Starbird and Sweet William (1973)

The polite way to characterize low-budget family film Starbird and Sweet William is to say that it’s a harmless story about a young Native American learning to bond with nature. Yet that description cuts Starbird and Sweet William too much slack. This cloying and dull film’s portrayal of race is about as authentic as the notion of a man forming a surrogate family with a bear, a crow, and a raccoon. Everything about Starbird and Sweet William is fake, right down to the ridiculous ending during which a brand-new character appears just in time to rescue the protagonist from mortal danger. At the beginning of the film, Starbird (A Martinez), whose tribal affiliation is never specified, leaves his reservation and takes a job as an airplane mechanic. One day, he steals a small plane for a joyride, then crashes in the Southwestern wilderness. Despite a broken arm and a shortage of supplies, Starbird survives long enough to bond with the aforementioned critters; the “Sweet William” of the title is an orphaned bear cub with whom Starbird frolics in syrupy musical montages. For most of its running time, the film has virtually no plot, instead presenting an outdoor travelogue buttressed by folksy narration courtesy of Rex Allen. (Sample: “Seeing the baby foxes and the deer, Starbird had a warm feeling of kinship with his brothers, the animals—something he’d never really felt before.”) When the filmmakers finally introduce conflict through the arrival of hunters late in the second act, it’s abrupt, clumsy, and woefully insufficient for sparking dramatic interest.

Starbird and Sweet William: LAME

Once in Paris . . . (1978)

          Figuring out why the intelligent comedy Once in Paris . . . failed to score at the box office doesn’t take much work. After alienating fans by leaving the hit sitcom M*A*S*H in 1975 and then floundering through inconsequential TV projects, Wayne Rogers didn’t bring much goodwill to his first big-screen starring role. Leading lady Gayle Hunnicut wasn’t a major draw, either. And the folks tasked with selling the picture faced a daunting challenge: Despite containing a storyline about a sexual affair, Once in Paris . . . is primarily a bromance pairing Rogers with Gallic charmer Jack Lenoir. All in all, it’s amazing the picture got made. Nonetheless,  those willing to accept the film on its own terms might enjoy what they discover.

          Michael Moore (Rogers) is an American screenwriter summoned to Paris for a rewrite job. He’s met at the airport by chauffeur Jean-Paul (Lenoir), who personifies joie de vivre. To Jean-Paul, every traffic jam is an adventure, every beautiful woman is a miracle, and every new day is an opportunity for drinking and gambling and laughter. First Michael keeps Jean-Paul at arm’s length, opting to focus on work. But once it becomes clear the rewrite won’t take much effort, Michael accepts Jean-Paul’s invitation to see the real Paris: playing petanque in parks with old men, placing wagers at a horse track, visiting the restaurant that Jean-Paul’s mistress owns, and so on. Eventually, Michael’s new friendship creates problems. When the lonely screenwriter becomes preoccupied with Susan (Hunnicut), an aristocratic beauty staying in the same hotel, Michael heeds Jean-Paul’s advice to pursue a tryst, even though Michael has a wife and children back in Los Angeles. And so it goes from there.

          Flaws plague this film. Michael is condescending, fragile, reckless, and self-involved, with retrograde attitudes toward women. Moreover, Susan is portrayed as a vapid slut despite Gilroy’s weak attempts at rounding out her characterization. By current cultural standards, Once in Paris . . . is offensive. Viewed through the prism of its time, however, the movie has personality and soulfulness, even if one suspects that Gilroy would have preferred Jack Lemmon in the lead rather than the bland Rogers. Finally, it’s worth noting that Gilroy notched a WGA Award nomination for his script, because his peers likely reacted to the film’s strongest element: the delightful rendering of Jean-Paul as an amiable rake whom a straightlaced family man might dream of someday befriending.

