The Dunwich Horror (1970)

If you have a hard time envisioning a supernatural-horror flick starring Sandra Dee, you’re not alone. After all, the pint-sized cutie is so synonymous with wholesome Americana that her image was invoked by “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee,” a tune from the stage musical (and later film) Grease. Nonetheless, Dee is indeed the top-billed star in this sexually charged phatasmagoria based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft, the godhead of 20th-century occult fiction. Dee plays Nancy, an assistant to college professor Dr. Armitage (Ed Begley). The doctor’s prized scholarly possession is a copy of the infamous “occult Bible,” The Necronomicon. One day, a strange young man named Wilbur (Dean Stockwell) shows up at the college and hypnotizes Nancy into letting him handle the book. This upsets Dr. Armitage until Wilbur reveals he’s a member of the Whately family, which has historical associations with black magic. Eventually, Wilbur woos Nancy into returning with him to the (fictional) Massachusetts town of Dunwich, the Whately family’s ancestral home. Psychosexual intrigue laced with Satan worship ensues—can Dr. Amitage save poor Nancy from Wilbur’s clutches? By five minutes into this silly movie, it’s so obvious that Wilbur has nefarious designs on Nancy that her inability to sense danger becomes annoying. Compounding this problem is a confusing storyline that toggles haphazardly between locations—and, for that matter, planes of reality. Especially when the movie starts employing gonzo visual flourishes (flash cuts, solarized images, and such) to simulate a demon’s point of view, The Dunwich Horror drifts into incoherence. At its most laughable, the picture features a Rosemary’s Baby-style rape hallucination featuring body-painted hippie types clawing at and/or licking the camera lens. Predictably, the flick concludes with a ritual rape/sacrifice/whatever that takes place on an outdoors altar during a lightning storm. Begley and Dee both sleepwalk through The Dunwich Horror, and on some level it might have been preferable for Stockwell to do the same, since his over-the-top performance is unintentionally comical from start to finish.

The Dunwich Horror: LAME

New York, New York (1977)

          A generous reading of Martin Scorsese’s quasi-musical, New York, New York, would situate the film as a grand attempt to mesh Old Hollywood artifice with New Hollywood realism. And, indeed, the juxtaposition of intense Method acting with soundstage fakery gives New York, New York a unique flavor. However, even though the film’s look is exquisite—Scorsese and cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs create dazzling effects with dense compositions and elegant camera movement—the project’s aesthetic value is undermined by the trite narrative and the ridiculous running time (nearly three hours).

          A period piece that begins in the mid-1940s and stretches into the ’50s, New York, New York presents an uninteresting riff on the oft-filmed A Star is Born formula. Sax player Jimmy Doyle (Robert De Niro) is an egomaniacal, insecure, sexist hothead with the morals of a snake. His on-again/off-again lover, Francine Evans (Liza Minnelli), wobbles between being a doormat and being a shrew during her long career as a singer. As per the A Star is Born playbook, Jimmy helps Francine achieve fame but then resents her success, and his jealousy (combined with his self-destructive behavior) drives them apart. Watching an asshole abuse an enabler doesn’t make for the most enjoyable experience. Worse, the film is subplot-averse; although minor characters including an agent (Lionel Stander), a bandleader (Barry Priums), and a chanteuse (Mary Kay Place) all get decent amounts of screen time, these characters exist only to accentuate Jimmy, Francine, or both.

          Scorsese’s fidelity to such pet themes as the animalistic nature of overachieving men is admirable, after a fashion, but the inescapable question is why Scorsese thought the world needed a bummer musical done in the candy-colored style of a World War II-era MGM extravaganza. Plus, at times, it seems Scorsese would have preferred making a straight-up song-and-dance epic. In a long sequence that was cut from the original release but restored for reissues, Francine toplines a movie-within-a-movie-within-a-movie (she plays a character who’s playing a third character). The sequence, built around the song “Happy Endings,” has the over-the-top production design and boisterous vocalizing one normally associates with the work Minnelli’s father, director Vincente Minnelli, did with the actress’ mother, showbiz legend Judy Garland. What this homage has to do with New York, New York’s street-level story of Jimmy’s love life is anyone’s guess.

          Broadway tunesmiths John Kander and Fred Ebb created a number of original songs for this project, the most famous of which is the title track (“Theme from New York, New York”), but there’s a fundamental imbalance stemming from the fact that only one of the protagonists sings. Whenever Minnelli bursts into song while De Niro fakes playing the sax, she overwhelms the movie. That suits the A Star is Born formula, of course, but it represents yet another manner in which New York, New York feels contrived and inorganic. Often (rightfully) cited as a prime example of auteur-era hubris, since Scorsese went apeshit with grandiose sets and hordes of extras while creating easily half the film’s scenes, New York, New York isn’t an outright disaster, simply because the technical aspects are impeccable. That said, the movie’s absurd scope bludgeons the story’s meager virtues to a degree that’s almost laughable, and De Niro’s characterization is so repellent that the performance wears out its welcome far before New York, New York’s endless 163 minutes have unspooled.

