Hit! (1973)

          Absurdly overlong given its slight storyline, the crime thriller Hit! somehow manages to sustain interest even though leading man Billy Dee Williams delivers one of his patented laconic non-performances, and even though the contrived plot gene-splices elements from the vigilante genre with tropes from The French Connection (1971). Directed by Sidney J. Furie, who has proven time and again that he’s allergic to logic and subtlety, Hit! thrives on texture. Extensive location photography in Canada, France, and the U.S. fills the movie with vibrant images of diverse places; the sizeable ensemble cast allows Furie to cut back and forth between subplots to ensure narrative variety; and some of the supporting actors, including Richard Pryor, deliver excellent work.

          The story begins in Chicago, where federal agent Nick Allen (Billy Dee Williams) attends the funeral of his teenaged daughter, who died of a drug overdose. Nick finds the pusher who supplied his girl with dope, then nearly kills the guy until the pusher says he’s just a street-level nobody. This plants the idea in Nick’s head of traveling to Marseilles, the headquarters of the heroin syndicate that feeds Chicago’s street trade. However, because Nick doesn’t have official sanction for his crusade, he tracks down criminals who have grudges against drug dealers and manipulates these folks into joining his team. This is where Hit! locks into a groove, because Nick’s operatives include a cold-blooded killer (Paul Hampton), an emotionally unstable mechanic (Pryor), an old Jewish couple (Janet Brandt and Sid Melton) whose son died of an overdose, and a sexy junkie (Gwen Welles). In other words, Nick’s team is forever on the verge of self-destructing.

          The middle of Hit! is an enjoyably unruly sprawl during which Furie lets his cameras roll while actors simply behave, instead of doing the rigid work of communicating story information. As such, the picture benefits from scenes of Pryor ad-libbing comedy bits, of Williams seething so quietly that he reveals the intensity beneath his supercool façade, and of key supporting players, especially Brandt, articulating anguished emotions. As for the film’s actual thriller elements, they’re derivative but effective. Furie shoots action scenes—as well as long sequences of Nick’s team training for their mission—with the loose verité style that William Friedkin employed for The French Connection. The resulting jittery camerawork invests the movie with tension and urgency, even during passages when the  story is treading water.

          Holding the whole thing together is the simplicity of Nick’s scheme—he doesn’t want arrests, he wants bodies. His team’s brazen goal is to slip into France, kill as many drug kingpins as possible, and get out. Watching Hit!, one can easily imagine a more rational treatment of the same material—a terse 90-minute thrill ride with an assertive badass like Fred Williamson in the lead. And while that version would have worked, the wide-open spaces of Hit! make a tale that should have seemed trite come across as fresh and visceral. The trick to enjoying the picture, of course, is surrendering to its leisurely rhythms.

Hit!: GROOVY

Carter’s Army (1970)

          Formulaic, predictable, and shot on a meager budget, the made-for-TV war picture Carter’s Army, often marketed by the alternate title Black Brigade, is nothing special from a cinematic perspective. However, because the movie features several noteworthy black actors, including future box-office heavyweights Richard Pryor and Billy Dee Williams, Carter’s Army is enjoyable as a sort of all-star African-American riff on The Dirty Dozen. Set in 1944 Germany, the exceedingly simplistic movie revolves around U.S. Army Captain Beau Carter (Stephen Boyd), a racist southerner given the thankless task of capturing a heavily guarded dam from the Nazis. Unfortunately for Carter, the only squad available to assist him is an all-black unit that’s never seen combat. Working reluctantly with the squad’s formidable commander, African-American Lieutenant Edward Wallace (Robert Hooks), Carter leads six enlisted men on the mission even though it’s likely to end in tragic failure. Along the way, the born-and-bred cracker learns to respect black people because of the bravery the soldiers demonstrate and because he witnesses the everyday humiliation the men suffer at the hands of fellow Americans.

          Not a single frame of Carter’s Army will catch viewers by surprise, and in fact, some scenes are a bit hard to take seriously because the forests of Germany look suspiciously like the high-desert woods above Palm Springs. (One could never accuse TV kingpin Aaron Spelling, who cowrote and coproduced this project, of overspending on location photography.) In lieu of a novel story, what keeps Carter’s Army lively is the cast.

