The running time on that version is a whopping 583 minutes.

The Godfather: OUTTA SIGHT

The Godfather, Part II: OUTTA SIGHT

Phantasm (1979)

A strange horror picture written, produced, and directed by then-23-year-old Don Coscarelli, Phantasm is filled with images that burned themselves into viewers’ brains—literally, as you’ll discover in a moment. The movie isn’t particularly frightening, and it takes forever to kick into gear, but the sheer ’70s-ness of the thing contributes to its mystique. Everyone in the cast has a little too much hair, much of it feathered, Farrah Fawcett-style; the plot is filled with Chariots of the Gods-type hokum about aliens with a master plan for humanity; and the awkward score (think melancholy electric-piano solos) has an eerie closing-time vibe. The rudimentary cinematography and editing, also by multitasker Coscarelli, add a student-movie creakiness that gains power after a while, because it’s like the gruesome story oozes directly from Coscarelli’s young mind. The narrative concerns two brothers investigating mysterious goings-on at a funeral home, which is run by a pasty freak known as “The Tall Man” whose aides are scampering little people in brown robes. Phantasm is the sort of picture in which villains do creepy things in public and nobody notices except the heroes; I dig the moment when the Tall Man stops on a sidewalk and inhales car exhaust with an orgasmic look on his face, earning nary a bewildered glance except from the movie’s protagonist. Because the characters are ciphers, the flick’s real star is a prop—the flying, bladed metal ball that jams into people’s heads and drills until blood gushes out like water from a spigot. Unfortunately, it takes about 38 logy minutes to get to that high point, and the movie’s only 90 minutes long. Viewers with stamina are rewarded with a deranged third act, because the conspiracy the heroes discover is one of the most preposterous sci-fi concepts ever committed to film. FYI, Phantasm developed a cult following and spawned three undistinguished sequels, all made by the persistent Mr. Coscarelli.

Phantasm: FREAKY

The Norseman (1978)

So shamelessly absurd that it’s almost amiable, this medieval adventure stars Lee Majors as the chief of a Viking war party that sets ashore in 11th-century America to rescue their lost buddies from the clutches of dastardly Native Americans, with the help of a weather-controlling wizard and an Indian woman who inexplicably turns on her people. Suffice to say that Majors, a strapping Michigander with the acting range of a Pet Rock, doesn’t exactly disappear into his role as “Thorval the Bold”; from his flat Midwestern line readings to his perfectly groomed ’70s-stud mustache, he’s preposterous. It doesn’t help that his Viking costume includes a black superhero mask for no discernible reason, and that he spends much of the movie running in slow motion, which makes the film seem like a dream sequence from one of his Six Million Dollar Man episodes. Jack Elam, another performer who’s about as American as they come, plays the wizard, scowling from under the black cloak that hides his unconvincing hunchback prosthetic. The picture starts out well enough with a fusillade of action and semi-coherent plotting, then devolves into a series of needlessly protracted fights and chase scenes; even the spectacle of watching Majors spout silly dialogue wears thin. (Sample line: “Our shores are laden with the remains of intruders whose ambitions were far greater than their fighting skills.”) Running the show is writer-producer-director Charles B. Pierce, a prolific hack who spared every expense making robustly bad movies like The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976). Pierce shot The Norseman in Florida—which everybody knows is exactly where Native Americans and Vikings would most likely tussle—and he didn’t break the bank acquiring the picture’s one impressive prop, because a closing credit thanks the city of Newburn, NC, “for furnishing the Viking boat.”

The Norseman: LAME

High Anxiety (1977)

          After striking out with Silent Movie (1976), which was a moderate success but still a huge comedown commercially and critically from the twin 1974 hits Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, comedy auteur Brooks drifted back to the sweet spot, more or less, for High Anxiety, a send-up of Alfred Hitchcock’s suspense classics. Though High Anxiety has some terrific moments, and despite Brooks’ obvious affection and respect for Hitchcock’s movies, High Anxiety lacks both the manic energy of Saddles and the sweetness of Frankenstein. Plus, by this point in Brooks’ career, the feces jokes were starting to get out of hand, which is indicative that the creative well was starting to run dry.