Once in Paris . . . : FUNKY

Paco (1976)

Sloppily constructed family film Paco ostensibly tells the story of a little Colombian boy (Panchito Gómez) who travels from the country to the crowded streets of Bogotá in search of his wayward uncle. Yet the most interesting material is a subplot revealing the uncle’s vocation—he’s a Fagin-like mastermind controlling a network of street urchins who steal to pay off loans that he offers at usurious interest rates. As played by the elegant José Ferrer, this character is infinitely livelier than a generically heartbroken little boy on walkabout. Yet relegating the most colorful person onscreen to secondary status isn’t the only storytelling error made by the creators of Paco. In the film’s most peculiar sequence, Pernell Roberts shows up to play a flamboyant gangster. How flamboyant? Roberts’ big scene literally takes place on a theater stage, with the actor flitting about in a cape while issuing dialogue like thunder and decorating lines with dramatic hand gestures. It’s a mystery how Roberts’ showboating relates to the rest of the picture, because by that point the wheels have gone completely off the bus. After all, we haven’t even mentioned the silly stuff at the beginning of the picture involving a priest (Allen Garfield) whose signature move is belching and then turning his eyes skyward so he can apologize to God. There’s also a heist sequence with intense music befitting a Mission: Impossible episode. And the donkey featured prominently on the film’s poster? Gone by about 15 minutes into the movie. Rarely have so many disparate parts added up to so little.

Paco: LAME

The Girls from Thunder Strip (1970)

It’s astonishing how often inept ’70s filmmakers botched simple ideas for drive-in flicks—after all, conjuring a passable exploitation flick shouldn’t involve more than matching a lurid concept with a trite plot, then filming lots of gratuitous sex and violence. Try explaining that to David L. Hewitt, the culprit behind The Girls from Thunder Strip. The picture ostensibly pits a trio of sexy moonshiners against a gang of greasy bikers, so the juxtaposition of rural and urban sensibilities should have resulted in something eventful and trashy. Emphasis on should have. Among myriad other problems, Hewitt fails to identify a proper leading character, so the picture jumps from one underdeveloped character to the next seemingly at random. Worse, Hewitt and his collaborators integrate a third set of characters, redneck dudes who sorta-kinda align with the moonshiners, so the basic conflict between two distinct factions gets muddied. The list of flaws goes on. Although Gary Graver’s cinematography is frequently imaginative, the acting is generally as bad as the storytelling, and The Girls from Thunder Strip lacks conviction as sexploitation. In what should be the movie’s tawdriest scene, a buxom moonshiner bathes herself in a pond while wearing lingerie. Is she cleaning herself or doing laundry? Another sure sign the film lacks direction? The most entertaining scenes are comic-relief bits in which famed DJ/actor Casey Kasem, who plays a dopey federal agent, bickers with B-movie actor/director Jack Starrett, who plays a grumpy sheriff.

The Girls from Thunder Strip: LAME

Joe Hill (1971)

          Respectable but hard to access emotionally, Joe Hill is a straightforward biopic about the iconic activist/songwriter who emigrated from Sweden to the U.S. in 1902 and was executed in 1915 on murder chargers that some consider highly questionable. Circa 1971, Hill’s name would have been familiar to the hippie crowd because folksinger Joan Baez performed the tribute song “Joe Hill” at Woodstock, and her rendering was included in the 1970 documentary about that event. (A studio version of Baez’s interpretation appears in this film.) By any measure, the real Joe Hill led a life worth examining. The wannabe composer endured poverty in New York City’s immigrant slums before becoming a hobo. After developing sensitivity to the oppression of the underclass, he began using his talent to rally workers through politically charged songs. Eventually, Hill become synonymous with the International Workers of the World, though his activism led to beatings and incarcerations. 

          The movie depicts Hill’s adventures in a linear fashion, with Swedish actor Thommy Berggren bringing an amiably steely quality to the title role. Some early scenes work quite well, as when Hill bonds with a larcenous street urchin. Yet Swedish writer-director Bo Widerberg never pulls the viewer fully into Hill’s mind, so many of the character’s actions seem arbitrary. As a result, the movie doesn’t flow as well as it should. Joe Hill feels like a collection of mildly interesting episodes instead of a propulsive narrative, which is a shame. Sequences of Hill clashing with violent authorities are pungent, and whenever Widerberg allows humor to enter the mix, Joe Hill sparks to life. In one scene, for instance, Hill dines at a posh restaurant, ordering seemingly everything on the menu, then concludes the meal by rolling up his sleeves and asking for directions to the kitchen, implying his intention to pay his bill by washing dishes.

          And it’s not as if Widerberg fails to get the serious stuff right, because the final stretch of the picture, dramatizing Hill’s time in prison, is affecting. Less impressive is the preceding sequence, during which Hill acts as his own attorney while on trial for murder, as happened in real life; in Widerberg’s telling, Hill improbably comes across as a master litigator who only loses because the deck is stacked against him. Portraying a noble historical figure as a superhero surrounded by conspirators is rarely the right way to demonstrate artistic credibility. And while it’s not entirely fair to malign Joe Hill as a one-dimensional hagiography, the movie invites such criticism by leaving way too many gaps in terms of character development.

