The Sporting Club (1971)

          Things get weird fast in The Sporting Club, a wildly undisciplined adaptation of a novel by Thomas McGuane, who later became a screenwriter of offbeat films with Western themes. Here, the theme is actually Midwestern, though The Sporting Club certainly has enough eccentrics and iconoclasts to resonate with other films bearing McGuane’s name. The basic story is relatively simple. Rich white people gather at the Centennial Club, a hunting lodge in the Great Lakes region, for a drunken revel celebrating the club’s hundredth birthday. One of the club’s youngest members, an unhinged trust-fund brat named Vernur Stanton (Robert Fields), has a scheme to destroy the club from within while making a grand statement about class divisions in American society. Vernur fires the club’s longtime groundskeeper and hires a volatile blue-collar thug as a replacement, injecting a dope-smoking X-factor into the uptight culture of the Centennial Club. Yet the plot is only the slender thread holding the movie together. More intriguing and more prominent are myriad subplots, as well as bizarre satirical scenes featuring the aging members of the Centennial Club devolving into savagery.

          If it’s possible to imagine a quintessentially American film that should have been directed by British maniac Ken Russell, The Sporting Club is that movie. Like one of Russell’s perverse freakouts, The Sporting Club puts a funhouse mirror to polite society, revealing all the grotesque aspects that are normally hidden from view. And like many of Russell’s films, The Sporting Club spirals out of control at regular intervals.

          Here’s a relatively innocuous example. Early in the picture, Vernur and his best friend, James Quinn (Nicolas Coster), wander from the Centennial Club to a nearby dam, where the (unidentified) president of the United States makes a public appearance. Vernur and James sneak onto a tour bus left empty by Shriners watching the president, then trash the bus and commandeer it for a presidential drive-by during which Vernur moons the commander-in-chief. The scene raises but does not answer many questions related to character motivation and logistics. And so it goes throughout The Sporting Club. Outrageous things happen, but it’s anybody’s guess what makes the people in this movie tick or even, sometimes, how one event relates to the next. Very often, it seems is if connective tissue is missing. In some scenes, James makes passes at Vernur’s girlfriend, and in other scenes, he’s involved with the local hottie sent to clean his lodge. Huh? And we haven’t even gotten to Vernur’s fetish for vintage dueling pistols, the time capsule containing century-old pornography, or the climactic scene involving a machine gun and an orgy.

          As directed by journeyman Larry Peerce and written by versatile wit Lorenzo Semple Jr., The Sporting Club has several deeply interesting scenes and a few vivid performances. Coster, familiar to ’70s fans as a character actor, does subtle work in the film’s quiet scenes, even though the nature of his overall role is elusive. Conversely, the great Jack Warden is compelling to watch as the replacement groundskeeper, even though he’s spectacularly miscast—more appropriate casting would have been Kris Kristofferson, who plays a similar role in the equally bizarre Vigilante Force (1976). The lively ensemble also includes Richard Dysart, Jo Ann Harris, James Noble, and Ralph Waite.

          There’s a seed of something provocative hidden inside the bewildering action of The Sporting Club, and one imagines the folks behind the movie envisioned a provocative generation-gap farce. What they actually made is a disjointed oddity with lots of drinking, sex, violence, and pretentious speechifying.

The Sporting Club: FREAKY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Victory at Entebbe: FUNKY

Raid on Entebbe: GROOVY

1980 Week: Used Cars

          During the early years of his career, before he discovered the joys of motion-capture effects and ponderous drama, Robert Zemeckis was an expert manufacturer of zany comedy. He made his directorial debut with the zippy I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), about crazed Beatles fans, and he cowrote Steven Spielberg’s over-the-top World War II farce 1941 (1979). Yet Zemeckis’ next project arguably marked the apex of his cinematic apprenticeship. Used Cars, which Zemeckis cowrote and directed, is an adrenalized super-comedy filled with wall-to-wall action, jokes, plot twists, and youthful energy. The movie is gleefully crass and merrily overwrought, but for viewers who encounter Used Cars in the right mood, it’s a total blast.

          Conceived as a broad satire linking consumerism with politics and salesmanship, Used Cars stars Kurt Russell as salesman Rudy Russo. Working at decrepit New Deal Used Cars, which is run by amiable geezer Luke Fuchs (Jack Warden), Rudy decides to run for a state Senate seat. Meanwhile, Luke’s twin brother, the dastardly Roy Fuchs (also played by Warden), schemes to put Luke out of business by opening Roy L. Fuchs Pre-Owned Automobiles directly across the street from New Deal. Eventually, Rudy finds himself in the middle of war between the brothers—even though Luke dies fairly early in the movie’s running time, and even though Luke’s daughter, Barbara (Deborah Harmon), emerges as both a challenging X-factor and Rudy’s potential love interest.