New York, New York: FUNKY

Disco Godfather (1979)

Rudy Ray Moore, a cult-favorite black comic known for his outrageously filthy routines, ascended to B-movie stardom with the pimp saga Dolemite (1975) and its sequel, The Human Tornado (1976), then continued his onslaught of schlocky cinema with The Monkey Hu$tle (1977) and this weird action/drama. In Disco Godfather, Moore stars as Tucker, an ex-cop who grooves on his new career as a discotheque DJ until his favorite nephew, Bucky (Julius Carry), gets mixed up with angel dust. Thereafter, Tucker shifts into ass-kicking mode so he can take down the operation of local dealer Stringer Ray (Hawthorne James). Disco Godfather feels like at least three different movies jammed together. The opening stretch, featuring endless footage of disco dancers doing tricks involving acrobatics and roller skates, is amateurish and confusing but basically lighthearted. Then, once people start having bad angel-dust experiences, the movie kicks into a trippy mode with clunky “hallucination” imagery (generally comprising actors in monster costumes reaching toward the camera). Finally, the picture becomes a full-on blaxploitation action saga, complete with kung fu brawls. In its closing scenes, the movie tries to get heavy because Stringer Ray captures Tucker and pumps our hero full of angel dust, sending him into a crazy series of freakouts and hallucinations. The effect, unfortunately, is far more comic than harrowing. Per the Rudy Ray Moore norm, everything in Disco Godfather is borderline incoherent. Few plot elements make sense, the performances are across-the-board terrible, and the editing is so choppy the movie has a fever-dream quality. Worst of all is the dialogue, which wobbles between formality and hipness. “As you can see, to be a member of the disco squad, you have to be funky and get down.” “I’m personally going to come down on the suckers that’s producing this shit.” “Get the names of all the people who would like to go on a crusade against angel dust.” Especially when considered in the context of Moore’s supersized ego—every single member of the cast and crew is grouped in the credits beneath the heading “Assistants to Mr. Rudy Ray Moore”—the rampant incompetence of Disco Godfather can only be described as astounding.

Disco Godfather: LAME

Somebody Killed Her Husband (1978)

          Representing Farrah Fawcett-Majors’ first attempt to translate her popularity on the TV show Charlie’s Angels into big-screen stardom, Somebody Killed Her Husband is an old-fashioned farce blending romance with a murder mystery that’s played for laughs instead of thrills. (Although most of the picture comprises verbal humor, scenes with broad-as-a-barn physical jokes include the finale, which involves a warehouse full of runaway Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade floats.) With the right person playing the female lead, perhaps Sally Field or Goldie Hawn, Somebody Killed Her Husband could have become a charming piffle. And, indeed, male lead Jeff Bridges works overtime to make the material work. Alas, he ends up putting on the equivalent of a solo show, because Fawcett-Majors is so vapid that whenever she’s asked to do more than smile or toss her hair, the movie grinds to a halt. Fawcett-Majors eventually morphed into a somewhat respectable actress, but at this point in her career she was nothing more than a pinup in search of a persona.

          Anyway, the story concerns Jerry Green (Bridges), a likeable nerd who works in the toy department of the Macy’s flagship in Manhattan while nurturing dreams of becoming a children’s-book author. Although Jerry’s not a no-strings-attached sexual relationship with a coworker, he’s not in love until he sees Jenny Moore (Fawcett-Majors) shopping in the store one afternoon. Instantly smitten, Jerry talks his way into Jenny’s life, and they fall for each other—notwithstanding the minor inconvenience of her being married. Later, when someone murders Jenny’s husband, the lovers realize they must solve the murder before bringing it to the attention of authorities, lest they get branded as suspects because of their adulterous activities. Soon, the amateur sleuths uncover a scheme involving stolen jewelry, which leads to shenanigans involving hidden corpses, silly disguises, and tricky blackmail maneuvers.

          Bridges has some great moments here, mixing boyish charm with grown-up exasperation; in one particularly amusing bit, he engages an infant in “conversation” while he talks out loud to deconstruct the mechanics of an insurance swindle. The script by versatile veteran Reginald Rose (of 12 Angry Men fame) has flashes of real wit, too; at one point, Jerry proclaims to Jenny, “I can offer you instant poverty plus an employees’ discount at Macy’s.” Also helpful is the presence of deft comic actors John Glover and John Wood in supporting roles. Nonetheless, a romantic soufflé only rises if all the ingredients are just right, and none of the efforts by the cast, by Rose, or by skilled journeyman director Lamont Johnson can make up for the absence of a magical leading lady.

