The Mack (1973)

          Few blaxploitation pictures have cast a longer shadow over African-American pop culture than The Mack, a violent thriller about the sex trade that’s imbued with a bracing amount of documentary realism. Set in the ghettos of Oakland, California, the picture follows the adventures of Goldie (Max Julien), a small-time crook who returns home to Oakland after a stretch in prison. Surveying his options for making a buck, he decides to become a pimp (or “mack,” in the movie’s authentic parlance), and his success in the flesh-peddling line makes him a target for competitors, corrupt cops, and mobsters.

          On paper, the picture sounds like a hundred other blaxploitation flicks, and, indeed, The Mack features the customary polyester clothing, R&B tunes, and street jargon. Beyond the rote action-movie plotting, however, is a sincere exploration of sociopolitical forces driving life in the roughest pockets of Oakland’s black community. The filmmakers enlisted several real pimps as technical advisors, which gives credibility to scenes of internecine power struggles.

          Adding another interesting dimension are pointed interactions between Goldie and his brother, black-power activist Olinga (Roger E. Mosley). “Bein’ rich and black means something,” Goldie says to Olinga at one point. “Bein’ poor and black don’t mean nothing.” The idea of success as a revolutionary act is provocative, and Olinga counters this argument with hard-hitting remarks about how the cycle of blacks exploiting blacks benefits the white power structure.

          This is heady stuff for a B-movie that also makes room for vicious scenes like the moment when Goldie locks a competitor in a car trunk along with a bagful of rats, but The Mack is consistently surprising. In addition to the race-relations material, the movie tries to explain the phenomenon of pimps controlling the minds of their “bitches” (get used to hearing that word, a lot, if you watch The Mack). In one vivid scene, Goldie gathers his streetwalkers in a planetarium and delivers a Jim Jones-style sermon about the rewards he’ll shower them with in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.

          The Mack isn’t made particularly well (most of the shots are grainy and underexposed), and Julien is a peculiar leading man, his onscreen persona so leisurely it’s hard to buy him as a lethal street warrior. Additionally, comedian Richard Pryor is underused in a supporting role as Goldie’s sidekick, though his sporadic torrents of vulgarity amp up the intensity level.

          Nonetheless, the resonant elements of the picture stack up. Willie Hutch contributes atmospheric music (including the suave ballad “I Choose You”); veteran character actor Don Gordon weaves all sorts of eccentric details into his performance as a bad cop who torments Goldie; and Mosley, later of Magnum P.I. fame, is believably anguished. More importantly, for fans of the blaxploitation genre, The Mack is filled with choice dialogue, like Goldie’s classic challenge to an enemy: “We can handle this like you got some class, or we can get into some gangsta shit.”

The Mack: GROOVY

Hot Stuff (1979)

          Rotund comedian Dom DeLuise could be hilarious in the right situations, whether he was cutting up with buddy Burt Reynolds on The Tonight Show or mugging in outrageous Mel Brooks movies. In the wrong situations, however, he was prone to cartoonish behavior like double-takes and pratfalls. In that context, it’s interesting to watch Hot Stuff, the only theatrical feature DeLuise directed, because, in theory, his performance in the picture offers a pure demonstration of his idea of comedy; no one guided DeLuise except DeLuise himself. Therefore, it’s a bummer to report that he delivers pretty much the same broad clowning here that he did elsewhere. It turns out DeLuise was simply one of those amiable performers best appreciated in small doses.

          As for the movie itself Hot Stuff is very silly and not nearly as funny as it might have been. The script, co-written by veteran crime scribe Donald E. Westlake, has a fun idea: Four Miami cops set up a fencing operation to trap thieves. DeLuise plays Ernie, a nervous detective just shy of retirement, and country singer-turned-actor Jerry Reed plays Doug, his good-ol’-boy partner. Suzanne Pleshette plays Louise, a cop from another precinct who joins forces with the boys (and becomes Doug’s love interest). Together with a fourth cop (Luis Avalos), they rig a borrowed storefront with video equipment and lure unsuspecting criminals by paying top dollar for stolen loot. (The great Ossie Davis is wasted in a trite supporting role as their long-suffering commander.)

          Yet, instead of the fraught predicaments one might expect from a story about police officers working undercover, Hot Stuff feels like a variety show, with the cops holding court in the storefront while a string of low-rent comedians enter and exit the scene, giving mini-performances as oddball crooks. At one point, towering funnyman Pat McCormick literally walks into the storefront and drops a string of lame one-liners, stopping just short of telling the police to tip their waitresses and try the veal. The episodic nature of the picture is ameliorated somewhat by a couple of chase scene/shootouts and by a subplot about the Mafia mistaking the cops for competitors.

          A few of the bits are clever, like the finale in which the cops stage a spectacular mass arrest (which rings true with stories from the annals of real-life sting operations). However, the movie spends way too much time on Gong Show­-grade comedians, to say nothing of inanity like a pie fight. Hot Stuff is watchable, but it’s not for discerning viewers. (Available through Columbia Screen Classics via WarnerArchive.com)

Hot Stuff: 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

The Human Factor (1975)

          Watching the meat-and-potatoes terrorism thriller The Human Factor, one can’t help but wonder which actor the producers originally envisioned in the lead role, because George Kennedy just doesn’t have the stuff this movie needs. Playing a civilian computer specialist working on a top-secret military project in Italy, he’s fine as a lumbering bear of an American out of step with continental types—but the minute the story kicks into gear, Kennedy is asked to summon degrees of anguish and intensity he just can’t muster, undercutting key scenes so badly they inch toward self-parody.