          Moses Gunn appears as a professor suffering wartime indignities with grace, Pryor plays a soldier so afraid of fighting that he attempts desertion, Glynn Turman portrays a young man keeping a journal of the action-packed war that he wishes he could tell the folks back home he’s fighting, and Williams plays a tough guy from Harlem whose racial anger matches the intensity of Carter’s bigotry. Also in the mix are gentle giant Rosie Grier, the NFL star-turned-actor, and the stalwart Hooks (Trouble Man), who lends gravitas to the role of the squad’s leader. This being a Hollywood movie of a certain time, of course, the title character is a white guy whose journey to enlightenment is portrayed as having more narrative value than the lives of the black men around him. Veteran big-screen stud Boyd delivers adequate work as Carter, complete with a litany of disgusted facial expressions and an amusingly soupy accent.

Carter’s Army: FUNKY

The Final Comedown (1972)

Social activism isn’t the first thing that springs to mind upon hearing the name Billy Dee Williams, but amid the many escapist movies and TV shows on his résumé are a handful of projects about racially charged issues. For instance, Williams coproduced and starred in The Final Comedown, a violent drama about a black-power revolutionary. Suffering from inconsistent acting, a meager budget, and sloppy storytelling, the movie doesn’t even remotely work. Nonetheless, it’s fair to say the filmmakers’ hearts were in the right place, politically speaking, because writer-director Oscar Williams constructs the narrative as an allegory expressing rage at the mistreatment of blacks in ’70s America. Alas, The Final Comedown doesn’t do justice to the subject matter; powerful films of the same era, including Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) and The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973), tackled similar material much more effectively. The Final Comedown begins with a disjoined montage juxtaposing a traumatic childhood experience, a confusingly staged shootout between police and revolutionaries, and random vignettes of prejudice and racism. The idea is to explain, in the course of a few minutes, how Johnny Johnson (Williams) was radicalized. At the end of the montage, Johnny gets hit with a bullet. Then, for the remainder of the movie, The Final Comedown cuts back and forth between Johnny’s struggle to survive his wound and semi-chronological flashbacks explaining the events leading to the shootout. The mosaic approach makes The Final Comedown hard to follow, a problem exacerbated by the film’s skimpy production values. (The filmmakers clearly envisioned an apocalyptic backdrop of streets filled with combat, but all they really show is a contained skirmish.) Supporting characters are underdeveloped, and the filmmakers occasionally undercut the overall serious tone by including such blaxploitation-style flourishes as a tediously overlong sex scene. Plus, subtlety is left far behind whenever the filmmakers try to hit a political note: “The system is destroying us,” Williams explains at one point, “so we have to fight, and some of us have got to die.” Or, as costar D’Urville Martin says succinctly in another scene: “White man—ain’t you a bitch with your shit.”

The Final Comedown: LAME

1980 Week: The Empire Strikes Back

          Heretical though my viewpoint might be among old-school fans of a galaxy far, far away, I don’t subscribe to the belief that The Empire Strikes Back is a better film than Star Wars (1977)—even though, by most normal criteria, the second film in the Skywalker saga is superior. Yes, the acting is better, the dialogue is crisper, the narrative is deeper, and the storytelling is slicker. Even the special effects are more impressive the second time around. Still, two considerations always persuade me to keep the first picture atop the pantheon: 1) Empire doesn’t have an ending, because the resolution of the film’s plot doesn’t occur until the first 20 minutes of 1983’s Return of the Jedi; 2) By definition as a sequel, Empire cannot match the thrilling freshness of Star Wars. Ideas are only new once—even ideas like Star Wars, which was cobbled together from myriad preexisting influences.

          Having said all that, Empire is such an exciting, fast, intoxicating, romantic, and surprising ride that it’s unquestionably among the few sequels to match its predecessor in quality. One need only look at the precipitous drop from Empire to Jedi in order to understand how difficult it is to keep a good thing going.

          In any event, reciting Empire’s plot serves very little purpose, partially because the movie is familiar to most viewers and partially because the storyline will sound impenetrable and/or silly to anyone who hasn’t yet hitched their first ride in the Millennium Falcon. (See, we’ve lost the Star Wars virgins already.) Nonetheless, here are the basics. After destroying the Death Star, rebel forces decamp to the snow-covered planet Hoth, but the Empire’s main enforcer, Darth Vader, leads a successful siege. Escaping separately from the fight are wannabe Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, who heads to the planet Dagobah for training with Jedi Master Yoda, and the duo of mercenary Han Solo and rebel leader Princess Leia. While Luke channels his abandonment issues into supernatural Jedi skills, Han and Leia wrestle with their burgeoning attraction—even as Vader conspires to capture the heroes.

