Dawn of the Dead (1978)

          The saga of horror auteur George A. Romero’s career is filled with copyright disputes, editorial interference, and financial shenanigans, so even the release of his most successful film, Dawn of the Dead, has weird baggage. For instance, Romero first delved into the zombie genre with his acclaimed debut, Night of the Living Dead (1968), an indie success that fell out of Romero’s hands and into the public domain. When he returned to the genre for this film, he wasn’t authorized to create a proper sequel, so made a loosely related follow-up—and whereas Night is a contained thriller with a small cast, Dawn is epic by comparison.

          Ostensibly picking up where Night left off, even though no characters recur from the first picture, Dawn begins mid-action: Frenzied technicians at a Philadelphia TV station cover the story of a worldwide zombie outbreak, because some unknown X factor has caused the deceased to climb from their graves and feast on the living. Eventually, TV staffers Francine (Gaylen Ross) and Stephen (Dave Emge) flee their station. Meanwhile, two S.W.A.T. cops, Peter (Ken Foree) and Roger (Scott Reiniger), survive a horrific raid on a zombie-infested apartment building and join the TV staffers to escape Philadelphia by helicopter. The foursome selects an abandoned shopping mall as a potential fortress, realizing they can barricade the doors, kill the zombies already inside, and then help themselves to abundant supplies.

          The choice of the mall as the film’s principal location is the genius contrivance of this movie, a satirical flourish that separates Dawn of the Dead from lesser gorefests. In trying to explain why zombies flock to the mall, the heroes surmise that the urge to shop is so ingrained in the American character that even death can’t suppress the consumerist call. Furthermore, the heroes go on several “shopping sprees,” usually punctuated with zombie kills, putting a dark spin on the American dream of unfettered materialism. Even the nasty plot twist Romero introduces late in the movie—a gang of vicious bikers invades the mall—feeds into his cruel lampooning of modern-day excesses.

          Speaking of excess, Dawn of the Dead achieved instant infamy during its original release not just for Romero’s ingenious storyline, but also for the outrageous gore that permeates the movie. Makeup man Tom Savini (who also appears onscreen as the leader of the bikers) contrived realistic simulations of beheadings, disembowelments, dismemberments, gunshots, knife wounds, and even exploding heads, filling the screen with enough viscera to nauseate a butcher. Some fans love this stuff because it’s so over the top, but for those not indoctrinated into the cult of bloody movies, Dawn of the Dead is rough going. (To avoid an X rating, Romero released the movie unrated in the U.S.)

          Adding another interesting wrinkle to Dawn of the Dead is the participation of Italian horror-cinema madman Dario Argento, who served as a creative consultant and also provided the film’s twinkly electronic music. As part of his deal, Argento got to re-edit and rename the movie for international release, so his version—much shorter than Romero’s—is called Zombi. In fact, multiple versions of Dawn of the Dead exist, with the longest sprawling across three hours.

          In any event, Dawn of the Dead was a box-office success, so Romero continued his zombie cycle with Day of the Dead (1985) and other sequels. However, Romero’s pictures should not be confused with the spoof Return of the Living Dead (1985) or its sequel, Return of the Living Dead Part II (1988); similarly, 1990’s Night of the Living Dead is merely a remake of the original picture. To make things even more confusing, Dawn of the Dead was remade by director Zack Snyder in 2004, and a sequel to the remake is reportedly in the works—even though Romero is still making follow-ups to the 1978 movie.

Dawn of the Dead: GROOVY

Across the Great Divide (1976)

After scoring a moderate success with The Adventures of the Wilderness Family (1975), a handsomely photographed Disney-style saga about a contemporary clan roughing it in the Rockies, producer Arthur R. Dubs and leading man Robert Logan reteamed for Across the Great Divide, a family-friendly survival story set in the Old West era. Logan plays Zachariah Coop, a dishonest gambler who flees into the wilderness with a posse in pursuit. While making his escape, he stumbles across teenager Holly Smith (Heather Rattray) and her little brother Jason (Mark Edward Hall), orphans trying to make their way toward relatives in Oregon. Coop steals a horse from the kids, but the resourceful Holly gets it back; later, Coop earns the kids’ trust by saving them from Indians and by rescuing Jason from white-water rapids. Faster than you can say “plot contrivance,” the characters join forces during run-ins with bears, snowstorms, wolves, and the like. Although the animal footage and outdoor photography in Across the Great Divide are strong, writer-director Stewart Raffill can’t muster a single original idea. The plot is a string of clichés, the characterizations are vapid, and the dialogue is absurd. At one point, Holly berates Coop thusly: “I’d sooner face 1,000 heathen Blackfeet than deal another second with you, you verminous creature, you thievin’ trickster!” Even if Rattray could act, which she can’t, this stuff would be deadly. Whereas producer Dubs more or less simulated the vibe of a generic Disney movie with the first Wilderness Family outing (its sequels, not so much), he descends into generic mediocrity with Across the Great Divide. On a technical level, the picture is highly competent, but on every other level, it’s utterly negligible, albeit harmless.

