1980 Week: A Change of Seasons & The Last Married Couple in America & Loving Couples

          Turns out Blake Edwards’ hit sex comedy 10 (1979) presaged a string of Hollywood movies exploring the angst of middle-aged white men who consider marriage and success so inhibiting they must reaffirm their identities with extramarital sex, all under the guise of “finding themselves.” Yes, this is Me Decade entitlement taken to an absurd extreme—adultery as personal growth. Films about midlife crises were nothing new, of course, but something about this group of pictures reflects a collective reaction to body blows inflicted upon the institution of marriage during the Sexual Revolution. In fact, many of these flicks directly question the relevance of lifelong monogamous relationships. Yet despite all their with-it posturing, these pictures are also moralistic and old-fashioned. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

          Cowritten by Love Story’s Erich Segal, A Change of Seasons begins on a lurid note—nubile coed Lindsey Rutledge (Bo Derek) repeatedly emerges from the bubbling water of a hot tub, her long hair flailing and her pert breasts glistening in slow motion. What better illustration of the fantasy element coursing through this subgenre’s veins? The fellow in the hot tub with Bo is graying college professor Adam Evans (Anthony Hopkins). Later, Adam’s wife, Karyn (Shirley MacLaine), correctly guesses that he’s having an affair. He seems perplexed that she’s upset, offering idiotic remarks such as the following: “Men are different—our needs are more baroque.” Karyn responds by taking a lover of her own, freespirited handyman Pete Lachapelle (Michael Brandon). The two couples take a vacation together, and the trip is staged like a watered-down version of French farce, complete with the surprise appearances of new characters at awkward moments. Notwithstanding the spicy opening sequence, A Change of Seasons is all talk, with the cast spewing endless psychobabble about Oedipal issues and such, and the quasi-feminist ending is but one of many false notes. Costar Mary Beth Hurt lands a few jokes as the flummoxed daughter of philandering parents, and Brandon has a nice moment of pathos revealing his character’s overwrought backstory, but A Change of Seasons is ultimately just a lot of navel-gazing superficiality set to sickly-sweet music by Henry Mancini and a slew of awful songs. A baroque-en record, if you will.

          The Last Married Couple in America proceeds from a stronger comic premise and mostly avoids melodrama, but it’s not much better as a cinematic experience. George Segal and Natalie Wood play Jeff and Mari Thompson, an affluent Los Angeles couple who, as the title suggests, become exceptions to the rule as all of their friends divorce. Predictably, Jeff and Mari stray from each other, although the reasons why are neither clear nor convincing. After all, they’re still so hot for each other that at one point, they get hassled by police for making out in their car. Apparently the issue has to do with boredom, peer pressure, and the fact that Jeff has become a fuddy-duddy—somewhat hard to believe seeing as how he married an artist. (Mari is a sculptor.) In a sign of the movie’s desperation to generate hard-punchline jokes, the filmmakers include a pointless subplot about Walter (Dom DeLuise), a friend of the Thompsons who becomes a porn star. This leads to a “wild” party featuring adult-film actors and hookers, but rarely will you witness a tamer depiction of debauchery. Only the bits with Bob Dishy as a sleazy lawyer who seduces divorcées are amusing, simply because Dishy commits so wholeheartedly to his role.

          Loving Couples has echoes of A Change of Seasons, and not just because Shirley MacLaine costars—it’s another story about spouses attempting to accommodate each other’s infidelities. This time, the wife is the first to wander. In the opening scene, Dr. Evelyn Kirby (MacLaine) rides a horse and catches the eye of young stud Greg Plunkett (Stephen Collins) as he drives alongside a horse trail. He crashes his car but suffers only minor injuries, so his recovery provides an opportunity for wooing Evelyn. After these two begin sleeping together, Greg’s hot girlfriend, Stephanie Beck (Susan Sarandon), breaks the news to Evelyn’s husband, self-absorbed Dr. Walter Kirby (James Coburn). Naturally, Walter responds by commencing a fling with Stephanie. Once the truth outs, the Kirbys separate and move in with their young lovers. Complications ensue. Featuring a threadbare storyline and noxious montages, Loving Couples is perhaps the most cynical of these films, playing the destruction of relationships for lighthearted humor.

