Nightmare Honeymoon (1974)

          My tolerance for mindless thrillers about unlucky people who stumble onto trouble in the boonies is relatively high, especially if the thrillers are executed with any modicum of restraint and style. It’s all about the vibe, baby. That said, far too many of these movies devolve into exploitive sleaze by employing rape as a major story element, and that’s when my tolerance gets tested. Hence my ambivalence toward Nightmare Honeymoon, which is a fairly slick production given its humble budget and lack of major star power: On the one hand, the flick is straightforward B-movie trash about good people falling into a spiral of danger and intrigue, but on the other hand, it’s the same old song about villains committing sexual violence against a pretty girl. Nightmare Honeymoon is far from the worst picture of its type, and in fact the filmmakers evince a measure of sensitivity while depicting the psychological effects of rape on not only the victim but also her husband. Still, another path would have been preferable.

          The plot, no surprise, is simple. David (Dack Rambo) and Jill (Rebecca Dianna Smith) leave their wedding reception and head for New Orleans, where they have hotel reservations. They stop by a lake for a quick swim, then accidentally observe bad guy Lee (John Beck) committing a murder. Lee knocks David unconscious and rapes Jill, but the newlyweds escape. Thereafter, David becomes obsessed with getting revenge.

          Notwithstanding brief appearances by the great character actors Pat Hingle and David Huddleston, Nightmare Honeymoon features only journeymen players, but they acquit themselves well. Rambo injects some malice into his usually bland screen persona, Smith does a fair job of expressing anguish, and Beck swings for the fences playing a horny psychopath. Never the nimblest or subtlest of actors, he’s weirdly compelling as he bulges his eyes from between his sweaty forehead and his thicket of a moustache. As for the plot, it works until it doesn’t. The setup is effective, the assault scene is handled discreetly, and the second act, depicting how the newlyweds wrestle with their new reality, has real humanity. Better still, things move along at a good pace once David begins searching for Lee. Yet Nightmare Honeymoon gets awkward in its final stretch, an operatic showdown with more than a little bit of Cape Fear (1962) in its DNA. The climax is tense and violent, but believability is an early casualty.

Nightmare Honeymoon: FUNKY

McQ (1974)

          Although not generally one to chase cinematic trends, the iconic John Wayne clearly made McQ with a eye toward emulating the winning formula that Clint Eastwood perfected with his Dirty Harry movies. It was an odd choice, not only because Wayne was doing just fine in his regular milieu of cowboy cinema, but also because his advanced age (to say nothing of his expanding waistline) didn't exactly identify the Duke as an ideal candidate for playing street-smart detectives. In any event, the actor/producer—who made McQ under his Batjac Productions banner—essentially contrived a western disguised as a policier. Wayne plays a swaggering tough guy who quits the force in order to avenge a friend's murder, and then breaks every law imaginable while pursuing his personal brand of justice. Beyond the modern costuming and locations, the biggest difference between McQ and the average Wayne oater is the gun in the star's hand—instead of a Colt six-shooter, Wayne packs an Ingram MAC-10 submachine gun.

          Capably directed by action-movie veteran John Sturges, McQ takes place in Seattle. Following a zippy prologue during which a plainclothes detective assassinates two uniformed cops before receiving the business end of a bullet, wiewers are introduced to the late detective's partner, McQ (Wayne). An iconoclast who lives on a houseboat and drives a fast sports car, McQ argues with his commanding officer, Lieutenant Kosterman (Eddie Albert), because McQ demands the right to investigate his partner's death. When his request is denied, McQ surrenders his badge and persuades a private detective (David Huddleston) to let McQ operate under the PI's license. One peculiar aspect of the movie is that McQ makes a lot of noise about working within legal boundaries, and yet he also acquires replacement guns every time authorities seize one of his firearms. He also has a penchant for high-speed car chases that result in widespread property destruction, although he somehow manages to avoid badly injuring any innocent bystanders. In other words, McQ takes place in the same parallel universe as the rest of Wayne’s movies, where the normal rules of citizenship and safety don’t apply to Our Valiant Hero.
          The story's central mystery is relatively interesting, having to do with the brazen theft of hard drugs from a police impound, but the characterizations are paper-thin, since every person in the movie exists primarily to describe or demonstrate the courage, integrity, stubbornness, and/or toughness of Wayne's character. Allies appear so McQ can earn their respect, villains appear so McQ can knock them down, and women appear so McQ can fascinate them. Particularly since Wayne shuffles through the movie at an unhurried pace, the blunt functionality of supporting characters helps to create narrative monotony. That said, McQ is watchable. Extensive location photography and lengthy action scenes create visual interest at regular intervals, and the cast is loaded with familiar faces: Beyond those previously mentioned, McQ players include Colleen Dewhurst, Clu Gulager, Al Lettieri, Roger E. Mosley, Diana Muldaur, and, offering a blast from the past, Creature from the Black Lagoon beauty Julie Adams, who plays the very small role of McQ's ex-wife. Alas, the MAC-10 gets more character development than most of the people whom these actors portray.