          As they later demonstrated with their Swiss-clock script for Back to the Future (1984), Zemeckis and longtime writing partner Bob Gale were highly adept at creating outrageously complicated storylines. The writers juggle literally dozens of major elements in Used Cars, from a superstitious mechanic (Gerrit Graham) to a pair of sleazy video pirates (played by Michael McKean and David L. Lander, better known as “Lenny and Squiggy” from TV’s Laverne & Shirley). The storyline also features Jimmy Carter, a live-TV wardrobe malfunction, a Mexican car salesman, professional football, and student drivers. Much of what happens onscreen is clever, and much of what happens onscreen is juvenile. It all coalescences into a jubilant brand of high-octane comedy, and gentle pokes at real-world issues keep the movie from becoming pointlessly silly.

          Russell is fantastic, blending oily charm with dunderheaded confidence; his character comes across as a reprobate version of a Frank Capra hero. Warden is wonderful, too, portraying Luke with avuncular likeability and Roy with devilish intensity, while Costar Graham is endearingly maniacal, freaking out whenever he realizes he’s near a red car. Zemeckis never pushed the boundaries of good taste this far again, opting for a family-friendly style in Back to the Future and other pictures, so the R-rated Used Cars remains his most grown-up yukfest, which is ironic given that so much of the film’s content is deliberately infantile. At its best, Used Cars is like a manic Warner Bros. cartoon, only with cursing and T&A.

Used Cars: GROOVY

Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971)

          Dismissed by critics during its original release and not subsequently elevated to any special status, the lugubriously titled Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? is nonetheless an interesting piece of work bursting with offbeat characterizations and unique dialogue. This is a rare example of a movie that has considerable virtues even though it doesn’t “work” in any conventional sense. It helps a lot, of course, that Harry Kellerman reflects a peculiar historical moment by portraying the anguish of a celebrity who seeks a reason to live after finding the goals he pursued all his life (fame, money, respect, women) to be insufficient. While it’s true that the early ’70s were lousy with “I gotta be me” character studies, the best of these movies turn a mirror on a period when the line separating egotism and introspection blurred.

          Written by Herb Gardner, best known for his plays I’m Not Rappaport and A Thousand Clowns, the picture depicts the last day in the life of Georgie Soloway (Dustin Hoffman), a pop songwriter living in a palatial New York penthouse. Delusional after several days without sleep, Georgie fantasizes about killing himself and experiences surreal visions that mix imagination and reality. At various times, he interacts with his aging father, Leonard (David Galef); his long-suffering accountant, Irwin (Dom DeLuise); his confrontational psychotherapist, Dr. Moses (Jack Warden); and troubled actress Allison Densmore (Barbara Harris), whom Georgie meets while she auditions for a show Georgie has cowritten. Adding to the otherworldly quality of Georgie’s experiences is the fact that he owns a small plane and spends many hours cruising the skies above New York City—in one of Gardner’s effective but unsubtle literary flourishes, Georgie literally has his head in the clouds.

          Many of the stylistic affectations in Harry Kellerman were commonplace at the time of the film’s release, including jump cuts that instantly shift Georgie from one location to another, and the way Dr. Moses magically appears in various situations wearing costumes suiting the situations (e.g., a ski instructor’s uniform, etc.). Furthermore, like so many “I gotta be me” stories, Harry Kellerman faces an uphill battle generating sympathy for a lead character who has everything but wants more. What makes the piece consistently interesting, however—besides the brisk pace and the way director Ulu Grosbard’s dark visual style unifies disparate scenes—is the humanity of the acting and the writing.

          Hoffman, who had a reputation at the time for being phenomenally self-involved, inhabits the character comfortably, and the boyish charm he brought to The Graduate (1967) shines through especially well during scenes when Georgie sings silly ditties. (The movie’s tunes were penned by poet/songwriter Shel Silverstein.) As for Harris, she’s heartbreaking, giving arguably the best performance of her career as a neurotic with a poetic streak. In fact, Harris netted an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, the sole major honor bestowed on the film.

          Fitting a movie written by a playwright, Harry Kellerman truly shines in long dialogue passages, even though Gardner and Grosbard contrive several intricate scenes that rely upon surprising visual juxtapositions. Beyond the occasional zippy one-liner (“Her head belongs in a Cracker Jack box, and her ass in the Louvre”), Gardner fills the script with melancholy pensées. “I’m auditioning every day,” Harris’ character says sadly. “I wake up every morning, and the world says, ‘Thank you, Miss Densmore, that’ll be all for now.’” Gardner also does a fine job of illustrating the distance that exists in most relationships, making the way his leading characters strive for connection seem like a heroic act, albeit—thanks to the movie’s fatalistic worldview—a doomed one.

Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?: GROOVY

Summertree (1971)

          Strong acting saves Summertree from itself. Adapted from a play by Ron Cowen and directed by English actor/singer/songwriter Anthony Newley, this trés-’70s drama tackles the Generation Gap, race relations, and the Vietnam-era draft. Unsurprisingly, it’s the sort of clumsy patchwork that emerges whenever filmmakers try to be all things to all people. However, newcomer Michael Douglas and veteran Jack Warden, together with an engaging Brenda Vaccaro, breathe life into the story’s contrived rhythms. How contrived? At various times, the movie is amusing, provocative, romantic, and thoughtful—neither Cowan nor Newley seem comfortable committing to a single tonality. Therefore, perhaps it’s best to think of Summertree as a series of variations on a theme instead of a proper narrative; it’s as if the movie tracks the adventures of a confused young man during a dangerous time in his life, and then inadvertently tells a complete story along the way.

          The young man in question is Jerry (Douglas), a 20-year-old college student who wants to drop out of school and concentrate on playing music. This doesn’t sit well with his conservative father, Herb (Jack Warden). Yet Summetree doesn’t take the usual path of portraying Herb as a Greatest Generation ideologue who can’t stomach the counterculture antics of his longhair offspring. Rather, the filmmakers portray Herb as a humane individual who’s trying hard to understand changes in the world. For instance, he clearly states at one point that his attitude toward Vietnam changed from gung-ho to gun-shy the minute his own son became eligible for the draft. The scenes between Douglas and Warden are the best in the movie, with Douglas coming into his own as a self-confident screen persona and Warden providing an authoritative counterpoint.

          That said, the romantic scenes between Douglas and Vacarro have real heat—no surprise, since the actors became involved offscreen after making the movie—as well as edge, owing to an age difference between their characters, among other serious romantic obstacles. And if the weakest element of the picture is an underfed subplot about Jerry spending time as a Big Brother for inner-city kid Marvis, at least Kirk Callaway’s performance as the boy transcends the inherent cliché of an African-American preteen who mimics the behavior of older tough guys.

          Beyond its slight virtues as a character piece, Summertree works as a time capsule thanks to tasty ’70s lingo and vividly dramatized ’70s attitudes. (Jerry fits the “I gotta be me” archetype to a T, and Herb calls Jerry on the risks of Polyannish narcissism.) None would ever mistake Summetree for one of the great pictures of its era or its type, especially since the final image is a cheap shot that undercuts much of what came before. Still, in its modest way, the movie says many interesting things about many interesting topics. More importantly, the acting is polished without being superficial, so each of the three main actors lands a handful of genuine emotional hits.

Summertree: GROOVY

Death on the Nile (1978)

          The all-star period mystery film Murder on the Orient Express (1974) was such a commercial and critical success that another big-budget Agatha Christie adaptation was sure to follow. And while Death on the Nile is far less posh than its predecessor, it’s still quite enjoyable—more so, perhaps, than the stolid Orient Express. Clever and intricate though they may be, Christine’s books are not high art, and the makers of Death on the Nile treat the source material as pulp, whereas director Sidney Lumet and his Orient Express collaborators took the dubious path of treating Christie as literature. In any event, Death on the Nile plays out like a quasi-sequel to the earlier film, since both pictures feature Christie’s beloved Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. Albert Finney played Poirot in Orient Express, but Peter Ustinov assumes the role in Death on the Nile, marking the first of six films in which he essayed the character.

          As per the usual Christie formula, the narrative follows a large number of interconnected characters, all of whom eventually land in the same place—a steamer churning down the Nile River in Egypt—for a long voyage filled with intrigue and murder. The picture begins in England, where penniless Jacqueline (Mia Farrow) begs her rich friend, Linnet (Lois Chiles), to provide employment for Jacqueline’s fiancée, Simon (Simon MacCorkindale). Linnet steals Simon from her friend, marries him, and embarks on a honeymoon trip through Egypt. Yet Jacqueline chases after them, taunting the newlyweds with threats of revenge. Eventually, Linnet and Simon encounter the vacationing Poirot, requesting his assistance in dispatching the nettlesome Jacqueline. Various other characters enter the mix, and before long it becomes clear that everyone except Simon and the neutral Poirit has a grudge against Linnet.

