1980 Week: Gloria

          Indie-cinema godhead John Cassavetes initially earned fame as an actor in mainstream films, and he spent most of his life parachuting back into Hollywood for paycheck acting gigs even as his pursued his real passion, writing and directing esoteric films exploring dark corners of the human psyche. The two parts of Cassavetes’ cinematic identity converged in Gloria, the most commercially oriented movie that Cassavetes directed, with the exception of two studio pictures he made in the ’60s before finding his arthouse groove with Faces (1968) and Husbands (1970). Starring Cassavetes’ wife and muse, Gena Rowlands, Gloria is a straightforward crime picture with a touch of Hollywood sentimentality—exactly the sort of formulaic schmaltz that Cassavetes generally avoided. Even for an iconoclast, the possibility of reaching a bigger audience (and scoring a financial windfall) must have been impossible to resist. Nonetheless, it’s significant to observe that after Gloria, Cassavetes transitioned back to making art films until his death in 1989. Given its mediocrity, Gloria could not have been the most edifying of experiences.

          The movie opens in the Bronx, where a frantic Latina runs home to her apartment, realizing she’s being chased. Jeri (Julie Carmen) is married to Jack (Buck Henry), a mob accountant-turned-informant, so Jeri and Jack both realize hitmen are on the way to wipe out the couple and their two kids. When Jeri’s friend and neighbor, middle-aged former gang moll Gloria (Rowlands), stops by for a visit, Jeri explains the situation and asks Gloria to hide the kids until after the shooting stops. Gloria reluctantly agrees, but only preteen Phil (John Adames) leaves with her, since his sister elects to die with her parents. Gloria takes Phil to her apartment and listens in horror to gunfire down the hall, then sneaks Phil out of the building and becomes a fugitive—because Jack entrusted his young son with a book containing incriminating facts and figures. Before long, Gloria finds herself yanking her life’s savings from a safe-deposit box and escorting Phil around the country while she works connections with old mob buddies in order to revoke the hit on Phil. The predictable contrivance of the movie is that the more time she spends with Phil, the more she warms to the idea of being the boy’s surrogate mother.

          Because it sprawls across a fleshy 121 minutes and because costar Adames’ performance is quite terrible, Gloria doesn’t work as a zippy little thriller; instead, it’s a weird amalgam of pulp trash and thoughtful storytelling. Some fine things occur along the way, and Rowlands believably incarnates a seen-it-all broad surprised by the emergence of long-suppressed compassion. (Rowlands earned Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for her performance.) As for the movie around her, it’s perplexing. Cassavetes populates scenes with his customary mix of grotesques and oddballs, employing improvisational techniques and nonactors to increase the movie’s realism. Seeing as how the storyline is inherently contrived, the imposition of these indie-cinema tropes feels awkward and unnecessary. Moreover, there’s a disconnect between the meditative nature of the movie and the oppressive noise of Bill Conti’s score. The Rocky composer, never known for his subtlety, drenches action scenes with exciting themes and uses noodly jazz riffs to energize sleepier stretches.
          FYI, Sharon Stone stars in a lifeless 1999 remake, also titled Gloria. Inexplicably, Sidney Lumet directed.

Gloria: FUNKY

1980 Week: First Family

          Calling First Family a political satire is being too generous, but as one watches—more like endures—the unfunny sprawl of Buck Henry’s solo directorial debut, it’s possible to imagine how this might have worked on paper, specifically as a short story or a comic novella. The arch characterizations, the lewd running joke about a nymphomaniac, the ridiculous payoff involving gigantic fruits and vegetables grown with the aid of a sexually satisfied pagan god—given Henry’s dry wit, all of this stuff must have seemed quite droll at the conceptual stage. On film, none of it works. It’s not simply a matter of Henry lacking directorial experience, though the inert quality of First Family lends credence to the lore that Warren Beatty rightfully usurped Henry during the making of Heaven Can Wait (1978), hence their shared directing credit on that wonderful film.

          The problem stems from the nature of the jokes in First Family. To a one, each verbal and visual gag is an intellectual flight of fancy that’s amusing only in broad strokes. The African ambassador who learned random English phrases without understanding what the words mean. The high-level political meeting held in the Oval Office during a costume party, with the nincompoop VP wearing a pink bunny suit. The African leader who wishes to purchase several hundred white, middle-class American families so his country an experience the presence of a “repressed minority.” These are cocktail-party one-liners, not the foundations for screen comedy.