          This is a shame, because the story is solid: A group of terrorists begins killing randomly selected American families who are living in Europe, and Kennedy’s wife and child are the first victims. Using the technology at his disposal, an espionage database designed to predict enemy activity, Kennedy goes the vigilante route, determined to get revenge and upset the killers’ plans. Predictably, his intrusion makes the situation worse. There are several exciting run-ins with terrorists, plus a useful subplot about a European cop trying to stop Kennedy from waging his one-man war. So, with a stronger actor in the lead, this material could have connected quite nicely. Though tough guy Charles Bronson comes to mind as an obvious casting alternative, a version of The Human Factor starring, say, everyman Jack Lemmon could have been quite powerful, since a skilled actor would have grounded the concept in believable emotion.

          Unfortunately, with Kennedy in place, the rest of The Human Factor unfolds in as workmanlike a manner as the lead performance. Studio-era director Edward Dmytryk, helming the last feature of his epic career, puts the story together capably, showing mild flair during action scenes, but he’s not able to muster sufficient on-camera energy. Englishman John Mills, cast somewhat randomly as Kennedy’s co-worker/friend, exacerbates problems with an amateurish performance, though Italian star Raf Vallone is impassioned as the cop pursuing Kennedy, and stalwart American Barry Sullivan provides effective work as an overwrought diplomat driven to drink by the terrorism crisis.

The Human Factor: FUNKY

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

Wild Rovers (1971)

          Even though he enjoyed a long and lucrative career directing light comedies, it’s a shame Blake Edwards made only one proper Western, because Wild Rovers reveals the writer-director’s unexpectedly lyrical approach to the cowboy genre. Starring the unlikely but compatible duo of William Holden and Ryan O’Neal, the gorgeous-looking movie tracks the adventures of a pair of cowpokes whose foolhardy decision to rob a bank triggers a series of deadly events.

          Presented as an old-school epic, complete with a musical overture and an intermission, the film moseys along at a deliberate pace, but it’s never boring; the locations and photography are intoxicating, the action is exciting, and the performances keep everything lively. Moreover, Edwards’ inventive screenplay presents a rich mixture of familiar Western tropes and witty flourishes; the best original elements include novel characterizations and sharp dialogue.

          Holden plays Ross Bodine, a veteran cowboy who’s ready to settle down even though he doesn’t have a financial stake, and O’Neal plays Frank Post, a young man still naïve enough to believe he can shape his own destiny. When Ross casually mentions one day that the only cowboys with money are those who rob banks, Frank gets his teeth into the notion and eventually talks Ross into performing a heist. The movie takes its time getting to this point, creating a persuasive sense of camaraderie between the protagonists before things get sticky, and the robbery sequence is offbeat.

          Instead of busting into a bank at daytime, the men casually intimidate the bank owner at his home during evening hours, holding his wife and daughter at gunpoint while forcing him to head to the bank and unload the vault. Charged with overseeing the hostages, Frank bonds with a puppy and protects the banker’s family from a mountain lion rather than doing anything menacing. Narrative choices like these make Ross and Frank compelling characters—we see how easily they buy into the romantic fantasy of a victimless crime, and feel their anguish when they realize how badly they miscalculated.

          Holden adds an unusual color to his standard world-weary persona, accentuating amiability over cynicism, and O’Neal gives a performance that’s as naturalistic as anything he’s ever done. Eschewing the usual rouge’s gallery of overly familiar onscreen varmints, Edwards surrounds his leads with carefully chosen supporting players—including Joe Don Baker, Moses Gunn, Karl Malden, James Olson, and Tom Skerritt—all of whom make valuable contributions. Framing the actors’ work are spectacular widescreen images created by veteran cinematographer Philip Lathrop, a regular Edwards collaborator; his crisp photography of a sequence in which Ross breaks a wild bronco in a snowy field is particularly outstanding, making the sequence a joyous celebration of the cowboy lifestyle. Even the film’s music is noteworthy, with the great Jerry Goldsmith subtly expressing everything from jubilance to heartbreak.

          The unhurried pace of Wild Rovers ensures the picture isn’t for everyone, but the film’s unexpected emotional complexities reward patient viewers with a tough, elegant statement about masculine identity. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Wild Rovers: RIGHT ON

Fragment of Fear (1970)

          Appropriate to its title, Fragment of Fear offers glimpses of the powerhouse psychological thriller it never quite becomes—fragments of greatness, as it were. In fact, the movie screams for a remake because a more vivacious interpretation of the same material could be dynamite. Based on a novel by John Bingham and adapted by the British screenwriter Paul Dehn, the movie has a terrific hook: A recovering drug addict tries to expose a conspiracy, so the conspirators exploit his past to destroy his credibility. Had the movie maximized the tension inherent to that strong premise, it could have hit viewers right in the gut. And indeed, some scenes, particularly the finale, provoke the desired level of audience discomfort. However, the movie is burdened with an unnecessarily convoluted narrative and a preference for loaded conversations over physical action. As a result, the picture feels longer than its 94-minute running time even though most of what happens onscreen is intense and nasty.

          David Hemmings stars as Englishman Tim Brett, a former junkie enjoying the success of his best-selling memoir by taking a vacation in Italy with his beloved aunt. When his aunt is murdered in circumstances so mysterious that the Italian police give up their investigation almost immediately, Brett decides to smoke out the killer (or killers). Meanwhile, he manages a rocky relationship with his beautiful fiancée, Juliet (Gayle Hunnicutt), who’s not completely convinced of Tim’s recovery. As Tim sniffs for clues about the murder, he starts getting threats to back off, which only compels him to dig deeper—until the threats start getting directed at Juliet. The ordeal pushes Tim to heavy drinking, and maybe even back to the needle; by the final act, the lines between what’s happening in the real world and what’s happening in Tim’s imagination have blurred.