          It’s giving nothing away to say that she dies about an hour into the 140-minute film—after all, the story can’t be called Death on the Nile without a corpse—so the fun stems from Poirot’s ensuing investigation. The pithy detective performs a thorough review of all the possible suspects, even as more people are killed, finally unraveling the true killer’s identity during a Christie staple—the final scene of Poirot gathering all the suspects in a room and then explaining, with the help of elaborate flashbacks, how he connected clues. It’s all quite far-fetched and formulaic, but there’s a good reason why Christie is considered the queen of the whodunit genre. It also helps that Anthony Shaffer, the playwright/screenwriter behind the intricate mystery film Sleuth (1972), did the script, and that director John Guillermin provides a brisk pace and a sleek look.

          As for the performances from the huge cast, they’re erratic. On the plus side, Ustinov is droll as Poirot, David Niven is urbane as his sidekick, and the best supporting players (Jane Birkin, Jon Finch, Olivia Hussey, I.S. Johar, Maggie Smith) provide the varied textures asked of them. However, some players are badly miscast (Jack Warden as a German?), and some deliver performances that are too clumsy for this sort of material (Chiles, Farrow, George Kennedy). That leaves Bette Davis and Angela Lansbury, both of whom treat their parts like high camp; neither tethers her characterization to human reality, but both fill the screen with palpable energy.

          By the end of the picture, one does feel the absence of Lumet’s sure hand, since he did a smoother job of unifying his Orient Express cast members than Guillermin does here. Nonetheless, in the most important respects, Death on the Nile delivers Christie as pure silly escapism, which seems about right.

Death on the Nile: GROOVY

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974)

          Noteworthy as the most commercially successful Canadian film in history, at least at the time of its initial release, and as the vehicle for Richard Dreyfuss’ first leading role in a movie, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz both merits and suffers under close inspection. A briskly paced blend of comedy and drama, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz represents a thoughtful inquiry into the soul of a character. Furthermore, the movie—like its source material, Mordecai Richler’s novel of the same name—comprises a rumination on what it meant to be Jewish in North America during the 1940s. Yet while the project’s intentions are noble, the execution is erratic.
          Adapted for the screen by Lionel Chetwynd and directed by the nimble Ted Kotcheff, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz has a peculiar texture. The movie feels rushed, since the filmmakers obviously wanted to include as much of the novel’s plot as possible; many scene transitions are abrupt, with optical wipes and/or sudden bursts of music shifting the tone from droll to dour in jarring ways; and the filmmakers seem unclear about their perspective on the protagonist. The title character (played, obviously, by Dreyfuss) is a born hustler who uses lies and schemes and tricks to move up the economic ladder, leaving broken friendships (and worse) in his wake.
          At times, the filmmakers seem highly judgmental of Duddy, presenting him as a callous prick who’ll do anything for money; at other times, the filmmakers seem amused by Duddy, as if he’s a playful scamp to be admired for his manic single-mindedness. Similarly, the filmmakers can’t decide whether they’re making a comedy with an undercurrent of pathos or a drama with an undercurrent of frivolity. Nearly every scene in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is interesting in some way, but the whole enterprise comes across like the highlight reel for a larger, more coherent endeavor. Set in World War II-era Montreal, the movie tracks Duddy’s slow rise from high-school graduate to self-made businessman.
          The son of a humble cab driver (Jack Warden), Duddy begins his working life with a job as a waiter at a resort. Quickly discerning that strivers who grease the moneyed class with special treatment do well, Duddy out-maneuvers his peers, making fair-weather friends of various swells. Duddy then embarks on a long romantic relationship with a Catholic girl, Yvette (Michceline Lanctòt), and hatches the idea to buy a lake upon which he can build an empire of hotels and other businesses. Clever and relentless, Duddy commences his next outrageous business venture by hiring an alcoholic ex-Hollywood film director (Denholm Elliot) to make bar mitzvah and wedding movies for wealthy Canadian Jews. And so it goes until a series of reversals—including brushes with criminality and a horrific traffic accident—halt Duddy’s ascension.
          That the preceding description includes only some of the movie’s plot should indicate how densely the film is packed. If not for the skill of the principal actors, in fact, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz simply wouldn’t work, since the hurried pace leaves so little time to linger on individual moments. Dreyfuss, whose acting style is fairly manic anyway, keeps pace with the movie’s frenetic momentum, adroitly charting Duddy’s progress from innocent to cynic to battle-tested survivor. (Dreyfuss’ innate amiability is also the only thing that keeps Duddy from coming across as a complete asshole.) Warden fills his own scenes with energy and warmth, while Randy Quaid provides folksy counterpoint in a supporting role as a young American who enters Duddy’s orbit. Joe Silver (as one of Duddy’s patrons) and the always-entertaining Elliot are similarly strong. Alas, while The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is filled with highly watchable elements, it’s ultimately a bit of a mess—as demonstrated by the picture’s final scene, which wobbles indecisively between tragedy and whimsy.