          Still, Henry’s track record (cocreating Get Smart, cowriting The Graduate, etc.) attracted a terrific cast to this doomed enterprise. Bob Newhart plays an unpopular president desperately looking for a big win. Madeline Kahn plays his boozy First Lady. Gilda Radner, in the picture’s most absurd role, plays the 28-year-old First Daughter, a virgin whose chastity is protected by the Secret Service. (Because most 28-year-old American women have neither had sex nor left their parents’ homes.) And so on. Richard Benjamin. Bob Dishy. John Hancock. Julius Harris. Harvey Korman. Rip Torn. Fred Willard. Even Buck Henry himself, in two roles. All wasted on material that never elicits so much as a chuckle. Unsurprisingly, First Family was also Henry’s last hurrah as a director, notwithstanding one episode of a PBS sitcom (!) in 1989.

First Family: LAME

Taking Off (1971)

          Bittersweet, funny, hip, and insightful, Czechoslovakian filmmaker Milos Forman’s first English-language movie offers a sly look at the Generation Gap in which both groups under investigation—counterculture kids and Establishment parents—are portrayed with dignity. Unlike most pictures of the same type, which opt for oh-the-humanity melodrama or us-vs.-them stridency, Taking Off tells a droll story about people trying to understand the life experiences of others, even as introspective odysseys reveal unexpected complexities. On some levels, the film is quite heady, and this aspect of Taking Off is maximized by Forman’s unique cinematic approach; as he did with such monumental later films as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and Amadeus (1984), Forman blends realism and stylization as effortlessly as he fuses comedy with drama. Yet on other levels, Taking Off works as a simple fish-out-of-water comedy, especially during scenes when nebbishy leading man Buck Henry illustrates the conundrum of average suburban Americans struggling to grasp the rhythms of the sex-drugs-and-rock-‘n’-roll lifestyle.

          Henry plays Larry Tyne, a straight-laced businessman living in an affluent suburb of New York City with his wife, Lynn (Lynn Carlin). When their teenaged daughter, Jeannie (Linnea Heacock), runs away from home, Larry searches the grungier sections of Manhattan, eventually encountering fellow befuddled suburbanite Margot (Georgia Engel), the parent of another teenager who “took off.” Margot introduces Larry and Lynn to a support group for parents in their unique situation, which leads to the film’s most amusing sequence—in the unlikely context of a hotel meeting room, a helpful young stoner (Vincent Schiavelli) provides reefers and coaches dozens of middle-aged straights on how to toke without bogarting.

          While the main story of Taking Off is fairly strong, it’s clearly just a framework that Forman and his collaborators use to connect sketches and vignettes. For instance, running through the movie are clips of an audition for a musical, so periodically Forman cuts to some longhaired singer-songwriter playing a number that speaks to a counterculture-friendly theme. (Notables among the auditioners are future pop star Carly Simon and future Oscar-winning actress Kathy Bates, appearing here as “Bobo Bates” and displaying a lovely singing voice.)

          Forman cowrote the picture with a team including playwright John Guare, and the script consistently prioritizes nuance over mere plotting. Beyond simply cataloging the impossibilities of hippie-era Utopian dreams, as well as the constricting problems inherent to those stuck on the 9-to-5 rat race, Taking Off communicates the notion that everyone in the story is lost, to some degree or another. In fact, the title has a double meaning because Larry’s quest through the counterculture represents him “taking off” from his normal world, even though he finds liberation frightening.

          Taking Off might ultimately be too slight, in terms of narrative, to earn a space in the counterculture-cinema pantheon, especially since the story is told only partially from the viewpoint of the Woodstock Generation. Nonetheless, in addition to marking Forman’s impressive transition from European to American filmmaking, Taking Off captures its time with unusual maturity, sensitivity, and wit.

Taking Off: RIGHT ON

Is There Sex After Death? (1971)