McQ: FUNKY

The Gun and the Pulpit (1974)

          Normally, the presence of actor Marjoe Gortner in a ’70s movie guarantees a bad time, because in his prime Gortner offered a toxic combination of smugness and vapidity. Accordingly, one reason why it’s so fascinating to watch the documentary Marjoe (1972), which explores the actor’s pre-Hollywood career as a flamboyant evangelist, is the opportunity to learn how the man gained such an oversized ego. Given this context, it’s tempting to surmise that Gortner is watchable in this made-for-TV Western because it represented his first opportunity to play a leading role. Whereas in subsequent projects he struts across the screen with the arrogance of a Hollywood veteran, in The Gun and the Pulpit Gortner puts forth the kind of unassuming effort one might expect from an eager newcomer. And even though he’s still quite weak as an actor, the underlying material is solid enough to survive an iffy leading performance. In fact, it’s easy to imagine how this piece might have been elevated by the presence of, say, James Garner, since The Gun and the Pulpit echoes the wiseass vibe of Garner’s old Maverick series. Even without a grade-A star, The Gun and the Pulpit goes down smoothly. The plot is brisk and pithy, there’s a pleasing mixture of drama and jokes, and the supporting cast is filled with reliable professionals. Plus, since it’s only 74 minutes long, The Gun and the Pulpit never has time to wear out its welcome.

          Gortner stars as Ernie Parsons, a silver-tongued crook who escapes a lynch mob and stumbles across a dead preacher. Helping himself to the man’s clothes and letters of introduction, Ernie rides into the small town where the preacher was expected, only to discover that the place is held under the thumb of tycoon Mr. Ross (David Huddleston). Yet Ernie couldn’t care less about danger, because he falls into lust with Sally Underwood (Pamela Sue Martin), the 18-year-old daughter of a citizen whom Mr. Ross’ thugs shot in the back. Quickly earning the respect of the locals by winning a shootout with two of Mr. Ross’ men—Ernie explains that he’s picked up his six-shooter skills during a lifetime of preaching in frontier towns—Ernie becomes the town’s new favorite son, though a showdown with Mr. Ross becomes inevitable. The setup works well, especially since screenwriter William Bowers (working from a novel by Jack Ehrlich) has a deft touch with one-liners. Additionally, director Daniel Petrie does a good job of weaving together different performance styles into an overall lighthearted tone. Supporting players include stalwarts Jeff Corey, Geoffrey Lewis, Estelle Parsons, and Slim Pickens. Meanwhile, Huddleston provides his signature urbane villainy, and Martin lends considerable sex appeal. All in all, The Gun and the Pulpit is a hearty helping of hokum.

The Gun and the Pulpit: FUNKY

Rio Lobo (1970)

          The last movie directed by the revered and versatile Howard Hawks, Rio Lobo would seem—if based solely on the genre, star, and title—to be a quasi-successor to Hawks’ wonderful 1959 adventure film Rio Bravo. Yet even though Rio Lobo is a Western with John Wayne in the lead role, Rio Lobo is no Rio Bravo. Whereas the 1959 film bursts with excitement, humor, and vivid characterization, the 1970 film is a turgid slog through random plot elements piled indifferently onto a heap. Everything in Rio Lobo feels half-hearted, from the flat cinematography to the mindless music to the stiff acting. The picture starts out as a Civil War-era heist story, with Confederate soldiers stealing gold from a Union train, but then the narrative shifts into a postwar justice saga, with now-retired Union officer Cord McNally (Wayne) chasing after the traitors who sold information about the train to the Confederacy.