          Quite frankly, however, there’s a bit of nihilism in all of these pictures. By abandoning their principles for cheap thrills, the spouses in these films embrace a sort of spiritual nothingness. In that sense, perhaps even more disquieting than asking what these films say about their era is asking whether the filmmakers recognized the obligation—or even the opportunity—to make any sort of statement whatsoever. One more sign, perhaps, that it was just as well the ’70s were over. As a footnote, while it’s tempting to lump the 1980 Canada/U.S. coproduction Middle Age Crazy into the same category as these pictures, Middle Age Crazy casts a wider thematic net, treating adultery as a symptom of rampant consumerism. Even though it’s a weak film, Middle Age Crazy is a damn sight more thoughtful than any of these vapid flicks.

A Change of Seasons: FUNKY

The Last Married Couple in America: FUNKY

Loving Couples: FUNKY

Victory at Entebbe (1976) & Raid on Entebbe (1977)

          One of the Me Decade’s most startling real-life events occurred on July 4, 1976, when Israeli commandos raided an airport in Uganda to rescue more than a hundred hostages from Palestinians who hijacked a passenger plane. Filled with larger-than-life individuals, notably crazed Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, the story of “Operation Thunderbolt” helped define the era during which international terrorism first took root. Almost inevitably, Hollywood pounced on this material, with the first screen dramatization reaching American airwaves six months after the rescue, and a second version airing a month later. Both telefilms feature big-name casts.

          First to air was Victory at Entebbe, a rushed and schlocky melodrama that mostly focuses on dynamics among hostages during their tense incarceration in Uganda. Filmed by director Marvin J. Chomsky with garish lighting and unimpressive production values, Victory at Entebbe suffers badly for the choice to shove the biggest names possible into various roles, no matter the results. Good luck figuring out the genetic math by which parents Kirk Douglas and Elizabeth Taylor produce daughter Linda Blair—and have fun scratching your head while Anthony Hopkins plays Israeli Prime Minister Ytzhak Rabin opposite Burt Lancaster as his Minister of Defense. Helmut Berger does forgettable work as lead terrorist Wilfried Böse, and those playing the other hijackers stop just short of twirling moustaches.

          Portraying key passengers, Theodore Bikel, Severn Darden, Helen Hayes, Allan Miller, Jessica Walter, and others do what they can with florid dialogue and overwrought dramaturgy. Way too much screen time is devoted to Blair’s alternately cutesy and whiny performance as a young hostage, the Douglas/Taylor scenes feel like clips from a bad soap opera, and Julius Harris looks cartoonish playing Amin thanks to an ill-advised fat suit. Scenes set in Israel are better, though it’s hard to buy doughy Richard Dreyfuss as fierce commando Yoni Netanyahu. Worse, the Israeli scenes focus on procedural matters, mostly sidelining political ramifications. A final strike against Victory at Entebbe is the use of stock footage for airplane scenes, which greatly diminishes verisimilitude.

          Although the star power of Raid on Entebbe is not quite as impressive as that of the preceding film, the performances are much better. Martin Balsam, Charles Bronson, Horst Buchholz, Peter Finch, John Saxon, Sylvia Sidney, Jack Warden, and others deliver restrained work, letting the story speak for itself. Only a few players—including Tige Andrews and Stephen Macht—succumb to melodramatic excess. More importantly, Raid on Entebbe has Yaphet Kotto. He’s  dazzling as Amin, conveying the madman’s grandiosity, moodiness, and narcissism. Directed by the versatile Irvin Kershner with docudrama simplicity and the occasional subtle flourish—a sleek camera move here, a dramatic lighting pattern there—Raid on Entebbe unfolds methodically. The opening scene depicts the hijacking without sensationalizing events, and thereafter the movie cuts back and forth between Israel, where officials plan their response, and scenes involving hostages and their captors.