          The picture’s biggest minus is the presence of Brooks in the leading role as a shrink who must overcome his personal phobias in order to expose corruption at a psychiatric hospital. For although High Anxiety actually has a strong narrative, comparatively speaking, Brooks’ tendency toward overacting makes it hard to develop the emotional investment a subtler actor could engender. It’s true that Brooks gives a much better performance in High Anxiety than he did in Silent Movie, but he’s still the weakest link in terms of onscreen talent.

          Notwithstanding these shortcomings, High Anxiety has many bright spots, including the delightful scene of corrupt psychiatrist Harvey Korman torturing a patient by pretending to be a werewolf, Cloris Leachman’s go-for-broke performance as a nutjob nurse with a bullet bra and a mustache, and Brooks’ lounge-lizard rendition of the movie’s ridiculous theme song (classic line: “Oh—‘xiety!”). For movie buffs, it’s also a hoot to see future director Barry Levinson (who co-wrote this movie) acting in the film’s requisite homage to Psycho’s shower scene. Brooks regular Madeline Kahn is mostly wasted, although she gets to look gorgeous in the thankless role of a seductive/troubled blonde in the Hitchock mode.

          Had this movie been made by anyone else, and had it featured a proper actor in the leading role, High Anxiety might have been embraced by audiences for its easygoing silliness. But since it represents such a big comedown from its predecessors, and since Brooks’ front-and-center role screams of megalomania, it’s merely an enjoyable but minor entry in an important filmography.

High Anxiety: FUNKY

Silent Movie (1976)

          After discovering his gift for spoofing movie genres with Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, both of which were released in 1974, Mel Brooks lost his way with Silent Movie. By many reports, Brooks’ considerable ego was to blame for the precipitous drop in the quality of his pictures, because he burned an important bridge by alienating actor-writer Gene Wilder, who starred in both 1974 hits, after taking too much credit for Young Frankenstein. So even though Brooks enjoyed long relationships with talented collaborators, including actors like Dom DeLuise and Marty Feldman, as well as behind-the-scenes talents like composer John Morris, it was clear that on a Mel Brooks picture, only the name above the title really mattered. Therefore, in Silent Movie, it’s all about Mel, and not in a good way. Brooks cast himself in the leading role, and his legendary comic gifts aren’t enough to compensate for his shortcomings as an actor. He plays for the cheap seats with every reaction shot, bludgeons the delivery of jokes with bug-eyed obviousness, and can’t muster the varied nuances that Wilder brought to his performances in Brooks films.

          It doesn’t help, of course, that Silent Movie adheres to the gimmick implied by its title: Like an old one-reeler from the Mack Sennett era, the picture uses title cards in place of dialogue, which gives it a stop-and-start rhythm that soon grows wearying. The storyline is amusing-ish, with a film director (Brooks) trying to produce a brand-new silent movie in the modern era, and Silent Movie features cameos by big names who relish making idiots of themselves: Anne Bancroft, James Caan, Liza Minnelli, Paul Newman, Burt Reynolds. (In a clever touch, French mine Marcel Marceau delivers the movie’s only line of spoken dialogue.) Brooks has fun executing exuberant physical comedy in the silent-era style with the assistance of core players DeLuise, Feldman, Sid Caesar, Ron Carey, Harold Gould, and Bernadette Peters, but the film’s slapstick is so endlessly insipid that the fervent efforts of the cast are mostly wasted. It’s hard to actively dislike Silent Movie since it’s trying so hard to be entertaining, but it’s hard to get excited about it, either.