Across the Great Divide: FUNKY

C.C. and Company (1970)

          So it’s the late ’60s and you’re Roger Smith, a former leading man now sidelined by various health problems but happily preoccupied with a new marriage to stage-and-screen sex kitten Ann-Margret. Your bride has entrusted you with the management of her career, and you already have a track record of producing (for instance, a coming-of-age feature with Jacqueline Bisset) and writing (including several episodes of the TV show on which you starred, 77 Sunset Strip). The next logical step is creating a vehicle for your titian-haired missus, right? Well, sort of. C.C. and Company is a showcase for Ann-Margret, to be sure, providing her with intense dramatic scenes and sexy peekaboo moments. But it’s a biker flick, and it’s also the first movie in which football star Joe Namath plays a leading role. So you’re Roger Smith, and your best plan for boosting your wife’s stardom is relegating her to a supporting role in the Joe Namath motorcycle picture that you’re writing and producing? Ours is not to judge, and it should be noted that as of this writing, Ann-Margret and Smith are still married after more than 40 years, so C.C. and Company must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

          And, indeed, though it’s awful in terms of dramatic credibility, C.C. and Company is enjoyable as a collection of glossy surfaces. The plot, no surprise, is pedestrian: Hog-riding outlaw C.C. Ryder (Namath) runs with a nasty gang until he falls for fashion writer Ann McCalley (Ann-Margret), but when C.C. tries to break from the gang for a new life with his lady, the gang’s leader, Moon (William Smith), kidnaps Ann to force a showdown. The movie’s visuals, courtesy of director Seymour Robbie and his team, are kicky and vivid—biker fights, fashion shows, romantic interludes, and so on. Namath’s couldn’t-give-a-shit attitude makes him watchable even though he can’t act, and Ann-Margret’s flamboyant vamping is a hoot. Naturally, her beauty is spotlighted at every opportunity, since Roger Smith knew what he was selling. Adding the X-factor that makes C.C. and Company a full-on guilty pleasure is biker-movie regular William Smith (no relation to the producer-director), as the villainous Moon. With his enormous biceps, handlebar moustache, and wicked line deliveries, he’s a great comic-book baddie, ably abetted by supporting thugs including fellow B-movie stalwart Sid Haig.

C.C. and Company: FUNKY

The Panic in Needle Park (1971)

          If you’re a fan of ’70s cinema, you owe The Panic in Needle Park a major debt of gratitude—Al Pacino’s performance in this movie convinced director Francis Ford Coppola that Pacino could handle the leading role in The Godfather. So, without this gloomy study of heroin addicts living on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, we would never have seen Pacino’s sublime work as Michael Corleone. Yet Needle Park is a worthwhile film beyond its cinema-history significance. Written by the posh literary couple Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne (from a novel by James Mills), and directed in a gritty verité style by photographer-turned-filmmaker Jerry Schatzberg, Needle Park is painful and sad, a sonnet to wandering souls who search for themselves in the oblivion of hard drugs. Presented without music and unfolding over a leisurely 110-minute running time, the movie is unrelentingly ugly—characters abuse each other and themselves; injections are shown in excruciating close-ups; and so on. Even by the anything-goes standards of ’70s cinema, this is a brutal depiction of misery without promise of salvation.
          Pacino stars as Bobby, a fast-talking hustler who gets by on dealing, handouts, and petty crime while nursing a heavy habit. One afternoon, he meets a pretty young woman named Helen (Kitty Winn), whom he draws into his orbit with compliments and jokes and kindness. Other characters populating Bobby’s dangerous world include his older brother, Hank (Richard Bright), a professional thief who uses heroin periodically, and a narc named Hotch (Alan Vint), who sees Bobby as a tool for catching major suppliers. Once Helen takes the inevitable step of shooting up for the first time, she starts a spiral down into prostitution. Meanwhile, she and Bobby are so detached from reality they can’t see they’re killing each other—Bobby becomes a full-time dealer in order to keep them both stoned, and Helen sacrifices her dignity by returning to Bobby again and again, despite several near-death experiences.