          And since that premise, apparently, was deemed insufficient by the filmmakers in terms of plotting, the picture gets mired in various subplots about wronged women seeking vengeance against bad men. Furthermore, to justify the title, there’s another subplot, about the liberation of a small town from oppression by crooked varmints. There’s enough story in Rio Lobo for several different movies, and as a result, everything gets short shrift. The characters feel either clichéd or underdeveloped (sometimes both), the action scenes are confusing (since there are too many players on the filed), and the whole thing is directionless (in every sense of the word, with all due respect to Mr. Hawks).

          As usual, appraising Wayne’s “performance” is a pointless endeavor, since the veteran star simply drawls and struts through a rote demonstration of his familiar persona. Luckily, reliable character actors lend flavor to minor parts, with Jack Elam and David Huddleston providing humor and gravitas, respectively—but their work isn’t enough to compensate for the overall mediocrity. Unfortunately, much of Rio Lobo’s cast comprises young actors whose work here explains why they never achieved stardom. Fresh-faced studs Christopher Mitchum and Jorge Rivero aim for likability but instead come across as vapid, while beautiful starlets Susana Dosamantes, Sherry Lansing, and Jennifer O’Neill embarrass themselves with amateurish line deliveries.

          In fact, it’s quite shocking to look at the sprawl of bad performances in this movie and realize that such a venerable filmmaker was calling the shots. Clearly, the muse was not with Hawks while he assembled this picture. The pervasive blandness of Rio Lobo also drags down the normally excellent composer Jerry Goldsmith, whose score only catches fire during the big shootout at the end.

Rio Lobo: FUNKY

The Greatest (1977)

          As a keepsake depicting the heyday of one of modern sports’ most celebrated figures, The Greatest is priceless, because boxer Muhammad Ali plays himself in a brisk overview of his illustrious career’s most notable moments. As a movie, The Greatest is, well, not the greatest. Setting aside the issue of Ali’s amateurish acting, since he never claimed thespian skills among his gifts, the picture is so flat and oversimplified that it’s more of a tribute reel than an actual film. At its worst, The Greatest is outright ridiculous. For instance, the opening-credits montage features Ali jogging while George Benson croons a maudlin version of “The Greatest Love of All,” which was composed for this movie even though most people know the song as a Whitney Houston hit from the ’80s. The problem is that the main lyric, “Learning to love yourself/is the greatest love of all,” doesn’t really apply to the former Cassius Clay, whose bravado is as famous as his pugilistic skill; for this man, self-love was never in short supply.

          Nonetheless, it seems the goal of this picture was to portray Cassius/Muhammad as a simple man trying to find his identity while he clashed with racist white promoters and, during his Vietnam-era battle against being drafted into military service, the U.S. government. Unfortunately, the picture doesn’t dig deep enough to feel believable as an examination of the inner man, especially since most of the events depicted in the picture are familiar to everyone, from Ali’s friendship with Malcolm X (James Earl Jones) to his conversion to Islam. The movie’s credibility is damaged further by the filmmakers’ use of actual footage from Ali’s biggest bouts: The movie frequently cuts from shots of a well-fed 1977 Ali to clips of the same man looking leaner in earlier years, even though the disparate shots are supposed to be contiguous.

          Accentuating the cheesy approach are distracting cameo appearances by Jones, Robert Duvall, David Huddleston, Ben Johnson, and Paul Winfield, all of whom breeze in and out of the movie very quickly. (Ernest Borgnine has a somewhat more substantial role as trainer Angelo Dundee.) FYI, cult-fave director Monte Hellman provided uncredited assistance during post-production after the death of the film’s credited director, reliable journeyman Tom Gries; Hellman performed similar duties two years later on the misbegotten thriller Avalanche Express, joining that production after director Mark Robson died.

