The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) & The Cat o’ Nine Tails (1971) & Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971)

          Around the same time that Alfred Hitchcock’s career began to wane, potential successors for his “Master of Suspense” title emerged in Hollywood and abroad. In America, director Brian De Palma laced several films with overt homages to Hitchcock. Overseas, Italian director Dario Argento won a fleeting sort of international fame with his first three pictures, all of which have unmistakably Hitchcockian elements.

          Argento’s debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, benefits not only from the self-assurance of a youthful talent eager to strut his stuff but also from extraordinary collaborators. Having proven himself as a screenwriter on pictures including Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), Argento secured the services of composer Ennio Morricone and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. Their unnerving music and stately photography elevate the contrivances of the script Argento adapted from a 1949 novel by Fredrick Brown. The film opens with a bravura visual flourish—while living in Rome, American writer Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante) happens upon an attack inside an all-white art gallery, so he watches from behind the gallery’s glass façade as a beautiful woman struggles to survive a stabbing. Luckily, he’s able to call for help. Afterward, police detective Morosini (Enrico Maria Salerno) confiscates Dalmas’ passport and forces the writer to remain in Italy until the investigation concludes. Dalmas then starts an investigation of his own, even as the killer attacks others who get too close to the truth.

          Despite myriad lapses in credibility and logic, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage moves along fairly well. Unfortunately, so many scenes feature the brutalization of women that Argento left himself vulnerable to charges of misogyny, just as De Palma did with his Hitchcockian shockers. That said, most of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is vivid. Expertly staged jump scares complement unpleasant scenes including a horrific razor-blade attack.  Salerno’s world-weary portrayal, while clichéd, is fun to watch, though Musante is far less impressive. In his defense, he’s burdened with some wretched dialogue (“What’s happening to me? This damn thing’s becoming an obsession!”). All in all, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is an impressive first effort, its rough edges attributable to inexperience and its highlights indicative of promise.

          Argento’s follow-up, The Cat o’ Nine Tails, is made with just as much confidence but slightly less panache. Morricone returns, but the movie suffers for Storaro’s absence, because the imagery in Argento’s second film is pedestrian instead of painterly. Also miring The Cat o’ Nine Tails in mediocrity are distasteful themes of child endangerment, homophobia, and incest. Once again, Argento uses the device of a witness who becomes an amateur sleuth. This time, blind typesetter Franco Arnò (Karl Malden) overhears a suspicious conversation and then makes a connection when he learns about a murder that happened near where the conversation took place. Franco enlists the help of newspaperman Carlo Giordani (James Franciscus), and they search for the killer’s identity. Things get convoluted fast, because the plot involves, among other things, cutting-edge genetic research and the use of a whip as a metaphor. Still, the plotting of The Cat o’ Nine Tails is no more ridiculous than that of the typical Hitchcock picture, except perhaps for the sheer number of McGuffins pulling the story down blind alleys.

          Logic is even more of a problem in Argento’s sophomore effort than it was in his debut, since the police in The Cat o’ Nine Tails seem both ineffective and weirdly tolerant of amateur detectives. Like Musante in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Franciscus cuts a handsome figure but offers little else to the proceedings, though Malden’s avuncular charm makes all of his scenes watchable. Argento’s apparent desire to out-Hitchcock Hitchcock gets a bit tiresome, as during a long scene involving poisoned milk, but Morricone saves the day with his offbeat score, all eerie wails and spidery syncopation. Furthermore, Argento comes through with a fun chase at the end as well as a colorful final death. So even though The Cat o’ Nine Tails doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, it’s the most entertaining installment of Argento’s so-called “Animal Trilogy.”

          Four Flies on Grey Velvet lacks the elegance of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and the pulpy energy of The Cat o’ Nine Tails. Worse, Four Flies on Grey Velvet tacks in a grotesque direction by fetishizing violence with close-ups of foreign objects penetrating skin. It’s as if Argento, upon reaching maturity as a storyteller, suddenly forgot the lessons about understatement he’d learned from Hitchcock’s work. Anyway, Four Flies on Grey Velvet gets underway when rock-music drummer Roberto Tobias (Michael Brandon) confronts a man he perceives as a stalker, then accidentally kills the man while another person photographs the incident. Blackmail ensues, so Roberto half-heartedly investigates with the assistance of artist friends and a PI. Meanwhile, Roberto navigates romances with two women. Four Flies on Grey Velvet is one of those befuddling thrillers in which the protagonist seems fearful of mortal danger in one scene, then seems untroubled in the next. Further muddying the viewing experience are brief attempts at comedy, such as a scene featuring Italian-cinema funnyman Bud Spencer. It’s hard to reconcile the lighthearted stuff with scenes of slow-motion mutilation, especially since the plot deteriorates into endless explanations of far-fetched motives sprinkled with cut-rate psychobabble.