          Stories predicated on altered mental states are notoriously difficult, because trying to replicate the twists and turns of encroaching madness often damages narrative clarity—and in Fragment of Fear, the problem is exacerbated by talkiness. Since there’s so little in the way of exciting visuals, dull stretches emerge whenever the plot gets murky. It doesn’t help that Hemmings is a cold fish; although he’s credible as a strung-out hothead, his inability to convey warmth inhibits our ability to root for his character. Having said that, it’s probably best to view the movie through the prism of its reserved Britishness; at one point, a policeman sternly announces, “I shall be in danger of losing my temper!” So, in that sense, Fragment of Fear offers an offbeat alternative to the usual hysterics of American drug-themed pictures. (Available through Columbia Screen Classics via WarnerArchive.com)

Fragment of Fear: FUNKY

Saint Jack (1979)

          After suffering one of the most precipitous falls from grace of any ’70s auteur, Peter Bogdanovich returned to his roots by making a low-budget Roger Corman production of such intelligence and quality that it put him back on the map the same way his first Corman production, Targets (1968), launched his career. Informed by Bogdanovich’s love for old Hollywood but also very modern in content and frankness, Saint Jack feels like the sort of movie John Huston would have made around this period had his favorite leading man, Humphrey Bogart, survived into the ’70s. The protagonist, Jack Flowers, is like a seedier version of Bogart’s Casablanca character, Rick Blaine—an opportunistic American who gets drawn into a crisis of conscience while living abroad.

          The setting is early-’70s Singapore, and Jack is a smooth-talking operator who runs errands for crooks and supervises a loose network of prostitutes catering to foreign travelers. Popular among many of the locals, Jack’s got the run of the island nation, so long as he stays under the radar; Singapore pimps occasionally threaten him for encroaching on their turf, but the fact that Jack doesn’t have an actual brothel keeps him safe.

          Based on a novel by Paul Theroux and filmed in Bogdanovich’s inimitably crisp style, all purposeful long takes and rat-a-tat dialogue, the movie gradually evolves from a pure character study to something of a thriller, tracking Jack’s ascension over the course of several years. He builds relationships with Pacific islanders including a Sri Lankan prostitute (Monkia Subramaniam) and a soft-spoken British bookkeeper (Denholm Elliott), invites violent reprisal by opening a short-lived whorehouse, and gets drawn into shady intrigue by a mysterious American (played by Bogdanovich). Through it all, Jack keeps his amiable sense of humor and maintains a fervent sense of loyalty to his friends; he’s the fascinating paradox of a moral man plying an immoral trade.

          Bogdanovich keeps Gazzara’s usual smugness and tendency toward boisterous over-acting in check, helping the actor give one of the most restrained and effective performances of his career. Particularly in the sly close shots that Bogdanovich creates by having Gazzara walk toward the camera or having the camera slide up to the actor, we’re able to see the play of subtle emotion across Gazzara’s face as he calculates the odds of any particular action. He’s a gambler, but never reckless, and he’s always willing to pay the price when a bluff doesn’t work.

          Saint Jack is filled with interesting textures, from the sweaty vitality of the location photography to the caustic wit of the dialogue, and there’s an interesting mix of unfamiliar Eastern faces and recognizable Western actors (including Joss Ackland and George Lazenby). The film isn’t perfect, suffering minor flaws like a lack of clarity about the passage of time, but it delivers in every way that matters: entertaining dramaturgy, meticulous characterization, provocative moral dilemmas.

Saint Jack: RIGHT ON

The Odessa File (1974)

          Adapted from a novel by thriller specialist Frederick Forsyth, The Odessa File has all the usual elements of an international-intrigue flick: disguises, investigation, revenge, secrets, suspense, and so on. Furthermore, with its story of a modern-day German hunting down a fugitive Nazi who committed war crimes during the Holocaust, the movie is, for the most part, a brisk morality play fueled by intense emotions. However, significant shortcomings relegate the film to lesser status by comparison with, say, the inspired Forsyth adaptation The Day of the Jackal (1973).

          First, the characterization of leading man Peter Miller (Jon Voight) asks audiences to stretch believability to the limit. A freelance newspaper reporter hungry for a scoop, he discovers a journal left behind by an elderly Jew who just committed suicide. The man had recently learned that his concentration-camp tormentor, Nazi officer Eduard Roschmann (Maximilian Schell), is still alive, and was told that German authorities were unwilling to arrest Roschmann for his past misdeeds.

          As Peter learns from the journal and other sources, Roschmann is among the Nazis protected by the Odessa, a secret pro-Nazi organization that is also supplying arms for attacks against Israel. (There’s a whole subplot in the film about one particular pending missile strike about Israel, but the filmmakers don’t give the subplot enough attention to warrant its inclusion, which is a waste.) Since investigating the Roschmann matter immediately puts Peter and his girlfriend (Mary Tamm) into mortal danger, it’s unbelievable that Peter becomes preoccupied with confronting the aging Nazi; even though the movie eventually provides a last-minute explanation for Peter’s actions, the revelation arrives too late to justify two hours of wondering what’s happening inside the protagonist’s head.

          The Odessa File is also one of those bloated international thrillers in which the good guys take preposterously elaborate measures to accomplish things that, one presumes, could be achieved more simply. Specifically, anti-Nazi secret agents subject Peter to weeks of mental conditioning and physical alterations so he can pretend to be a former Nazi in order to infiltrate the Odessa organization—because, apparently, none of the highly trained operatives working with Peter are as capable of this particular mission as a hotheaded reporter nursing a personal grudge.

          As directed by Poseidon Adventure helmer Ronald Neame, The Odessa File is drably professional, with no real point of view or style, and Voight isn’t particularly impressive; though earnest and intense, he’s constantly on the cusp of over-acting. Given all of these problems, The Odessa File is agreeable entertainment, but nothing more.