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz: FUNKY

Shampoo (1975)

          Here’s just one of the many fascinating details about Shampoo: Although it’s rightly considered a pinnacle achievement for the New Hollywood, the principal creative force behind the picture is very much a creature of Old Hollywood. Warren Beatty, the film’s leading man, producer, co-writer—and, according to gossip that’s surrounded the project for decades, uncredited co-director—was groomed for greatness by the studio system, even though his star didn’t truly rise until the counterculture era. And, just as Beatty is an inherently complicated Hollywood persona, the vision of late-1960s America he and his collaborators present in Shampoo resists simple classifications.
          On one level, the story of a lothario hairdresser who gets away with screwing his female clients because their husbands think he’s gay is a satire of social mores during a period of shifting sexual identities. On another level, Shampoo is a savvy political story examining various attitudes toward Richard Nixon at the time of his 1968 ascension to the White House. And yet on a third level, Shampoo is an ultra-hip study of Me Generation ennui, because nearly ever character in the film experiences some degree of existential crisis. Furthermore, the execution of the film is as classical as the content is brash—director Hal Ashby relies on elegant camerawork and meticulous pacing, rather than the flashy experimentation associated with many New Hollywood triumphs, even though the brilliant script by Beatty and Robert Towne breaks one taboo after another. (Let we forget, one of the film’s most memorable scenes involves costar Julie Christie drunkenly slurring, “I want to suck his . . .” Well, you get the picture.)

          Beatty, who often cleverly capitalized on his personal reputation as a Casanova, plays George Roundy, a Beverly Hills hairdresser beloved as much by female clients for his way with their bodies as for his way with their tresses. At the beginning of the story, he juggles relationships with his long-suffering girlfriend, Jill (Goldie Hawn), and with a rich housewife, Felicia (Lee Grant). Eager to open his own shop, George uses Felicia to get to her husband, Lester (Jack Warden), a wealthy businessman—who has a mistress of his own, Jackie (Christie). Smart and strong-willed, Jackie beguiles George, who somehow imagines he can have everything he wants—Felicia’s support, Jackie’s affection, Jill’s devotion, Lester’s patronage.
          Woven into all of this sexual farce is a bitter thread of class warfare, with Lester representing the arrogance of financial power and nearly every other character representing the desperation of financial need; Beatty and Towne draw provocative parallels between the cynicism of Nixon’s politics and the way various characters pursue skewed versions of the American Dream. The people in Shampoo are players and strivers, right down to Lester’s adolescent daughter, Lorna (Carrie Fisher), who has been taught by the unforgiving world to embrace her sexual power at a young age.

          Shampoo has moments that some find screamingly funny, such as the scene in which Christie makes the aforementioned startling declaration, but this is character-driven comedy of the most brittle sort, riding the fine line between humor and pathos. And that, among so many other things, is what makes Shampoo endlessly interesting—the film captures myriad facets of a confusing time. How appropriate, then, that the unobtrusive score is by pop star Paul Simon, one of the most important musical voices of the ’60s.

Shampoo: RIGHT ON

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

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

Being There (1979)

          After spending much of the ’70s starring in schlocky comedies, British funnyman Peter Sellers doggedly pursued the lead role in this adaptation of Polish writer Jerzy Kosinski’s novel, recognizing a chance to deliver a subtle performance that would contrast his usual over-the-top silliness. The involvement of director Hal Ashby was an added incentive, since Ashby had scored with the offbeat comedies Harold and Maude (1971) and Shampoo (1975). Together, Ashby and Sellers present Kosinski’s social satire as a media-age fairy tale, to winning effect.
          When the story begins, Chance (Sellers) is the live-in gardener for a wealthy senior. Chance has never left his employer’s estate, and his main companion is television—Chance’s IQ is so low that he’s incapable of anything beyond bland remarks and mundane tasks. After his employer dies, lawyers inform a confused Chance that he must leave the estate, so he’s forced to explore the outside world for the first time in his life. Walking the streets of Washington, D.C., in a hand-be-down suit, Chance looks like a man of wealth and power though he’s actually a homeless simpleton.
           By the time night falls, Chance is bewildered and hungry, so he walks right into the path of a town car belonging to Eve Rand (Shirley MacLaine), the wife of an elderly but super-wealthy tycoon named Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas). Accepting an invitation to receive care from the Rand family physician (Richard Dysart), Chance becomes an unexpected but welcome houseguest.
           The comic premise of Being There is that modern Americans are so narcissistic they only hear what they want to hear. Thus, whenever Chance makes childlike comments about the only thing he knows, gardening, the Rands perceive him as a guru delivering wisdom through cryptic metaphors. Taking the contrivance to a wonderfully farcical extreme, the story reveals that Rand has the ear of the U.S. president (Jack Warden), and shows the president falling under Chance’s spell. The strange and surprising paths the narrative follows thereafter are better discovered than discussed, but suffice to say the filmmakers gracefully advance from an outlandish premise to a poetic ending.

