McCloud (1970)

          While not a direct continuation of the Clint Eastwood movie Coogan’s Bluff (1968), popular TV detective series McCloud was inspired by that film, hence Herman Miller’s credits as screenwriter of the Eastwood picture and creator of the TV series. Both projects employ the novel image of a cowboy cop transplanted to New York City, solving crimes with frontier toughness, old-fashioned common sense, and a warm charm that drives cosmopolitan women wild. Right from this first episode, which is sometimes known by the titles “Portrait of a Dead Girl” and “Who Killed Miss U.S.A.?,” star Dennis Weaver cuts a striking image, his tall frame swathed in a sheepskin coat and capped by a cowboy hat. Yet Marshal Sam McCloud of Taos, New Mexico, is not portrayed as a bumpkin. Quite to the contrary, he’s a tireless investigator whose courtly manners disguise an agile mind.
          The notion is that because he’s free of big-city hangups and pretentions, he sees things more clearly than his metropolitan counterparts, spotting holes in theories, logic problems in alibis, and omissions from crime reports. It’s worth nothing that he’s also smooth with the ladies, because one of this pilot film’s most enjoyable scenes is an exchange of erotic banter between Weaver and leading lady Diana Muldaur.
          Nonetheless, despite being cowritten by the reliable team of Richard Levinson and William Link, the first McCloud mystery isn’t especially memorable beyond the effective introduction of the protagonist. After capturing a fugitive in New Mexico, McCloud escorts his prisoner to New York, where the man is set to testify in a high-profile murder case. Criminals posing as cops kidnap the prisoner, compelling McCloud  to recapture the man and therefore restore his dignity as a lawman. This leads McCloud to explore the facts of the murder case, in which a Latino busboy stands accused of murdering a white beauty queen. Naturally, McCloud discovers problems with evidence incriminating the busboy and makes his way, slowly but surely, toward the identity of the real killer. Accompanying the marshal through his first New York adventure is Chris Coughlin (Muldaur), writer of a best-selling book about the case. At various times, McCloud encounters an activist priest, a jaded fashion model, a morally ambiguous lawyer, and other big-city types who provide stark contrast to the plain-talking protagonist.

          Even though the story underwhelms, the film is quite watchable. The acting is slick (watch forRaul Julia as the priest and Julie Newmar, of all people, as the model), while director Richard A. Colla gives everything an expensive look with blurry foreground objects and fluid camera moves. As for Weaver, he's in the zone from start to finish, channeling an aw-shucks Gary Cooper vibe without ever seeming artificial or cloying. Although McCloud never became a proper weekly series—like Columbo and McMillan and Wife, it aired as a series of telefilms—the franchise captured the public’s imagination, running from 1970 to 1977. Weaver reprised the role for 1989’s The Return of Sam McCloud.

McCloud: FUNKY

Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)

          It’s tempting to say that Eyes of Laura Mars would have been a better movie if its original writer, horror icon John Carpenter, had also been the director—but then again, the central conceit of Carpenter’s story is so goofy that it’s possible even he would have encountered difficulty in making the narrative believable. The gimmick is that a fashion photographer becomes psychically linked to a serial killer, “seeing” murders as they’re committed. This makes her and all the people she knows suspects, and the premise inevitably leads to a showdown between the photographer and the killer.
          Journeyman director Irvin Kershner got the job of filming the story (David Zelag Goodman rewrote Carpenter’s script), and he delivers a diverting but somewhat forgettable thriller whose glamorous textures accentuate the lack of narrative substance. For instance, the main character’s photos were taken by real-life provocateur Helmut Newton, so the “shoots” depicted in the movie feature lingerie-clad models juxtaposed with gruesome backgrounds (e.g., car wrecks). Sensationalistic, to be sure, but not necessarily meaningful.

          Faye Dunaway stars as Laura Mars, a super-successful fashion photographer whose life unravels when she starts “seeing” murders. Laura soon meets Detective John Neville (Tommy Lee Jones), who is understandably skeptical about her insights. As Neville investigates the people around Laura, he and Laura become lovers. The movie gets formulaic during its middle section, with various characters in Laura’s life presented and dismissed as possible suspects, and whenever the movie needs a jolt, Kershner has Dunaway slip into a trance while he cuts to hazy point-of-view shots representing the killer’s perspective during a murder.

          The movie actually loses credibility as it progresses, and the ending is so trite it’s almost campy, but Kershner benefits from a strong supporting cast. In particular, Rene Auberjonois, Brad Dourif, and Raul Julia invest small roles with color and dimensionality. Unfortunately, the leads don’t fare as well. Jones does his standard early-career taciturn-stud thing, glowering through rote scenes as a cynical investigator, and Dunaway plays the whole movie a bit too broadly—by the time she’s cowering in her bedroom while the killer confronts her, she’s using hand movements so operatic they recall Barbara Stanywck’s performance in the 1948 potboiler Sorry, Wrong Number. In fact, it says a lot about Eyes of Laura Mars that the most memorable thing in the movie is Barbara Streisand’s overwrought theme song, “Prisoner,” which plays at the beginning and end of the picture. Fittingly for a movie set in the fashion industry, it’s all about the packaging, baby.

Eyes of Laura Mars: FUNKY

The Gumball Rally (1976)

          In 1975, a Time magazine cover story introduced the world to the “Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash,” better known as the Cannonball Run, an illegal road race in which competitors sped across the U.S. to determine who could travel from New York to Los Angeles the fastest. Created by a pair of car enthusiasts rebelling against speed limits, the Cannonball Run inspired two low-budget movies released in 1976. First up was the Roger Corman production Cannonball, a black comedy with the accent on violence, and then came this lighthearted take on the subject.

          The Gumball Rally stars Michael Sarrazin as Michael Bannon, the idle-rich originator of a Cannonball-style road race involving a handful of free-spirited competitors. Although the movie has some perfunctory plot devices, like Bannon’s friendly rivalry with fellow racer Steve Smith (Tim McIntire) and the efforts of inept cop Lt. Roscoe (Norman Burton) to interrupt the race, the focus is on wild automotive antics: The drivers pull high-speed shenanigans like transferring passengers from one moving car to another, and they make sport of outsmarting cops across the country.

          There’s not much in the way of characterization, so, for instance, Alice (Susan Flannery) and Jane (Joanne Nail) are one-note hotties using their looks to wriggle free of police entanglements while demolishing speed limits in their Porsche. Despite its superficiality, The Gumball Rally is an amiable celebration of individualism and irreverence, since the racers aren’t out to hurt anybody; they’re simply competing for fun, glory, and a gold-plated gumball machine.

          As directed by Charles Bail, whose career primarily comprises episodes of shows like CHiPs and Knight Rider, The Gumball Rally benefits greatly from enthusiastic performers. Sarrazin, an promising ’60s/’70s leading man whose career was starting to wobble at this point, is charming and funny, while McIntire offers his customary force-of-nature bluster; they make such a great duo it would have been fun to see them in other movies together. Gary Busey plays another in his long line of crazy-redneck characters, hootin’ and hollerin’ to enjoyable effect, and a young Raul Julia steals the movie with his flamboyant turn as an Italian speedster with a weakness for the ladies.

          The Gumball Rally is fluff, but it goes down a lot smoother than the officially sanctioned movie about the Cannonball race, 1981’s star-studded The Cannonball Run. Whereas the latter film is bloated, crude, and sexist, The Gumball Rally is 105 minutes of pleasant silliness.

The Gumball Rally: GROOVY