The Odessa File: FUNKY

Every Which Way But Loose (1978)

          One of those lowbrow hits whose immense popularity defies all reasonable explanation, the Clint Eastwood action-comedy Every Which Way But Loose feels like a bad country song come to life, with random gags about a rascally primate thrown in for good measure. Eastwood plays Philo, a truck driver who moonlights as a bare-knuckle brawler and happens to own a pet orangutan. When he falls for a flighty country singer (Sondra Locke) who skips out on him, Philo chases her from California to Colorado, picking up nasty pursuers along the way: a pair of bruiser cops who hold a grudge after Philo kicked their asses in a bar fight, and a gang of bikers whose members have been humiliated by Philo. The movie comprises a string of stupidly macho episodes, interspersed with charmless scenes of Eastwood romancing Locke, the pale blonde actress who was his paramour in several films (and his private life) from the mid-’70s to the mid-’80s. Every Which Way But Loose also makes room for musical cameos by country singers including Charlie Rich and Mel Tillis, plus a grating supporting performance by Harold and Maude star Ruth Gordon, doing the potty-mouth shtick she contributed to a number of bad movies.

          Every Which Way But Loose drags on forever and can’t maintain a consistent tone, since some of the fighting bits are way too intense for lightweight escapist fare. However, the really confusing thing is that Every Which Way But Loose doesn’t feel like a bad movie. With several Eastwood regulars among the crew—and, more likely than not, Eastwood looking over nominal director James Fargo’s shoulder—the picture has a degree of technical spit and polish its idiotic script simply doesn’t deserve. Still, audiences loved the damn thing enough to warrant a more-of-the-same sequel, Any Which Way You Can (1980). On a happier note, when Eastwood pal Burt Reynolds heard about Every Which Way But Loose, he told his friend to expect payback for infringing into Reynolds’ domain of brawling comedy; true to his word, Reynolds retaliated by making Sharky’s Machine (1981), a terrific cop thriller in the vein of Eastwood’s Dirty Harry flicks.

Every Which Way But Loose: LAME

Black Belt Jones (1974)

Gene-splicing the blaxploitation and kung-fu genres was a smart move in terms of marketing, but Black Belt Jones is far less than the sum of its parts. There’s a significant kitsch factor thanks to scenes of black martial artists doing their thing with sky-high Afros atop their heads, but the flick is schlocky even by the low standards of the genres it bridges—the script is brainlessly derivative and the filmmaking is garishly mechanical. Real-life karate champ Jim Kelly, who achieved minor fame as a costar of Enter the Dragon (1973), stars as Black Belt Jones, a government operative/mercenary/whatever, since this is one of those B-movies in which dudes with prowess at kicking ass are constantly in demand from deep-pocketed employers. When Mafia bad guys decide to seize ownership of a property owned by Jones’ mentor, karate teacher Pop Byrd (Scatman Crothers), the Mafia sends African-American enforcer Pinky (Malik Carter) to intimidate Pop. Unfortunately, one of Pinky’s goons inadvertently kills Pop, sending Our Hero on an uninteresting vengeance mission that somehow involves breaking into a mob fortress and seizing photos the gangsters use for blackmail against political figures. Obviously, acting and story are not the big draws here, and Kelly is fine kicking and punching his way through fights, often in slow motion. Gloria Hendry is actually even more impressive as Sydney, a female martial artist who mows down villains alongside Jones. Additionally, the action stuff has a few glimmers of wit, like the funny moment when a victim gets thrown onto a trampoline, bounces upward, and lodges in the ceiling like a character in a Warner Bros. cartoon. So, if tongue-in-cheek martial arts mayhem gets your blood pumping, you might find fleeting amusement amid the tedium—but if not, chances are you’ll find Black Belt Jones thoroughly uninteresting. (FYI, the 1978 Jim Kelly movie The Tattoo Connection is not a sequel to this film, and in fact there is no sequel to Black Belt Jones, despite some video releases that misleadingly label The Tattoo Connection as Black Belt Jones 2.)

Black Belt Jones: LAME

J.W. Coop (1971)

          Actor Cliff Robertson dove headfirst into this vanity piece about a middle-aged rodeo cowboy trying to restart his career after a stretch in prison: In addition to playing the leading role, Robertson directed, produced, and co-wrote the overly meticulous character study. It’s tempting to say ego led Robertson to use every scrap of film he shot, since the film drags terribly at 112 minutes, but it’s just as likely he was trying to create a stylistic alternative to standard Hollywood artifice. To his credit, J.W. Coop is consistently authentic and sincere. Unfortunately, it’s not consistently entertaining.

          The picture begins when J.W. (Robertson) leaves prison and returns home to check in on his senile mother (Geraldine Page). Seeing only desperation in his hometown, he hits the rodeo circuit, and along the way gets involved with a pretty young hippie, Bean (Cristina Ferrare). He also has inconsequential adventures like a run-in with a cop who wants to cite J.W. for pollution, and a barroom brawl in which he defends a black friend against racist hoodlums. The goal of these episodes seems to be defining Coop as an honorable iconoclast so we’ll perceive his eventual showbiz excesses as tragic, because once J.W. gets back into the swing of bronc riding, he ascends the ranks until his only real competition is a superstar cowboy who flies his own private plane from one rodeo to the next. The picture asks how much J.W. is willing to risk to become the top guy on the circuit.

          Utilizing documentary-style footage and featuring many real-life figures from the rodeo world in supporting roles, J.W. Coop offers a believable look at a colorful subculture, and some of the bronc-busting action is intense, particularly the spectacular ride that a stunt man takes in the finale. However, the story holding this material together isn’t strong, and neither, frankly, is Robertson’s performance.

          The rare actor who chose to underplay once becoming his own director, Robertson is so soft-spoken and still throughout J.W. Coop that he generates nearly undetectable energy, if any. (Having said that, his rural accent and mannerisms are completely believable.) Leading lady Ferrare is mostly decorative, while Fitzgerald and durable character actor R.G. Armstrong—easily the picture’s best performers—don’t get enough screen time to compensate for Robertson’s sleepiness. As a result of its many weaknesses, J.W. Coop doesn’t make much of an impression, even though it’s on many levels tough and admirable.