          Eventually, the film resolves into three parallel narratives. The first involves Rabin (Finch) rallying support for military intervention, despite his government’s propensity for endless debate. The second involves the hostages, of whom Daniel Cooper (Balsam) is the unofficial spokesman, watching their fates transfer from the hands of religious zealots to those of an unpredictable tyrant. The third involves units of the Israeli military—under the command of Generals Gur (Warden), Peled (Saxon), and Shomron (Bronson)—figuring how to achieve the impossible. The level of detail in Barry Beckerman’s teleplay is extraordinary, so despite its lengthy running time (two and a half hours), Raid on Entebbe is interesting and thoughtful from start to finish. Better still, the presence of marquee-name actors never eclipses the solemnity of the narrative. (Special note should be made of Finch’s fine performance as Rabin, because this was his last project. He died a week after Raid on Entebbe aired.)

          Yet another dramatization of these historic events emerged soon after the dual telefilms, this time from Israel. Directed by Menaham Golan, Operation Thunderbolt features a mostly Israeli cast, although the intense German actor Klaus Kinski plays Böse and the voluptuous Austrian starlet Sybil Danning costars. Operation Thunderbolt received an Oscar nomination as Best Foreign Film.

Victory at Entebbe: FUNKY

Raid on Entebbe: GROOVY

A Doll’s House (1973, UK) & A Doll’s House (1973, USA)

          In an odd coincidence, two films of Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House arrived in 1973, one in theaters and one on television. Both take place in 19th-century Norway, where housewife Nora revels upon hearing that her husband, uptight banker Torvald, has earned a major promotion, because the change marks an end to the family’s monetary woes. When Torvald fires a subordinate named Krogstad, the disgruntled man blackmails Nora with evidence that she once forged documents for a bank loan. The ensuing melodrama reveals what little respect Torvald has for his wife—hence the title, which refers to men treating women as playthings. Given the story’s ultimate theme of a woman’s self-realization, it’s obvious why the material seemed timely during the early feminist era.

          The British version, ironically enough, has American roots. It’s a filmed record of a Broadway production that was adapted from Ibsen by the celebrated UK playwright Christopher Hampton. The Broadway show featured revered British actress Claire Bloom in a tour-de-force performance, and Bloom re-creates her meticulous work in the movie. Director Patrick Garland largely ignores any cinematic possibilities in the play, opting for intimate scenes taking place on fully dressed approximations of the stage production’s sets. At his worst, Garland slips into bland cuts back and forth between flat close-ups, particularly during the final, lengthy showdown between Nora and Torvald. What Garland’s A Doll House lacks in visual imagination, however, it makes up for in dramatic firepower.

          Bloom runs the gamut from frivolous to manic to regal, and her costar—the sublime Anthony Hopkins—imbues Torvald with a mixture of inflated ego and repressed desperation. Playing key supporting roles are Denholm Elliot, bitter and cruel as the maligned Krogstand, and Ralph Richardson, elegantly sad as Nora’s aging friend, Dr. Rank. One can’t help but wonder what a filmmaker more adept at stage-to-screen adaptations, perhaps Sidney Lumet, could have done with the raw material of these finely tuned performances, but at least theater fans can savor great work forever. Plus, in any incarnation, Ibsen’s prescient notions about women liberating themselves pack a punch. Consider this passage from the British film: After Torvald exclaims, “No man would sacrifice his honor for love,” Nora replies, “Millions of women have.”

          Seeing as how Jane Fonda was a fierce combatant on the front lines of the ’70s culture wars, it’s not surprising she felt Ibsen’s statement merited a fresh adaptation. Alas, she proved unlucky twice. First, she clashed with director Joseph Losey, and second, she completed her project after the UK version had already reached theaters. That’s why the Fonda film landed on TV—producers rightly estimated the limits of the public’s appetite for this material. In nearly every way, Losey’s take on A Doll’s House is inferior to the Bloom/Hopkins version, even though Losey’s comparatively sophisticated camerawork creates more visual interest than Garland’s stodgy frames.

          The big problem is that the casting never clicks. Fonda gives an adequate performance, with intense moments of fervor and physicality weighted down by stilted readings of classical-style dialogue. Viewed in context, she’s an outlier. Fine European actors including Trevor Howard (as Dr. Rank) and David Warner (as Torvald) seem natural delivering reams of ornate dialogue while stuffed into period costumes, but none of them truly connects with Fonda—her performance exists in isolation from the rest of the picture. Plus, since the gangly Warner somewhat resembles a frequent Fonda costar, it’s impossible not to picture Donald Sutherland in the Torvald role and wonder what that dynamic might have been like. That said, Edward Fox is excellent in the Krogstand role, radiating predatory heat. Yet the thing that should have supercharged this spin on A Doll’s House, Fonda’s offscreen passion for gender equality, makes key moments feel more like stand-alone political speeches instead of organic elements of interpersonal confrontation.