Joe Hill: FUNKY

Lord Shango (1975)

          Some practitioners of the horror genre argue that logic has no place in spooky stories. Fair enough. After all, one would never argue that the events of, say, The Shining (1980) could take place in reality. Still, there are limits. In the offbeat blaxploitation horror picture Lord Shango, murders happen in plain view of witnesses but authorities never seem to get involved. And that’s just one affront to common sense. Lord Shango is moderately interesting because of the way it forefronts a clash between two belief systems, but the movie is a frustrating mess. In the wild opening sequence, young man Femi (Bill Overton) rushes to rescue his girlfriend, Billie (Avis McCarther), from baptism by a group of overzealous Christians. They respond by drowning him in full view of an entire congregation. This enrages Billie’s mother, Jenny (Marlene Clark), who turns to a local voodoo cult for help exacting revenge. Enter Jabo (Lawrence Cook), a ne’er-do-well who may or may not have mystical powers. He compels Jenny to make sacrifices to “Lord Shango” in order to reincarnate Femi. And if you’re wondering how all this stuff meshes into a coherent storyline, don’t bother, because it doesn’t.

          Lord Shango unspools as a random assortment of moments, some of which are creepy and some of which are merely confounding. In the picture’s best scene, Jabo strolls onto the dancefloor of a nightclub and shimmies toward a pregnant Billie, who’s grooving to one of the movie’s hot Afro-fusion beats. Jabo moves closer and closer to Billie until her movements slow down to match his, and he stares into her eyes, triggering some sort of hypnosis/possession/trance state. Afterward, Jabo frets that he failed to achieve a supernatural task: “It’s always a struggle when a restless soul tries to enter a body not yet born.” Built solely on acting and mood and music, this scene has all the clarity and weirdness Lord Shango seeks elsewhere but usually fails to find. Incidentally, many of the same problems plague the 1973 blaxploitation vampire picture Ganja & Hess, which also stars Marlene Clark.

Lord Shango: FUNKY

Parades (1972)

          More of a generalized expression of counterculture angst than a properly formed story, Parades takes several different approaches to its antiwar theme. In fact, the picture divides somewhat neatly into four episodes, but not by design—at regular intervals, the filmmakers seem to forget what story they’re telling and latch onto the next shiny object that enters view. First the movie is about a young deserter whose parents narc on him to the government. Then the picture explores the deserter’s experiences in a military prison, where a brutal sergeant subjects him to physical and psychological torture. Next, after a tragedy that most viewers can see coming way before it happens, the movie shifts into ensemble mode as prisoners process terrible events. Finally the movie resolves into a far-fetched melodrama, with a civilian protest outside the prison inspiring nonviolent activism behind bars, which in turn causes yet more bloodshed.

          It’s not hard to imagine a version of the same basic narrative achieving the desired effect, but getting there would have required more discipline than the makers of Parades could muster. Yet it’s wrong to dismiss Parades as a complete misfire. The film’s politics are consistent, and some of the young actors playing convicts attack their roles with vigor. One gets a sense of the folks behind this picture committing wholeheartedly to what they perceived as an important statement, and, to be fair, this endeavor was not completely without risk. Even though the youth audience circa 1972 was heavily behind the protest movement, many in the Establishment viewed those questioning the war as traitors. For those looking to make a splash in movies, there were less controversial subjects to explore.

          In any event, Parades has a few points of interest beyond its plot. Future TV stars David Doyle and Erik Estrada play small roles, and Barry Manilow did the theme song. (Yes, you read that right.) Incidentally, it appears that director Robert J. Siegel did major surgery on the picture after its original release, because reports indicate that the presently available version, released in 1980 as The Line, contains extensive new footage. Given how discombobulated the 1980 version is, however, it’s probably for the best that the original cut has faded from view.

Parades: FUNKY

Nunzio (1978)

          Although it’s unwise to make blanket statements about an entire genre, some observations of this type carry more weight than others. For example, few would challenge the assertion that a disheartening number of movies about mentally challenged characters are shamelessly manipulative. But here’s where nuance enters the discussion: What’s the difference between good audience manipulation and bad audience manipulation? I would argue that Forrest Gump (1994), which hides cheap sentimentality behind pretentions to historical and literary significance, is less honest than something like Nunzio, which is more typical of the genre. Put bluntly, Nunzio is heart-tugging crap, but it never tries to be anything other than heart-tugging crap.