          After making Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Argento took a break from the rough stuff and made an outright comedy, which flopped. Thereafter, he doubled down on gore and weirdness with Deep Red (1975) and Suspiria (1977). Exit the would-be Master of Suspense, enter the Master of Horror. While none of Argento’s early thrillers remotely approaches the quality of Hitchcock’s best work, all three are creepy and imaginative, with moments that would have made the master proud.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage: GROOVY

The Cat o’ Nine Tails: GROOVY

Four Flies on Grey Velvet: FUNKY

The Doberman Gang (1972) & The Daring Dobermans (1973) & The Amazing Dobermans (1976)

          Perhaps the only thing harder to believe than the existence of three crime procedurals about dogs committing robberies is that the Walt Disney Company had nothing to do with the pictures. Rather than being family-friendly romps, these pictures are dramas with comedic elements, and in fact the first one includes a bloody mauling—not exactly the stuff of normal G-rated fare. Although the Doberman movies aren’t particularly well-crafted, suffering from indifferent direction and weak acting, the scripts have a certain methodical quality. The people behind the series were producer David Chudnow and his son, TV-editor-turned-feature-director Byron Ross Chudnow, though the real credit should go to the various animal trainers involved in the series. While onscreen dog behavior is juiced through editing (thereby hiding from viewers offscreen commands and/or interludes between different stunts), the canines’ seemingly endless bag of tricks is impressive.

          The first movie, The Doberman Gang, follows the exploits of career criminal Eddie (Byron Mabe), who wants a foolproof means of pulling heists. After watching security dogs take down invaders at a junkyard, he concocts the idea of training dogs to commit robberies. Eddie enlists the aid of Barney (Hal Reed), a U.S. Air Force animal trainer, by claiming that he wants to start a legitimate training business with Barney. After spending weeks training six Dobermans at a remote location alongside Eddie, Eddie’s girlfriend (Julie Parrish), and two of Eddie’s thuggish ex-con pals, Barney gets hip to what’s happening. Then the relationship among the conspirators starts to unravel in predictable ways. Attempts at wit in The Amazing Dobermans are anemic, such as naming the dogs after famous criminals (Bonnie, Clyde, Dillinger, etc.), and the songs played during dreary montages are truly terrible. Still, the lengthy heist scene is exciting simply because of novelty, and the Chudnows thrown in enough twists to keep things moving along.

          Without giving away the ending of the first film, it’s enough to say that at the beginning of The Daring Dobermans, the dogs are on the loose, still carrying loot from the big heist. Law-enforcement officials and vigilantes search in vain for the animals, but working-stiff buddies Greg (David Moses), Steve (Charles Robinson), and Warren (Tim Considine) hit the jackpot. Greg uses an oscillator to create high-pitched frequencies in order to summon the dogs. Overcome with greed, the dudes decide to train the Dobermans for a new mission, even building a facility out in the desert. This attracts the attention of Billy (Claudio Martinez), a poor Native American youth who likes animals and, initially, doesn’t realize the men are planning a crime. The plot of The Daring Dobermans is even more outlandish than that of the first film, and the characterizations are just as thin. However, like its predecessor, The Daring Dobermans comes alive, somewhat, during the big heist. Further, the picture largely avoids the cute-kid stuff one might expect from the Billy storyline, opting instead to employ Billy as a mirror reflecting the awfulness of the lead characters. (The human ones, that is—the Dobermans, as always, are blameless.)

          A jolt of star power wasn’t nearly enough to justify the existence of the next installment, The Amazing Dobermans. Rather than continuing the story of the previous films, The Amazing Dobermans casts five dogs as new “characters.” As for the two-legged cast, tanned and vapid James Franciscus stars as Lucky, a low-rent con man on the run from  loan sharks. He’s rescued from attackers by kindly and religious Daniel (Fred Astaire), an ex-con who learned animal handling while in prison and now travels the country with his five dogs, hiring out the team for security work. Later, when Lucky befriends circus clown Samson (Billy Barty), Lucky recruits Daniel and his canines to form a new circus act. Concurrently, Lucky romances Justine (Barbara Eden), who performs a horse-riding act in the circus. All this stuff comes together in a convoluted heist/sting sequence. The Amazing Dobermans is the dullest of the three flicks, especially when composer Alan Silvestri scores montages with hideous disco/lounge jams, and the movie’s tepid light comedy is hard to take. Franciscus does his damnedest to sell the whole enterprise, Eden looks attractive in her spangly bikini costumes, and Astaire somehow retains his dignity. But seeing as how the “highlight” of The Amazing Dobermans is a dog performing a high-wire act, it’s clear the series had run its course—and then some.