          Fantastical sights and sounds abound. The floating Cloud City overseen by suave Lando Calrissian. The epic lightsaber duel that concludes with perhaps the greatest single plot twist in sci-fi history. And so much more. Although series creator George Lucas stepped away from the director’s chair for Empire, enlisting his onetime USC teacher Irvin Kershner, Lucas’ fingerprints are visible on every frame. Better still, cowriter Lawrence Kasdan (beginning a hot streak of Lucas collaborations) helps introduce grown-up emotions into the Star Wars universe. The principal cast of the so-called “original trilogy” reaches its zenith here, with Mark Hamill transforming Skywalker from a hayseed into a haunted hero, Carrie Fisher elevating Leia into a full-on field commander (albeit with a soft spot for the men in her life), Harrison Ford perfecting his charming-rogue take on Han, and new arrival Frank Oz contributing wonderful puppetry and voice work as Yoda.

          Nearly everything in Empire is so terrific, in fact, that a tumble into mediocrity was probably inevitable by the time Jedi came around. Thus, for fans who were kids when the first Star Wars was released (myself included), Empire represents the last moment when we believed Lucas could do no wrong—a galaxy of possibilities, if you will. To say nothing of outer-space badass Boba Fett. (Now we’ve really lost the Star Wars virgins.)

The Empire Strikes Back: OUTTA SIGHT

Mahogany (1975)

          Among the more subversive aspects of 1970s cinema is a string of melodramas so campy, so overzealously feminized, and so preoccupied with glamour that they feel like paeans to gay nightclub culture, even if the filmmakers involved originally had something more butch in mind. Like the equally absurd 1977 potboiler The Other Side of Midnight, this flamboyant Diana Ross star vehicle concerns a woman who drives remarkable men wild with desire even as she fascinates women with her beguiling mystique. And while the notion of the lovely Miss Ross as a supermodel isn’t hard to accept—she’s certainly bone-thin enough—other aspects of the movie occupy the realm of the ridiculous.

          Conceived and written in the mode of a 1930s “women’s picture,” Mahogany depicts the adventures of Tracy (Ross), a wannabe fashion designer struggling to make ends meet in Chicago by working in the display department of a high-fashion store. Right from the beginning, Tracy is portrayed as a self-confident superwoman—in one especially ludicrous scene, Tracy intimidates a would-be mugger into leaving her alone simply by mouthing off to him. Therefore, when Tracy meets bleeding-heart politician Brian (Billy Dee Williams), she makes it clear that her career is a bigger priority than romance. He accepts her terms, more or less, and they become a couple. Meanwhile, Tracy attempts to peddle her designs to potential buyers, and she inadvertently catches the eye of bitchy fashion photographer Sean (Anthony Perkins). Taken by her look, Sean encourages Tracy to become a model, eventually inviting her to Rome, where he believes she’ll become an international celebrity. Predictably, this juncture leads to a falling-out with Brian, so Tracy leaves Chicago for a jet-set lifestyle in Europe. The story then entangles Tracy in a romantic quadrangle comprising Tracy, Brian, Sean, and European millionaire Christian (Jean-Pierre Aumont).

          Although shot quite attractively by cinematographer David Watkin, Mahogany goes over the top so many times it nearly becomes a comedy. At one point, for instance, a delirious Tracy entertains guests by dripping hot wax all over her face and chest. Those crazy European parties! Other highlights: Brian and Sean literally wrestle with a gun in between them; Christian tries to buy Tracy’s sexual favors for 20 million lira; Tracy debuts an entire line of kabuki-inspired clothing; and so on. Tying all of this together is the pretty tune “Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To),” which plays, either instrumentally or with Ross’ memorable vocal performance, about five zillion times. FYI, Mahogany was the first and last movie directed by Motown founder—and perennial Ross champion—Berry Gordy, who reportedly took over the film after firing original helmer Tony Richardson. The world is not poorer for Berry’s decision to leave directing to others.