A sad relic of the Oh, Calcutta! era—during which boundary-pushing sex comedies gained a patina of credibility by exploiting the counterculture’s principles of permissiveness and provocation—Is There Sex After Death? feels virtually inert when experienced with modern sensibilities. Originally released with an X rating because of copious nudity and sexual content (which stops just short of penetration), the faux documentary comprises a number of sketches involving sex researchers who use an institute and a “Sexmobile” to explore the carnal habits of everyday people. Every so often, this premise triggers a mildly witty sequence juxtaposing intelligent commentary with ribald imagery. Mostly, however, the picture presents endless scenes of naked people dancing, humping, posing, swimming, and so on. Revealing the movie’s exploitive soul, the longest sequence involves newsreel-type footage of participants in a nudist colony. Does anyone really believe that lengthy shots of sexy female nudists gyrating and sunbathing have educational value vis-à-vis the nudist ideal of shedding societal inhibitions? Although codirectors Alan and Jeanne Abel deserve some credit for being equal-opportunity sensationalists, since both male and female bodies are on display throughout Is There Sex After Death?, the filmmakers fail in their primary endeavor of generating laughs. Still, the handful of scenes featuring famed actor/writer Buck Henry are almost amusing simply because of Henry’s impeccable deadpan timing. (The best bit is a sequence of Henry trying to keep it together while describing the breasts of a voluptuous woman who is undressing next to him.) But is there anything genuinely edifying or even erotic in Is There Sex After Death? Not unless the following dialogue, spoken by Henry, is your idea of adults-only hilarity: “Once in Ireland I examined a woman whose vagina was so large I had to take an aerial photograph.”

Is There Sex After Death?: SQUARE

What’s Up, Doc? (1972)

          Although many ’70s filmmakers brilliantly modernized the film-noir genre of the 1940s and 1950s, most ’70s attempts to revive the “screwball comedy” style of the 1930s fell flat. Part of the problem, of course, is that screwball comedies are inherently fluffy, a tonality that creates an inherent dissonance when juxtaposed with the realism to which viewers gravitated in the ’70s. Plus, for better or worse, film comedy had grown up since the ’30s, so the idea of a gentle farce predicated on silly misunderstandings seemed archaic. Yet somehow, wunderkind director Peter Bogdanovich managed to turn an unapologetic throwback into a major success—in every possible way, What’s Up Doc? is an homage to yesteryear. After all, the deliberately confusing storyline swirls several frothy subplots around the even frothier main plot of a fast-talking misfit trying to win the heart of a bumbling scientist.

          There’s no denying Bogdanovich’s craftsmanship, because he clearly studied the work of everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Howard Hawks in order to analyze the construction of repartee and sight gags. As a clinical experiment, What’s Up Doc? is impressive. Furthermore, Bogdanovich benefited from the contributions of smart co-writers, namely Buck Henry and the Bonnie and Clyde duo of Robert Benton and David Newman, and the talent represented onscreen is just as first-rate, with one notable exception. Leading lady Barbra Streisand is terrific as she blasts through thick dialogue, somehow making her overbearing character likeable. She also looks amazing, oozing her unique strain of self-confident sexiness. Comedy pros lending their gifts to smaller roles include Madeleine Kahn (appearing in her first movie), Kenneth Mars, Michael Murphy, and Austin Pendleton.

          The aforementioned exception, however, is leading man Ryan O’Neal, who comes across like a beautiful puppet—in addition to being far too fit, handsome, and tan to believably play a cloistered researcher, O’Neal evinces no personality whatsoever. One gets the impression that his every gesture and intonation was massaged by Bogdanovich, so O’Neal’s performance has a robotic feel. Similarly, the movie’s elaborate physical-comedy set pieces are so mechanically constructed that they seem more focused on showcasing production values than on generating laughs. For instance, the finale, during which the heroes soar down San Francisco streets inside a Chinese dragon parade float—and during which characters keep just missing a sheet of plate glass that’s being delivered across a roadway—is exhausting to watch instead of exhilarating. (Even the movie’s rat-a-tat dialogue has an overly rote quality. At one point, O’Neal says, “What are you doing? It’s a one-way street!” Streisand shoots back, “We’re only going one way!”)

          Ultimately, however, the real problem with What’s Up, Doc? (at least for this viewer) is twofold. Firstly, it’s impossible to care about characters who exist only to trigger jokes, and secondly, it’s difficult to overlook the anachronism of ’70s actors playing situations borrowed from the 1930s. But then again, millions of people flocked to What’s Up, Doc? during its original release, putting the movie among the highest grossers of 1972. So, as the saying goes, your experience may differ.