Silent Movie: LAME

Young Frankenstein (1974)

          Astonishingly, comedy giant Mel Brooks managed to crank out his masterpiece, Young Frankenstein, less than a year after completing another outrageously funny spoof, Blazing Saddles. Yet while Blazing Saddles is an anything-goes romp that throws out narrative continuity whenever the opportunity for a gag arises, Young Frankenstein trumps its predecessor because in addition to featuring some of the funniest moments in cinema history, the picture also works as the bittersweet tale of a man, a monster, and the women who love them.

          Conceived by leading man Gene Wilder, who eventually had a falling-out with Brooks after he perceived Brooks as taking too much credit for this project, Young Frankenstein is a pseudo-continuation of the classic Universal Studios Frankenstein series that begin in the early ’30s. The picture is shot in glorious black-and-white to evoke a studio-era vibe, and the filmmakers even tracked down the original Kenneth Strickfaden-created props that appeared in Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory during the earlier films.

          The screenplay, by Wilder and Brooks, picks up a generation after the events of the older pictures, when Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Wilder) inherits the castle where his crazed grandfather, Victor, once conducted unholy experiments. Discovering his ancestor’s records, Frederick casts aside his nature as a rational modern scientist in order to stitch together body parts and make a monster all his own. Aided by a trusty hunchbacked accomplice, Igor (Marty Feldman), and a fetching local girl, Inga (Teri Garr), Frederick creates a lumbering Monster (Peter Boyle).

          Wilder and Brooks borrow and spoof famous bits from the Universal Pictures, leading to uproarious scenes like the Monster’s encounter with a blind man (Gene Hackman) whose desire to share a cigar turns disastrous, and Frederick’s hilarious run-ins with an officious policeman (Kenneth Mars), who lost a limb to the monster that Victor Frankenstein created long ago. There’s also room for Frederick’s uptight fiancée, Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn), and the mysterious Frau Blücher (Cloris Leachman), who knew Victor better than anyone suspects.

          Virtually every scene in Young Frankenstein is a comedy classic, from the opening bit of Fredrick experimenting on an elderly patient during a medical class to the climactic musical number, “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” which Wilder actually had to fight to keep in the movie because Brooks didn’t originally see the value of the scene. In addition to being riotously funny, Young Frankenstein is virtually note-perfect from beginning to end in terms of character and storyline. The acting is also consistently wonderful, with Boyle delivering a heartbreaker of a performance as the monster; his scene with Hackman is a perfect blend of pathos and whimsy.

          A career high point for everyone involved, Young Frankenstein showcases everything Brooks does well and features none of his often tiresome excesses, and it’s a triumph for Wilder as an actor and as a writer.

Young Frankenstein: OUTTA SIGHT

Blazing Saddles (1974)