A Doll’s House (UK): GROOVY

A Doll’s House (USA): FUNKY

1980 Week: The Elephant Man

          Here’s one of my favorite bits of movie trivia—Mel Brooks is responsible for unleashing David Lynch on the world. Sort of. After expanding an American Film Institute student project into the bizarre feature Eraserhead (1977), Lynch caught the attention of a producer at Brooks’ short-lived production company, Brooksfilms. This led to Lynch getting hired as the director for The Elephant Man, which Lynch did not originate but which completely suits the filmmaker’s dark style. Thus, a connection was permanently formed between the funnyman who filled the Wild West with flatulence in Blazing Saddles (1974) and the experimentalist who combined huffing and rape in Blue Velvet (1986).

          Anyway, The Elephant Man is in some ways Lynch’s most accessible movie, even though it’s black-and-white, set during the Victorian era, and profoundly sad. Notwithstanding some flourishes during dream sequences, The Elephant Man is entirely reality-based, so Lynch doesn’t rely on any of his usual surrealist tricks. Instead, he demonstrates an extraordinary gift for stylized storytelling, because Lynch swaths this poignant narrative with a perfect aesthetic of murky shadows, silky rhythms, and undulating textures. (Lynch and his collaborators create such magical effects with editing, music, production design, and sound effects that the film seems to have a tangible pulse.) The director also guides his cast through masterful performances.

          Based on the real-life exploits of Joseph Merrick, an Englishman afflicted with neurofibromatosis, the movie tracks Merrick from the indignity of life as a circus attraction to the period during which he was accepted by polite society thanks to the patronage of a sympathetic doctor. Renamed John Merrick in the script, the character is a paragon of dignity, suffering the exploitation of cretins and the revulsion of gawkers without manifesting the rage to which he was surely entitled. The saintly portrayal tips the narrative scales, to be sure, but this approach suits the film’s overall themes: More than anything, The Elephant Man is about society’s inability to embrace unique people.

          When the story begins, Merrick (John Hurt) is kept as a virtual slave by a beastly carnival barker named Bytes (Freddie Jones). One evening, aristocratic Dr. Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) sees Merrick on display and marvels at Merrick’s deformities, which include an oversized head, a misshapen spine, and various large tumors. Treves buys Merrick’s freedom and contrives to find Merrick a permanent home inside a London hospital. Later, Merrick is presented to society and shown a mixture of pity and respect that he perceives as love. Crystallizing Merrick’s acceptance is his friendship with a famous stage actress (Anne Bancroft), who visits Merrick regularly without ever evincing disgust at his appearance. The demons of Meerick’s old life aren’t so easily kept at bay, however, because Bytes and other tormenters forever threaten to ruin Merrick’s salvation.

          Despite being made with consummate craftsmanship on every level (the movie received 10 Oscar nominations), The Elephant Man is painful to watch, simply because of the amount of suffering that Merrick experiences in every scene. Yet there’s great beauty to the film, as well, particularly during the heartbreaking final sequence, which is set to Samuel Barber’s exquisite “Adagio for Strings.” Part character study, part medical mystery, and part morality tale, The Elephant Man is a singular film of tremendous power.

The Elephant Man: RIGHT ON

When Eight Bells Toll (1971)