Somebody Killed Her Husband: FUNKY

Company of Killers (1971)

Originally produced for television but then, inexplicably, released to theaters, Company of Killers has a number of interesting plot elements but suffers from such herky-jerky storytelling that, among other problems, it’s almost impossible to determine which character is the protagonist. As a result, the picture ends up feeling like a teaser for a longer version in which the story actually has narrative flow. Plus, did the marketplace truly hunger for a G-rated underworld thriller? Anyway, the picture begins with Dave (John Saxon) reeling from a gunshot wound in a city park. Dave is taken to a hospital, where—woozy from anesthesia—he reveals his identity as a hired killer. Then, once Dave escapes from the hospital, police detective Sam (Van Johnson) must track the killer down before Dave completes his latest contract. Meanwhile, businessman George (Ray Milland) contacts operatives working for a gangster named John (Fritz Weaver) in order to hire a hit man (Dave, naturally) for the elimination of a boardroom enemy. The movie also crams in subplots relating to a nosy reporter (Clu Gulager), a gang moll (Susan Oliver), and other peripheral characters including a stripper and Dave’s intended target. Considering that the picture only runs a brisk 84 minutes, you can imagine how superficially each element is presented. Company of Killers has some quasi-interesting scenes, mostly involving Dave trying to evade capture and/or revealing the compassion that lurks behind his cold-blooded façade, but the filmmakers tend to introduce potentially rich subplots without ever returning to them. What’s the point, for instance, of showing that the detective schedules a meal with his estranged daughter and her boyfriend, since the meal is never depicted? Company of Killers also suffers from ugly camerawork—think harsh lighting and jittery dolly moves—to say nothing of acting that borders on the amateurish. World War II-era heartthrob Johnson seems ridiculous playing a tough cop, and urbane character actor Weaver’s attempt at dese-dem-dose diction is laughable. Milland emerges unscathed, rendering his usual blend of reptilian charm and sweaty anxiety, while Saxon somehow manages to create genuine intrigue. Despite these minor virtues, however, Company of Killers is disjointed and unsatisfying in the extreme.

Company of Killers: LAME

The Man Who Loved Women (1977)

          While not a sensualist by any stretch, the great French director François Truffaut had a way with stories about sex. Throughout his career, in films ranging from Jules and Jim (1962) to this picture and beyond, Truffaut examined lust through a uniquely cerebral prism. As a result, his sexually themed movies are among the most intelligent cinematic explorations of carnality ever made. So, while The Man Who Loved Women is partially a dry comedy about a middle-aged Frenchman who accrues an extraordinary number of lovers, it’s also a plaintive character study about a man who substitutes physical love for emotional love. The Man Who Loved Women blends humor, pathos, and romance in surprising ways. The movie’s too long, the tonal mixture isn’t completely satisfying, and some aspects of the lead character remain mysterious to the end. In a lesser film, these issues would be flaws, perhaps fatal ones. But in The Man Who Loved Women, these issues manifest like idiosyncrasies—working through the narrative bumps is the price of admission for discovering the many gifts the picture offers.

          The story begins with the funeral of a man named Bertrand Morane, which is attended by dozens of beautiful women. One of them, Geneviève (Brigitte Fossey), marvels at the deceased’s ability to attract women, and this triggers a change in the movie’s point of view. Thereafter, at least until a return to Geneviève’s perspective at the end of the story, the movie is presented through the eyes of Bertrand (Charles Denner), who appears in every scene and also provides a luxuriant voiceover that articulates the particulars of his personality. A middle-aged lab technician living in the small city of Montpelier, Bertrand has been fascinated by beautiful women his whole life. As a devoted “leg man,” he spends his free time walking the streets, his eyes forever drawn this way and that by sets of beautiful stems. Bertrand takes absurd lengths to meet the women who catch his fancy, always behaving as a gentleman and nearly always consummating his flirtations.

          Truffaut, who co-wrote the movie in addition to directing, presents Bertrand as simultaneously childlike and sophisticated. His preoccupation with women seems innocent since he places ladies on such a high pedestal, and since he recognizes his inability to maintain serious relationships. He’s all about the chase, but he never uses subterfuge as anything but an icebreaker, after which he comes clean. Truffaut prudently steers clear of any implication that Bertrand’s a remarkable lover, since the point of the story is that Bertrand revels in female companionship; his trysts are idylls that enrich his soul rather than conquests. As the story progresses through various episodes, including brief flashbacks to Bertrand’s childhood, Bertrand writes a book about his love life, which eventually leads to an affair with his editor, Geneviève (the woman from the funeral). The discoveries Bertrand makes about himself by spending time with Geneviève create a rich, tragicomic context for the film’s final movements.

         The Man Who Loved Women is brisk at times, but it mostly proceeds at a meditative pace, communicating and dramatizing the unusual life experience of a man who uses sex as socialization (and, to some degree, as therapy). In the end, the film sketches a tantalizing picture of a truly singular individual, while also manifesting—through the presence of dozens of lovely actresses—Bertrand’s magical vision of the world as a place overflowing with feminine beauty and feminine complexity. The Man Who Loved Women is more droll than funny, and it’s frequently serious, so in terms of cinematic texture, it’s as eccentric as its protagonist. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the film’s American remake, released in 1983. Starring Burt Reynolds and directed by Blake Edwards—whose approach to bedroom farce compares poorly to Truffaut’s—the American version has little to recommend except a parade of beautiful actresses, including Julie Andrews, Kim Basinger, Marilu Henner, and Sela Ward.