J.W. Coop: FUNKY

Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (1972)

          With its focus on low-level drug peddlers and “tune in, turn on, drop out” college culture, the lengthily titled Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues could easily have been made in the mid-’60s instead of the early ’70s, and the picture’s approach to characterization is so Spartan that the people in the movie feel like counterculture-era abstractions instead of flesh-and-blood individuals. That’s not a bad thing, however, since Dealing is like an injection of pure period vibe, from the pervasive theme of lawlessness to the happenin’ lingo to the potent male fantasy of a with-it hippie chick who grooves on the hero’s scene.

          Dealing isn’t deep or provocative, and it isn’t really about anything except the vague implications of a contraband-fueled adventure in the anything-goes ’70s, but it’s atmospheric, attractively shot, and loaded with far-out tunes (including drop-the-needle pop cuts and an eclectic score by Michael Small). Stripped of any aspirations to redeeming social value, the movie is like a sleek catalog of vintage textures.

          The story was adapted from a novel by “Michael Douglas,” the shared pseudonym for bestselling author Michael Crichton and his brother, Douglas Crichton. Peter (Robert F. Lyons) is a directionless Harvard law student not particularly interested in his studies. He regularly makes cross-country trips to fetch dope for his pal John (John Lithgow), an urbane drama teacher/dealer with a talent for coldly exploiting young people. In Berkeley for a connection, Peter meets pretty druggie Susan (Barbara Hershey), and before long, they get together in a recording studio, bonding over a few lines of coke and a bit of the old in-out. (He playfully introduces himself to Susan as “Lucifer,” having rocked out to the Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” on his Buck Rogers-looking stereo headset earlier in the movie.)

          Eventually, once Peter makes his way back to Boston, he persuades John to hire Susan for a run so she can join her new lover on the East Coast. The plan goes awry when Susan gets busted at Logan Airport by a corrupt detective, Murphy (Charles Durning), who swipes half her cargo. Realizing the cop stole drugs, John and Peter try to hustle Murphy in order to get Susan released, and this endeavor soon evolves into full-on intrigue: After John bails when the danger level gets too high, Peter finds himself stuck between corrupt cops and vengeful drug dealers in a violent showdown. The movie ambles through mellow situations until Peter’s predicament percolates, at which point a fair amount of suspense develops, and the big finish in a snow-covered nature preserve is exciting and weird.

          Although journeyman TV actor Lyons is a weak link, the stiffness of his performance is partially negated by the fact that his character is a cipher, and the rest of the cast is strong. Hershey comes across well in a mostly ornamental role; Durning is appropriately insidious; and Lithgow’s amusing characterization runs the gamut from perverse to pathetic. Adding considerably to the movie’s offbeat appeal is the complete absence of sympathetic characters—Peter and Susan are more appealing than the killers and sleazebags they encounter, but they’re still losers, which makes them unique choices to occupy the romantic center of a Hollywood movie. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues: GROOVY

The Klansman (1974)

          For those who enjoy charting the outer reaches of bad cinema, the title of The Klansman looms larger than that of most ’70s movies. Featuring an inexplicable combination of actors—Richard Burton, Lee Marvin, O.J. Simpson—and a lurid take on incendiary subject matter, the movie promises a feast of jaw-dropping wrongness. And sure enough, The Klansman is both uproariously terrible and consistently distasteful. It’s also, however, quite tedious.

          The story is appropriately florid. In a small southern town populated by poor Black folks and foaming-at-the-mouth racist whites (narrative restraint is not the watchword here), a young white woman (Linda Evans) is raped, leading revved-up locals to terrorize Black citizens including Garth (Simpson). This culminates with the murder of an innocent Black man while Garth, now a fugitive from the bloodthirsty mob, watches helplessly. The town’s sheriff, Track Bascomb (Marvin), improbably a voice of reason and tolerance, tries to protect Garth, who expresses his rage by picking off white people with an M-16.

          Meanwhile—there’s always a “meanwhile” in overcooked bad movies—local landowner Breck Stancil (Burton) invokes the ire of the local Ku Klux Klan chapter because he won’t let Klan soldiers search his property for Garth, who may be hiding with Stancil’s predominantly Black workforce. Soon, the various forces in the story converge in a violent climax. All of this should be trashy fun, but as lifelessly directed by 007 veteran Terence Young, the movie just kind of happens; it feels as if the production team showed up every day and shot the appropriate screenplay pages without any regard for what came before or what might follow.

          Reportedly, one reason for the movie’s flatness is that it’s the faint echo of a potentially more interesting project: Original writer-director Samuel Fuller conceived the piece, using William Bradford Hule’s novel as a foundation, as a full-on KKK story in which the hero would be a Klan member who learns tolerance. Instead, the studio asked for something less provocative, and Fuller walked. The project was further damned by unwise casting: Burton and Marvin were falling-down drunks at this point, and Simpson, whose character is supposed to come across as a justice-dispensing revolutionary, is, to be generous, not an actor.

          Compensating somewhat for the lackluster work by the leads, Character player Cameron Mitchell livens up the picture with his cartoonish villainy as a hateful deputy. Better still, the priceless David Huddleston gives the best performance in the movie (which is admittedly not saying a lot) as the town mayor, who moonlights as the “Exalted Cyclops” of the local Klan chapter. Yet even Huddleston can’t do anything with hopeless dialogue: “Don’t look at me like I’m the heavy. You want to know who the heavy is, I’ll tell you. It’s the system. And we’re all of us caught up in it.”

          Unbelievably, the dialogue gets even worse later. Lola Falana plays a young Black woman visiting her mother, one of Stancil’s employees, so the rednecks presume she’s sleeping with Stancil and therefore rape her to make a point. “They think I’m your brown comfort,” she says. “They wanted to foul your nest.” Yet perhaps the most (morbidly) fascinating aspect of this whole disastrous enterprise is Burton’s excruciating performance—he’s exactly this awful in plenty of other movies, but The Klansman features his spectacularly unsuccessful attempt at a Southern accent, which sounds different in almost every scene.