          Pacino’s performance is alternately explosive and poignant, his streetwise swagger clashing with his tiny physical stature, and he’s persuasive whether he’s sharing tenderness with Winn or simulating drugged states. Winn, a naturalistic, theater-trained actress whose limited filmography also includes a supporting role in The Exorcist (1973), delicately moves between being our window into this depressing world and incarnating the tragic emotions of those who love unwisely. To a certain degree, however, the film’s dirty locations are the main attraction—viewed through Schatzberg’s long lenses during exterior sequences and observed more closely during interior scenes, the sordid textures of low-rent Manhattan speak volumes about the fragile lives of addicts.

The Panic in Needle Park: GROOVY

Deathdream (1974)

          Offering a supernatural spin on the Vietnam-vet genre, Deathdream—sometimes known by its original title, Dead of Night—is one of three grungy ’70s horror flicks directed by Bob Clark, who, improbably, is best known for the sweet family film A Christmas Story (1983). Disturbing, focused, and grim, the movie begins with soldier Andy Brooks (Richard Backus) dying on the battlefield. The movie then shifts to the American heartland, where Andy’s parents, Charles (John Marley) and Christine (Lynn Carlin) reel upon hearing about their boy’s demise. Just hours after receiving the bad news, however, Charles and Christine get an even bigger shock when Andy shows up their door, seemingly very much alive. Yet it soon becomes clear that the young man who’s come home from Vietnam isn’t the same sweet kid the Brooks family remembered—Andy is stoic and withdrawn, his erratic behavior hinting at the potential for violence.

          Meanwhile, a trail of bodies leads police to the Brooks home. It turns out that Andy has become some sort of vampire/zombie, subsisting on the blood of his victims in order to continue his bizarre half-life. And while much of Deathdream comprises standard horror-flick rhythms—a killing every 10 minutes or so, interspersed with scenes of characters slowly realizing who’s responsible—what makes the picture interesting is a thread of sad domestic drama. Andy’s parents squabble over their son’s inexplicable behavior, with Charles demanding that Andy stop moping and Christine making excuses. Later on, when it becomes inescapable that Andy is responsible for monstrous deeds, Charles succumbs to grief and Christine goes mad.

          Adding another wrinkle is the implication that Andy doesn’t really want to be “alive,” and that he’s trying to escape the curse with which he’s been burdened. The idea that he merely wants his existence to end, and yet can’t stop himself from feeding on the living, gives Deathdream an unusual vibe blending the plaintive with the surreal. Thus, at the risk of giving the picture too much credit, since it’s merely a solid shocker, Deathdream ends up providing a potent metaphor for the experience of the returning soldier—Andy thought he’d been released from his troubles by death, but instead he brings war-zone traumas back to his hometown. Thanks to such nuances, Deathdream offers a surprising emotional punch in addition to its various grisly murders and unnerving suspense scenes.

Deathdream: GROOVY

Royal Flash (1975)

          Fresh from his success with the two-part swashbuckling epic The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974), mischievous director Richard Lester turned his attention to an original character created by his Musketeers screenwriter, George MacDonald Fraser. An Englishman whose work often combined history and high adventure, Fraser introduced the character of Sir Harry Paget Flashman in his 1969 novel Flashman. The first in a lengthy series of novels about the character, Flashman presented a 19th-century coward who by ironic circumstance stumbles into a reputation as a hero. A self-serving schemer who berates those beneath his station and swindles everyone above him, Flashman is a uniquely British contrivance whose identity is defined by the English class system. Given Lester’s penchant for insouciance, he was perfectly suited to putting the irreverent character onscreen.

          Unfortunately, miscasting proved the movie’s undoing: Lester gambled by hiring Malcolm McDowell, the gifted actor best known for his disturbing turn in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971), but McDowell made Flashman’s unbecoming qualities far too believable. As he connives women into his bed, flees danger, tricks others into fighting his battles, and whimpers at the slightest injury, the movie version of Flashman comes across not as a clever survivor but rather as a feckless weasel. Accordingly, it’s difficult to care whether he survives, just like it’s difficult to believe he’ll end up accomplishing anything worthwhile. Had Lester gone whole-hog with the comedic aspects of the picture, casting a funnyman like Peter Sellers, Royal Flash might have worked as a farce, but since the picture includes scenes of genuine danger, the sum effect is middling.