What’s Up, Doc?: FUNKY

Old Boyfriends (1979)

Old Boyfriends is a painfully dull movie made by a number of people who should have known better. Screenwriting brothers Leonard Schrader and Paul Schrader, who are best known separately and apart for making dark dramas with complicated male protagonists, ventured way outside their comfort zones to create this unconvincing story about a troubled young woman working through an identity crisis by tracking down her exes. Talia Shire, who was at this point in her career embarking on a series of shockingly unsuccessful star vehicles in between appearing in Rocky sequels, delivers what can only be described as a non-performance. Bland to the extreme of barely registering on camera, she alternates between moping, whining, and fading into the woodwork while other actors do all the heavy lifting. Also, there’s a reason first-time director Joan Tewksbury, best known as the screenwriter of Robert Altman’s Nashville (1975), gravitated to television after this movie tanked; her inability to generate and sustain interest is stunning. Even the movie’s score is misguided, because composer David Shire contributes music so gloomy and overwrought you’d think he was generating accompaniment for a Holocaust saga. What little notoriety Old Boyfriends has probably stems from John Belushi’s appearance in a supporting role. (Shire’s character visits two exes, played by Richard Jordan and Belushi, before visiting the younger brother, played by Keith Carradine, of a third ex.) Belushi incarnates a dramatic riff on his Animal House character of an obnoxious man-child, and the meanness he channels into his performance almost brings the movie to life for a while. He also sings “Jailhouse Rock,” just a year before he performed the same song in The Blues Brothers. Alas, Shire’s vapidity and the script’s contrived rhythms prevent even the Belushi scenes from soaring. In fact, nearly the only segment of movie that really works is a fun but peripheral bit with Buck Henry as a laconic private eye.

Old Boyfriends: LAME

The Day of the Dolphin (1973)

          It’s easy to pick apart The Day of the Dolphin, not just because it’s an awkward hybrid of loopy ideas and straight drama, but also because it was such a bizarre career choice for screenwriter Buck Henry and director Mike Nichols, who previously collaborated on the social satire The Graduate (1967) and the surrealistic war movie Catch-22 (1970). Yet even though The Day of the Dolphin doesn’t bear obvious fingerprints from either Henry or Nichols, it subtly reflects both artists’ focus on meticulous character development and thought-provoking concepts. As to the larger question of whether the movie actually works, that’s entirely a matter of taste. Undoubtedly, many viewers will find the central premise too incredible (or even silly). As for me, I find the picture consistently interesting even when believability wavers.

          The plot revolves around Dr. Jake Terrell (George C. Scott), who operates a privately funded marine laboratory where he studies the communication behaviors of dolphins. Or at least that’s what he tells the public. In secret (known only to his staff), Terrell has trained two dolphins, Alpha and Beta, to speak and understand a handful of English words. Predictably, problems arise when Terrell shares this information with his chief benefactor, Harold DeMilo (Fritz Weaver). Shadowy forces learn about the dolphins and kidnap the animals for an evil purpose—the bad guys want to train the dolphins to assassinate the U.S. president by delivering underwater bombs to his yacht while the president is on vacation. (As noted earlier, the premise borders on silliness.)

          What makes The Day of the Dolphin watchable is how straight the material is played. During the movie’s most evocative scenes, Terrell bonds with Alpha and Beta through underwater play that’s scored to elegant music by composer Georges Delerue; for viewers willing to take the movie’s ride, it’s easy to develop a real emotional bond with the animals, and to sympathize with Terrell’s desire to protect them. In that context, the assassination conspiracy isn’t the driving force of the story so much as a complication that tests an unusual relationship.

          Obviously, having an actor of Scott’s power in the leading role makes all the difference. His gruff quality steers the animal scenes clear of Disney-esque sweetness, so when the movie finally goes for viewers’ heartstrings, the bittersweet crescendos of the story feel as earned as they possibly could. There’s not a lot of room for other characters to emerge as individuals, but Nichols stocks the movie with skilled actors who lend nuance where they can. Edward Herrmann and Paul Sorvino stand out as, respectively, one of Terrell’s aides and a mystery man who infiltrates Terrell’s laboratory. A key behind-the-scenes player worth mentioning is cinematographer William A. Fraker, who captures the beating sun and lapping waves of the film’s oceanside locations with crisp realism while also creating a magical world underwater.

The Day of the Dolphin: GROOVY

Heaven Can Wait (1978)

          One of the most endearing love stories of the ’70s, Heaven Can Wait boasts an incredible amount of talent in front of and behind the camera. The flawless cast includes Warren Beatty, Dyan Cannon, Julie Christie, Vincent Gardenia, Charles Grodin, Buck Henry, James Mason, and Jack Warden; the script was written by Beatty, Henry, Elaine May, and Oscar-winner Robert Towne; and the picture was co-directed by Beatty and Henry. With notorious perfectionist Beatty orchestrating the contributions of these remarkable people, Heaven Can Wait unfolds seamlessly, mixing jokes and sentiment in an old-fashioned crowd-pleaser that’s executed so masterfully one can enjoy the film’s easy pleasures without feeling guilty afterward.

