Scavenger Hunt (1979)

          Producers have spent years trying to mimic It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), the all-star comedy epic about an international treasure hunt. Lesser attempts, such as Scavenger Hunt, succumb to predictable problems including bloated running times and underwritten characters. Trying to adequately service roles for a dozen or more principal actors seems to vex even the most well-meaning filmmakers. Additionally, trying to maintain the desired level of hellzapoppin excitement for an entire feature film usually drives the people behind pictures like Scavenger Hunt to rely on chases, screaming, and slapstick—all of which get tiresome. Inevitably, the initial sugar rush leads to a crash. Although Scavenger Hunt is largely a disappointment, especially considering the incredible array of gifted comic actors appearing in the film, it has some meritorious elements. Cowriter/producer Steven Vail and his team (mostly) avoid taking cheap shots at ethnic stereotypes, and they play a clean game by opting for family-friendly jokes instead of lurid ones. It’s not difficult to see the frothy confection the filmmakers had in mind.

          The premise, naturally, is simple. When multimillionaire board-game titan Milton Parker (Vincent Price) dies, his would-be heirs are forced to compete in a scavenger hunt that will determine who inherits the Parker fortune. On one team is Parker’s greedy sister (Cloris Leachman), along with her idiot son (Richard Masur) and her slimy lawyer (Richard Benjamin). Another team includes Parker’s son-in-law (Tony Randall) and the son-in-law’s kids. Next up is a duo comprising two of Parker’s nephews (played by Willie Aames and Dirk Benedict). Still another team features Parker’s household help—the butler (Roddy McDowall), the chauffeur (Cleavon Little), the chef (James Coco), and the maid (Stephanie Faracy). The wild-card contender is a dimwitted taxi driver (Richard Mulligan), whom Parker included because the cab driver accidentally killed Parker’s business partner, making Parker rich.

          You can figure out where this goes—as the teams pursue items on their lists, the evil people bicker and steal while the virtuous people help each other. Some scenes that presumably were meant to be comic highlights fall flat, including a lengthy bit of McDowall supervising his team’s theft of a toilet from a hotel bathroom. Cameos from random actors (Ruth Gordon, Meat Loaf, Arnold Schwarzenegger) add little, and the gags are uninspired. Nonetheless, director Michael Schultz keeps everyone upbeat and moving fast, so several sequences generate mild amusement, especially the anything-goes finale. Additionally, while none of the performances truly stand out (excepting perhaps Benjamin’s vigorous turn as a long-suffering schmuck), the vibe is consistently and pleasantly silly.

Scavenger Hunt: FUNKY

The Villain (1979)

          Revered stuntman Hal Needham made a successful transition to directing by helming a pair of hit comedies starring his buddy Burt Reynolds, Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and Hooper (1978), and the team scored once more with The Cannonball Run (1981). Unfortunately, the rest of Needham’s directorial filmography is quite grim, and the downward spiral began with this ghastly Western. Starring Kirk Douglas as an inept outlaw who tries to bushwhack a young woman carrying a strongbox filled with money, The Villain represents a sad attempt to piggyback on the success of Mel Brooks’ outrageous Blazing Saddles (1974). Even in his prime, Douglas wasn’t particularly well suited to comic material, and by the time he made The Villain, Douglas had succumbed to an excessive style of acting that approached self-caricature. Worse, The Villain was clearly conceived as a live-action cartoon in the style of classic Looney Tunes, so the middle of the picture comprises numbingly repetitive vignettes of Douglas falling off cliffs, getting run over by boulders, and receiving the full blasts of dynamite explosions. Think Wile E. Coyote, but without the wiliness.

          The allusions to vintage Warner Bros. cartoons are so overt that Douglas actually spends the last moments of the film bouncing up and down, in wearisome fast-motion photography, while the Looney Tunes theme plays on the soundtrack. It’s all as painful to watch as you might imagine, and yet the juvenile textures of Douglas’ performances aren’t the only eyesores in The Villain. Ann-Margret gives a vapid turn as the imperiled young woman, “Charming Jones,” and Arnold Schwarzenegger costars as Charming’s escort, “Handsome Stranger.” The unfunny running gag with these characters is that Charming is so hot for Handsome that she’s virtually salivating in every scene, but Handsome is too dim to notice. Even Ann-Margret’s beguiling cleavage fails to make her scenes interesting. Campy actors including Foster Brooks, Ruth Buzzi, Jack Elam, Paul Lynde (as an Indian named “Nervous Elk”), Robert Tessier, and Mel Tillis populate the periphery of the movie, though none is able to elevate the infantile rhythms of Robert G. Kane’s script. Bill Justis’ godawful score—which punctuates every would-be gag with an over-the-top horn blast—merely adds insult to injury.