          David Proval, who began his long film/TV career with Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973) and later played a recurring role on The Sopranos, stars as Nunzio, who has the mind of a child even though he’s in his early 30s. Nunzio lives in Brooklyn with his mother and earns money as a delivery boy for the local corner market. Everyone in the neighborhood knows Nunzio, so the nice folks wave when he rolls by on his bicycle, and the cruel ones make fun of the way he sometimes puts on a cape while pretending to be Superman. Nunzio’s brother, James (played by James Andronica, who also wrote the script), alternately browbeats and protects his frustrating sibling, although James is ultimately inconsequential to the plot. The main storyline involves Nunzio pining for a pretty girl who works at a bakery, enduring an inappropriate sexual experience, and eventually stumbling across an opportunity to become a real-life superhero.

          Some elements of the storyline are laughably obvious, but others are downright peculiar, especially the sexual stuff. In its graceless way, the movie tries to ask big questions about society’s responsibility for unfortunate citizens, about the role of community in defining people’s characters, and about the place that true innocence has in the crass modern world. Yet the high-minded notions drifting through Nunzio’s bloodstream aren’t essential to the experience of watching the picture. Like so many other films about the mentally challenged, Nunzio is a feature-length pity party.

          Even though Andronica probably thought he was writing something along the same lines as Marty (1955) or Rocky (1976), beautiful stories about simple guys learning to love themselves, he actually rendered old-fashioned schmaltz, contriving one situation after another to contrast Nunzio’s sweetness with the coarseness of other people. Is that a theme worth expressing? Sure, why not. Was this the most effective way of expressing that theme? Doubtful. Still, Nunzio moves along briskly, overflows with local color thanks to location shooting, and features competent performances by costars Tovah Feldshuh, Teresa Saldana, and a woefully underused Joe Spinell. As for Proval, he notches sincere moments whenever he’s not overdoing things with creepy intensity.

Nunzio: FUNKY

Road Movie (1973)

          Telling the grim story of two truckers who travel across America with a tough hooker as their passenger, Road Movie epitomizes the New Hollywood aesthetic, even though its level of notoriety is infinitesimal compared to that of similar films by, say, Monte Hellman and Bob Rafelson. As cowritten and directed by the adventurous Joseph Strick, Road Movie is a dark meditation on the circumstances of unfortunate people whose pursuit of independence leads nowhere. There’s a reason the blunt title works—for the characters in Road Movie, life is all about leaving the pain of yesterday behind while chasing the possibilities of tomorrow.

          Road Movie opens by introducing Janice (Regina Baff), a jaded young woman new to the skin trade. Older hookers laugh as she hustles drivers at a truckstop, and she pathetically drops her price in half just to turn a trick. Janice quickly discovers the danger of working the trucker circuit: Since drivers feel invulnerable inside their rigs, many of them abuse Janice as she moves from town to town, one rough ride at a time. Enter Gil (Robert Drivas) and Hank (Barry Bostwick), two young partners trying to make a go of their independent trucking operation. They hire Janice, and then Gil—a cocksure bastard who rants about not wanting to pay union dues, because why should he pay to support other people’s healthcare—slaps Janice around for a thrill while screwing her. Hank has a gentler way about him, but Janice rightly calls him on his choice to align himself with a son of a bitch.

          As Road Movie trundles along, the three have experiences that can’t rightly be called adventures—more like travails. Janice punishes Gil by yanking the power cord on the refrigerator car the boys are hauling, ruining an entire load of meat. And when the guys get into a brawl with other truckers, Janice comes to the rescue by whipping out a straight razor and slashing the guys’ attackers. Gradually, we learn what pushed Janice onto the road, and what compelled Gil and Hank to start their own business. One of the film’s tricky implications is that Janice, the character who endures the most self-inflicted humiliation, might be the only one who sees the world clearly—until she goes completely insane, that is.

          It’s hard to say whether Road Movie “works” in any conventional sense, because it seems Strick was after something more than a morality tale, although Road Movie has that sort of a narrative shape. The picture achieves its greatest impact by presenting specific characters in specific situations as a means of asking difficult questions. What is ambition? What is freedom? What is human connection? Is the portrayal of Janice feminist or misogynistic? Are Gil and Hank antiheroes or merely facets of the same prism as Janice? Is the horrific finale literal or figurative? To some degree, the answers to these questions don’t matter, because sparking the viewer’s imagination is an accomplishment in and of itself.