          Nonetheless, the talented canines returned in the made-for-TV flick Alex and the Doberman Gang (1980), again directed by Byron Ross Chudnow.

The Doberman Gang: FUNKY

The Daring Dobermans: FUNKY

The Amazing Dobermans: FUNKY

Killer Fish (1979)

Several bargain-basement American stars appear in this rotten international production, which is part aquatic horror movie and part romantic heist thriller. The story alternates between two tonalities—incoherent and stupid—while the filmmakers waffle about what sort of movie Killer Fish should be. Sometimes, it’s a straight-up Jaws rip-off with bloody scenes of victims getting chewed to death by carnivorous sea creatures. Sometimes, it’s glossy late-’70s fluff about slender people with nice tans having sex with each other. And more often than not, Killer Fish is simply confusing. The picture starts out with an elaborate robbery sequence during which criminals Robert Lasky (Lee Majors) and Kate Neville (Karen Black), along with their accomplices, break into the office of a Brazilian power plant and steal a cache of emeralds. To distract security guards, Robert and Kate set off a huge explosion. Meanwhile, mystery man Paul Diller (James Franciscus) gambles in a tropical bar. Turns out Paul is the brains behind the robbery, and an inside man at the company that owns the plant. Paul, Robert, and Kate stash the emeralds in a lake, figuring that’s a safe hiding place while they wait for the inevitable investigation to cool down. Only Paul, without telling his pals, fills the lake with piranha so no one can grab the gems prematurely. As if the story wasn’t already crammed with enough random elements, enter fashion model Gabrielle (Margaux Hemingway), who arrives in Brazil for a shoot and, naturally, falls in love with smoldering Robert. Never mind that Kate’s sorta hung up on Robert even though she’s Paul’s girlfriend. After several of Paul’s underlings die from piranha bites while trying to steal the gems, the surviving major characters end up on a boat together during a giant storm, which producer Alex Ponti (son of Carlo, stepson of Sophia Loren) and director Antonio Margheriti depict with cheesy miniature effects straight out of a Toho Productions monster mash. Awful disco music runs underneath all of this nonsense. An embarrassment for everyone involved, Killer Fish is almost completely without redeeming values, except perhaps for some attractive locations. Together with The Norseman (1978), Steel (1979), Agency (1980), and The Last Chase (1981), this movie also helped kill Majors’ post-Six Million Dollar Man movie career before it really began.

Killer Fish: LAME

The Greek Tycoon (1978)

          There are at least three ways to watch The Greek Tycoon, a fictionalized take on the marriage of presidential widow Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. (Well, four ways, if you count the option of skipping the movie altogether.) Firstly, you can watch the film in abject horror at the crass exploitation of human tragedy. Secondly, you can experience the movie as a campy jet-set melodrama. And thirdly, you can cut the filmmakers a whole lot of slack by enjoying the piece as the downbeat character study of a larger-than-life individual whose money bought him everything except lasting happiness and social respectability.
          Released in 1978, just three years after Onassis’ death, The Greek Tycoon is among the most shameless cinematic endeavors ever “ripped from the headlines.” Most of the sensational aspects of the Kennedy-Onassis relationship are replicated here—the assassination of a president, the arrangement of a multimillion-dollar marriage contract, the luxury of life on a giant yacht, the controversial business deals. And for everything the filmmakers subtract from the source material (notably absent are stand-ins for Kennedy’s children), the team behind The Greek Tycoon adds in something just as salacious, because the movie features a conniving brother, a suicidal ex-wife, and a tempestuous mistress. It’s all exactly as glamorously trashy as it sounds, right down to the quasi-lookalike casting of Jacqueline Bisset as Kennedy and Anthony Quinn as Onassis. (Perpetually tanned movie/TV hunk James Franciscus appears, somewhat inconsequentially, as The Greek Tycoon’s version of JFK.)
          In the film’s storyline, Theo Tomassis (Quinn) first meets Liz Cassidy (Bisset) and her husband, James Cassidy (Franciscus), while James is a Congressman prepping a presidential campaign. Later, after Liz suffers a miscarriage while living in the White House, she leaves D.C. for a recuperative vacation with Theo in Greece. Then, a year after an assassin shoots and kills James, Liz accepts Theo’s marriage proposal, but with a slew of conditions—such as agreeing to share Theo’s bed only 10 nights each month.