The Villain: LAME

The Long Goodbye (1973)

          Even by the downbeat standards of the mid-’70s noir boom, The Long Goodbye is dark as hell, notwithstanding the film’s major subcurrent of bone-dry humor. Adapted from the 1953 Raymond Chandler novel featuring iconic fictional detective Philip Marlowe, the movie blends Chandler’s cynical worldview with that of director Robert Altman by updating the storyline to the modern era and inserting additional nihilistic violence. Yet The Long Goodbye is essentially a character study disguised as a murder mystery, because, as always, Altman is far more interested in the eccentricities of human behavior than in the mundane rhythms of straightforward plotting. And, indeed, the storyline is murky, albeit intentionally so; presumably, the idea was to make viewers feel as mystified about whodunit (and why) as Marlowe himself.

          In broad strokes, the storyline begins when Marlowe’s pal Terry Lennox (portrayed by former pro baseball player Jim Bouton) has the detective drive him from L.A. to Tijuana for unknown reasons. Returning home to L.A., Marlowe learns that Lennox’s wife is dead. Lennox is the principal suspect, so Marlowe gets busted as an accessory—until a report surfaces from Mexico that Lennox committed suicide. Meanwhile, Marlowe gets pulled into two other mysteries with unexpected connections to the Lennox situation. Marlowe’s asked to track down a missing author, and he’s harassed by a psychotic gangster who believes Marlowe knows the whereabouts of a suitcase full of loot.

          While The Long Goodbye unfolds in an extremely linear style compared to other Altman films of the period—this isn’t one of his big-canvas ensemble pictures—the director’s roaming eye serves the material well. After developing Marlowe as a loser who can’t even keep his housecat satisfied because he fails to buy the right cat food (an unsatisfied cat—how’s that for an impotence metaphor?), Altman drops Marlowe into a world of wealth and privilege by setting most of the detecting scenes inside the exclusive Malibu Colony. With his cheap suit and vintage car, Marlowe’s a walking anachronism as he rubs shoulders with rich narcissists like the runaway author, thundering alcoholic Roger Wade (Sterling Hayden), and Wade’s desperately lonely wife, Eileen (Nina Van Pallandt).

          Furthermore, Marlowe can only watch, helpless, as the gangster, Marty Augustine (played wonderfully by actor/director Mark Rydell), abuses his people—such as in a shocking scene involving Marty and his mistress. Altman illustrates that Marlowe’s pretty good at discovering facts simply through shoe-leather tenacity, but that he’s powerless to effect positive change in a world overrun by fucked-up people determined to hurt each other. The best moments of the movie are scalding, notably Hayden’s riveting scenes as a formidable man hobbled by liquor. And the scenes representing pure invention on the part of screenwriter Leigh Brackett, including the Augustine bits, are vicious. (Brackett, it should be noted, was one of the writers on the classic 1946 Marlowe mystery The Big Sleep, with Humphrey Bogart.)

          Gould is ingenious casting, because his sad-sack expressions and wise-ass remarks clearly define Marlowe as an outsider who’s been screwed over by life—thus subverting audience expectations of a super-capable sleuth—and Altman surrounds Gould with an eclectic supporting cast. (Watch for a cameo by David Carradine and an uncredited bit part by a pre-stardom Arnold Schwarzenegger.) Aided by the great cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, who literally probes the darkness of Los Angeles with grainy wide shots peering far into shadowy tableaux, Altman transforms Chandler’s book into a ballad of alienation.

The Long Goodbye: RIGHT ON

Pumping Iron (1977)

          It’s a good thing that Austrian muscleman Arnold Schwarzenegger was already drifting toward a film career by the time this compelling documentary was released in 1977, because Pumping Iron was a key step in defining his cinematic persona: Even though the movie amply displays the staggering physique that made Schwarzenegger a world champion, it also reveals the ruthlessness at the heart of Schwarzenegger’s machine. Watching him torment sweet-natured fellow bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno, diminishing Ferrigno’s confidence prior to major competitions, provides a case study in winner-takes-all competitiveness—just like in the action movies Schwarzenegger made throughout the ’80s and ’90s, only the strong survive in Pumping Iron.