          Aiding Strick greatly in his peculiar endeavor are the leading performers, each of whom commits to an unsympathetic character. Yet it’s Strick’s seemingly endless directorial curiosity that drives this piece: Frame after frame of Road Movie juxtaposes vignettes about three sad people with disheartening POV shots looking out truck windows at ugly commercialization littering Middle America’s thoroughfares.

Road Movie: GROOVY

The Windsplitter (1971)

          Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (1969) was one of those generation-defining hits that inspired countless homages, so it’s tempting to dismiss all of them as faint echoes of the original. Yet doing so would overlook respectable efforts including The Windsplitter, which borrows iconography and themes from Easy Rider without directly copying that film. And while in many ways The Windsplitter is clumsy and obvious compared to Hopper’s picture, it’s not as if Easy Rider is the most articulate and refined piece of popular entertainment ever created. In fact, The Windsplitter expresses certain notions even more effectively than Easy Rider does. The key difference between the pictures is that the hog-riding rebels of Hopper’s movie live and breathe the hippie ethos, whereas the main character of The Windsplitter is merely mistaken for someone who does that.

          Set in small-town Texas, The Windsplitter explores what happens when hometown boy Bobby Joe (Jim McMullen) returns after a 10-year absence. During that time, he’s become a Hollywood movie star using his proper name, Robert Brandon. Town officials invited Bobby Joe home for a celebration in his honor, expecting the same clean-cut kid they knew a decade ago. Instead they get a longhair with a fringe jacket and wraparound shades who zooms into town atop a powerful motorcycle. Town officials, particularly the local Reverend (Paul Lambert) are aghast, but local kids embrace Bobby Joe like he’s an ambassador from a foreign country. Writer-director J.D. Fiegelson, who later had a middling career in television, takes a meticulous approach to dramatizing conflict. Bobby Joe’s  father (Jim Siedow) views everything about his son’s new lifestyle with contempt, even revealing that he didn’t see Bobby Joe’s hit movie. Bobby Joe tries to pick up where he left off with Jenny (Joyce Taylor), but she’s the daughter of the Reverend, who fears that Bobby Joe’s influence will lead the town’s youth to ruination. Bobby Joe also reconnects with boyhood friend R.T. (Richard Everett), but the town’s other blue-collar types offer a much different welcome—threats leading to real violence. Everything moves steadily toward a public assembly where Bobby Joe is scheduled to crown the high school’s homecoming queen.

          In its broad strokes, The Windsplitter is contrived and predictable, pitting a with-it seeker against close-minded dolts. But in its specifics, the movie reveals depth and sensitivity. The Reverend isn’t just a fire-and-brimstone hatemonger. Jenny isn’t just a small-town girl beguiled by the promise of the outside world. R.T. isn’t just a simpleton grease monkey. And Bobby Joe, who eschews drugs and meaningless sex, doesn’t match the image formed in the minds of those who judge him. To be clear, Fiegelson’s storytelling is not sophisticated. Some of his dialogue thuds, and his most villainous characters are one-dimensional. But because The Windsplitter explores an interesting culture clash from a thoughtful angle, the movie’s grim finale feels organic rather than preconceived.

The Windsplitter: GROOVY

The Hard Road (1970)

          At one point in The Hard Road, which blends educational-film elements into a narrative framework, narrator Dr. Byron Clark poses a rhetorical question about a young man imprisoned for drug charges: “Will he be cured for good, or will he again seek the dreams and fantasies that are pushed out of a hypodermic needle?” On first blush, this sounds a bit like the uptight moralizing of Reefer Madness (1936), but on closer inspection, the language is actually somewhat restrained. And that, in microcosm, is the experience of watching The Hard Road. Structurally, the picture is an old-fashioned cautionary tale, explaining how a teenage girl’s pregnancy leads her into a lifestyle of moral rot. Yet in the particulars, The Hard Road has something that might almost be called nuance.