          Furthermore, the fact that the underlying material is recycled rather than original works in the picture’s favor—Beatty found a story that had already been proven in various different incarnations, cleverly modernized the narrative, and built on success. No wonder the film became a massive hit, landing at No. 5 on the list of the year’s top grossers at the U.S. box office and earning a slew of Oscar nominations.

          The story is fanciful in the extreme. After Joe Pendleton (Beatty), a second-string quarterback for the L.A. Rams, gets into a traffic accident, his soul is summoned to heaven by The Escort (Henry), an overeager guardian angel. Only it turns out Pendleton wasn’t fated to die in the accident, so in trying to save Pendleton pain, The Escort acted too hastily. Enter celestial middle manager Mr. Jordan (Mason), who offers to return Pendleton’s soul to earth. Little problem: His body has already been cremated. Pendleton adds another wrinkle by stating that he still intends to play in the upcoming Super Bowl. Eventually, Mr. Jordan finds a replacement body in the form of Leo Farnsworth, a ruthless, super-rich industrialist.

          Joe becomes Farnsworth—although we see Beatty, other characters see the industrialist—and Joe uses his new body’s resources to buy the Rams so he can play for the team. The delightful storyline also involves Joe’s beloved coach (Warden), Farnsworth’s conniving wife and assistant (Cannon and Grodin), and the beautiful activist (Christie) campaigning against Farnsworth’s ecologically damaging business practices.

          Heaven Can Wait is a soufflé in the mode of great ’30s screen comedy, featuring a procession of sly jokes, inspirational moments, and adroit musical punctuation. Every actor contributes something special—including Gardenia, who plays a detective investigating misdeeds on the Farnsworth estate—and the memorable moments are plentiful. Beatty’s legendary charm dominates, but in such a soft-spoken way that he never upstages his supporting players; Heaven Can Wait features some of the most finely realized ensemble acting in ’70s screen comedy. And, as with the previous screen version of this story—1941’s wonderful Here Comes Mr. Jordan, which was adapted, like the Beatty film, from Harry Seagall’s play Heaven Can Wait—the ending is unexpectedly moving. Whatever Heaven Can Wait lacks in substance, it makes up for in pure cotton-candy pleasure.

Heaven Can Wait: RIGHT ON

The Owl and the Pussycat (1970)

          Overwritten and shrill, to say nothing of ferociously demeaning to women, The Owl and the Pussycat is a weird relic of the sexual revolution—the movie’s preoccupation with libidinous urges recalls a historical moment during which horniness was conflated in the public conversation with progressive thinking. To say this so-called comedy hasn’t aged well is an understatement, and in fact were it not for the presence of a certain superstar in the leading female role, chances are The Owl and the Pussycat would have long ago disappeared from mainstream exhibition. Yet there Barbra Streisand is, at the apex of her post-Funny Girl popularity, spewing one-liners and wearing sexy outfits while playing a prostitute who falls into an unlikely romance with a struggling author.

          Based on a play by Bill Manhoff—and overhauled significantly by screenwriter Buck Henry—the story begins when uptight writer Felix (George Segal) notices an attractive young woman in the window of an apartment within his complex. When he realizes she’s turning tricks in her pad, Felix reports the woman to their mutual landlord. A short time later, the woman, whose name is Doris (Streisand), shows up at Felix’s doorstep demanding a place to crash since his tattling got her evicted. Most of the movie takes place during this duo’s first night together: Doris berates Felix for his stuffiness while Felix begs her to stop talking so he can sleep. Felix also tries to pretend he’s not aroused, even though Doris struts around in a peekaboo costume complete with embroidered hands decorating the cups of her brassiere.

          Some of the movie’s banter is clever, like a running gag of Felix baffling Doris with polysyllables, but Doris is so obnoxious it’s hard to see any attraction past the physical. Similarly, Felix is a judgmental prick who lies about his literary achievements and avoids mentioning his engagement to another woman. These are awful people, so only the charm of the performers makes them remotely palatable. Director Herbert Ross does a fine job of keeping things lively through movement and pacing, and he ensures that Streisand looks as alluring as possible. In fact, even though the movie supposedly presents Streisand as a strong-willed individual, Ross’ camera never misses an opportunity to ogle her curves. Furthermore, the picture’s ending finds Doris begging for a louse’s approval. There’s a smidgen of wit here and there, and both the acting and filmmaking are strong given the limitations of the material, but the misogyny on display throughout The Owl and the Pussycat is consistently unpleasant—so proceed with caution.