          Filmmakers George Butler and Robert Fiore exhibited herculean resolve of their own in getting the film made. Basing their project on a nonfiction book about bodybuilding that Butler co-wrote with Charles Gaines, the filmmakers started shooting in 1975, following competitors Ferrigno and Schwarzenegger (among others) toward a pair of contests, Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe. After a stop-and-start production process, the movie was finally completed in 1977, by which point Schwarzenegger had already completed his first major role in a Hollywood movie, the offbeat 1976 release Stay Hungry. So, whether by circumstance or inevitability, Schwarzenegger became the focus of the documentary.

          Throughout the picture, which contains sequences of competition, private life, and training, Schwarzenegger commands attention by expounding on various philosophical notions. In some scenes, he comes across like an easygoing athlete whose supreme confidence renders him invulnerable to stress. In others, he’s the consummate arrogant jackass. (The most notorious scenes involve the future Governator toking on a joint and comparing muscle burn to “cumming day and night.”)

          Other textures in Pumping Iron are nearly as memorable as the star’s megalomania. Ferrigno’s dysfunctional dynamic with his smothering father is heartbreaking, the sad saga of a son unable to get the type of approval he desperately needs, and the filmmakers provide amusingly blunt sketches for the personalities of various other competitors. The best testament to Pumping Iron, of course, is that it’s fascinating even for viewers who consider themselves uninterested in bodybuilding. A sequel, titled Pumping Iron II: The Women, followed in 1985.

Pumping Iron: RIGHT ON

Stay Hungry (1976)

          First, the bad news: Bob Rafelson’s Stay Hungry is a hodgepodge of incompatible elements; the tone is completely out of control, ping-ponging between heavy drama and silly comedy; and Arnold Schwarzenegger gives one of the movie’s most nuanced performances. That said, Stay Hungry is so willfully weird that it merits examination, even if curious viewers aren’t necessarily rewarded with consistent entertainment.

          The strange story revolves around Craig Blake (Jeff Bridges), a wealthy young Southerner whose parents died in an accident, leaving him ownership of a small estate in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. The directionless Craig has gotten involved with a cartel of unscrupulous real-estate developers, and he’s been charged with persuading the owner of a local gym to sell his property. Instead of accomplishing his dubious goal, however, Craig becomes enmeshed in the dysfunctional culture of the gym, befriending drunken owner Thor Erickson (R.G. Armstrong), bonding with star bodybuilder Joe Santo (Schwarzenegger), and falling for Santo’s on-again/off-again girlfriend, Mary Tate (Sally Field).

          Once all of these characters are introduced, director/co-writer Rafelson wanders somewhat aimlessly through disassociated vignettes. Craig slums with working-class Mary Tate, enjoying carnal bliss at home but ignoring her in public. Craig goes on adventures with Joe, leading to the bizarre scene of humungous Austrian Schwarzenegger visiting a gaggle of backwoods buddies for fiddle practice. (Later in the movie, Schwarzenegger performs a full-on fiddle concert.) Also thrown into the mix is a convoluted subplot about a bodybuilding contest. Some of the bits in Stay Hungry are enjoyably odd, like the sequence of toupee-wearing Thor and his pure-as-driven-snow sidekick (Roger E. Mosley) entertaining a pair of hookers in the gym, but much of the movie is abrasive. For instance, Craig is a shallow son of a bitch, so it’s boring to watch him mistreat the amiable Mary Tate and display his “friend” Joe like a freak.

          The slapdash quality of the storyline is exacerbated by Rafelson’s tonal indecision, since he waffles between celebrating and satirizing his characters. The ending is especially sloppy, with various plot threads resolving against a backdrop of half-dressed bodybuilders parading through downtown Birmingham. (At one point, several of them ride atop a city bus, posing and preening in Speedos.) Though ultimately a blip in the careers for most of its participants, Stay Hungry was significant for Schwarzenegger, since it was his first dramatic role in a big-budget movie; combined with his appearance in the documentary Pumping Iron, released the following year, Stay Hungry demonstrated Schwarzenegger’s powerful charisma, setting the stage for his success as an action-movie star.

Stay Hungry: FUNKY