The Man Who Loved Women: GROOVY

Brotherhood of Death (1976)

A schlocky blaxploitation film that arrived in the waning days of the genre, Brotherhood of Death has a suitably sensationalistic premise. After a quartet of black guys living in the South experience trouble with racist whites, the black friends run away to military service in Vietnam. Upon the quartet’s return to the states, racial tensions escalate into a small war between oppressed black citizenry and the Ku Klux Klan. To balance the scales, the heroes employ their military training. Bloodshed ensues. Had Brotherhood of Death been executed with any noticeable measure of skill and/or taste, this lurid plot could have resulted in a memorable revenge fantasy. Alas, choppy storytelling and inept performances by unknown actors—combined with a general sleaziness characterized by a ridiculously long topless scene and an unnecessarily gory climax—define Brotherhood of Death as forgettable grindhouse junk. When the story begins, African-American pals including Ned (Le Tari) and Roy (Raymond Moffat) enjoy shapeless lives filled with drinking and tomfoolery. Never mind that the film gets off to a weird start by depicting its heroes in a clichéd “shiftless” fashion, or that the mere threat of a fight with a white man sends them scurrying to Southeast Asia. These are heroes? The Vietnam scenes in Brotherhood of Death are absurd, utilizing stock footage and decidedly non-Asian locations, to say nothing of inaccurate hairstyles and uniforms. Then, once the story returns stateside, the rape of a black woman kicks the heroes into action—sort of. Since the protagonists first seek satisfaction through proper channels (filing charges, pushing for voter registration), Brotherhood of Death forgets that it’s an action movie for a good 30 minutes. And then comes the grisly ending, wherein the heroes magically have not only their uniforms and government-issued weapons, but also a full arsenal of Viet Cong-influenced booby traps (including a bag of venomous snakes!) with which to annihilate their enemies. Excepting perhaps a few tense moments during which it’s satisfying to watch Klansmen get their comeuppance, Brotherhood of Death offers little more than boredom and, thanks to its many logical lapses, consternation.

Brotherhood of Death: LAME

Lenny (1974)

          Leaving the discussion of whether this Bob Fosse-directed biopic “accurately” captures Lenny Bruce’s soul to others with more knowledge of the matter, it’s fair to describe Lenny as one of the boldest attempts ever made to find a cinematic style perfectly suited to a real-life subject. In many ways echoing the vibe of the smoky jazz clubs where the real Bruce earned his reputation as an iconic counterculture comedian, Fosse employs a freewheeling storytelling approach that jumps back and forth in time, frequently lingering on extended re-creations of famous Bruce monologues. Furthermore, Fosse presents the whole picture in stark black-and-white cinematography that suggests rare footage of an underground performer caught in the act. One could easily argue, in fact, that Lenny has an overabundance of directorial imprint, bludgeoning its story with razzle-dazzle showmanship and a self-consciously grim tone. Yet that might actually be how Fosse employs his artistic license to the greatest effect. Perhaps this isn’t a film about who Lenny Bruce was, per se, but rather a film about what Lenny Bruce meant—in the sense of representing onscreen the milieu that Bruce painted with the incendiary words of his comedy routines.

          Accordingly, the world of Lenny is a dour space filled with drugs, rage, sex, and trouble. Moreover, just as Bruce eventually succumbed to his own darkness, wasting the last years of his life on fruitless censorship battles before dying of a drug overdose at age 40 in 1966, Lenny hurtles into bleaker and bleaker terrain with each passing scene. It’s unlikely anyone will ever make a more depressing film about a funnyman.

          Cast wisely for his skill at channeling Bruce’s self-destructive intensity, rather than any superficial ability to replicate Bruce’s comedic technique, Dustin Hoffman drives the film with a merciless performance. He incarnates Bruce as a self-involved, self-righteous son of a bitch who fascinates and repels people at the same time. Admirable for his chutzpah and for his messianic crusade to draw taboo subjects into the light, Bruce comes across as a man who must die for postwar America’s sins—in aggravating the establishment, Bruce changes the world even as he damns himself.

          Amid this provocative situating of Bruce as a free-speech hero, Fosse investigates Bruce’s private life primarily through Bruce’s courtship with and marriage to a stripper named Honey. Working from a literate script by Julian Barry, who adapted his own play of the same name, Fosse lingers on curvaceous actress Valerie Perrine (who plays Honey) in a way that echoes Bruce’s fascination with sleazy sexuality. (One typical flourish: Fosse intercuts a threesome in the Bruce bedroom with the nightclub routine it inspires, during which Bruce memorably opines in a sing-song voice, “I like dykes.”) Advancing the idea of Bruce-as-martyr, much of the film explores Bruce’s attempt to clean up his act for the mainstream, an endeavor that results in spectacular failure. Then, finally, the film dramatizes Bruce’s descent into oblivion with harrowing realism.