          It doesn’t help that the episodic plot, borrowed from Fraser’s second book in the series, Royal Flash (1970), is a tired riff on Anthony Hope’s classic novel The Prisoner of Zenda. As happens to the hero of Hope’s book, Flashman gets recruited to impersonate an endangered monarch in order to flush out assassins, so Flashman spends half the story trying to slip away from his dangerous assignment, and the other half reluctantly joining rebel forces fighting the people who enlisted Flashman in the first place. It’s all way too familiar, and the complicated story causes Royal Flash to sprawl over 102 minutes that feel like three hours.

          Still, costar Oliver Reed has a blast playing the German aristocrat who makes Flashman’s life hell, while Alan Bates savors a rare lighthearted role as a European who may or may not be Flashman’s ally. The production design is beautiful, with lots of desolate wintry fields and ornate European castles, and Lester stages action with his signature mix of slapstick and swordplay, an inimitable style no one has ever been able to replicate. Plus, in McDowell’s defense, he’s very funny playing a guttersnipe, and it’s not his fault Lester perversely elected to build the movie around a detestable characterization.

Royal Flash: FUNKY

Loving (1970)

          The misguided dramedy Loving revolves around Brooks Wilson (George Segal), a successful commercial artist married to a beautiful and devoted woman, Selma (Eva Marie Saint). He has two bright, confident daughters; he lives in a handsome house just outside New York City; and he’s poised to land a major account that will allow his family to relocate to a dream home. Nonetheless, Brooks is deeply unhappy. Selma isn’t enough for his sexual appetites, so he’s sleeping with the wife of one friend, and the college-aged daughter of another. Plus, he doesn’t like taking orders anymore, so he resents doing work that satisfies clients instead of simply following his own artistic instincts. In other words, Brooks is a selfish prick. And yet for the 89 minutes of Loving, producer/co-writer Don Devlin—adapting a novel by J.M. Ryan—expects us to find Brooks’ behavior interesting. It isn’t. Whenever Brooks wanders around through soulful montages, acting upset that women have their own minds or that clients don’t hand him money for doing whatever he wants, it’s impossible to sympathize with the character. Accordingly, the only qualities that make Loving endurable are the acting and the technical execution.

          Segal is good, inasmuch as he presents Brooks’ awful personality clearly and without judgment, and Saint has some fine moments of quiet suffering. Supporting players David Doyle, Sterling Hayden, and Keenan Wynn contribute expert work in small parts, and future super-producer Sherry Lansing (Fatal Attraction) is eye-catching in one of her only acting roles, as an inebriated sexpot. (Roy Scheider, right at the beginning of his film career, turns up briefly, as well.) Versatile director Irvin Kershner, who was never any better or worse than his material, employs an appropriately observational storytelling style. The film’s most important contributor, however, is revered cinematographer Gordon Willis, who made this picture just before hitting the A-list with films including Klute (1971) and The Godfather (1972). Using his signature deep shadows and painterly framing, Willis makes Loving seem more sophisticated than it actually is by adding textures of meaning and nuance. Willis occasionally overreaches (during scenes in which actors walk through real locations, bystanders stare at the camera, breaking the desired verité illusion), but Willis’ moodiest scenes are masterfully photographed.

Loving: FUNKY

Gray Lady Down (1978)

The disaster genre was already starting to repeat itself by the late ’70s, so the only real novelty of Gray Lady Down is that it puts a military spin on the underwater tension that audiences enjoyed in The Poseidon Adventure (1972). Unfortunately, the military angle removes from the equation a key element to any successful disaster picture, which is overwrought melodrama. Specifically, since the characters in Gray Lady Down are trained to work together during crises, the only real conflict has to do with minor disagreements about strategy; thus, we’re deprived the cheesy fun of watching silly characters squabble during a catastrophe. Furthermore, the almost completely male cast ensures that Gray Lady Down is a monotonous onslaught of macho posturing. Atop all that, the movie’s simply not very good in terms of narrative execution—even with a solid cast for this sort of thing and the constant presence of life-or-death jeopardy, Gray Lady Down fails to generate memorably exciting moments. Charlton Heston, in extra-serious beardy mode, plays Captain Blanchard, skipper of the U.S. Navy submarine Neptune. One foggy night, the Neptune gets rammed by a freighter, then sinks to nearly 1,500 feet and gets lodged in an underwater canyon. Hard-driving but otherwise personality-free Captain Bennett (Stacy Keach) is sent to supervise the ensuing rescue effort, but when the Neptune sinks even further, additional manpower is required. Enter Captain Gates (David Carradine), the iconoclastic pilot of a small, experimental submersible called the Snark. Simply by dint of their watchable personalities, the scenes aboard the Snark between Carradine and Ned Beatty, who plays Carradine’s sidekick, have some life. And, of course, watching Heston tromp around the bridge of the Neptune while he barks orders through clenched teeth is campy and fun. Alas, most of Gray Lady Down is as bland as the color cited in its title, so what should have been a simple little thriller ends up being a chore to endure.

