Mame (1974)

          By the mid-’70s, old-fashioned movie musicals were mostly relegated to the slag heap of cinema history—the same year this misguided project was released, for instance, MGM issued the first of its That’s Entertainment documentaries celebrating the good old days of singing-and-dancing extravaganzas. Given this context, the interesting question to ask about Mame is not why it failed so spectacularly with audiences and critics, but why the folks at Warner Bros. expected any other outcome. The type of fizzy Depression-era story told in Mame was a cliché better suited to satire (as in 1978’s Movie Movie) than straight treatment; the overwrought production numbers in Mame evoke the bloated CinemaScope/VistaVision movies of the ’50s; and aging star Lucille Ball had just finished an epic two-decade run as TV’s reigning comedienne, meaning there was zero evidence that people wanted to see her in a movie, much less a musical. Add in the fact that the movie’s tunes are pure cornpone schlock, and the recipe for disaster is complete. Throughout its unrelentingly boring 132 minutes, Mame bludgeons viewers with bland music, contrived storytelling, stiff acting, and tired one-liners. Other affronts to good taste include flamboyant costumes straight out of a drag-queen revue and ridiculous close-ups of Ball photographed with the world’s thickest haze filter.

          It’s amazing that something this inert derived from beloved source material. The story of Mame begins with Patrick Deenis’ semiautobiographical 1955 novel Auntie Mame, a fanciful account of the eccentric aunt who raised Dennis after his father died. The book inspired a popular 1958 comedy film starring Rosalind Russell, which in turn led to the creation of the 1966 stage musical Mame, with Angela Lansbury. Inexplicably, Lansbury was replaced with Ball, who couldn’t sing half as well as Lansbury. Worse, director Gene Saks—a holdover from the stage production—clearly lacked the chops to control a production (and a star) this big. Artificial, dull, and flat, Mame just sits there on screen, droning one from one laborious scene to the next. Ball is wrong on nearly every level, bungling jokes and steps and tunes while troupers including Bea Arthur and Robert Preston try to enliven supporting roles. Meanwhile, Saks and co. borrow camera and editing tricks from Robert Wise—who dominated ’60s musicals with The Sound of Music and West Side Story—without matching Wise’s gift for brisk storytelling. If anyone ever decides to make a documentary titled That’s Not Entertainment!, scenes from Meme should definitely be included.

Mame: LAME

Junior Bonner (1972)

          Although it’s a horrible cliché to say that Hollywood success is a double-edged sword, the sentiment is apt when considering Junior Bonner, a lovely dramatic film that probably would have enjoyed broader acceptance had the reputations of the film’s director and star not created inappropriate expectations. The director is Sam Peckinpah, who made this soft-spoken movie as a reprieve from the violent action sagas for which he was famous, and the star is Steve McQueen, whose most popular films involve glossy escapism. As the quiet story of an aging rodeo champ who returns to his hometown with an eye toward resolving longstanding family strife, Junior Bonner is probably the last thing anybody anticipated from Peckinpah or McQueen. Combined with the near-simultaneous release of several other movies about rodeo riders, the disconnect between what audiences wanted from the people behind Junior Bonner and what the picture actually delivers helped ensure a rotten performance at the box office. Happily, critics and fans have elevated the movie to greater notoriety in the years since its original release, because Junior Bonner represents a nearly pitch-perfect collaboration between director and star. (It’s also a damn sight better, in terms of resonance and substance, than the duo’s hit follow-up, 1974’s The Getaway.)

          When the movie begins, Junior (McQueen) trots into Prescott, Arizona, after a grueling and unrewarding rodeo ride. While recuperating in preparation for another shot at the bull that threw him, Junior wades into the fraught relationship of his parents, hard-drinking carouser Ace (Robert Preston) and no-bullshit survivor Elvira (Ida Lupino). As Junior tries to help mend fences, he also must contend with the crass ambitions of his little brother, Curly (Joe Don Baker), who wants to raze old homes (including his parents’ house) in order to build a cookie-cutter development. The contrast between Junior’s old-fashioned independence and his brother’s ultra-modern avarice allows Peckinpah to channel one of his favorite themes—the passing of the West, and the values it represents—through the tidy narrative of Jeb Rosebrook’s screenplay.

          McQueen proves once again that there was more to him than just an impressive macho image, using precision of language and movement to express his character’s inner life as efficiently as possible. McQueen is loose when he needs to be, as during scenes of barroom rowdiness, and tight when he needs to be, as during vignettes illustrating subtle family tensions. Preston channels his charming boisterousness into the character of a loveable rascal, and Lupino is believable as a woman who’s been put through the wringer by a challenging marriage. Baker and costar Ben Johnson contribute two different types of manly energy, with Baker conveying winner-takes-all selfishness and Johnson tight-lipped toughness. For the most part, Peckinpah eschews his signature excesses—the trademark slow-motion shots are used sparingly—so Junior Bonner is a great reminder that before he was a provocateur, Peckinpah was a storyteller. If only by dint of lacking mythic characterizations and over-the-top violence, Junior Bonner is probably the simplest Peckinpah feature, and that’s a good thing.