          Despite its exquisite artistic and technical qualities—notably Fosse’s quicksilver storytelling and Robert Surtees’ crisp cinematography—Lenny is a rough ride, presenting a barrage of anger and emotional abuse and wasted talent. A bit much? Perhaps. Nonetheless, the film garnered myriad accolades, including Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. The film also serves, although to a much lesser degree than All That Jazz (1979), as something of a veiled autobiography for Fosse, whose life had parallels to Bruce’s toxic combination of onstage pizzazz and offstage extremes.

Lenny: GROOVY

The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973)

          Two years after maverick auteur Melvin Van Peebles unleashed his film about a black revolutionary undermining white power structures, Sweet Sweetback’s Baaadasssss Song (1971), similar subject matter hit screens in this provocative movie, which was—amazingly—released by a major studio. Even more amazingly, The Spook Who Sat by the Door was one of the only ’70s studio movies both starring and directed by African-Americans. Co-written by Sam Greenlee, upon whose novel the picture is based, The Spook Who Sat by the Door presents the story of Dan Freeman (Lawrence Cook), a black man recruited to be the CIA’s first officer of color as part of a political stunt. At first, Dan plays the role of an Uncle Tom, accepting demeaning assignments and patronizing treatment while trudging through five years of running a copy machine at CIA headquarters—his work station is by a doorway, hence the title, which boldly mixes two meanings of the word “spook.” Once Dan leaves the CIA, however, he employs his government training to build a revolutionary army intent on toppling the white establishment. The story culminates, inevitably, with a riot that Dan sees as the first battle in an outright race war.

          Although it’s ostensibly an action/thriller of sorts, with dialogue exchanges about conspiracy theories and plenty of violent scenes (especially toward the end), The Spook Who Sat by the Door can be watched in many ways. Thanks, in part, to cartoonish portrayals of white people—shown to be so arrogant that they can’t detect sedition in their midst—the picture is something of a social satire. And yet it’s also a call to arms and/or a warning, depending on where the viewer stands on the issues being explored. Alas, while it’s tempting to credit the filmmakers with far-ranging sophistication, as if the intention was to make a complex cinematic artifact, it’s equally possible that Greenlee and the film’s key creative personnel—including director Ivan Dixon, best known as a cast member on the long-running sitcom Hogan’s Heroes (1965-1971)—arrived at such complexity not through discipline but rather through the opposite. The Spook Who Sat by the Door is all over the place in terms of storytelling and tone, which makes it difficult to consider most of what occurs on screen completely deliberate. The acting is uneven, the photography is flat, and the narrative rhythm is erratic. Kudos to jazz great Herbie Hancock for his ballsy score, though, because his signature electronic flourishes accentuate the nerviness of the story.

          Ultimately, the mere existence of The Spook Who Sat by the Door is the most remarkable aspect of the picture, because it’s not as if Hollywood studios were regularly in the business of manufacturing revolutionary propaganda, even during the anything-goes ’70s. In fact, it’s especially interesting to consider The Spook Who Sat by the Door side-by-side with The Man (1972), a studio picture imagining what happens when a black man becomes president via line of succession. Whereas The Spook Who Sat by the Door is unquestionably a byproduct of the Black Power/Black Pride movement, The Man is a Rod Serling-penned melodrama in which the hero expresses constant ambivalence about being asked to represent his race. Together, the films offer a troubling vision of a fraught moment in American sociopolitical life. On its own, The Spook Who Sat by the Door is as subtle as a hand grenade.

The Spook Who Sat by the Door: GROOVY

The Wanderers (1979)

          New York City novelist/screenwriter Richard Price didn’t truly connect with Hollywood until his script for Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money (1986) announced his expertise at writing tough underworld stories. Yet Price’s association with the movies actually began in the ’70s, when two of his books were adapted into features. First came Bloodbrothers, a small-scale drama released in 1978, and then came The Wanderers, a quasi-epic about Brooklyn street gangs. Co-written and directed by the unpredictable Philip Kaufman, The Wanderers is ostensibly a nostalgic look at teen life in the early ’60s, before the assassination of JFK, the emergence of the counterculture, and the beginning of America’s Vietnam entanglement. The title refers to a gang of Italian-American teenagers who spend their free time chasing girls, fighting with rival gangs, and generally prolonging adolescence. Their exploits are set to a thumping soundtrack filled with tunes by Dion, the Four Seasons, and other doo-wop-influenced groups.