          Director Gary Graver, who also shot the picture, employs imaginative camera angles for drug-trip sequences, seemingly trying to capture both the appeal and the danger of hallucinogens. Similarly, the script portrays the protagonist’s parents as status-obsessed alcoholics, so it’s not as if the movie lays the blame for youth-culture excesses squarely on kids. The Hard Road isn’t a hip movie by any measure, but it’s not precisely square, either. After pretty suburban 17-year-old Pamela (Connie Nelson) gives up her baby for adoption, Pamela’s parents hope she’ll change her wanton ways. Dad gets Pamela a job as the receptionist for a talent booker, and a rock star she meets at work takes her to bed. Pamela also befriends a girl who turns tricks to pay for her boyfriend’s dope habit. Eventually Pamela gets pregnant again, breaking with her parents and finding herself adrift, with only unreliable crooks and drug addicts for support.

          Despite amateurish acting and that problematic narration by Dr. Clark, The Hard Road moves along fairly smoothly for most of its running time. Yet every so often, the picture stops dead for a bit of visual lecturing, as when animation and photos are used to track the spread of VD through the body. Therefore it’s awfully hard to guess the intended audience for this film. The picture is too scolding for the exploitation-flick crowd, and too lurid for family viewing. So is The Hard Road sincere or is it sleazy? Considering how much porn Graver has directed over the years, the needle tips uncomfortably toward “sleazy,” but still . . .

The Hard Road: FUNKY

Six Hundred and Sixty-Six (1972)

          Made by an evangelical Christian organization, Six Hundred and Sixty-Six has a clear agenda: frightening non-believers into embracing God before it’s too late. Yet the picture doesn’t fall into the familiar Christian-movie trap of smothering viewers with gentle homilies. Instead, the movie starts in a dark place and goes deeper into despair until reaching a suitably intense ending. Better still, the film exudes intelligence and specificity, thanks to a resourceful script by Marshall Riggan, and the use of a claustrophobic location gives the piece a strong Twilight Zone vibe. That said, the movie is hugely flawed. Although director Tom Doades shoots well, using deep shadows and sharp lines to create moody images, Six Hundred and Sixty-Six comprises nearly wall-to-wall dialogue, and the performances are stiff, with actors robotically over-enunciating dialogue. Had Doades started the film in a buttoned-up fashion and then gotten more naturalistic as the narrative gained tension, he might have achieved a better result.

          The film takes place in the near future, when the world has divided into Eastern and Western factions. American soldier Col. Ferguson (Joe Turkel) is the new operations officer at an underground bunker that he assumes is a missile silo. In fact, it’s a repository of human culture, with artwork stored alongside computers stuffed with literature and philosophy. The movie explores what happens when nuclear war unfolds aboveground, damaging the life-support mechanisms of the underground bunker. Things skew theological after that happens. The bunker’s main computer is programmed to recite random snippets of poetry, speaking in a sexy female voice and ending every announcement with “I love you.” One of the poetry snippets is a Bible verse, which gets the men in the bunker wondering if the nuclear event was actually the apocalypse.

          Every twenty minutes or so, the filmmakers juice Six Hundred and Sixty-Six with a quick action scene (some folks go crazy in close quarters), but mostly the film is talk, talk, talk. Some of the chatter is highly engaging and some less so, but it’s all a bit much. Although Turkel’s work is never more than serviceable, Byron Clark gives an unnerving supporting turn as Tallman, the erudite curator of the underground archive—is he a mad genius or just mad? Even for devotees of end-of-the-world cinema, Six Hundred and Sixty-Six is a tough sit—too dry, too religious, too slow—but if you accept the picture on its own terms, Six Hundred and Sixty-Six is consistently ominous and provocative.

Six Hundred and Sixty-Six: FUNKY

The Fox Affair (1978)

If you stumble onto blurbs about this low-budget thriller set in disco-era New York City, you’ll encounter tantalizing but contradictory data—some sources describe this as blaxploitation, while others suggest a girl-power actioner. In truth, The Fox Affair tells the uninteresting story of two sleazy con artists—glorified pimps, really—who seek help from a young woman of their acquaintance after a Far East deal goes south, causing enemies to send an assassin from Hong Kong. (All the main characters are white, by the way, so it’s a mystery how the blaxploitation mislabeling originated.) The young woman from whom the con artists seek aid is Felicia Fox (Kathryn Dodd), a former beat cop now working as a meter maid but also, apparently, moonlighting as an escort. It’s all very murky, especially since Felicia doesn’t appear until the movie is halfway over. The Fox Affair is a hodgepodge of drab dialogue scenes, inept action beats, and sexploitation. One long scene comprises the main characters leering at naked women through a two-way mirror, and another involves musclemen preening for naked ladies in a steam bath. (One fellow brags about his high-protein diet: “I ate three chickens last night!”) Since the leading actors are as forgettable as their characters and the rudderless storyline, the only interesting thing about The Fox Affair is the snapshot it provides of how vulgar people with money lived in late-’70s Manhattan: chrome furniture, feathered hair, shaggy rugs, tailored suits, and way too much machismo.