Gray Lady Down: LAME

Escape from Alcatraz (1979)

          The final collaboration between director Don Siegel and his superstar protégé, Clint Eastwood, Escape from Alcatraz is a smart thriller about exactly what the title suggests—the only known successful escape from the titular prison, a fortress-like structure built on a small island in the San Francisco Bay. For three decades, from 1933 to 1963, “The Rock” was considered one of the most secure federal prisons in the U.S., and the real-life jailbreak that inspired this movie occurred in 1962, just one year prior to the prison’s closure. (J. Campbell Bruce wrote a nonfiction book about the incident shortly afterward, and screenwriter Richard Tuggle adapted the book.) Although Eastwood and Siegel reportedly had a tense relationship on the project—it’s rumored that Eastwood directed much of the picture because his aging friend was losing his touch—the film is as smooth as anything either man made during this era.

          Siegel’s storied efficiency is visible in the minimalistic storytelling, while Eastwood’s penchant for gloomy lighting and leisurely pacing adds a meditative quality. It helps, tremendously, that the material plays to the strengths of both men. Portraying a career criminal obsessed with breaking out of an “escape-proof” prison, Eastwood seethes as only he can, forming a community of like-minded inmates while enduring the cruel machinations of a nameless warden (Patrick McGoohan). Siegel meticulously depicts every step along the would-be escapees’ dangerous path, from carving a secret tunnel to preparing for a brazen leap into the choppy waters surrounding the prison. Some of the story mechanics feel like standard prison-picture stuff, like the development of a sympathetic geezer (Roberts Blossom) whom we can sense from his first appearance will not breathe free air, but the use of stock characters suits the milieu. Similarly, loading the cast with workaday character actors—Eastwood and McGoohan notwithstanding—helps accentuate the idea of prison as an equalizing environment.

          More than anything, however, Escape from Alcatraz works as a mood piece, building ambience and tension as we, the viewers, become more and more invested in seeing the “heroes” succeed. (Regular Eastwood collaborators including composer Jerry Fielding and cinematographer Bruce Surtees contribute immeasurably to the film’s menacing quality.) Escape from Alcatraz may not be about much, beyond the usual pap about man’s inhumanity to man and the sweet nectar of freedom, but it’s an offbeat action picture in that many of the thrills stem from characters scheming in private; rather than building toward confrontations, it’s a movie about characters avoiding confrontations.

Escape from Alcatraz: GROOVY

I Escaped from Devil’s Island (1973)

Produced by Roger Corman to piggyback on the release of Papillon (1973), a big-budget drama about the inhuman conditions on the French penal colony known as Devil’s Island, this colorful but dull exploitation flick features an eye-popping procession of abuse, murder, sex, sweat, and torture. Set in the early 20th century, the picture follows the attempts of a violent criminal named Le Bras (Jim Brown) to flee the seemingly inescapable Devil’s Island, which is run by sadistic prison guards who whip inmates whenever the convicts aren’t being worked to death. Le Bras recruits unlikely accomplices in political prisoner Davert (Christopher George), who initially shuns violence, and Jo-Jo (Richard Ely), a “fancy boy”—or, in the less delicate terminology of today’s prison pictures, a “bitch.” The movie trudges through several repetitive and ugly scenes of these and other inmates getting beaten by guards until the “heroes” build a raft and flee, only to suffer a series of melodramatic crises. Their raft falls apart, they’re attacked by sharks while adrift on the ocean, they stumble into a leper colony once returning to shore on a remote part of the island, they’re captured by bloodthirsty natives, and so on. Director William Witney, a veteran of ’30s serials and Golden Age television, was near the end of an epic career when he helmed this pedestrian flick, and while he seems perfectly efficient at organizing crowd scenes and simulating violence, the film’s storytelling is enervated in the extreme. Brown occasionally livens up the proceedings with a sly line delivery or a charming smile, but since he’s mostly tasked with looking impressive while parading around shirtless, it’s not as if there’s much room for him to shape a persona. As for George, a limited actor with a campy sort of appeal, he spends most of his time gritting his teeth and snarling. Plus, while some of the production values are impressive-ish, notably crowd scenes during the climax, the film’s reliance on unvarnished exterior locations and tacky stock footage is unhelpful. Worse, the movie’s plot is so turgid the flick feels like it’s three hours long even though it’s only 89 minutes.