          When Kaufman keeps things simple, focusing on the misadventures of gang leader Richie (Ken Wahl) and his cronies, The Wanderers works well. However, Kaufman takes the movie in strange directions by treating the presence of a gang called the Ducky Boys in an apocalyptic fashion—whenever the Ducky Boys show up to cause trouble, the movie’s tone shifts from playful to terrifying. And since many scenes in The Wanderers approach outright comedy, the presence of the dissonant Ducky Boys vignettes undermines the integrity of the whole piece. And that’s not the only problem with The Wanderers. Much of the picture comprises a romantic triangle involving Richie, his maybe-pregnant girlfriend Despie (Toni Kalem), and Nina (Karen Allen), the new girl who catches Richie’s eye. This coming-of-age material is trite, and a subplot involving Despie’s dad, Chubby (Dolph Sweet), seems overly grim because Chubby’s a wiseguy who does things like dropping a bowling ball onto an enemy’s hand. From start to finish, The Wanderers can’t decide if it’s a wild-youth romp or a gritty portrait of urban violence.

          Nonetheless, the movie has amazing textures. Ace cinematographer Michael Chapman gives the visuals gravitas, and memorable actors add idiosyncratic flavors to the mix. For instance, The Wanderers features diminutive Linda Manz (best known for Terrence Malick’s 1978 mood piece Days of Heaven) and hulking Erland Van Lidth, who plays a massive street tough nicknamed “Terror,” as an unlikely couple. Demonstrating his customary interest in surprising juxtapositions, Kaufman portrays Manz as the tougher of the two, while still leaving room to reveal her character’s fragility. Similarly, Kaufman gets terrific work out of Wahl—a Stallone type with legitimate acting chops—and John Friedrich, who plays the other main Wanderer, Joey. Scenes of these two and their pals cruising the streets of New York are exciting and fun. Alas, for every vivid bit—Terror’s gang memorably threatens the Wanderers during a harrowing trip to a bridge—there’s an improbable moment like the scene in which a teacher (Val Avery) nearly instigates a race war in his classroom. The Wanderers lacks discipline, restraint, and shape, but it explodes with energy and intensity. In modern parlance, the movie’s a hot mess.

The Wanderers: FUNKY

Grayeagle (1977)

Among the more intriguing participants in the assembly line that fed the ’70s drive-in circuit was Charles B. Pierce, a Hollywood set decorator who moonlighted as an auteur of schlocky low-budget features. His work generally comprised rural horror and Westerns, and while Pierce evinced a measure of cinematic skill—for instance, his compositions are almost always pleasing to the eye—his storytelling ranged from the basically competent to the hilariously inept. Grayeagle, one of several Pierce-helmed Westerns with a Native American theme, falls on the “hilariously inept” end of the spectrum. A shameless copy of John Ford’s classic The Searchers (1956), only with a more sympathetic point of view on the Indian psyche, Grayeagle is dull, melodramatic, silly, and turgid. For instance, Pierce awkwardly attempts to generate operatic levels of emotion, so whenever he lingers in slow motion on a “significant” event, the picture slips into self-parody. It doesn’t help, of course, that two of the film’s most crucial performances are outrageously awful. The story  concerns trapper John Colter (Ben Johnson), who lives in the wilderness with his adult daughter, Beth (Lana Wood). One day, Cheyenne brave Grayeagle (Alex Cord) kidnaps Beth, so John and his trusty Indian sidekick, Standing Bear (Iron Eyes Cody), begin an epic rescue mission. Grayeagle is presented as a noble warrior, so, predictably, Beth develops affection for her captor. Eventually, all the plot strands converge in a maudlin twist ending that transforms Grayeagle from an action saga to a would-be tearjerker. Johnson and fellow screen vet Jack Elam, who plays a supporting role, deliver their usual professional work. Cody, best remembered for his role in an iconic anti-pollution commercial, contributes little. As for Cord and Wood, however, yikes. Cord, an Italian, is both miscast and terrible, preening in every shot while issuing dialogue with a comic-book version of plains stoicism. It’s hard not to laugh every time he appears onscreen. Wood, the younger sister of screen legend Natalie Wood, is worse. Screaming idiotically whenever she’s not forming goofy facial expressions, the actress is undeniably sexy but otherwise unwatchable. On the technical front, cinematographer/editor James W. Roberson generates attractive shots of the film’s Montana locations (though his cutting is sloppy at best), and Pierce lends texture with his usual eye for physical detail.

Grayeagle: LAME

Hair (1979)

          Seeing as how this disappointing film’s source material is, arguably, the quintessential counterculture musical, it’s impossible to say that making Hair was a wasted endeavor. After all, preserving the stage show’s energy on film, and spreading the stage show’s provocative messages to audiences who had not seen the musical in its original form, was both inevitable and worthwhile. The problem (or one of them, anyway) is that the translation process took too long. Once Hair hit cinemas, the milieu of the stage show—antiwar protests, hippies dropping acid and experimenting with free love, the Vietnam War claiming a sickening number of human lives—had slipped into history. As a result, Hair was already a museum piece even when it was new. Still, if one ignores the unfortunate nature of the film’s appearance within the public sphere, there’s a lot to enjoy in Hair, even though the film cannot be ranked among the most artistically successful stage-to-screen transpositions. The acting is heartfelt, the singing and dancing are powerful, director Milos Forman’s handling of material is imaginative and thoughtful, and the inherent humanism of the original stage show shines through. Thus, while the elements never cohere, something interesting happens in nearly every scene.