          The Greek Tycoon is a cartoonish riff on history, but the production values are pleasant—cinematographer Anthony Richmond shoots the hell out of the film’s gorgeous Greek locations—and Quinn overacts with his usual operatic verve. Conversely, Bisset and costars Edward Albert (as Theo’s son), Charles Durning (as a U.S. politician), and Raf Vallone (as Theo’s brother) play the material straight, which is unwise. Versatile helmer J. Lee Thompson, who years earlier directed Quinn in The Guns of Navarone (1961), orchestrates the whole silly/tacky endeavor with his usual impersonal proficiency.

The Greek Tycoon: FUNKY

Concorde Affaire ’79 (1979)

This Italian-made, low-budget adventure film is such a shameless ripoff of the Airport series that the plot combines the premise of one Airport picture (a plane crashes underwater, as in Airport ’77) with that of another (a scheme to sabotage the Concorde, as in The Concorde: Airport ’79). The producers even stole the Airport series trope of ending a title with an abbreviated reference to a year. Yet any similarities to the lavishly produced escapism of the Airport flicks end there: The execution of Concorde Affaire ’79 is inept on every level. The villain of the piece is an evil businessman named Milland (played by the impossibly bored Joseph Cotten), whose company has interests in the air-travel industry. He orders that several Concorde jets be sabotaged in order to throw the whole Concorde line out of operation, thus (in theory) eliminating his main competition. Never mind two big logic problems: 1) Every clue would point to Milland as a suspect, and 2) Wouldn’t all Concordes get grounded after the first couple of suspicious accidents? Anyway, smartass journalist Moses Brody (played by the impossibly tanned James Franciscus) gets assigned to look for a missing Concorde that went down in the Atlantic near Caracas. Yes, the story asks viewers to assume that no one else is looking for the missing airplane. What ensues is an absurd potboiler, with Milland’s agents trying to kill Brody before he learns too much. There’s also some tiresome crap involving a flight attendant (Fiamma Maglione) who survived the Atlantic crash, and a stalwart pilot (Van Johnson) who must land a Concorde that’s been rigged to explode. Suffice to say, the choppy editing ensures that none of this coheres, and the bizarre musical score—electronic disco at one moment, tense classical during the next—adds to the bewildering effect. About the only sequence that works is a very long underwater bit with scuba divers chasing after each other through coral-reef formations. However, those few almost-exciting moments are not nearly reason enough to slog through the mess of confusing storytelling (and terrible dubbing) that comprises Concorde Affaire ’79.

Concorde Affaire ’79: LAME

Hell Boats (1970)

How exciting is the World War II thriller Hell Boats? Well, let me put it this way: Watching the movie took me four different sittings, because each time I started the flick, I fell asleep. Allowing that the picture may have fallen victim to my busy schedule and corresponding fatigue, I’ll be generous and say my head-dives weren’t entirely the film’s fault—but, still, “lively” ain’t exactly the right word for Hell Boats. Part of the problem is the meandering storyline, which tracks an American-born British Naval officer’s efforts to blow up some sort of Nazi encampment near Sicily, and part of the problem is the hopelessly bland persona of leading man James Franciscus. Handsome, lean, tan beyond reason, and suitably emphatic, he sure seems like he’s giving a performance, whether he’s quarreling with subordinates about strategy or romancing the cynical wife (Elizabeth Shepherd) of his superior officer, but every note Franciscus hits is painfully obvious. His brand of bad acting is particularly unfortunate, because he comes across as lacking not so much talent but imagination—it’s as if he can’t inhabit a moment without striking a pose he’s seen some other actor strike in another movie, so even though he always steers clear of embarrassing himself, nothing resonates. And so it goes for every other aspect of this movie, which throws together familiar elements--friction among soldiers that sorta recalls The Dirty Dozen; high-adventure military espionage in the mode of The Guns of Navarone; wartime romance reminiscent of From Here to Eternity; et cetera. Plus, the villains are interchangeable, the supporting characters are one-dimensional ciphers, and the technical execution is mediocre, with cheap-looking process shots taking the luster off otherwise adequate location photography. In sum, Hell Boats is that rare movie it’s possible to forget during a viewing. But, hey, we all need a nap sometime, right? (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Hell Boats: LAME

Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973)

          Quintessential early-’70s “I gotta be me” cinema, this elaborate adaptation of Richard Bach’s best-selling book is fascinatingly weird. As the title suggests, Bach’s novella—which sold more than 1 million copies—is the allegorical story of a seagull who embarks on a spiritual quest, eventually becoming such an enlightened being that he elevates other seagulls beyond the earthly concerns of their everyday existence. The parallels to then-current themes of environmentalism, naturalism, and reincarnation are absurdly obvious—when we first meet him, Jonathan belongs to a flock that lives in a garbage dump, fighting with each other for scraps from man’s refuse. Realizing there must be more to life, and wondering why his fellow birds have so little interest in using their gift for flight to explore the universe, Jonathan experiments with high-speed soaring and gets excommunicated for his rebelliousness. He then embarks on a long odyssey and dies, ascending to some kind of bird heaven where he learns about using his mind to control his body. Then he returns to the mortal plane as a feathered messiah.