I Escaped from Devil’s Island: LAME

F for Fake (1973)

          By the ’70s, faded auteur Orson Welles seemed to embrace the vagabond quality of his career, throwing together haphazard film projects while making his primary income through demeaning acting jobs, cartoon voiceovers, and commercials. For instance, while appearing onscreen as the host/narrator of his documentary F for Fake, Welles explains that some of the footage comprising the brief movie was originally intended for other, never-completed projects. This revelation warns viewers that coherence should not be expected, and, indeed, F for Fake is completely scattershot.

          The movie is ostensibly an examination of pranksters that focuses on Welles’ European acquaintance Elmyr de Hory, an art forger, and Elmyr’s American-born biographer, Clifford Irving—who, in the course of this documentary’s protracted production, earned notoriety by publishing a biography of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes that turned out to be bogus. For the first hour of F for Fake, Welles and his editors jump around restlessly between interviews with Elmyr and Irving; footage of Elmyr painting; vignettes of Welles talking about Elmyr and Irving while Welles holds court at cocktail parties; scenes of Welles reviewing footage in an editing room; and other random bits, like cameos from Welles’ Hollywood pals Joseph Cotten and Laurence Harvey. Oh, and there’s also room in the movie’s undisciplined first hour for remarks about Welles’ notorious 1939 radio broadcast War of the Worlds, itself a famous example of fakery.

          After the Elmyr-Irving bit runs its course, Welles transitions to a lengthy dramatization of an encounter between European beauty Oja Kodar and legendary Spanish painter Pablo Picasso. (Welles’ filmmaking is particularly ingenious during this sequence, because he simulates Picasso’s presence through the use of still photographs and clever editing.) F for Fake is filled with fascinating ideas and inventive execution, but it’s maddeningly unfocused. The film never lands on solid narrative ground, and Welles often resorts to gimmicky motifs like recurring cutaways to spilled wine.

          As a result, it’s difficult to grasp just what Welles is trying to say here. Although he announces at the beginning of the film that F for Fake will be an examination of prevarication, it actually ends up being a celebration of elaborate lies by a man who relishes his own ability to twist the truth. F for Fake is highly watchable, but it also provides a sad reminder of the great work Welles could have been doing at this time of his life, instead of assembling unsatisfying pastiches like this one.

F for Fake: FUNKY

X, Y & Zee (1972)

          Yet another shrill melodrama from the bleakest period of Elizabeth Taylor’s screen career—the wasteland between her triumphant performance in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and her ascension to grande dame status in the ’80s—X, Y & Zee features Taylor and Michael Caine as hateful spouses battling over issues including the husband’s myriad dalliances. In other words, it’s nearly 110 minutes of Taylor screaming, threatening, and whining. Set in London, the movie tracks the relationship between unfaithful architect Robert Blakely (Caine) and his disturbed wife, Zee (Taylor). They fight virtually from sun-up to sundown, with Zee constantly promising to kill herself and/or Robert; meanwhile, Robert alternates between joining the sparring matches and numbing himself with booze. At a lavish party one night, Robert meets Stella (Susannah York), an elegant and seemingly untroubled young woman, with whom he begins an affair. However, as Robert’s feelings for Stella blossom into love, a threatened Zee lashes out by stalking the lovers, tossing Robert’s possessions into the street, and, finally, attempting suicide.

          Then, while recovering in the hospital, Zee requests that Stella visit her, and Stella, quite stupidly, accepts the offer. Zee starts playing mind games with her husband’s mistress, who inexplicably reveals to Zee her deepest personal secret. And so it goes—to quote a line Stella delivers to Robert at one point, “It’s all very brittle and boring and trite.” She’s talking about Zee’s behavior, but she could just as easily be talking about X, Y & Zee itself. Caine is fine here, since he does icy nastiness better than just about anyone, though York is merely decorative, while Taylor is an outright embarrassment. She overacts ridiculously; she’s slathered with whorish eye makeup; she wears flamboyant costumes like muumuus and ponchos, presumably to mask her expanding waistline; and she sports silly fashion accoutrements like, at one point, a gold headband that looks like a leftover from her days playing Cleopatra. (Available through Columbia Screen Classics via WarnerArchive.com)

X, Y & Zee: LAME

Carrie (1976)

          It might be exaggerating to call Carrie a good film, since it’s unabashedly campy and lurid, but there’s no arguing with results—among other things, the movie earned two Oscar nominations, elevated director Brian De Palma to A-list status, turned leading lady Sissy Spacek into a star, initiated an epic relationship between Hollywood and novelist Stephen King, and became one of the most popular horror movies of the ’70s. Considering that the flick is so trashy it features beaver shots beneath the opening credits and culminates with a blood-soaked teenager using telekinesis to slaughter her classmates, that’s quite a list of accolades.