          Given how punishingly bad every frame of this movie is, it’s a wonder no one thought to chop it down to a 90-minute highlight reel, because if The Klansman moved faster, it would at least have the quality of a fever dream. Instead, it lumbers along for 112 bludgeoning minutes, forcing viewers to soak up every nuance of its terribleness. In this case, more is less.

The Klansman: FREAKY

Hennessy (1975)

A methodical revenge thriller predicated on the tensions between Great Britain and Ireland during the worst of the Irish “troubles,” Hennessy more or less gets the job done. It’s not a particularly efficient or stylish film, but the central premise is dramatic enough to generate suspense, and the leading players all contribute intense performances. Rod Steiger, exercising an unusual degree of restraint, stars as Niall Hennessy, a pacificistic family man who steers clear of IRA involvement, even though his brother is a notorious IRA terrorist. When Hennessy’s wife and child are gunned down in a sloppy street fight between English soldiers and Irish protestors, Hennessy coldly determines to seek revenge by blowing up the British Parliament. The picture then becomes a cat-and-mouse game as the English police and the IRA detect Hennessy’s plan and try to stop him; the Bobbies want to prevent a tragedy, and the IRA fears violent reprisal. As directed by workaday helmer Don Sharp, Hennessy grinds along in a perfunctory manner, with all of the moving parts in all the right places but no special panache of execution. The supporting characters aren’t developed deeply, so a subplot involving Hennessey’s main pursuer, Inspector Hollis (Richard Johnson), lacks the intended impact. Also, because Hennessy has no real emotional ties to any living characters, he comes across as a bit of an automaton, despite his relatable motivation. (Hennessy’s relationship with his sister-in-law, played by Lee Remick, is just a trite suspense device in the Hitchcock mode.) So, while the danger and intrigue are basically fine, there’s no personal story to grasp. This isn’t a fatal flaw, but it keeps Hennessy from being anything more than a brisk diversion. On the plus side, watch out for a quick appearance around the 15-minute mark by a young Patrick Stewart—with hair! (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Hennessy: FUNKY

Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978)

          In culinary parlance appropriate to the subject, Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? is a tasty trifle. The witty comedy offers neither great insights into the human condition nor even any real challenge to the audience (except the usual fun of a clever whodunit), but it’s thoroughly rewarding nonetheless. Featuring charming dialogue, an offbeat storyline, and playfully satirical characterizations, the film is the sort of cultured piffle that Audrey Hepburn made in her prime—which is not entirely coincidental, since the film’s screenwriter, Peter Stone, penned one of Hepburn’s most effervescent classics, Charade (1963).

          The plot is, appropriately, as light as a soufflé. Overbearing gourmand Maximillian Vanderveer (Robert Morley) writes an article for his influential culinary magazine, identifying the best chefs in Europe. One by one, the chefs are murdered, their bodies gruesomely cooked in the manner of their signature dishes. The only woman on the hit list, confectioner Natasha O’Brien (Jacqueline Bisset), understandably worries for her life, so she leans on her ex-husband, American fast-food entrepreneur Robby Ross (George Segal). He’s traveled to Europe to recruit a top chef as the spokesperson for his planned chain of omelet restaurants. Robby is also eager to rekindle things with Natasha, so investigating the murders becomes a grand romantic adventure. Based on a novel by Ivan and Nan Lyons, and directed by reliable journeyman Ted Kotcheff, the movie makes tremendous use of picturesque European locations (London, Paris, Venice), all photographed in a luminous classical style by John Alcott.

          Segal is at the height of his rascally charm, projecting harmless bravado and sly innuendoes; given the highbrow epicurean milieu, it’s effective and funny that his character is a vulgarian who made his fortune feeding slop to the masses. Bisset, for once, gets to offer more to a role than just her considerable physical beauty, and what she lacks in crisp comic timing she makes up for in enthusiasm; she also has a great facility for withering put-downs, usually directed toward the incorrigible Robby. It’s Morley, however, who steals the show, spewing droll barrages of pompous windbaggery. So, while it’s true that the movie gets a bit fleshy in the middle as it churns through necessary plot machinations, the main course is a delight: The film’s elaborate climax, set in and around the taping of a food show, is simultaneously silly and sophisticated. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? GROOVY

The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972)

          A solid Western built around the familiar theme of a young man proving himself through the rigors of a dangerous adventure, The Culpepper Cattle Co. benefits from journeyman director Dick Richards’ background as a still photographer. Handsomely filmed in Arizona and New Mexico, the picture has a dusty, lived-in feel that makes the odyssey of a motley crew driving cattle through the American West seem credible and dangerous, even though the nonstop hardships the crew encounters represent unimaginative narrative contrivances.

          Earnest juvenile player Gary Grimes, working at the apex of his brief semi-stardom following the coming-of-age classic Summer of ’42 (1971), plays Ben Mockridge, a wide-eyed farmboy who talks his way onto a cattle drive because he wants to become a man. The drive is supervised by tough Frank Culpepper (Billy “Green” Bush), who makes it plain that he values his stock more highly than the lives of his employees, so the picture asks whether Ben will find a place for himself among Culpepper’s crew of proven cowboys, and whether the crew will make it to the end of the line alive.

          As in most episodic pictures that follow long journeys, some of the incidents in The Culpepper Cattle Co. are more interesting than others. Vignettes of Ben getting razzed by older men are perfunctory, and the picture meanders somewhat until rugged character actor Geoffrey Lewis shows up as Russ, the leader of a gang of replacement cowboys Culpepper hires after a run-in with rustlers.

          Lewis’ forceful work gives the movie old-fashioned entertainment value and sly humor, especially when Russ clashes with Pete (Matt Clark), a quiet cowboy who doesn’t feel like getting killed in exchange for a day’s wages. Another vital utility player familiar from countless ’70s Westerns, Clark is memorably vulnerable here, displaying colors he should have been given the opportunity to explore in bigger roles. The picture gains further intensity when Culpepper’s group gets into a hassle with vicious landowner Thornton Pierce (John McLiam), setting the stage for a bloody showdown. And even though the guns-a-blazin’ finale stretches credibility (characters who have only looked out for themselves suddenly develop nobility), the story ends on a strong note, hammering home the film’s humanistic themes.