The Owl and the Pussycat: FUNKY

Catch-22 (1970)

         Director Mike Nichols once described the “green awning effect” of becoming an A-list filmmaker. By notching two big hits in the late ’60s, Nichols convinced Hollywood he knew how to connect with audiences. Testing his newfound power, perpetually mischievous Nichols pitched a movie about a green awning outside a building—the movie would simply train a camera on the awning so viewers could watch different people pass underneath. According to Nichols, some executives expressed interest in this awful idea simply because they wanted to be in the Mike Nichols business.

          This helps explain why Paramount Pictures let Nichols spend a then-extravagant $17 million on an adaptation of Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel Catch-22. A satirical and surrealistic World War II story exploring topics including bureaucracy, capitalism, and trauma, the book features a disjointed timeline and a sprawling cast—unlikely fare for a big-budget studio picture. Nonetheless, Nichols and screenwriter Buck Henry (whose previous collaboration was 1967’s The Graduate) endeavored to focus the narrative by centering attempts by Captain Yossarian (Alan Arkin) to get relieved from his duty as a bomber pilot, his justification being that combat has driven him mad. (The title refers to a Kafkaesque military guideline stipulating that anyone capable of recognizing his own insanity must be sane and therefore suitable for combat.) Surrounding this main plot are myriad deviations, some into subplots, some back and forth through time, and some into the eerie world of dreams. 

          Viewed through the most forgiving lens, Catch-22 captures the chaos and horror of Yossarian’s experience by confronting him with an endless variety of bizarre characters and confounding situations—to watch Arkin drift from hysteria to stupefaction and various emotional states in between is to feel not just his anguish but also his desperate need for human connection. Viewed through a harsher lens—the perspective adopted by most critics during the film’s original release—Catch-22 epitomizes directorial overreach, with clarity falling victim to scale. Strong arguments can be made for both takes because for every brilliant moment that Nichols renders, seemingly a dozen others elicit bewilderment. There’s a lot of seesawing between “How did he think of that?” and “What the hell was he thinking?”

          Aesthetically, Catch-22 is perfection thanks to cinematographer David Watkin’s exquisite high-contrast lighting and Nichols’s startlingly complex shots, such as lengthy unbroken takes featuring actors’ movements choreographed with explosions and flying planes. (The appearance of Orson Welles in a small role feels like a wink to Welles’s penchant for similarly baroque sequences.) The other impeccable element of Catch-22 is a cast overflowing with talent: Bob Balaban, Martin Balsam, Richard Benjamin, Norman Fell, Art Garfunkel, Jack Gilford, Charles Grodin, Bob Newhart, Paula Prentiss, Martin Sheen, Jon Voight, and—pulling double duty—screenwriter Henry. Particularly great are Balsam as a heartless commander and Voight as an officer whose entrepreneurial schemes achieve ghastly proportions.

          Yet the key element of Catch-22 is also the most divisive, and that’s the script. Occasionally the film’s extreme comedy and extreme tragedy mesh in memorably weird scenes, notably the sequence featuring an unforgettably gory onscreen death, but more often the satire is excruciatingly bleak, as when Nichols punctuates a rape/murder scene with an absurdist punchline. Nichols deserves praise for trying to nail such a difficult tonal balance, but whether he succeeded is another matter. The script also suffers for extravagance given that whole characters and subplots could have been removed.

          Because Nichols was one of the first directors to peak during the New Hollywood era, the grandiosity of Catch-22 and the failure of the film to recoup its cost during initial release now seems like a harbinger for subsequent examples of auteur excess—Bogdanovich’s At Long Last Love (1975); Scorsese’s New York, New York (1977); Spielberg’s 1941 (1979); and, of course, Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (1980). Like all of those films, Catch-22 cannot be reduced to a snarky footnote. It’s a window into the creativity of an essential filmmaker, and its best moments are mesmerizing even if, for most viewers, the sum is less than the parts. It’s also weird as hell, which represents a certain kind of perverse integrity. So, whether Catch-22 strikes you as a work of unconventional genius or a case study in what happens when a director buys his own hype, it is unlikely to leave you unaffected. 

Catch-22: FREAKY