          Being There is not without its flaws, since the movie is paced quite slowly and the tone is precious (lots of tasteful classical music played over painterly shots of the lavish Rand estate). The movie also walks a fine line by asking viewers to accept the absurd concept of Chance becoming an important national figure, and also asking viewers to empathize with Chance’s plight as a lost little boy. Is he a metaphor or a character?

          Notwithstanding these issues, Ashby creates a wonderful framework for the film’s rich performances. Dysart and David Clennon (as a litigator who suspects the truth about Chance) leaven oiliness with sincerity, while Warden energizes his scenes with amiable bluster. MacLaine is charming and funny as the woman who transposes her fantasies onto Chance, and Douglas earned an Academy Award for his sly turn as an aging tycoon with an eye on his legacy. As for Sellers, the impressive thing about his performance is how little he actually does onscreen; given the frenetic nature of his usual comedy acting, it’s wild to see him pull back completely.

Being There: RIGHT ON

Dreamer (1979)

This sports drama features one of the most undercooked scripts in a genre known for undercooked scripts, to the point that easily half a dozen significant subplots are introduced and abandoned with no explanation or resolution. So, if you’re looking for a movie with satisfying storytelling, move along. That said, there are minor consolations: With the roguishly charming Tim Matheson playing one of his few leads and reliable character actor Jack Warden providing support, Dreamer explores the world of high-stakes bowling, which has not been the subject of many feature films. So there’s that. Matheson, fresh off his supporting turn in Animal House (1978), stars as Dreamer (yes, everyone in the movie really calls him by that name), a promising amateur trying to get into the Professional Bowlers Association. He works as a jack-of-all-trades in a small-town bowling alley, he’s involved in a tempestuous romantic relationship with Karen (Susan Blakely), and he has a loving father figure in Harry (Warden), a man who once dreamed of becoming a pro but now focuses on training his protégé. Given this set-up, you know the drill: Dreamer fights to get taken seriously by the PBA, Dreamer works through his relationship with Karen, and Dreamer overcomes personal hardship to win the big game. Dreamer is so lightweight that it nearly evaporates, but the actors are watchable; Matheson goes for a cocksure/vulnerable balance, though it’s hard to understand why his character is so angsty, and Warden provides gravitas, though the climax of his character’s storyline makes very little sense. As for Blakeley, she’s a bit on the whiny side, and promising supporting characters played by Matt Clark, Richard B. Shull, and Barbara Stuart are wasted. Inexplicably, the movie features its overly emphatic theme song three times; for most viewers, soft-rock band Pablo Cruise’s tune “Reach for the Top” will wear out its welcome the first time. The same, sadly, can be said of Dreamer, though watching the movie is tolerable if one has affinity for the leading actors.

Dreamer: LAME

The Champ (1979)

          A shameless tearjerker that some fans of a certain age still hold close to their hearts, The Champ is a remake of the 1931 picture of the same name, and the focus of both versions is the cheap sentiment of a child crying. Directed with gimme-the-paycheck proficiency by Italian artiste Franco Zeffirelli, the 1979 version is lavish inasmuch as Zeffirelli lets scenes run longer than might seem necessary, presumably because he’s trying to build up a head of emotional steam for the bummer ending. For believers who get lost in the story, the overkill approach is probably quite effective, but for the rest of us, it’s just overkill.

          The tale begins on a Florida racetrack, where former boxer Billy Flynn (Jon Voight) works as a horse trainer and raises his angelic little boy, T.J. (Ricky Schroder). Billy’s an irresponsible drunk and gambler, ashamed that he’s not a role model for his son, and he talks a good line about returning to the ring someday so he can earn his nickname: Champ. Through convoluted circumstances, Billy and T.J. cross paths with Annie (Faye Dunaway), a fashion maven who just happens to be T.J.’s mom; she split when the boy was an infant. Annie, now remarried and wealthy, is enchanted by the boy and wants to become part of his life, but Billy won’t forgive her for her past infractions.