The Fox Affair: SQUARE

Ravagers (1979)

          There’s no good reason for sci-fi thriller Ravagers to be as dull as it is. Even setting aside the lively cast—more on that in a minute—the picture features a serviceable postapocalyptic storyline, in which gangs of violent people called ravagers prey on settlements of vulnerable people to steal food and other supplies. The underlying premise holds that something poisoned the world’s water, making it nearly impossible to grow new food, so everyone still alive competes for resources. Though hardly new, shouldn’t these concepts be enough for a passable mixture of pulpy adventure and social commentary? Before you answer that question, let’s get back to the cast: Ravagers stars Richard Harris, and supporting him in much smaller roles are Ernest Borgnine, Art Carney, Seymour Cassel, Anthony James, and Woody Strode. That lineup explains why Ravagers isn’t a total waste of time, even though the actors are squandered as badly as the potential of the storyline.

          Set in the near future, Ravagers begins with Falk (Harris) bringing precious food back to his companion, Miriam (Alana Hamilton), who dreams of someday finding a place called Genesis, where food is rumored to grow. Alas, ravagers led by a vile leader (Anthony James) followed Falk to his hiding place, so they rape and murder Miriam, leaving Falk for dead. He survives and exacts some revenge, then flees into the countryside with the ravagers in pursuit. Falk meets assorted benevolent people until stumbling across an installation supervised by Rann (Borgnine), who clashes with Falk over strategies for holding the outside world at bay.

         Some of the film’s episodes are more interesting than others, but the pacing is glacial and the movie is nearly over before Rann appears. Yet the shape of the narrative isn’t the worst problem plaguing Ravagers. In nearly every scene, actors stand still with their faces blank, as if they’re waiting for director Richard Compton to give them something to do or say. The movie’s script is so enervated that character development is nonexistent, with people defined by their situations instead of their personalities. This sort of one-dimensional approach can work in fast-paced movies, but it’s deadly for slow-paced movies like Ravagers. Adding to the onscreen lethargy are vapid turns by Stewart and nominal leading lady Ann Turkel. Ravagers is more or less coherent, but as goes Harris’ performance—a wispy suggestion of what he might have done with a proper screenplay—so goes the whole disappointing picture.

Ravagers: FUNKY

Boogievision (1977)

Despite marketing materials suggesting similarities to The Groove Tube (1974), Boogievision is actually a counterculture story about independent filmmaking, although it does features a few fake commercials. Struggling director Mick (Michael Laibson) discovers that his girlfriend’s dad, Burt (Bert Belant), is a producer, so Mick submits a script. Turns out Burt makes porn, so he hires the young filmmaker to crank out a skin flick. Mick rebelliously spends Burt’s money to make a politicized sci-fi freakout (with lots of nudie shots) called Lizard Women from Outer Space, and Burt is aghast when he discovers what happened. There’s no use fretting that Boogievision writer-director James Bryan botched his main story, which could have worked if it had fleshed-out characters, because delivering a straightforward narrative is clearly not what Bryan was after. Echoing the behavior of his main character, Bryan was all about, like, doing his own thing, man. Thus Boogievision meanders through pointless discursions and shapeless conversations, gradually drifting more and more toward unhinged druggy nonsense, only occasionally reverting to linear plotting. As for the caliber of the Bryan’s comedy, fake commercials in Boogievision include a trailer for The Excrementists, a scatological riff on The Exorcist (1973), and the film-within-a-film features political rhetoric from “The Radical Feminoids” as well as a chat with a lizard woman (meaning a topless starlet wearing a cheap-looking mask), who is upset about the commercialization of reptile hides. Viewed in tandem with the right controlled substances, maybe this stuff was amusing back in the day. Viewed sober in 2018, not so much.