          Based on King’s first novel, Carrie tells the sad story of Carrie White (Spacek), a misfit American teenager so ignorant to the ways of the world that she freaks out upon getting her first period while showering in the school gym. Her vicious classmates, led by instigator Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen), taunt Carrie mercilessly, pelting her with sanitary napkins, so Carrie is excused from school for the rest of the day. Once she returns home, we discover the source of Carrie’s troubles—her lunatic mother, Margaret White (Piper Laurie), is a Bible-thumping abuser who considers sexual development sinful and tortures Carrie with long imprisonments in a closet.

          As Carrie reels from the shower incident and her troubles at home, she discovers the ability to move objects with her mind. Meanwhile, Chris is banned from the upcoming prom—indirect punishment for tormenting Carrie—so she plans grotesque revenge. Adding a final thread to the story is Carrie’s sympathetic classmate Sue (Amy Irving), who persuades her dreamboat boyfriend, Tommy (William Katt), to take Carrie to the prom. One bucket of pig blood later, it all goes to hell.

          De Palma and screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen took relatively few liberties with King’s narrative, so they delivered his signature combination of gore and pathos intact, and Carrie zooms along at tremendous speed. Excepting two ill-conceived comedic sequences (both of which feature cringe-inducing music), Carrie is laser-focused on developing empathy for the protagonist and setting up a Grand Guignol climax. Generally speaking, Carrie is an efficient movie, and some of the picture’s elements exist on an elevated plane. De Palma’s trademark tracking shots manifest in full force, for instance (though the shots are akin to guitar solos in overwrought hard-rock songs, flamboyance for the sake of flamboyance). Additionally, De Palma uses the supporting cast like an orchestra, getting exactly the right single note each from Allen, Irving, Katt, Laurie, and others (including Betty Buckley and John Travolta).

          Spacek’s Oscar-nominated performance holds Carrie together, since her character’s emotional journey drives the story. As played by Spacek, Carrie is fragile during early scenes, ferocious when assaulting her enemies, and poignant once she realizes the tragic fate to which she has been consigned. De Palma’s ending represents his biggest departure from King’s book, and while the film’s concise denouement is more cinematic than the protracted conclusion of King’s narrative, it’s a bit much, right up to the notorious “gotcha” coda. Once again, however, there’s no arguing with results; Carrie made such an impression that it earned a Broadway adaptation in 1988, a low-budget movie sequel in 1999, and big-budget movie remakes in 2002 and 2013.

Carrie: GROOVY

Which Way to the Front? (1970)

          Funnyman Jerry Lewis’ screaming-nincompoop shtick was beyond passé by the time he made the painfully unfunny World War II comedy Which Way to the Front? The film’s barrage of brainless sight gags and witless verbal jokes makes the lowbrow WWII-themed TV series Hogan’s Heroes seem inspired by comparison, because Lewis’ idea of a show-stopping joke is having Adolf Hitler idiotically rhapsodize about the Jewish snacks (e.g,, knishes, etc.) that Eva Braun prepares for him. Worse, Lewis plays the leading role in his typically oppressive manner, mugging nonsensically when his character goes into gibberish-spouting spasms and shouting nearly all of his lines in the second half of the picture, when his character masquerades as a German officer.

          However, it’s not as if producer-director Lewis would have done himself any favors by hiring a different star—every single aspect of Which Way to the Front? is as tiresome as Lewis’ performance. The silly story begins when billionaire Brendan Byers (Lewis) gets drafted for Army service—never mind that Lewis was about 43 when he made the picture—only to get classified 4F. Determined to help the war effort, Byers uses his fortune to build a private army comprising a handful of fellow 4F losers. Decked out in anachronistic uniforms that look more late-’60s than mid-’40s (oh, the turtlenecks!), Byers’ militia crosses the Atlantic on his private yacht, breaks into the stronghold of a Nazi officer who resembles Byers, and lures Hitler into an ambush. There isn’t a single worthwhile comedy idea here, and Lewis seems to know it; he often ends scenes by freeze-framing, jacking up big-band music on the soundtrack, and cutting to a bright swirl, Batman-style, as a means of hiding inanity behind momentum. So, need we even discuss the sequence of Byers learning German by listening to the album Music to Mein Kampf By? Or the scene at the end in which Byers masquerades as a Japanese officer by putting on Coke-bottle glasses and gigantic buck teeth?