          That said, it’s tempting to castigate the filmmakers for making significant changes to the source material, such as altering characterizations and dropping songs (or pieces of songs). The movie’s story feels overly schematic, which, in turn, makes the final scenes come across as overly strident. Moreover, there’s a gigantic plot hole in the middle of the movie’s story, which makes the whole business of tinkering with success seem even more foolhardy in retrospect. In sum, had the filmmakers improved on the show, only purists would gripe, but that’s not the case here, because the movie’s narrative flaws are apparent to all viewers.

          In any event, the movie’s story revolves around Claude (John Savage), a straight-arrow Midwesterner who arrives in Manhattan on the way to an Army training camp. Claude meets a group of exuberant hippies, led by the charismatic George (Treat Williams), and Claude also becomes infatuated with a pretty New Yorker from upper-crust society, Sheila (Beverly D’Angelo). As the story progresses, Claude questions the legitimacy of the Vietnam War as he becomes entranced with the ideals and lifestyle of his new longhaired compatriots, but ironic tragedy eventually casts a dark cloud over the peace-and-love revelry. The movie bursts with extraordinary music, including the familiar hits “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” “Easy to be Hard,” and “Hair.” (The less said about “Good Morning Starshine,” the better.) Savage’s brand of twitchy sensitivity works fairly well, since he makes Claude seem uncomfortable in nearly every circumstance, but Williams easily steals the movie with his dark intensity, whether acting in straight dramatic scenes or singing in musical passages. Forman fills the screen with activity and color, employing dynamic choreography by Twyla Tharp, and the cast features such powerhouse singers as Nell Carter and Ellen Foley, so even if the leads sometimes underwhelm in terms of vocals, the overall musicality of the piece is impressive.

          Given its arrival in cinemas so long after the underlying subject matter was central in American life, it’s arguable whether Hair would have enjoyed greater impact if the filmmakers had delivered the stage show intact. Nonetheless, since so many of the changes are problematic, it’s important to remember that this movie is, ultimately, an adaptation rather than a direct recording. In other words, this Hair isn’t the Hair that captured the public’s imagination. For that, better to catch one of the stage show’s myriad revivals.

Hair: FUNKY

And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973)

          Proving once again that British production company Amicus was a poor cousin to its better-known competitor, Hammer Films, And Now the Screaming Starts! represents a failed attempt to emulate Hammer’s signature style of sexed-up Gothic horror. Although And Now the Screaming Starts! features the requisite components of heaving bosoms, lurid subject matter, and over-the-top gore—all wrapped up in posh costuming and production design—the movie is as silly as its title. UK starlet Stephanie Beacham stars as Catherine, a wide-eyed 18th-century lass who marries into the Fengriffen family unaware of a deadly curse that plagues the family’s estate. Soon after arriving in the estate’s gigantic main house, Catherine begins seeing visions of dismembered hands and of corpses with gouged-out eyes; she’s also terrified by a painting of her new husband’s long-dead grandfather, because the painting seems to watch her. Eventually, Catherine’s inquiries unlock a lengthy flashback explaining the sordid history of the estate, so the film shows the grandfather (Herbert Lom) heinously abusing a servant and his wife for psychosexual kicks; these misdeeds provoke the curse that plagues the grandfather’s bloodline. Alas, the manner in which the flashback ties into the “present day” storyline is highly unsatisfying.

          Furthermore, since Beacham is barely more than competent as an actress, she can’t generate enough emotional heat to sustain interest during the first hour of the movie, which is dull and repetitive. Most of the actors surrounding her are equally bland, delivering their lines with stiff formality. It’s worth noting that horror icon Peter Cushing has a small and inconsequential role, so his top billing is deceptive. Similarly, Lom is onscreen for less than 15 minutes. That said, he makes his brief appearance count, enlivening the movie with elegant sadism. Directed by UK-horror stalwart Roy Ward Baker, And Now the Screaming Starts! has the texture of a credible Gothic shocker, thanks to campy gore effects and shadowy sets, but the jolts are so clichéd that nothing quickens the pulse. Worse, the “twist” ending is undercut by an overabundance of exposition prior to the big reveal. Nonetheless, And Now the Screaming Starts! offers many things to please devoted fans of the genre that Hammer perfected, even though Amicus’ take on the genre is unquestionably second-rate. For instance, none could ever question Beacham’s ample qualifications for summoning the long power required to deliver on the movie’s title.