          The first part of the story is actually quite sincere, but things get silly once Jonathan transforms. However, the film’s painstaking execution makes Jonathan Livingston Seagull unique and, for sympathetic viewers, interesting. Writer-producer-director Hall Bartlett doesn’t feature a single human onscreen, instead relying on footage of carefully trained birds and—for the undeniably beautiful scenes of Jonathan soaring past forests and mountains and oceans—radio-controlled gliders shaped like seagulls. Cinematographer Jack Couffer and the film’s editing team were rightly nominated for Oscars, because the film is a beguiling travelogue. Yet the film’s sounds are more problematic than its visuals. Bartlett shoots close-ups and two-shots during dialogue scenes, treating the animals like actors, and he juxtaposes these images with voice-over tracks performed by Hollywood actors who “play” the different characters. In moderation, this is helpful for clarifying story points; in excess, it’s  goofy. (Thankfully, the birds’ beaks aren’t animated to mimic human speech movements.)

          The main voice performers are James Franciscus as Jonathan—think overly whispered intensity—and Philip Ahn, of Kung Fu fame, as the hero’s spiritual leader, Chang. Yes, the seagull has an Asian spiritual leader. But wait, as the saying goes, there’s more! Making the earnestness of Franscicus’ performance seem mild by comparison, Neil Diamond wrote and performed several songs that appear during montages, notably the epic ballad “Be.” Diamond’s music is potent, but his lyrics and his singing are cartoonishly overwrought—therefore, the combination of his tunes and Bartlett’s glorious pictures creates an effect, though not necessarily a good effect. Still, this is absolutely unique stuff, and it’s hard to imagine Bach’s book receiving any more reverential treatment. Therefore, it’s odd to discover that Bach sued the producers because he didn’t like Bartlett’s narrative tweaks. That’s a lot of fuss for a low-budget movie that not only flopped at the box office but also received some of the most vitriolic negative reviews of the era. Really, did Bach envision a better talking-seagull movie?

Jonathan Livingston Seagull: FREAKY

Good Guys Wear Black (1978)

          Considering that Chuck Norris achieved fame as a karate champion and as one of Bruce Lee’s most formidable onscreen sparring partners, it’s surprising that his first significant starring role was not in a martial-arts flick. Instead, Good Guys Wear Black is a quintessentially ’70s conspiracy picture, complete with nefarious politicians ordering hits on the commandos who participated in a Vietnam-era covert op. Norris gets to unleash his signature roundhouse kicks in a few combat scenes, but for the most part he treks from one location to the next, accompanied by an alluring mystery lady (Anne Archer), as he investigates the identities of the Washington, D.C., power players who targeted him for elimination. Yet even though Good Guys Wear Black has a bit more ambition than the usual grindhouse thriller, it’s not particularly good.
          The photography and production values look cheap, especially during the prologue of a nighttime raid in Vietnam, the star wattage is low (Gilligan’s Island costar Jim Backus gets special billing for a pointless cameo as a doorman), and Norris is wooden. In fact, he’s the virtual poster child for athletes trying to become movie stars; he cuts a solid figure but can’t deliver dialogue smoothly, so director Ted Post wisely restricts Norris to a flat monotone in most scenes. Furthermore, the less said about Norris’ attempts to express emotion, the better. Archer, who looks fantastic, fares somewhat better but not by much, and she and Norris benefit from the grown-up dialogue that was presumably contributed by co-screenwriter Mark Medoff (the playwright of Children of a Lesser God). James Franciscus has fun chewing on his role as a Machiavellian politician angling for a job as Secretary of State, although his big speech at the end is filled with movie-villain clichés.
          As for the action, it’s solid but sporadic—Norris’ extended brawl with an assassin at an airport is the only scene that delivers the sort of elaborate, high-kicking whammies the leading man’s fans might expect. Ultimately, Good Guys Wear Black is not exciting enough to work as an action picture, and not smart enough to work as a thriller—but it’s still is a watchable misfire, because the filmmakers deserve some small credit for trying to deliver dramatic heft within the action genre’s limited parameters.

Good Guys Wear Black: FUNKY