          However, when Billy gets thrown in jail after a drunken brawl, he realizes T.J. needs a better home, so Billy pretends to send the kid away to live with Annie. (Cue weeping from Schroder.) After getting out of jail, Billy decides to get himself together and return to the ring. T.J. runs away from Annie to be with Billy during his training. (More weeping upon their reunion.) Finally, the day of the big fight comes, and—well, there’s no need to spoil the finale. (Except to say that there’s more weeping.)

          Voight is pretty good here, trying to infuse Method credibility into a preposterous role, and he realizes his main purpose is triggering Shroder’s waterworks; nonetheless, Voight has strong moments depicting a simple man’s reluctant emotional declarations. Ice queen Dunaway is interesting casting, since we’re supposed to see Annie coming to life before our eyes, but her performance is far too reserved for this sort of thing. Several top-shelf character players (Elisha Cook Jr., Arthur Hill, Strother Martin, Allan Miller, Jack Warden) are underused in supporting roles. Schroder, who has subsequently enjoyed a long career on TV playing juvenile and grown-up roles, is like a Norman Rockwell dream of a perfect child in The Champ, clever and sensitive and smart, all bright eyes and rosy cheeks and tousled hair. He cries a lot and seems properly upset at the right moments. So, if watching youthful anguish is your thing, then The Champ is for you.

The Champ: FUNKY

The White Buffalo (1977)

          The further producer Dino De Laurentiis stretched logic and taste in order to emulate the monster-on-the-loose success of Jaws (1975), the more demented his copycat movies became. The producer’s 1976 remake of King Kong made sense because it built upon an established brand and because special-effects technology had evolved since the release of the original Kong four decades previous; similarly, the producer’s 1977 killer-whale thriller Orca made sense because it was about a big fish with big jaws. But The White Buffalo, which is about exactly what the title suggests, is weird as hell from start to finish, not least because it’s hard to imagine De Laurentiis believing that audiences would be terrified by the prospect of a melanin-deficient grazing animal.
          The wackadoodle plot involves Wild Bill Hickcock (Charles Bronson) teaming up with Crazy Horse (Will Sampson)—no, really!—to pursue the demonic white buffalo that haunts Hickock’s dreams. Written by Richard Sale, who adapted his own novel, the story portrays Hickock (traveling under the alias James Otis) as a haunted man who spends much of his time hiding behind wrap-around sunglasses. Many nights, he wakes screaming and sweating because he envisions a white buffalo charging at him, so Hickock travels to the Black Hills on a visionquest. Along the way, he runs into a crusty prospector pal (Jack Warden), who claims to have seen the last living white buffalo and offers to guide Hickock toward the bleached beastie. Once these two venture into the wilderness, they cross paths with Crazy Horse, who has his own reasons for chasing the critter: The buffalo ravaged his village and killed his daughter, so Crazy Horse must kill the monster in order to set his daughter’s soul free.
          None of this makes much sense—especially since director J. Lee Thompson moves the story along so fast that plot twists stack up like the layers of a fever dream—but for aficionados of peculiar ’70s cinema, what really matters is the bizarre texture of this eminently watchable movie. Most of the monster scenes were shot on soundstages, leading to surreal nighttime sequences set in fake snowy forests, and the FX shots of the buffalo are so brazenly fake that they take on a kind of dreamlike power. (The gory sequence in which Crazy Horse’s village gets trampled is particularly disorienting.) Yet the creepiest element of the movie is unquestionably John Barry’s menacing score: As he did with De Laurentiis’ Kong remake, Barry uses sweeping string arrangements and bold horns to give a silly story gravitas. When the movie is really cooking, Barry’s rattling music and Thompson’s swerving camera moves add up to something quite potent. That said, it’s a shame the middle of the picture gets bogged down in subplots, with the titular terror kept offscreen for far too long until resurfacing during the epic climax.
          The oddness of The White Buffalo is accentuated by all-over-the-map acting: Bronson is characteristically grim; Sampson offers as dignified a performance as he can given the circumstances; and supporting players including John Carradine, Kim Novak, Slim Pickens, and Clint Walker contribute salty flavor. Thrown together, the disparate elements equal a truly strange film, even by the high weirdness standards of De Laurentiis’ other ’70s monster mashes. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

The White Buffalo: FREAKY

The Poseidon Adventure (1971) & Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979)