And Now the Screaming Starts!: FUNKY

The Last Wave (1977)

          Australian filmmaker Peter Weir made this enigmatic movie as the follow-up to his first international success, the moody drama Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), and The Last Wave ventures even further into the realm of dark fantasy than its predecessor. Filled with dream sequences, jarring sound effects, perplexed characters, and unexplained phenomena, The Last Wave rides the same trippy groove as many of David Lynch’s movies. It’s telling that Weir shifted into more conventional storytelling after making The Last Wave, generating such intense dramas as The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) and Witness (1985); although those pictures integrate atmosphere just as strongly as the director’s early oddities, Weir clearly found his niche as dramatist, rather than as a fantasist.

          Anyway, The Last Wave features a most unlikely leading man, tightly wound TV heartthrob Richard Chamberlain, as a Australian lawyer drawn into an odd criminal case at the same time the island nation is plagued by strange weather. And since the hero defends four Aboriginals, the storyline includes a heady dose of mysticism and premonition, as seen through the prism of the ongoing culture clash that’s inherent to the texture of post-Colonial Australia. Oh, and all of this is squished into the cinematic framework of a thriller—sort of—because The Last Wave exists somewhere on the loose continuum between drama and horror. When the story begins, several Aboriginals get into a brawl at a pub, ending in a death. David (Chamberlain), a tax lawyer who doesn’t normally handle criminal matters, is enlisted to represent the surviving Aboriginals, and this triggers a strange spiral in David’s orderly existence. In the course of investigating the crime—and attempting to understand the weird meteorological happenings plaguing Australia—David transitions from the comforting world of rational explanations to the frightening zone of metaphysical mysteries.

          Weir, who co-wrote the picture with Tony Morphett and Petru Popsecu, paints himself into one narrative corner after another—and whether he actually extricates himself from these traps is a highly subjective matter. Clearly averse to providing tidy explanations, Weir generates a series of cryptic signifiers, often presenting long stretches of screen time without dialogue. Very soon into the movie’s running time, it becomes challenging to differentiate what’s “really” happening from what’s occurring inside the protagonist’s mind. Therefore, by the end of the movie, it’s tough to determine whether the narrative has reached a personal apocalypse or an actual apocalypse.

          One wonders whether all of this would have been more effective with a defter actor in the leading role, because while Chamberlain valiantly simulates existential panic and general intensity, he fails to define David as a distinctive character. Conversely, Aboriginal actor David Gulpill (of Walkabout fame) brings an effective level of mystery to his performance as one of the accused men, since his character represents a native culture that white men like David will never fully understand. The Last Wave is an interesting ride, but the movie demands great patience on the part of the viewer. Growing steadily more opaque with each passing scene, the film dives deep into dark water and never looks back.

The Last Wave: FREAKY

Tribes (1970)

          Simultaneously disciplined and impassioned, the TV movie Tribes—which also received a small theatrical release—examines how the Generation Gap complicated America’s experience of the Vietnam War. Creating a simple conflict between characters who represent opposing ends of the political spectrum, the picture pits hard-driving drill instructor Drake (Darren McGavin) against hippie recruit Adrian (Jan-Michael Vincent). Initially determined to break down Adrian’s resistance in order to instill other recruits with respect for military duty, Drake slowly peels back his opponent’s layers and, as a result of that process, grows to respect the younger man’s pacifist attitude.

          On the surface, this storyline may sound absurdly contrived—peacenik softens warmonger—but Tribes works because it approaches Drake’s transformation with patience and respect. Instead of portraying the drill instructor as a bloodthirsty monster who unquestionably feeds the military machine with fresh meat, the filmmakers—director Joseph Sargent and writers Marvin Schwartz and Tracy Keenan Wynn—paint Drake as a complex man confronted with changing times. Adrian, meanwhile, is a compendium of counterculture signifiers (enigmatic silences, long hair, yoga meditation postures, etc.), so it’s natural that Drake would find Adrian distasteful at first glance. Yet as the men wage their battle of wills—which Drake eventually learns is one-sided, since Adrian is, metaphorically speaking, making love not war—both characters develop empathy. Make no mistake, the filmmakers align themselves with Adrian’s antiwar stance. Yet in avoiding the obvious play of making Drake a monster, the filmmakers open the door to a touching statement about the human capacity for change. In the world of Tribes, compassion is the most valuable commodity.
          Even within the boundaries of a tight TV-movie budget, Sargent integrates feature-style flourishes that give Tribes a hint of poetry. The twee theme song succinctly articulates how America divided into antiwar and pro-war factions (key lyric: “tribes are gathering”), and crisp flashbacks are used to illustrate the gentle romantic vignettes that Adrian summons when centering himself during yoga. Better still, the flourishes complement otherwise straightforward storytelling, so the cinematic style echoes the initial gulf between Drake’s rigid existence and Adrian’s transcendent journey. The very different energies of the leading actors contribute to the effect, with McGavin incarnating man’s-man irascibility and Vincent channeling mellow Age of Aquarius vibes. Everything good about Tribes converges in the ending, which appropriately—and somewhat movingly—encapsulates the way the principal characters alter each other’s destinies.

Tribes: GROOVY