          Inexplicably, Lewis stuck with the WWII theme for his next picture, the notorious unreleased concentration-camp film The Day the Clown Cried. After that production derailed, Lewis was sidelined for several years with health problems, and didn’t return to directing features until the 1981 misfire Hardly Working. Given the quality of Which Way to the Front?, he probably should have quit while he was behind. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Which Way to the Front?: LAME

Steel (1979)

          While it’s mildly enjoyable as a manly-man action movie, Steel is actually more amusing when viewed for its unintentional subtext—endeavoring for macho swagger led the filmmakers weirdly close to the realm of gay erotica. The story begins when contractor “Big” Lew Cassidy (George Kennedy) heads to work on a new high-rise he’s building in Texas, explaining that the sight of a tall building “still gives me a hard-on.” When Lew dies in a workplace accident, his pretty daughter Cass (Jennifer O’Neill) pledges to finish the building, thus saving her family’s company from bankruptcy. To do so, she needs a “ramrod”—no, really, that’s the phallic job title of the movie’s real leading character, Mike Catton, played by the Six Million Dollar Man himself, Lee Majors.

          Mike is a construction foreman who quit working at high altitudes after suddenly developing a fear of heights. Now working as a trucker (picture Majors behind the wheel of a big rig in a cowboy hat and a wife-beater), Mike accepts the job on the condition that he can supervise work from a completed floor instead of climbing onto beams. As Cass’ second-in-command, “Pignose” Morgan (Art Carney), says to Mike: “You’re here because this building will give you a chance to get it up again.” Scout’s honor, that’s the line!

          The first half of the movie comprises Mike building his team of world-class steel workers, Dirty Dozen-style. These roughnecks include such walking clichés as a horny Italian named Valentino (Terry Kiser); a jive-talking African-American named Lionel (Roger E. Mosley); a stoic Indian named Cherokee (Robert Tessier); and a taunting bruiser named Dancer (Richard Lynch). Meanwhile, Lew’s estranged brother, Eddie (Harris Yulin), conspires to derail the project because he wants to seize control of Lew’s company. As the movie progresses, Mike tries to overcome his fear of heights while coaching his fellow dudes through long days of hard work and hard drinking.

          Steel is such a he-man enterprise that even though Majors engages in close physical contact and soft talk with most of his male costars, he can barely muster furtive glances for his nominal love interest, O’Neill. All of this is pleasantly diverting, in a Saturday-matinee kind of way—director Steve Carver’s cartoony style didn’t peak until his 1983 Chuck Norris/David Carradine epic Lone Wolf McQuade, but he moves things along—so it doesn’t really matter that the script is ridiculous, or that Majors is ineffectual as a leading man. Plus, to Carver’s credit, the plentiful scenes taking place on girders high above city streets are enough to give any viewer vertigo. And as for those lingering shots of sweaty men working hard, their biceps glistening in the hot Texas sun . . .

Steel: FUNKY

The Dark (1979)

A dreadful mishmash of horror and science fiction, The Dark manages to make the quest to capture an extraterrestrial serial killer uninteresting. When the movie begins, a mysterious figure murders several people, including the daughter of author/ex-con Roy Warner (William Devane). Preoccupied with grief—but not so preoccupied that he doesn’t make time to flirt with TV reporter Zoe Owens (Cathy Lee Crosby), who is in turn tries to exploit Roy for a hot story—Roy dogs grumpy police detective Dave Mooney (Richard Jaeckel), the cop assigned to find the killer. Eventually, the various characters gravitate toward a blowsy psychic named De Renzy (Jacqueline Hyde), who has somehow intuited that the killer is an alien, and that the alien is inexplicably tethered to an out-of-work actor and . . . Oh, who cares? The Dark is one of those incompetent movies that can’t figure out how to deliver plot elements effectively, so it compensates by stacking characters and twists atop each other, as if the volume of concepts will compensate for the fact that none of the concepts is interesting. Worse, the story structure of boring filler scenes punctuated by a trite murder sequence every 10 minutes or so is beyond perfunctory. About the only time the movie gets vibrant is during the gonzo climax, when a 10-foot-tall, shambling man-monster squares off with an army of cops, frying the policemen with laser beams shot from the monster’s eyes. However, since the movie’s special effects are mediocre—and since the acting is so lifeless it feels like the performers were handed their lines just before they walked on camera—the film’s only redeeming value is atmospheric widescreen cinematography that lives up to the title. Using a mixture of deep shadows and epic lens flares straight out of the John Carpenter playbook, John Arthur Morrill’s tasty images almost make The Dark worth watching. Almost.

The Dark: LAME