          For some reason, I’ve always remembered a remark that Will Smith made around the time he broke through as a big-screen star with 1994’s Independence Day: When asked how he got so much mileage out of so little screen time, Smith explained that he studied Ernest Borgnine’s performance in The Poseidon Adventure because of how vigorously Borgnine attacked every scene. Smith was onto something, because even though Irwin Allen’s production of The Poseidon Adventure deserves its reputation as one of the cheesiest movies of the ’70s, it’s undeniably compelling for the same reason that Borgnine’s supporting performance is effective—the picture will do anything to get a reaction. Based on a novel by Paul Gallico, the story about a luxury liner turned upside down by a giant rogue wave is silly, because it presumes that the liner can stay afloat long enough for survivors to seek rescue through a hole in the bottom of the hull, but the movie is jam-packed with action, melodrama, romance, schmaltz, and spectacle. What’s not to like about unpretentious hokum that intercuts shots of gussied-up New Year’s Eve revelers singing “Auld Lang Syne” with vignettes of the ship’s stoic captain (Leslie Nielsen!) watching watery doom approach a few decks above their heads? Perfecting the disaster-movie template established by Airport (1970), The Poseidon Adventure offers a slapdash ensemble of familiar faces romping through one overwrought crisis after another. In sheer paycheck-cashing mode, Gene Hackman plays the hero of the piece, a swaggering priest who rediscovers his purpose in life by leading a band of hearty survivors to possible salvation; his performance is so faux-intense that it’s embarrassing and thrilling at the same time. Lending campy gravitas are Borgnine and other showbiz veterans, including Jack Albertson, Red Buttons, Roddy McDowall, and the flamboyantly buoyant Shelley Winters (“In the water, I’m a very skinny lady!”). Meanwhile, Carol Lynley, Pamela Sue Martin, and Stella Stevens shriek their lungs out in various states of soggy undress.
          The soap-opera storylines are drab, like the one about marital strife between a crass cop (Borgnine) and an ex-hooker (Stevens), but the fun of the picture is watching broadly sketched caricatures clash with each other against a backdrop of death and devastation. Allen spent a bundle on massive sets that could be flipped upside down and flooded, so what’s happening onscreen feels real because the actors actually got soaked, and drowning is such a universal phobia that it’s impossible not to sympathize with the characters’ anxiety. On top of everything, there’s a sky-high kitsch factor, especially when Lynley lip-syncs the movie’s atrocious but Oscar-winning theme song “The Morning After”—so whether you embrace the flick for its legit thrills or its unintentional humor, The Poseidon Adventure is a great ride.
          Allen reprised the story several years later, when his career was faltering; the sleep-inducing Beyond the Poseidon Adventure stars a bored Michael Caine as a sea captain who tries to salvage loot from wreck of the Poseidon shortly after the last moments of the original movie. Peter Boyle, Sally Field, and Jack Warden join the festivities, with Karl Malden playing Caine’s salty sidekick and Telly Savalas portraying the main villain. Unfortunately, the direction and script are so lifeless that even the colorful cast isn’t enough to keep the sequel afloat—Beyond the Poseidon Adventure is a grade-Z heist picture that merely happens to take place on an abandoned boat.

The Poseidon Adventure: GROOVY

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure: LAME

The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973)

Although Burt Reynolds filmed hours upon hours of cowboy stories for film and television in the ’60s, he only starred in one Western during his peak period of the 1970s and early ’80s, and the picture pales in comparison to similar films of the same period starring Reynolds’ buddy Clint Eastwood. Part of the problem is an episodic storyline with too many villains, and part of the problem is the movie’s indecision about whether it’s an action picture with a romantic subplot or a romantic drama with action scenes. It also doesn’t help that the misogyny quotient is off the charts. Reynolds plays Jay, an outlaw reeling from the rape and murder of his Native American wife, Cat Dancing. When Jay’s accomplices Billy (Bo Hopkins) and Dawes (Jack Warden) kidnap a woman (Sarah Miles) they find wandering in the wilderness, Jay prevents the thugs from raping her, and takes her with him when he abandons the gang. The woman, Catherine, is running from her monstrous husband, Crocker (George Hamilton), so eventually Jay and Catherine are stalked by Dawes, Crocker, and even a bounty hunter (Lee J. Cobb), whom Crocker hires. It’s all very convoluted, and the idea that Catherine falls for Jay because he reveals his tragic past is trite. Making matters worse, Reynolds and Miles lack chemistry, so the only sparks are between Reynolds and Warden, whose climactic confrontation is memorably brutal. A priceless actor no matter how he was cast, Warden contributes one of his most odiously villainous performances in Cat Dancing, so he’s almost worth the price of admission. The location photography is handsome, especially scenes in a snowy forest toward the end of the picture, but the narrative’s stop-and-start-rhythm prevents Cat Dancing from building up a head of emotional steam. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing: FUNKY