          Thoroughly enjoyable but also thoroughly silly, the spy thriller When Eight Bells Toll sprang from the pen of adventure-story specialist Alistair MacLean, who never allowed logic get in the way of a good yarn. (Previous MacLean adaptations include 1961’s The Guns of Navarone and 1968’s Where Eagles Dare.) Anthony Hopkins stars as Philip Calvert, an operative of the British Treasury who specializes in underwater work. After several ships carrying gold shipments are hijacked, Calvert receives orders from government muckety-muck Sir Arthur Arnford-Jones (Robert Morley) to investigate. Calvert places a tracking device on the next ship carrying gold, and then he slips aboard the vessel once it’s hijacked. The criminals are more heavily armed than expected, so even though Calvert kills a couple of them, he barely escapes. Nonetheless, he identifies the rough geographic region where the hijackers are most likely based—the rugged coast off the Scottish highlands—so Calvert travels to the area incognito, accompanied by intelligence specialist Hunslett (Corin Redgrave). Then Calvert makes like James Bond while investigating suspects. Naturally, one of those suspects is a beautiful young woman, Charlotte (Nathalie Delon), who makes passes at Calvert even though he’s sure she’s an enemy agent. There’s also a subplot about a group of Scottish shark fishermen who may or may not be on the wrong side of the law. Along the way, the picture includes a brawl in a graveyard, a knife fight, an underwater duel involving a blowtorch, a mountain-climbing sequence, and a massive shootout in a cave.

          Deciphering the plot of When Eight Bells Toll isn’t worth the trouble—as is true for most pictures derived from MacLean’s loopy narratives—but the movie is fun to watch. In addition to employing his superlative dramatic skills, the icy Hopkins is cast well because his character is a derisive prick—it’s easy to believe that Calvert could survive in a line of work fraught with danger. Better still, director Étienne Périer and cinematographer Arthur Ibbertson make fine use of the film’s Scottish locations. The sky is heavily overcast in nearly every scene, and the ground looks dirty and wet throughout, so it feels like Calvert’s facing opposition from the climate as well as from criminals. A foreboding castle is a principal location, and the movie’s most exciting sequence features a helicopter crash on a high cliff, followed by a harrowing bit of Calvert trying to survive underwater in the wrecked chopper while killers prowl the ocean surface. Reprising a trope common to the spy genre, the behavior of the villains in When Eight Bells Toll makes no sense whatsoever, and the hero’s resourcefulness reaches godlike proportions. This is pure male fantasy, complete with a rousing, 007-influenced music score by Walter Scott—who, incidentally, later had a sex change and continued her career under the name Angela Morley.

When Eight Bells Toll: FUNKY

The Girl from Petrovka (1974)

Goldie Hawn’s career took some odd turns between her late-’60s breakout period as a goofy starlet and her late-’70s ascension to A-list status in light comedies. For instance, around the same time Hawn made a credible dive into dramatic material with The Sugarland Express (1974), she toplined this unsuccessful attempt at blending comedy with drama. It’s not difficult to see what might have appealed to Hawn, since her role requires a foreign accent and the character she plays exerts a profound influence on everyone she meets. Unfortunately, Hawn is wrong for the role on nearly every level. Her accent is amateurish (and sometimes completely absent); her hippy-dippy persona makes the film’s central notion of a free spirit in a totalitarian state far too literal; and the fact that she’s 20 years younger than her main love interest, costar Hal Holbrook, gives the whole enterprise a seedy quality. In Hawn’s defense, however, The Girl from Petrovka is so poorly assembled that better casting wouldn’t have made much of a difference. Adapted from a book by George Feifer, the movie takes place in Moscow, where American journalist Joe (Holbrook) meets a community of artists including flighty ballerina Oktyabrina (Hawn). Blonde and giggly and unreliable, Oktyabrina worms her way into Joe’s life, taking advantage of his apartment and his expense account while she operates outside the Soviet legal structure. (She has no papers.) As the turgid storyline progresses, Joe inexplicably falls for Oktyabrina while she directs her affections toward a young lover and an elderly sugar daddy. Eventually, the Joe and Oktyabrina attempt couplehood until her scofflaw status creates problems. Even though The Girl from Petrovka has admirable qualities, such as atmospheric location cinematography (Austria subs for Russia) and mature performances by Holbrook and costar Anthony Hopkins, the failure of the title character to command audience attention derails the film. Worse, the movie’s attempt to shift into quasi-tragic mode at the end clashes with the lighthearted vapidity of what’s come before. Many great stories were told during the Soviet era about the complexities of finding love in the U.S.S.R., but The Girl from Petrovka is not one of them.