The Greatest: LAME

Breakheart Pass (1975)

          Though he spent most of the ’70s starring in ultraviolent thrillers, Charles Bronson also displayed a lighter touch in occasional escapist adventures. One of the most diverting of these efforts is Breakheart Pass, adapted by bestselling novelist Alistair MacLean from his own book. Breakheart Pass is a Western thriller gene-spliced with bits and bobs from the espionage and murder-mystery genres, set primarily on a passenger train barreling through the wintry wilds of the Midwest. Governor Fairchild (Richard Crenna) is on board the train to oversee the delivery of medical supplies to a fort that’s suffering an outbreak of diphtheria. During a routine stop in a frontier town, U.S. Marshal Pearce (Ben Johnson) talks his way into passage on the train, bringing along his prisoner, medical lecturer-turned-suspected murderer Deakin (Bronson). Once the train gets moving again, several passengers are mysteriously killed, so Deakin sniffs around and discovers that the diphtheria outbreak is a ruse invented to cover a heinous conspiracy to which the governor is party. So, in the classic mode, Deakin has to figure out whom he can trust as he smokes out the bad guys, all while racing the clock before the train arrives at a rendezvous with destiny.

          Breakheart Pass is enjoyably overstuffed with manly-man excitement: The picture has bloodthirsty criminals, fistfights atop moving trains, marauding Indians, revelations of secret identities, shootouts in the snowy wilderness, unexpected double-crosses, and even a spectacular crash. As with most of MacLean’s stories, credibility takes a backseat to generating pulpy narrative, so trying to unravel the story afterward raises all sorts of questions about logic and motivation. Still, Breakheart Pass is thoroughly enjoyable in a cartoonish sort of way. Veteran TV director Tom Gries keeps scenes brisk and taut, and he benefits from a cast filled with top-notch character players, including Charles Durning, David Huddleston, Ed Lauter, Bill McKinney, and others. As for the leading players, Bronson presents a likeable version of macho nonchalance, while Crenna essays his oily character smoothly. Predictably, the female lead is Bronson’s real-life wife, Jill Ireland, who costarred in a dozen of her husband’s ’70s pictures.

Breakheart Pass: GROOVY

The Klansman (1974)

          For those who enjoy charting the outer reaches of bad cinema, the title of The Klansman looms larger than that of most ’70s movies. Featuring an inexplicable combination of actors—Richard Burton, Lee Marvin, O.J. Simpson—and a lurid take on incendiary subject matter, the movie promises a feast of jaw-dropping wrongness. And sure enough, The Klansman is both uproariously terrible and consistently distasteful. It’s also, however, quite tedious.

          The story is appropriately florid. In a small southern town populated by poor Black folks and foaming-at-the-mouth racist whites (narrative restraint is not the watchword here), a young white woman (Linda Evans) is raped, leading revved-up locals to terrorize Black citizens including Garth (Simpson). This culminates with the murder of an innocent Black man while Garth, now a fugitive from the bloodthirsty mob, watches helplessly. The town’s sheriff, Track Bascomb (Marvin), improbably a voice of reason and tolerance, tries to protect Garth, who expresses his rage by picking off white people with an M-16.

          Meanwhile—there’s always a “meanwhile” in overcooked bad movies—local landowner Breck Stancil (Burton) invokes the ire of the local Ku Klux Klan chapter because he won’t let Klan soldiers search his property for Garth, who may be hiding with Stancil’s predominantly Black workforce. Soon, the various forces in the story converge in a violent climax. All of this should be trashy fun, but as lifelessly directed by 007 veteran Terence Young, the movie just kind of happens; it feels as if the production team showed up every day and shot the appropriate screenplay pages without any regard for what came before or what might follow.

          Reportedly, one reason for the movie’s flatness is that it’s the faint echo of a potentially more interesting project: Original writer-director Samuel Fuller conceived the piece, using William Bradford Hule’s novel as a foundation, as a full-on KKK story in which the hero would be a Klan member who learns tolerance. Instead, the studio asked for something less provocative, and Fuller walked. The project was further damned by unwise casting: Burton and Marvin were falling-down drunks at this point, and Simpson, whose character is supposed to come across as a justice-dispensing revolutionary, is, to be generous, not an actor.

          Compensating somewhat for the lackluster work by the leads, Character player Cameron Mitchell livens up the picture with his cartoonish villainy as a hateful deputy. Better still, the priceless David Huddleston gives the best performance in the movie (which is admittedly not saying a lot) as the town mayor, who moonlights as the “Exalted Cyclops” of the local Klan chapter. Yet even Huddleston can’t do anything with hopeless dialogue: “Don’t look at me like I’m the heavy. You want to know who the heavy is, I’ll tell you. It’s the system. And we’re all of us caught up in it.”