          After making a wholly original film, The Producers (1968), and a goofy literary adaptation, The Twelve Chairs (1970), comedy giant Mel Brooks found his true niche in 1974 with the spectacular one-two punch of Blazing Saddles, released in February of that year, and Young Frankenstein, released in December. Satirizing film genres freed Brooks to stack gags on top of gags without having to worry about inventing new stories, since he repurposed elements from old films to create solid narrative foundations. Yet rather than just firing off jokes in these first two spoof films, Brooks took care to imbue even the most preposterous characters with likeable humanity—so, for instance, Blazing Saddles focuses on a black sheriff who combats Old West prejudice by making a fool of every racist he encounters. More importantly, Blazing Saddles reaches such dizzying heights of comic insanity that it’s one of the funniest movies ever made.
          The picture began as an original script by Andrew Bergman, who later became a comedy director in his own right, and the story went through a spirited metamorphosis as Brooks and others added characters and jokes and themes. At one point, comedy legend Richard Pryor was hired to smooth out potentially offensive race jokes, but instead fixated on penning gags for the existentially confused man-child Mongo (Alex Karras), who at one point sadly opines, “Mongo just pawn in game of life.”
          The main story this brain trust generated involves the devious machinations of corrupt politician Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman), who wants to demolish a small town and make room for a railroad in which he has a financial stake. By manipulating his state’s oblivious governor (Brooks), Hedley gets a black man, Bart (Cleavon Little), assigned as the town’s new sheriff. Upon seeing the color of the lawman’s skin, the town’s welcome wagon turns into a lynch mob, but soon Bart teams up with alcoholic gunfighter Jim (Gene Wilder) to save the day by confronting Hedley. The story, of course, is of minor importance, because Blazing Saddles is like a vaudeville revue filled with screamingly funny stand-alone gags, most of which are better discovered than described.
          Befitting its tagline, “Never give a saga an even break,” Blazing Saddles upends every imaginable convention of Hollywood Westerns. Conniving villains are made to look ridiculous (Hedley freaks out during bath time when he can’t find his rubber ducky); racial stereotypes are exploited for outrageous laughs (Little’s line, “Excuse me while I whip this out,” has become immortal); and, of course, the picture contains cinema’s most infamous demonstration of the effect baked beans have on the male digestive system, the symphony of campfire flatulence heard ’round the world.
          Everyone in the movie is terrific, with Little exhibiting charisma and great timing while Wilder gives an uncharacteristically soft-spoken performance as his sidekick. Korman is pure genius from start to finish, and Brooks regular Madeline Kahn slays as put-upon German seductress Lili Von Shtupp. The movie goes off the rails toward the end, albeit intentionally, so inspiration eventually gives way to desperation—but the chaos helps give Blazing Saddles such extraordinary shelf life that it’s one of the few modern movie comedies that can still leave fans gasping for air while laughing at the same jokes for the hundredth time.

Blazing Saddles: RIGHT ON

Slither (1973)

So offbeat that I’m surprised Wes Anderson hasn’t bought the remake rights, this amiable comedy stars James Caan as an ex-con (ex-caan?) who inadvertently gathers a surrogate family of weirdos as he pursues a fortune in stolen loot. The eccentricity is front and center right from the first scene, in which Dick (Caan) visits his crooked pal Harry (Richard B. Schull) in a ratty old country house. As they chat, gunsels close in from all directions and riddle Harry with bullets, so a dying Harry secrets Dick into an underground bomb shelter and blows up the house, obliterating the gunsels in the process. Dick exits the rubble, dusts himself off, and shuffles away to his next adventure. He soon crosses paths with ditzy drifter Kittty (Sally Kellerman), who has a nasty habit of holding up roadside establishments at gunpoint. And eventually Dick partners with low-rent bandleader Barry (Peter Boyle), who claims to know the location of the stashed cash. So once the movie’s up to speed, Dick, Harry, and Kitty are roaming through trailer parks and other kitschy locations in Harry’s Winnebago, while mysterious villains in color-coordinated vans chase after them. It’s all very zippy and absurd, sort of like a novelistic character study with a crime element thrown in to keep things moving. Caan seems unsure how to play his character, but Boyle and Kellerman go full-out in every scene; Boyle’s a smooth-talking loser eager to latch onto something big, and Kellerman’s a motor-mouthed space case eager to latch onto anything. The imaginative screenplay by first-timer W.D. Richter (of Buckaroo Banzai fame) eventually runs out of gas, but it travels to quite a few interesting places before that happens, wringing affectionate chuckles from the spectacle of hapless characters trapped in pathetic situations; a playful scene set during a trailer-park bingo game is a standout in terms of sheer eccentric fun. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Slither: FUNKY

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

Vigilante Force (1976)