Mahogany: FUNKY

Lady Sings the Blues (1972)

          Slick and tough—or at least tough enough to avoid accusations of whitewashing history—this biopic of legendary singer Billie Holiday benefits from casting kismet. By the early ’70s, Motown star Diana Ross was emerging as a major solo artist after having led the quintessential “girl group,” the Supremes, through a string a pop hits in the ’60s. Public fascination with Ross was at a peak when Motown kingpin Berry Gordy decided to introduce her as an actress, and Gordy took a big risk by presenting Ross in a complex role as an iconic historical figure. Ross rewarded his confidence with a star-making performance that earned Ross not only a second career as a film star but also an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Comparisons to the multimedia career of Barbra Streisand, another ’60s singer who scored on the big screen, are inevitable, but the differences are telling—Streisand emerged from musical theater, so she transitioned easily to a multifaceted screen career.

          Ross, conversely, seemed to have just one memorable acting performance inside of her, perhaps because she found some special insight into Holiday’s troubled soul. Plus, of course, the fact that Ross sings much of her role—effectively delivering such angst-ridden Holiday compositions as “Don’t Explain” and “Strange Fruit”—means that the diva known as “Miss Ross” played to her strengths.

          Presented in the standard biopic style of episodic flashbacks connected by a wrap-around vignette depicting Holiday’s worst moment of crisis, Lady Sings the Blues is ordinary in conception and execution. Lavish production values are used to convey historical periods, and every juncture of the protagonist’s emotional life is articulated so clearly it’s impossible to see Holiday as anything but a troubled heroine. Whether she’s subverting the dehumanizing treatment of singers in a Harlem nightclub by refusing to sexualize her performances, or losing her soul to the heroin addiction she picks up during a rigorous touring schedule, Holiday is idealized as a once-in-a-lifetime talent whose songs emanated from deep emotional scars. Thanks to this oversimplification, Holiday the person gets subverted into Holiday the role. The name of the game is giving Ross dramatic things to do, and she does them well enough to make an impression.

          Director Sidney J. Furie, a competent storyteller but never a great artist, keeps things moving quickly, though the blandness of his approach is particularly visible in the film’s supporting performances. Billy Dee Williams is saddled with a one-dimensional part as Holiday’s long-suffering boyfriend, so the actor relies on charm and swagger to carve a niche for himself. Despite similar limitations, comedian Richard Pryor—who plays Holiday’s sidekick and fellow addict, known simply as “Piano Man”—nearly steals the movie with his tragic final scene. As for “Miss Ross,” she mostly squandered the opportunity created by Lady Sings the Blues. After starring in the widely panned melodrama Mahogany (1975) and the equally derided musical flop The Wiz (1979), she withdrew from acting until appearing in two minor movies during the 1990s.

Lady Sings the Blues: GROOVY

Scott Joplin (1977)

          Piggybacking on the renewed popularity of Scott Joplin’s music that emanated from its use in The Sting (1973), this biopic tracks the rise and fall of Joplin, the first African-American composer to receive mainstream notoriety. Alas, the picture is delivered via the stilted artifice of a formulaic backlot production. Costumes look as if they just came from a warehouse, props and sets seem absurdly pristine, and director Jeremy Paul Kagan’s blocking and dramaturgy are pedestrian. It doesn’t help, either, that the film’s weakest performance is its most important. Billy Dee Williams, a charmer who did fine work in romantic and supporting roles throughout the ’70s, simply lacks the chops to play every dimension of Joplin’s turbulent life. Williams is too restrained in quiet scenes, and too unnatural in volatile moments. Another fundamental problem with Scott Joplin is that the movie hews painfully close to the standard playbook for cinema stories about artists who fall from glory to ignominy.
          The story begins jubilantly, with Joplin joining the ranks of “professors” who pound out tunes in Deep South whorehouses. Eventually, Joplin’s desire to compose his own music leads Joplin and his best friend, Chauvin (Clifton Davis), to enter a piano-playing contest in St. Louis. This event brings Joplin’s music to the attention of Stark (Art Carney), a music publisher who recognizes Joplin’s talent and the novelty of marketing a black tunesmith. With this key professional relationship in place, Joplin is off on a journey that soon includes marriage to the lovely Belle (Margaret Avery), although the syphilis Joplin contracted back in his brothel days spoils domestic bliss. And so it goes, through episodes of success and failure, until Joplin wanders off into obscurity at the end of the movie while narration describes his posthumous resurgence in the ’70s. Scott Joplin gets more and more turgid as it plunges deeper into Joplin’s life, because the movie succumbs to florid melodrama and wildly overwritten dialogue; only the most innately spontaneous performers amid the supporting cast manage to imbue their scenes with believability. Thanks to infectious music and a sprinkling of interesting biographical details, the picture merits a casual viewing, although the subject matter deserved better than this wax-museum recitation.