          The Culpepper Cattle Co. isn’t unique, and it suffers because neither Grimes nor Bush are particularly dynamic performers, but it’s a thoroughly respectable entry into the genre of early ’70s Westerns intent on debunking old romantic myths.

The Culpepper Cattle Co.: GROOVY

The Killing Kind (1973)

Director Curtis Harrington earned a decent reputation as a horror maven prior to transitioning into an unspectacular career helming episodic television, and watching The Killing Kind explains why his career trajectory makes sense. Though certain scenes have sadistic glee, the picture is so workmanlike that it could have been made by anyone; it’s as disposable as an episode of generic TV. John Savage, all Method-y shouting and twitching, stars as Terry, a troubled twentysomething just released from jail after a two-year stint for his role in a gang rape. From the moment we meet him, Terry comes across as an antisocial, sex-crazed voyeur prone to creepy intimacy with his mother (Ann Sothern) and erotic reverie when he kills animals. In other words, he’s such an obvious nutjob that it doesn’t make sense for anyone to spend time around him. Nonetheless, the movie installs Terry as the handyman at his mom’s boarding house, where stupid tenants like wannabe model Lori (Cindy Williams) remain in residence even after Terry tries to drown her in the pool one sunny afternoon. Savage’s id-gone-wild routine ends up being more tiresome than disturbing, and Sothern performs in the libidinous-gorgon style that kept Shelley Winters employed during this era, albeit with far less panache than the estimable Ms. Winters. So, even with some colorful kills, such as Terry forcing a woman to drink a paralyzing amount of liquor before setting her on fire, The Killing Kind is really just another crude Hitchcock rip-off, right down to the Rear Window­­-style shots of a neighbor spying on Terry with binoculars.

The Killing Kind: LAME

Aloha, Bobby and Rose (1975)

          Although the ’70s produced a seemingly endless stream of dramas about mixed-up kids roaming the country and getting into trouble, many of these films felt as aimless as their protagonists. Aloha, Bobby and Rose is an exception. Atmospheric, credible, deliberate, and sensitive, the picture is a sharply observed story about a young man destined for difficulty and the damaged single mother who’s vulnerable enough to get drawn into his world.

          Bobby (Paul Le Mat) is a wiseass auto mechanic who bluffs his way through a pool game with tough East-LA Latinos until they discover he doesn’t have the cash to pay off his gambling debts. They give him a beating and promise there’s more to come if he doesn’t return the following evening with money. Bobby hustles friends for the bread but can’t put it together, then gets distracted when pretty young Rose (Dianne Hull) brings her car into the shop where he works. Characteristically ignoring his responsibilities, Bobby spends the day and evening courting Rose when he should be assembling a bankroll, and then he really gets into trouble—when Bobby pretends to stick up a convenience-store clerk, ostensibly for Rose’s amusement, the previously unseen store owner emerges with a gun and fires. The gunshot kills the clerk, and Rose instinctively whacks the owner on the head.

          Bobby and Rose flee, afraid they won’t be able to prove their innocence. Demonstrating that she’s cut from the same cloth as Bobby, Rose skips out on her kid to run away with Bobby, and during their travels they meet unruly Texans Buford (Tim McIntire) and Donna Sue (Leigh French); the couples spend a wild night in Tijuana before Bobby and Rose decide to retrieve her son from LA. This being an angst-ridden ’70s drama, suffice to say things don’t go according to plan.

          As in his debut picture, 1971’s Dusty and Sweets McGee, writer-director Floyd Mutrux swaths this movie in rich atmosphere. Every grimy wall and every banged-up prop feels right, and a long sequence of Bobby and Rose cruising the Sunset Strip—zooming past billboards for iconic ’70s rock albums—creates a vivid sense of a lost time. Cinematographer William A. Fraker, an old-school Hollywood pro best known for slick studio films, lends the same palpable realism to this picture than he gave to Dusty and Sweets McGee; his soft filters simulate the steamy haze that envelops Southern California on hot days. The soundtrack is terrific, annotating the heroes’ sad journey with tunes by Bob Dylan, Elton John, and various Motown artists (Little Eva’s “Locomotion” is used to ironic effect during a key scene).

          As for the performances, they’re naturalistic and vivid. Le Mat works the James Dean-wannabe groove typical to this type of picture, adeptly illustrating Bobby’s charms and shortcomings; Hull is frayed as a girl not yet ready for adult obligations; and McIntire is a force of nature as Buford, a crazy man who dances on tables, urinates in cars, and talks a great line of bullshit. Yet, even with all of these virtues, the beauty of Aloha, Bobby and Rose is that it’s so focused: Instead of trying to make a grand statement, it’s nothing more than a sensitively crafted drama filled with insights about the restless hearts of the young.

Aloha, Bobby and Rose: RIGHT ON

Hit Man (1972)

          At first glance, the idea of a blaxploitation remake of Get Carter (1971) sounds great, since the grim Michael Caine picture has all sorts of elements that could transfer easily from working-class England to the American inner city: gangsters, pornographers, violence, and a badass antihero out for revenge. As written and directed by George Armitage, however, Hit Man lacks the single-minded malevolence of Get Carter. (Both pictures were adapted from Ted Lewis’ novel Jack’s Return Home.) Hit Man is a fun movie in sporadic bursts, mostly due to Armitage’s odd little character touches, and it’s watchable overall because of leading man Bernie Casey’s charisma, but the flick is not the slam-bang winner the combination of genre and story should have produced.