          Way before making the ’90s cult faves Grosse Pointe Blank and Miami Blues, George Armitage wrote and directed this odd exploitation flick, which boasts an eclectic cast, an insane storyline, and weird flourishes like happy banjo music accompanying scenes of bloody mayhem. Vigilante Force is so disconnected from recognizable reality that it’s like a drive-in flick viewed through the prism of an irreverent absurdist. And, yes, that’s a compliment: Vigilante Force is disorganized, illogical, and strange, but it’s also compulsively watchable.
          The outrageous story takes place in a small California oil town called Elk Hills, which has been overrun by itinerant workers. Blissfully eschewing restraint, Armitage depicts the interlopers as hordes of brawling rednecks; these faceless savages seem to be controlled by sociopathic groupthink. In the first 10 minutes alone, criminals trash a saloon, murder cops in broad daylight, and literally shoot a car to death. Given the many whimsical touches that follow, one can only imagine that Armitage envisioned his film’s opening act as a spoof of other movies about random violence, but then again, his storytelling is so capricious throughout Vigilante Force it’s hard to parse narrative intention.
          Anyway, the leading moral force in Elk Hills is Ben Arnold (Jan-Michael Vincent), a salt-of-the-earth widower who wants to protect the small town where he lives with his young daughter. At the urging of his neighbors, Ben tracks down his wayward Vietnam-vet brother Aaron (Kris Kristofferson), and then hires Aaron to form a peacekeeping militia. Initially, the scheme works, because Aaron and his rough-and-tumble buddies crack down on street crime. However, it soon becomes apparent that Aaron is even more dangerous than the thugs he was recruited to fight. Enlisting secret operatives to shake down local business owners and gleefully using murder to intimidate opponents, Aaron quickly gets Elk Hills under his militaristic thumb. Among other things, Aaron’s rampage features some of the most blasé murders ever shown in movies; the comic-book universe Armitage creates is almost entirely devoid of visible emotional consequences, a bizarre tonal choice accentuated by across-the-board understated performances.
          While all this is going on, the movie tracks Ben’s romance with a saintly schoolteacher (Victoria Principal) and Aaron’s thorny involvement with a cynical barroom singer (Bernadette Peters). While future Dallas star Principal is mostly relegated to stand-by-her-man ornamentation, Peters gets to show off her comedy chops through sly running gags. Plus, both women are blazingly sexy, so even though Vigilante Force is chaste by exploitation-movie standards, there’s plenty of eye candy—and since Kristofferson spends about half the movie shirtless, Armitage ensures there’s something for everyone to ogle. Furthermore, the supporting cast features several familiar faces, including Charlie’s Angels sidekick David Doyle, Breakfast Club villain Paul Gleason, and, in tiny roles, WKRP in Cincinnati bombshell Loni Anderson and B-movie icon Dick Miller.
          After meandering through a confusing but entertaining second act, Vigilante Force sticks the landing with an incredibly colorful finale: Aaron’s crew masquerades as a marching band in order to rob the Elk Hills bank, and Ben forms a militia of his own comprising local geezers and youths. Thus, the climax features Kristofferson blasting away with an M-16 while dressed in a cherry-red marching-band outfit and standing atop a giant oil tank. From its surreal opening to its even more surreal denouement, Vigilante Force maintains a breakneck pace that precludes questions about the nutty narrative until it’s all over. As a result, Vigilante Force is among the most uniquely entertaining schlock movies of its era. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)


Vigilante Force: FREAKY

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) & Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) & Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) & Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)