Boogievision: LAME

How Come Nobody’s on Our Side? (1975)

          If you’re willing to overlook a huge problem—the absence of a real story—then you might be able to groove on the silly pleasures of How Come Nobody’s On Our Side? A wannabe farcical comedy about two bikers who try to score bread by running drugs across the Mexican border, the picture stars two veterans of ’60s/’70s biker flicks, Larry Bishop and Adam Roarke. Here, they work in the mode of classic comedy duos: Hope and Crosby, Martin and Lewis, etc. Although Bishop and Roarke put forth mighty efforts, the jokes aren’t strong enough to sustain interest, and their characters aren’t sufficiently differentiated to create strong friction. Worse, the plot lacks forward momentum until the climax, which resorts to that dullest of clichés, a madcap chase scene. It’s fitting that the movie features a scene of our heroes escaping trouble in a hot-air balloon, because from start to finish, this whole thing runs on fumes.

          After Brandy (Bishop) and Person (Roarke) quit a job playing bikers in a low-budget movie, they hit the road looking for new opportunities. Enter Brigitte (Alexandra Hay), Person’s freethinking sister. For some reason she has a groovy house on the beach in Los Angeles, so the bikers hang out there for a while. Eventually someone has the bright idea to run dope, triggering complicated schemes—Brigitte seduces a cop to get the use of his uniform so Brandy, posing as a policeman, can squeeze information from a border guard, and so on. Some of the schemes are mildly amusing, and the film’s banter is periodically entertaining, but the lack of narrative focus grows more and more frustrating as the picture drags on. Plus, some bits just don’t work, like the vignette of the bikers buying drugs from a couple played by Penny Marshall and Rob Reiner.

          Apparently filmed in 1972 but shelved until 1975, How Come Nobody’s on Our Side? is a missed opportunity, because Bishop and Roarke render such an appealingly cranky buddy-picture vibe that better material might have resulted in success. But in addition to constructing a flabby plot, writer Leigh Chapman shows a weakness for sitcom-style jokes. The aforementioned balloon scene involves the bikers begging a little person for a ride before resorting to physical threats. At that point, the little person exclaims: “Why didn’t you say that in the first place? Look at all the time you wasted trying to reason with me!” As with so much of How Come Nobody’s on Our Side?, it’s enough to make you almost laugh.

How Come Nobody’s On Our Side?: FUNKY

Running Wild (1973)

          A well-meaning family adventure with an animal-preservation theme, Running Wild feels like a TV movie that somehow drifted to the big screen and gained 30 minutes of extraneous footage along the way. The cast is strictly B-list, the technical execution is perfunctory, and the storytelling is trite, so this thing would have gone down more smoothly as a 74-minute quickie. Set in Colorado, the movie begins with freelance photographer Whit Colby (Dina Merrill) snapping pictures of wild mustangs near a canyon. Then malevolent Crug Crider (Morgan Woodward) buzzes the herd with a helicopter, startling several horses into running off a cliff. Whit reports what she’s seen to local land agent Jeff Methune (Lloyd Bridges), kicking the story into gear. Jeff is responsible for looking after the animals and people on Indian terrain, where the incident happened, so he’s got a complicated relationship with local fatcat Quentin Hogue (Pat Hingle, who also associate-produced the picture). Quentin wants to buy the land for cattle grazing, so (unbeknownst to Jeff) Quentin enlists goons including Crug to murder mustangs, hoping that elimination of the herd will clear the way for his land grab. Whit, a big-city lefty with an activist spirit, has something to say about all of this.

          Made somewhat in the mode of a Walt Disney picture, albeit without cutesy vignettes and mile-a-minute pacing, Running Wild goes to all the predictable places: Jeff and Whit fall in love; Jeff has bad blood with Crug, leading to a big fistfight; and the climax involves Jeff’s young son becoming endangered while trying to help wild horses. Nothing that happens in the picture is overtly stupid, but nothing that happens in the picture is special, either. Although scenes of mustangs roaming through canyon country are picturesque, way too much time gets chewed up by romantic material involving Bridges and Merrill, especially since the filmmakers fail to construct believable obstacles to that relationship. Bridges’ character is cranky (but not too cranky) and Merrill’s character is icy (but not too icy). Except for harsh vignettes of animal abuse, most of the picture could just as easily be titled Running Mild. And with all due respect to Mr. Hingle, a reliable actor of limited range, it’s not a good sign when he gives the most invested performance in a picture, unless one counts Woodward’s demonic scowling as an actual characterization.

Running Wild: FUNKY