          The movie begins when Tyrone Tackett (Casey) arrives in LA for his brother’s funeral and starts asking questions about who whacked his sibling. During the meandering first hour of the movie, Tyrone spends about half his time digging for clues and the other half hanging out with his late brother’s pals and assorted women; it’s like the movie periodically forgets to have a plot as Armitage gets lost in rich blaxploitation textures. This aimless stretch has its distractions, though: Tyrone visits a nature preserve, makes time with groovy ladies, and tussles with bad dudes. All of this is punctuated with choice blaxploitation dialogue, like this heavy line: “Look, man, I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’, and that’s the righteous truth.” There’s also some weirdly amusing stuff involving Tyrone and his late brother’s business partner, likeable used-car salesman Sherwood (Sam Laws). The two share a bizarre drunk scene, with Casey raising his voice like he’s going through puberty; later, Sherwood blows a take of a TV commercial by innocently proclaiming, “And for you prestige motherfuckers, we got . . .”

          The movie gets more mojo in the second half, when vivacious costar Pam Grier becomes prominent and when the revenge story kicks into gear. The dialogue gets juicier, too: “They shot her in the fuckin’ head, but chicks like your bullshit bourgeois daughter can do anything they wanna do, ’cause you got the bread to make it cool, ain’t that right?” That’s the stuff! Casey’s performance is erratic, suggesting he and Armitage couldn’t decide whether to make Tyrone a wronged everyman or a killer waiting for an excuse to open fire, but Casey’s laid-back vibe offers a good counterpoint to the flamboyant narrative. Most of the supporting cast is forgettable, though Grier is as outrageously sexy as usual, Laws is a hoot, and future Magnum P.I. costar Roger E. Mosley is amusing as a hired gun. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Hit Man: FUNKY

The Killer Elite (1975)

          Part action picture, part conspiracy thriller, and part revenge epic, The Killer Elite is a mess. As directed by Sam Peckinpah, whose creative decline was rapidly underway at this point, the picture boasts a handful of exciting scenes and several vivid performances, but its intentions are as vague as its storyline. James Caan and Robert Duvall star as a pair of gunmen who work for a private espionage group that’s hired by the CIA for covert operations like securely transporting international political figures who’ve been targeted for assassination by foreign governments. For reasons that are never particularly clear, Hansen (Duvall) shoots Locken (Caan) after a successful operation, betraying his buddy and leaving Locken a near-cripple thanks to wounds to his elbow and knee. The movie then devotes about 30 minutes to methodical scenes showing Locken’s recovery. As soon as Locken’s back in fighting shape, Hansen conveniently surfaces with a contract to kill an Asian dissident (Mako), so Locken recruits a driver (Burt Young) and a sniper (Bo Hopkins) to help protect the dissident and, with any luck, confront Hansen. Also layered into the story are a series of double- and triple-crosses involving Locken’s bosses (Arthur Hill and Gig Young). Oh, and there are ninjas, too. Lots of ninjas.

          None of it makes very much sense, but the journey is still somewhat interesting because Caan is so charismatic and because Peckinpah knows how to shoot action scenes. (Extensive San Francisco location photography is another plus.) When The Killer Elite clicks, it delivers visceral moments like a shootout in a crowded street that expands into a nasty high-speed car chase. When the movie doesn’t click, it delivers spastic sequences like the climactic confrontation, during which Locken’s crew takes on an army of ninjas aboard a decommissioned warship, all of which leads up to a big swordfight between two supporting characters. Whatever. Luckily, the picture knows better than to take itself seriously, so sarcastic humor is woven into nearly every scene. Caan’s buddy-movie shtick with his sidekicks is terrific (Young is consistently amusing and Hopkins is memorably twitchy), and it’s also entertaining to watch Caan’s character get exasperated whenever the dissident spouts Eastern philosophy. “I understand now,” Caan opines bitchily at one point. “He wants to go back and die on his native soil. It’s that salmon-up-the-river shit.”

The Killer Elite: FUNKY

Man Friday (1975)

          A strange re-imagination of Daniel Defoe’s classic adventure novel Robinson Crusoe, told from the perspective of the lead character’s companion/manservant Friday, Man Friday is filled with provocative ideas about the gulf between a “civilized” 17th-century Englishman and a “savage” from the tropics. The intention was clearly to examine a classic race-relations story through the prism of post-Civil Rights era enlightenment—and, indeed, much of the picture’s content fulfills this goal, illustrating Friday’s initial amusement and subsequent disgust with Crusoe’s imperialistic attitudes. In the movie’s best moments, Friday drives Crusoe to distraction with common-sense challenges to concepts like money, sports, and religion.

          Unfortunately, everything surrounding these insightful moments is awkward and borderline cringe-worthy. The acting by the two leads is erratic at best, with Peter O’Toole shouting most of his performance as Crusoe and Shaft’s Richard Roundtree vacillating between carefree ebullience and don’t-mess-with-me swagger. The picture gets bogged down in tiresome comedy bits, like a sequence of the men trying out various artificial wings during an attempt to escape the remote island on which they are marooned.

          Worse, the story’s framing device, which is clever in conception but distracting in execution, destroys the narrative rhythm: At the beginning of the movie, Friday is back on his own island after his adventures with Crusoe, relating his tale through jokes and songs around a crowded campfire as the members of his tribe listen. It’s hard to get over the jarring image of Roundtree, wearing just a loincloth, singing English-language verse over a queasy reggae beat while he explains that the man he called “Master” was a crazy person espousing alien beliefs. If the guiding aesthetic of this film was revisionist authenticity, wouldn’t shooting these scenes in Friday’s native tongue and subtitling the dialogue have been a stronger choice?

          Considering the dodgy lead performances and the story’s stop-and-start pacing, however, the stylistic choice of how to present language is really just the least of the movie’s problems. Case in point: The confusing and unsatisfying ending (which radically breaks from Defoe’s story) is a major tonal misstep. Man Friday is not without interest, especially since so few people know the movie exists, but it’s ultimately more of an offbeat curiosity than a lost classic.

Man Friday: FUNKY