          When Chuck Heston screamed at the half-buried Statue of Liberty during the conclusion of Planet of the Apes (1968), what seemed like one of the great twist endings in sci-fi history was actually the launching pad for an interesting but short-lived movie series, probably because producer Arthur P. Jacobs was eager to milk a hit after taking a bath on the notorious turkey Doctor Dolittle (1967). Demonstrating that a sequel was neither organic nor planned, Heston is a minor presence in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, which strangely pushes the titular primates to the sidelines in favor of a cult of underground mutants worshipping an unexploded nuclear bomb; even more egregiously, Beneath is the only picture in the series that doesn’t feature Roddy McDowall in the cast. Nonetheless, Beneath has some memorable loose-nuke paranoia, and Chuck brightens the third act by showing up to flex his pecs and grit his teeth. If you go Beneath, by the way, stick through to the ending, which is spectacularly cynical.
          Jacobs more or less rebooted the series with Escape from the Planet of the Apes, which kinda ignores the previous film by reprising beloved ape characters Cornelius (McDowall) and Zira (Kim Hunter) from the original picture. The duo travels back in time from their ape-dominated future Earth to present-day 1970s Earth, where they’re perceived as a threat to man’s dominance of the planet. Escape is flat and talky compared to the rest of the series, but it introduces the entertaining human character Armando (Ricardo Montalban) and features a denouement that’s both exciting and depressing.
          The jewel in the crown of the ’70s Apes pictures is unquestionably Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, which boasts a taut script about slavery and rebellion, zesty performances by McDowall and Montalban, and genuinely scary sequences of civil unrest that director J. Lee Thompson reportedly modeled after news footage of the 1965 Watts riots. McDowall actually plays the son of his character in the previous Apes pictures, and he brings previously unseen grit and rage to his portrayal of an, ahem, guerilla leader; he also benefits from a methodical story that believably evolves him from pacifist to revolutionary. Adding even more flava is the ingenious use of a then-new office plaza in what’s now known as Century City, California, for the primary location, because Fox audaciously transforms its corporate backyard into a futuristic battleground. Yet another virtue of the movie is a charismatic performance by journeyman African-American actor Hari Rhodes, of Daktari fame—he’s commanding and intense as the only human besides Armando to evade the apes’ wrath. FYI, the highly recommended extended cut of Conquest that debuted on Blu-Ray (and the Fox Movie Channel) in 2008 ups the violence quotient and deepens the movie’s theme of racial friction.
          Predictably, Battle for the Planet of the Apes is an anticlimax, mostly because it should have picked up exactly where Conquest ended. Instead, it takes place years later and features a long, slow buildup to a poorly staged fight between a nasty human armada and a fractious ape community. Seeing John Huston in primate drag at the beginning and end of the picture is a hoot, though (he speaks to the camera in wraparound bits). Oh, and don’t be fooled if you come across listings for Back to the Planet of the Apes or Forgotten City of the Planet of the Apes (both 1974); they’re slapdash re-edits of scenes from the disposable Apes TV series that ran for one season.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes: FUNKY

Escape from the Planet of the Apes: FUNKY

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes: GROOVY

Battle for the Planet of the Apes: LAME

Kansas City Bomber (1972)

On paper, this one sounds pretty fabulous as far as ’70s kitsch goes. Sex symbol Raquel Welch plays a single mom who tries to conquer the rough-and-tumble world of roller derby when other professional avenues prove unavailable. Kevin McCarthy, the star of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, plays the oily team owner who courts Welch and persuades her to join his roller-derby empire, spotting a potential marquee attraction. Norman Alden, the journeyman actor known for craptastic ’70s TV like Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, plays a gentle-giant skater prone to inflicting serious bodily harm when he’s not looking out for Welch’s welfare. The cast also includes Jodie Foster in an early role. But the sum of Kansas City Bomber is far less than its parts, even with some of those parts belonging to Welch. The reason is simple: The movie’s no fun. It’s actually a rather grim affair, as if the filmmakers thought the world would take a roller-derby movie starring Raquel Welch seriously. As for the star, she’s not really awful in this movie so much as just plain boring, which is disappointing because she seems sincere about demonstrating chops that she simply doesn’t have. Alden tries just as hard, but his performance as a mentally challenged individual borders on the cringe-worthy. So within this dramatic vacuum, McCarthy probably comes off best, because he at least plays the one note of his vile character effectively. The plot, standard leering stuff about predatory men who want Welch and bitchy roller-derby queens who want to put her down, would be tolerable if the action on the rink was exciting. No such luck. The sports scenes are sloppy and repetitive, without any of the crazy hair-pulling fun one might expect. Kansas City Bomber should be a permanent resident of the cinematic penalty box.

Kansas City Bomber: LAME