The Girl from Petrovka: LAME

Juggernaut (1974)

          It’s tempting to lump Juggernaut in with the various disaster epics of the early ’70s, and, indeed, the movie is quite enjoyable if consumed as a thinking-person’s alternative to the campy escapism of, say, Irwin Allen’s mayhem-filled productions. Yet in addition to being a British film instead of a Hollywood picture, Juggernaut is really a terrorism thriller rather than a proper oh-the-humanity destruco-fest. For instance, the tragedy that the film’s heroes attempt to overcome is not a natural occurrence such as an earthquake or a tidal wave—it’s a bomb planted on an ocean liner. Accordingly, Juggernaut eschews the standard disaster-movie formula of introducing various characters whom the audience knows will later fall victim to capricious fate. The movie focuses almost exclusively on bomb-squad technicians and maritime officials.

          Set largely aboard the cruise liner Britannic, the picture begins when an unseen terrorist who identifies himself as Juggernaut makes phone contact with ship’s owner, Porter (Ian Holm). Juggernaut says he’s rigged the Britannic to blow unless he’s paid a hefty ransom. Soon afterward, the British government sends in a bomb squad led by the intrepid Fallon (Richard Harris). The rest of the film comprises parallel storylines—Fallon’s attempts to find and defuse bombs (turns out there’s more than just one), and endeavors by a police detective (Anthony Hopkins) to find Juggernaut’s hideout on the mainland. There’s a good deal of tension in Juggernaut, so even if you feel as if you’ve seen a million “Cut the blue wire!” scenes before, the care with which director Richard Lester executes the suspenseful passages is visible in every claustrophobic close-up and every nerve-rattling edit. Lester, though best known for his exuberant Beatles movies and his lusty Musketeers pictures, apparently joined Juggernaut late in the project’s development and then supervised a heavy rewrite. It’s therefore unsurprising that the final film is very much a director’s piece, with characterization and story taking a backseat to pacing and texture. Perhaps because of this focus on cinematic technique, Juggernaut is excellent on a moment-to-moment basis, but not especially memorable overall.

          That said, the movie promises nothing more than a good romp, and it delivers exactly that. Contained within its fleeting frames, however, is fine acting by a number of posh UK actors. In particular, Harris and David Hemmings have strong chemistry as bomb-squad teammates, with both actors articulating believable characterizations of men who face unimaginable stress in the course of their daily activities. The picture’s production values are exemplary, and the cinematography and music—by British stalwarts Gerry Fisher and Ken Thorne, respectively—contribute to the overall intensity and polish of the piece.

Juggernaut: GROOVY

Magic (1978)

          After the success of Marathon Man (1976), the whiz-bang thriller that screenwriter William Goldman adapted from his own novel, it was only a matter of time before Goldman was tapped to bring another of his escapist books to the screen. Hence Magic, which employs the disquieting premise of a ventriloquist gone mad. Benefiting from an amazing performance by star Anthony Hopkins, Magic commands attention from start to finish even though some of the plot twists are highly dubious. Lest we forget, few screenwriters are better at generating pure entertainment than Goldman, so the fun factor mostly trumps logic hiccups. Furthermore, director Richard Attenborough—with whom Goldman previously worked on the World War II epic A Bridge Too Far (1977)—wisely lets the material take the lead, rather than submerging it beneath stylistic flourishes. Magic might strike some modern viewers as quaint, since what passed for shock value in a 1978 popcorn movie now seems restrained, and the love story at the center of the picture never quite works. Nonetheless, there’s a great deal here to enjoy.

          Hopkins plays Corky Withers, a gifted magician who lacks stage presence until he adds a gimmick to his act—Fats, a foul-mouthed dummy that functions as Corky’s onstage comedy partner. Fats’ notoriety earns Corky representation from William Morris agent Ben Greene (Burgess Meredith), who arranges for Corky to shoot a TV pilot. When the network insists on a medical exam, however, Corky balks, and Ben rightly worries that Corky is concealing latent mental illness. Corky leaves New York for his boyhood hometown in the Catskills, where he reconnects with Peggy Ann Snow (Ann-Margret), the girl he was too shy to ask out during high school. Now trapped in a loveless marriage to the brutish Duke (Ed Lauter), Peggy reveals she always liked Corky, so they begin an illicit romance. Goldman then builds suspense around the question of whether Fats—who has become a focal point for the demons in Corky’s soul—will intrude on Corky’s happiness. Cue scenes of mayhem and murder.