Junior Bonner: GROOVY

Child’s Play (1972)

          Even if one looks solely at the films he made in the ’70s, Sidney Lumet may well possess the most eclectic filmography of any major American filmmaker of his generation. Among other things, he made both the definitive NYPD movie, Serpico (1973), and the head-spinning musical turkey The Wiz (1978). Plus, scattered between his failures and triumphs are such oddities as Child’s Play, a psychological thriller that has some elements of occult horror. While Lumet delivers the strange flick with his customary intensity and sophistication, the picture’s bait-and-switch narrative is irritating, and the way three characters jockey for prominence makes the piece feel like a rough draft, as if screenwriter Leon Prochnik (adapting a play by Robert Marasco) couldn’t decide which viewpoint served the material best. Set in a private boys’ school, Child’s Play begins when a former student, Paul (Beau Bridges), arrives to begin his job as the new gym teacher. Paul notes the existence of a long and bitter rivalry between two veteran teachers, Joseph (Robert Preston) and Jerome (James Mason); Joseph is the upbeat student favorite, and Jerome is the hard-driving taskmaster. Compounding the intrigue, students keep acting like masochists by allowing other students to beat and torture them. Jerome, an old man fraying at the edges, thinks everything bad that’s happening is part of a campaign by Joseph to drive him away, but Paul begins to suspect there’s Satan worship afoot.

          The first hour of Child’s Play is borderline interminable simply because it’s so unfocused, but the second half of the picture represents a considerable improvement, for the power struggle between emotionally fragile Jerome and supremely confident Joseph becomes weirdly fascinating. Much of the interest, of course, stems from the performances rather than the writing. Mason renders more emotion than in nearly any other of his ’70s films, sketching a man crumbling under the weight of age and stress, while Preston layers surprising menace beneath his usual extroverted affability. Bridges, predictably, gets lost in the shuffle, which is a problem since he’s ostensibly the protagonist; Bridges spends a good chunk of the movie watching Mason and Preston do interesting things while contributing precious little to the overall dynamic. Although the final scenes wrap up the various plot threads in an eerie fashion, getting to the ending of this picture is a slog, and some aspects of Child’s Play are surprisingly amateurish. Composer Michael Small, generally a top-notch purveyor of subtle atmosphere, goes big in a very bad way with an obnoxious score, and Lumet overdoes the shadowy-cinematography bit, as if he’s shooting a full-on horror movie instead of what really amounts to a dark two-hander about a feud.

Child’s Play: FUNKY

Semi-Tough (1977)

          Had the people making this comedy been more judicious about picking their satirical targets, Semi-Tough might have become a semi-classic, because the actors and behind-the-scenes players were all at the height of their considerable powers. Unfortunately, the movie is a muddle because of indecision about whether to focus on the seedy side of pro football or the über-’70s trend of “est” training.

          The picture starts out like gangbusters, introducing unlikely roommates Billy Clyde Puckett (Burt Reynolds), Marvin Tiller (Kris Kristofferson), and Barbara Jane Bookman (Jill Clayburgh). Billy Clyde and Marvin are the star players for a Southern football team, which is owned by Barbara Jane’s wacky daddy, Big Ed Bookman (Robert Preston). Sharing space platonically because they’ve been friends since childhood, Billy Clyde, Marvin, and Barbara Jane are funny, hip, and neurotic, serious about sports but irreverent about everything else. As the story progresses, Marvin and Barbara Jane become a couple, which causes Billy Clyde to realize he’s in love with Barbara Jane.

          The movie also introduces wild characters like an oily PR man (Richard Masur), a psychotic lineman (Brian Dennehy), and a blissed-out Russian field-goal kicker (Ron Silver). On and off the field, the football stuff is great, with debauched parties, philosophical locker-room interviews, and tense practice sessions. However, the movie gets sidetracked when Marvin falls under the spell of Friedrick Bismark (Bert Convy), the smoothie behind “B.E.A.T. therapy,” a campy spin on “est.”

          In real life, Erhard Seminars Training (‘est”) was a therapeutically dubious fad in which patrons paid exorbitant fees to sit in hotel conference rooms for marathon character-building sessions without bathroom breaks. “B.E.A.T.” takes the extremes of “est” even further; Bismark labels all his followers assholes and spews empty psychobabble (“There aren’t any answers because there aren’t any questions”). Convy, a ’70s-TV stalwart best known for hosting game shows, is actually very good in Semi-Tough, revealing the savvy slickster behind the spiritual-guru façade. Like the football material, the “B.E.A.T.” stuff is great, but it belongs in its own movie. Complicating matters even further, the romantic triangle between the protagonists never really connects, since Marvin transforms into such a B.E.A.T.-addicted space case that he’s easily outmatched by down-to-earth Billy Clyde.

          That said, Clayburgh, Kristofferson, and Reynolds are wonderful, as is Preston; the scene in which Preston and Reynolds scamper around Big Ed’s office on their hands and knees because Big Ed is experimenting with “crawling therapy” is terrific. In fact, there’s so much to like in Semi-Tough that it’s dismaying to report how widely the film’s director, the sometimes-great comedy specialist Michael Ritchie, misses his mark. Still, viewers willing to treat the picture like a sampler platter will be amply rewarded: It may not be a proper cinematic meal, but it’s certainly the equivalent to a bunch of tasty snacks.

Semi-Tough: FUNKY