          Unbelievably, the dialogue gets even worse later. Lola Falana plays a young Black woman visiting her mother, one of Stancil’s employees, so the rednecks presume she’s sleeping with Stancil and therefore rape her to make a point. “They think I’m your brown comfort,” she says. “They wanted to foul your nest.” Yet perhaps the most (morbidly) fascinating aspect of this whole disastrous enterprise is Burton’s excruciating performance—he’s exactly this awful in plenty of other movies, but The Klansman features his spectacularly unsuccessful attempt at a Southern accent, which sounds different in almost every scene.

          Given how punishingly bad every frame of this movie is, it’s a wonder no one thought to chop it down to a 90-minute highlight reel, because if The Klansman moved faster, it would at least have the quality of a fever dream. Instead, it lumbers along for 112 bludgeoning minutes, forcing viewers to soak up every nuance of its terribleness. In this case, more is less.

The Klansman: FREAKY

Bad Company (1972)

Continuing the groove of their previous scripts Bonnie and Clyde (1968) and There Was a Crooked Man . . . (1970), screenwriters Robert Benton and David Newman explore colorful crooks from yesteryear in Bad Company, a soft-spoken adventure following a pair of hapless young Civil War-era draft dodgers (Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown) who become outlaws in the wilderness that eventually became middle America. Benton also made his directorial debut with the picture, which is tasteful and understated almost to a fault. A very ’70s story about wandering losers who puff themselves up with bluster and pretense, the movie is gorgeously photographed by Gordon Willis (The Godfather) as a series of moody tableaux, and composer Harvey Schmidt links the film’s episodes with an old-timey score played on solo piano. Presenting the picture as a museum piece delivers sumptuous artistry but sometimes undercuts the wit of the storyline; moments with potential to explode into broad comedy, like a ridiculous brawl in a kitchen, play too seriously because of the gravitas of the photography and storytelling. Yet some funny bits connect just like they should, especially the scenes with priceless character player David Huddleston as the cranky leader of an incompetent criminal gang. Tonal peculiarities aside, Bad Company has many admirable qualities: The dialogue is appealing and authentic from start to finish; Bridges and Brown effectively inhabit their respectively arrogant and sensitive characters; and a very young John Savage appears as one of the heroes’ ill-fated cohorts. Somewhat randomly, Bad Company also contains a tart homage to legendary All About Eve writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who helmed Benton and Newman’s script for Crooked Man. As the capper to his final scene, Huddleston spouts a line that infamous cynic Mankiewicz often used to describe himself: “I’m the oldest whore on the block.” Like many things in Bad Company, the line is slightly out of place but nonetheless memorable.

Bad Company: GROOVY

Billy Two Hats (1974)

Competently made but forgettable, Billy Two Hats was part of Gregory Peck’s ongoing campaign to grow beyond his noble onscreen persona. Whereas in more extreme endeavors like The Boys from Brazil (1978), he went completely against type by playing villains, in Billy Two Hats he stretches by playing an outlaw with an accent. But even though Peck’s Scottish brogue came naturally, given his family’s roots in the British isles, Alan Sharp’s limp screenplay keeps him from achieving liftoff. It doesn’t help that Peck is tethered, buddy-movie style, to Desi Arnaz Jr., a former child actor whose transition to grown-up roles was not a cause for celebration. The story is standard stuff about an outlaw named Deans (Peck) and his hot-blooded half-breed sidekick Billy (Arnaz) getting chased across the frontier by dogged Sheriff Gifford (Jack Warden). The only novel aspect of the narrative is that for much of the picture Deans is unable to walk, so Billy drags him around the desert while the older man reclines in a cot. This creates lots of opportunities for the Scottish rascal to regale his companion with monologues, and Peck’s voice is such a gorgeous instrument that some of the chatty bits are entertaining; he also cuts a great figure with his thick black beard and sloppily bundled clothing, even when confined to the cot. Warden and David Huddleston acquit themselves well in bland roles as Wild West meanies, and because it’s a mid-’70s Western, high-adventure lyricism steadily gives way to “meaningful” gloom. But, alas, there’s nothing here that wasn’t done more effectively in a dozen other movies. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Billy Two Hats: LAME