          While the picture’s character-driven approach is commendable, Goldman and Attenborough fail to calibrate supporting characters correctly. The Corky character works, and so does Ben Greene, but Peggy’s identity wobbles from scene to scene based on what’s convenient for the story, and Duke feels like a one-note contrivance. Plus, nearly half the movie elapses before the really creepy stuff starts. That said, Magic contains several terrific suspense scenes, most of which are driven by Hopkins’ meticulous depiction of Corky’s doomed attempts to keep his rage in check—watching the actor teeter on the brink of homicidal fury is completely absorbing. The movie also has flashes of Goldman’s signature wiseass humor, and Attenborough prudently borrows tricks from the Hitchcock playbook. It should also be mentioned, of course, that the scare-factor potential of a dead-eyed doll with homicidal intentions is fully exploited—the crude and vicious Fats, whose abrasive voice is provided by Hopkins, emerges as a memorable screen villain.

Magic: GROOVY

International Velvet (1978)

          International Velvet is an oddity. The picture is an elaborate sequel to National Velvet (1944), the movie that transformed 12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor into a movie star—she played Velvet Brown, a precocious equestrian who wins a major contest, becoming a heroine in her native England, only to be disqualified due to her age. Produced 34 years later, without Taylor reprising her role, International Velvet dramatizes a new adventure in Velvet’s life. Now settled into quiet, rural domesticity with her husband, successful author John Seaton (Christopher Plummer), Velvet (Nanette Newman) becomes the guardian of her recently orphaned niece, Sarah Brown (Tatum O’Neal). After some initial trouble adjusting to life in England, Sarah follows in her aunt’s footsteps by becoming a world-class rider, entering the Olympics atop the son of the horse Velvet rode in the first picture.

          Sequels arriving decades after their predecessors rarely work, and the absence of Taylor in the Velvet role makes International Velvet feel particularly unnecessary. Therefore, since the movie is primarily a vehicle for O’Neal—who, by the late ’70s, was a top child star with an Oscar to her credit—wouldn’t it have made more sense to simply remake the original film instead of awkwardly contriving a follow-up? Alas, one can only guess at the machinations of producer/director/co-writer Bryan Forbes, whose eclectic career includes several intelligent but unremarkable movies. And, unfortunately for Forbes, the biggest draw of International Velvet—O’Neal’s performance—is a letdown. Caught at an awkward age, O’Neal is an attractive teenager but neither a fascinating child nor a fully formed adult, and her acting is so mannered that she’s outclassed by her costars.

          In the early scenes, depicting Sarah’s integration into her aunt’s country estate, Plummer’s suave demeanor and wry line deliveries dominate. Later, when Sarah joins the British Olympic team, Anthony Hopkins takes over the movie with his funny turn as a witheringly sarcastic coach. (As for Newman, the director’s real-life spouse, she’s elegant but forgettable.) Forbes mounts an impressive production, with extensive location photography, glamorous lighting, and vivid sports sequences. Additionally, some of his dialogue is quite tasty, particularly the bitchy monologues issued by Hopkins. However, the lack of real suspense in the movie, save for a harrowing plane trip during which a horse’s life is endangered, makes International Velvet feel as deep as a postcard.

International Velvet: FUNKY

A Bridge Too Far (1977)

          Go figure that a movie about a military operation that was thwarted by excessive ambition would itself be thwarted by excessive ambition. Based on the doomed World War II campaign code-named Operation Market Garden, which was staged in late 1944 by Allied forces eager to maximize the gains of D-Day by ending the European component of the war with a push across Holland into Germany, A Bridge Too Far features one of the most impressive all-star casts of the ’70s, in addition to spectacular production values and a few powerful depictions of heroism and tragedy. Furthermore, the movie deserves ample praise for bucking war-movie convention by dramatizing a campaign that didn’t work. And, indeed, the theme evoked by the poetic title—sometimes, just one X factor stands between glory and ignominy—comes across in several key performances. Yet occasional glimpses of effective storytelling do not equal a completely satisfying movie, and A Bridge Too Far fails on many important levels when analyzed in its entirety.