Scott Joplin: FUNKY

Brian’s Song (1971)

          From the time of its release until, arguably, the arrival of Field of Dreams (1989), the iconic TV movie Brian’s Song enjoyed an enviable status as the ultimate male-oriented tearjerker, combining the bittersweet tropes of the melodrama genre with the macho textures of sports cinema. Yet it would be wrong to dismiss Brian’s Song as a cheap exercise in audience manipulation—even though the film is too brief and schematic to dig particularly deep into the lives of its characters, Brian’s Song is a credible drama distinguished by a terrific leading performance and solid supporting turns. In fact, much of the picture’s power stems from the presence of James Caan in the title role, because at the time he made Brian’s Song, Caan was bursting with so much ambition and talent that his imminent ascendance to big-screen stardom was inevitable; all it took was an incendiary supporting performance in The Godfather, released a few months later, to complete Caan’s transformation from up-and-comer to household name.
          Based on pro football player Gale Sayers’ memoir about his friendship with doomed fellow Chicago Bears running back Brian Piccolo, Brian’s Song is a sensitive exploration of camaraderie in the face of hardship. Adapted with restraint and taste by screenwriter William Blinn and director Buzz Kulik, the picture begins with the arrival of Gale (Billy Dee Williams) to a Bears training camp. He’s immediately razzed by fellow newbie Brian (Caan), but the two subsequently bond. Later, Brian provides stalwart support when racists resist African-American Gale’s integration into the team. The budding friendship deepens further once Bears coach George Halas (Jack Warden) breaks a color barrier by making Brian and Gale roommates during trips for away games, and one of the warmest scenes in Brian’s Song revolves around Brian’s inability to make racist remarks even when he’s trying to motivate Gale during the painful recovery from a leg injury.

          Brian’s Song gets heavy during its second half, after Brian is diagnosed with cancer.  Suffice to say that only the most hard-hearted viewer could possibly get through the picture’s final scenes without shedding a tear, because the aim of Brian’s Song isn’t to bludgeon audiences with the pointless tragedy of a young life cut short, but rather to invigorate audiences by celebrating a friendship that outlasted death. Caan hits one right note after another here, blending sensitivity and toughness in a manner that later became his signature. Williams, never the most dexterous performer, benefits from a characterization based on reticence, so when the cracks in his character’s emotional armor finally show, the moments count. Warden, who won an Emmy for his performance, provides the definition of reliable support, grounding the film in the harsh realities of professional sports while also conveying a strong sense of innate decency.

Brian’s Song: RIGHT ON

The Take (1974)

Although it might seem on first glance to be a blaxploitation picture, The Take is instead a straight-ahead crime thriller that just happens to star a black man, the inimitable Billy Dee Williams. He plays an unabashedly crooked cop who accepts payoffs from criminals even as he endeavors to bring them down. There’s a germ of an interesting idea here, because exploring the life of a maverick detective who rips off the crooks he’s busting could unveil provocative insights. Rather than going down that interesting road, however, the filmmakers behind The Take merely generate an exciting potboiler as our antihero, Lt. Sneed (Williams), pulls a fast one on a New Mexico-based kingpin named Manso (Vic Morrow). The story begins when Sneed gets summoned from his home base in San Francisco to sun-baked New Mexico by exasperated police chief Barrigan (Eddie Albert). Although Barrigan needs a big-city cop to tackle Manso, he’s aware of Sneed’s unorthodox methods and suspicious that Sneed is corrupt; Sneed’s tension with his new superior officer helps the big-city cop get into Manso’s good graces. In theory, all of this should be devious and thrilling, but in a strange way, Williams’ famous suaveness undercuts the picture: He’s so cool under pressure that we never worry very much for his welfare. In fact, Wiliams ends up being less interesting to watch than either Albert or Morrow, both of whom elevate underwritten roles. Morrow shows great flair playing a hot-tempered mobster who, at one point, gingerly nudges a rattlesnake off his property even as his thugs pummel someone who betrayed him. It’s also a kick to see onetime Beach Blanket Bingo dreamboat Frankie Avalon playing a small-time hood in a minor role, since it’s hard to imagine another circumstance in which he and Williams would share screen time. And in the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it department, voluptuous ’70s starlet Kathy Baumann shows up for a wordless supporting role as Avalon’s squeeze, turning a bath towel into the movie’s sexiest costume. The Take is little more than a compendium of chase scenes and macho stand-offs, but it’s enjoyable in a mindless, pulpy sort of way. (Available through Columbia Screen Classics via WarnerArchive.com)