          The movie is hard to follow, because it tracks too many characters in too many locations, and because, quite frankly, director Richard Attenborough fails to give greater dramatic weight to crucial moments. Everything in A Bridge Too Far is presented with almost exactly the same measure of gravitas, so Attenborough squanders interesting potentialities found throughout the movie’s script, which was penned by two-time Oscar winner William Goldman. Clearly, Attenborough and Goldman were both stymied, to a degree, by the sheer scale of the undertaking; producer Joseph E. Levine made it plain he wanted this movie to equal the 1962 epic The Longest Day, another all-star war picture based on a book by Cornelius Ryan.

          Yet while The Longest Day had the advantages of a triumphant subject (D-Day) and a receptive audience (moviegoers still embraced pro-military themes in the early ’60s), A Bridge Too Far is a far different creature—a story of battlefield hubris made at a time when America was still reeling from the traumas of the Vietnam War. So, even if the movie possessed a clearer narrative, chances are it still would’ve been the wrong movie at the wrong time.

          Having said all that, A Bridge Too Far has many noteworthy elements. The subject matter is fascinating, since Ryan’s book itemized the innumerable strategic errors made by the Allies in planning Operation Market Garden—beyond problems of scale, since the campaign involved things like an air drop of 35,000 paratroopers, the plan was so contingent upon component elements that if any one piece of the plan failed, the whole campaign would collapse. Therefore, the movie is a study of men who represent the margin of error that Operation Market Garden cannot afford—whether they’re Americans, Brits, or Poles, the soldiers in this movie try to achieve the impossible even when it’s plainly evident success is beyond their grasp.

          The most vivid moments involve Sean Connery and Anthony Hopkins as British officers trying to hold the Dutch town of Arnhem for days on end despite a crippling lack of reinforcements and supplies. Robert Redford dominates a key sequence in the third and final hour of the movie, playing an American officer who leads a seemingly suicidal charge across a heavily fortified river in broad daylight. Maximilian Schell makes an elegant impression as a German commander capable of mercy and ruthlessness, while Dirk Bogarde is appropriately infuriating as Schell’s opposite number on the Allied side, a British general who refuses to acknowledge the possibility of failure.

          Unfortunately, many promising characterizations are merely sketches: Actors Michael Caine, Edward Fox, Elliot Gould, Gene Hackman, Hardy Kruger, Laurence Olivier, Ryan O’Neal, and Liv Ullmann each have colorful moments, but all are badly underutilized. And as for James Caan, his entire showy sequence could have been deleted without affecting the story, since his subplot feels like a leftover from a World War II movie actually made during World War II. Ironically, though, his are among the film’s most memorable scenes.

A Bridge Too Far: FUNKY

Audrey Rose (1977)

The ’70s supernatural-cinema boom produced a number of provocative films that were more thoughtful than horrifying, and Audrey Rose is a good example. Adapted by Frank De Felitta from his own novel, the story concerns haunted Englishman Elliot Hoover (Anthony Hopkins), who believes a 10-year-old girl living in New York is the reincarnation of his daughter, who died in a horrific car accident. Hoover’s obsession with the girl, Ivy Templeton (Susan Swift), traumatizes her parents, Janice (Marsha Mason) and Bill (John Beck). Complicating matters is the fact that Ivy keeps having seizures, creating the impression that she’s “reliving” Audrey’s death. While this might sound like a solid setup for a creepshow, the filmmakers have larger ambitions. Veteran director Robert Wise, whose résumé includes the restrained fright classic The Haunting (1963), methodically follows the story through a lengthy court trial and an epic hypnosis sequence, eschewing cheap jolts for intense discussions about the comparative values of eastern and western spirituality. So while the movie is mostly a bust as a thriller, it’s interesting as an existential conversation piece. Mason is touchingly fraught as a mother in an impossible situation; her reaction shots during the hypnosis scene are especially potent. Hopkins’ performance veers into strange directions, with flitting hand gestures and overly musical line deliveries, so it’s hard to determine whether he succeeded at creating something otherworldly or failed at creating something believable. Either way, he’s oddly entertaining. Beck is his usual stolid presence, supporting Mason without calling much attention to himself, and Swift is okay, doing a Linda Blair-lite routine. Slow and long but generally interesting, Audrey Rose gets points for trying to do something out of the ordinary.

Audrey Rose: FUNKY