The Take: FUNKY

The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976)

          The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings is an enjoyable romp about the good/bad old days of the Negro League, a consortium of baseball franchises that thrived in the 1930s, until the big leagues broke the color line by hiring black players for previously all-white teams. Billy Dee Williams, at the apex of his laid-back suaveness, stars as Bingo Long, star pitcher for the Ebony Aces, an NL team owned by heartless mortician “Sallie” Potter (Ted Ross). Fed up with Potter’s abusive polices (fining players for insubordination, kicking injured players to the curb), Bingo forms his own team for a barnstorming tour of the Midwest.

          To realize his dream, he recruits influential catcher Leon Carter (James Earl Jones), wild-man right fielder Charlie Snow (Richard Pryor), and other NL luminaries. Dressing in brightly colored costumes with slouchy satin hats, the newly formed All-Stars swagger from one small town to the next, grabbing pickup games with local teams and building a solid bankroll even as they wrestle with racism and unsavory promoters. Meanwhile, Potter and the other NL owners recognize the All-Stars as a threat to their livelihood, so Poter sends goons out to harass and rob the All-Stars.

          As directed by popcorn-movie specialist John Badham (Saturday Night Fever), Bingo Long is brisk and eventful, with a vibrant mix of comedy, drama, social commentary, and sports action. The story moves along at a good clip, even if the characters are drawn a bit broadly, and there’s an offbeat mix of performance styles. Pryor is more like a guest star than a costar, dropping in and out of the movie periodically, but he’s got a funny running gag about trying to calculate batting averages, and he livens up the picture whenever he’s onscreen. Jones, showing the chops for light comedy that are easy to forget given his impressive résumé as a dramatic actor, is funny and tough, the voice of reason balancing Bingo’s pie-in-the-sky dreaming.

          Williams is hamstrung slightly because writers Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins let their protagonist get eclipsed by supporting characters; Bingo gets the story going and returns to the fore at the end, but his inner life is never sufficiently developed to make him the start-to-finish focus. Given this shortcoming, Williams does just fine, channeling the charisma that helps Bingo talk friends into joining his crusade.

          The movie is a touch long at 110 minutes, especially considering its thin approach to characterization, but it presents such unusual subject matter, in such an entertaining way, that it’s a solid double even though it’s not a home run.

The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings: GROOVY

The Glass House (1972)

          For an early-’70s social-issue telefilm, The Glass House has an impressive pedigree: Truman Capote co-wrote the story, and ace scribe Tracy Keenan Wynn (The Longest Yard) wrote the teleplay. Alan Alda stars as Jonathan Paige, a college professor convicted of manslaughter for inadvertently killing the man who injured Paige’s wife in a car accident. He’s sent to prison on the same day that an idealistic guard, Brian Courtland (Clu Gulager), starts work at the institution, and as these unsuspecting men fall into the web of corruption and violence spun by prison overlord Hugo Slocum (Vic Morrow), a brutal killer incarcerated for life, the heroes come to realize the hopelessness of escaping, much less changing, the merciless status quo inside the big house.

          Paige’s descent is tied to the abuse visited upon a sweet-faced young man (Kristoffer Tabori) whom Paige fails to protect, and Courtland’s disillusionment stems from his realization that the aged warden (Dean Jagger) is content to let inmates kill each other. Unobtrusively directed by journeyman helmer Tom Gries, the picture moves at a strong pace from the bleak opening sequence to the horrific finale, making a simple statement about the seeming impossibility of retaining humanity inside a maximum-security lockup.

          Abetted tremendously by Alda’s characteristically sensitive performance, the script does a strong job of depicting Paige as a man who can’t win: Keeping to himself doesn’t steer the professor clear of danger, and neither does taking a principled stand. What’s more, the script expertly weaves together various strong personalities, with Morrow commanding the screen as a predatory monster, and Tabori giving a poignant turn as innocent doomed by circumstance. Billy Dee Williams shows up in an important featured role, and the film slyly employs his super-cool swagger to present a complex character who’s part peacenik, part revolutionary, and part straight-up badass. Depressing but focused and purposeful, The Glass House is solid stuff.

The Glass House: GROOVY