1980 Week: The Hollywood Knights

          The career of writer, producer, and director Floyd Mutrux took another strange turn with The Hollywood Knights, a shameless—and shapeless—imitation of American Graffiti (1973) with none of that picture’s deft characterization and sociopolitical weight. The movie also cops from Animal House (1978) by depicting anarchistic youth-run-wild vulgarity. Whereas Mutrux’s earlier directorial efforts explored such themes as ambition, disconnection, drugs, and music, The Hollywood Knights is an ensemble sex comedy without any recognizable sense of purpose. The movie has endured on cable and home video largely because some its players achieved fame elsewhere, notably Tony Danza (a costar of the sitcom Taxi at the time this film was made) and Michelle Pfeiffer (who found her breakout role three years later in Brian De Palma’s gonzo drug epic Scarface). Yet it says a lot about The Hollywood Knights that the film’s real star is obnoxious standup-comedian-turned-character-actor Robert Wuhl, who made his big-screen debut here. As goes Wuhl’s charmless performance, so goes the rest of the picture.

          Set in 1960s Beverly Hills, the movie tracks the adventures of the Hollywood Knights, a white gang devoted to antagonizing cops, getting laid, and making mischief. The Knights’ principal prankster, Newbomb Turk (Wuhl), takes endless pleasure in doing things like breaking wind to the tune of popular songs or depositing flaming bags of excrement at people’s front doors. You get the idea. Over the course of one chaotic evening, local parents and police officers try to stop the Knights’ last hurrah, since the burger joint that serves as the gang’s HQ is closing and the gang marks the occasion with epic buffoonery. The “highlight” is Turk grabbing the microphone at a school assembly so he can perform “Volare” using flatulence for percussion. The movie also has anemic romantic subplots. In tiresome scenes that exist almost completely separate from the rest of the movie, macho Knight Duke (Danza) struggles to accept that his pretty carhop girlfriend, Suzie Q (Pfeiffer), has dreams of an acting career and might outgrow him. Elsewhere, Newbomb improbably talks Sally (future sitcom star Fran Drescher) into a tryst even though she spends the whole movie whining about how repulsive she finds his antics.

          All of this stuff is brisk and colorful, but none of it is particularly funny. Quite to the contrary, most of the gags sputter or thud. That said, The Hollywood Knights has a lush visual style that it doesn’t deserve, because top-shelf cinematographer William A. Fraker, the six-time Oscar nominee who shot Hollywood classics including Rosemary’s Baby (1968), lensed all five features that Mutrux directed.

The Hollywood Knights: FUNKY

The Killer Inside Me (1976)

          One of several deeply flawed ’70s films containing an Oscar-worthy performance by Stacy Keach, The Killer Inside Me is the first of two movies, thus far, adapted from the Jim Thompson novel of the same name. (A 2010 version starring Casey Affleck received a more favorable critical response.) The material is strange, tracking the adventures of a small-town cop who secretly harbors homicidal tendencies, so the storyline asks viewers to take an unusual ride from wholesome Americana to deviant ultraviolence. Getting the tone of this one right would have challenged even the subtlest of filmmakers, a group to which rough-and-tumble action guy Burt Kennedy most certainly does not belong. Accordingly, the 1976 version of The Killer Inside Me is a mess from a tonal perspective, because it’s unclear whether the movie is a straight drama, a thriller disguised as a lighthearted character piece, a satire of American values, or some combination of all of those things.

          Keach finds a peculiar sort of true north, both in his onscreen performance and in his wry narration track, so his characterization tells a fatalistic but darkly funny story about a guy trying to make murder a part of his everyday life. Alas, the movie around Keach isn’t nearly as surefooted, even though some of the supporting performances are tasty and even though cinematographer William A. Fraker shrouds the film in evocative shadows. Those excited about exploring weird pockets of Hollywood cinema will be more inclined to cut The Killer Inside Me slack than those looking for straightforward escapism.

          Set in a small Montana town, the story follows Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford (Keach) through a colorful period in his life. To the casual eye, he seems like Mr. Nice Guy, because he romances a local schoolteacher, evinces great skill at de-escalating conflicts, and gets along with people on every rung of the social ladder. Secretly, however, Lou begins an affair with a local floozy, thereby entering into a triangle with his buddy Elmer (Don Stroud), son of rich landowner Chester (Kennan Wynn). All the while, viewers glimpse Lou’s demons thanks to flashes from childhood trauma, so when Lou freaks out and kills two people, we have an inkling why.

          The first half of the picture is all setup, and the second half is all repercussions. Throughout, the filmmakers provide colorful details and grim humor. In one entertaining scene, Lou welcomes a con artist (John Carradine) into his home and proceeds to scare the bejesus out of the guy, seemingly just for sport. In another vivid bit, Lou’s boss, Sheriff Bob Maples (John Dehner), employs unique vernacular to lament his poor marksmanship: “I can’t hit a bull in the ass with a banjo.” Although the movie never coheres, The Killer Inside Me is interesting and odd from moment to moment. Beyond Keach’s beautifully deranged performance, the picture boasts strong work from Carradine, Stroud, Wynn, Tisha Steriling (as the schoolteacher), and—reuniting Keach with a costar from John Huston’s Fat City (1972)—Susan Tyrrell (as the floozy).

The Killer Inside Me: FUNKY

Coonskin (1975)

          Featuring an outrageous barrage of images, themes, and words about race, the animation/live-action hybrid Coonskin is among the most incendiary products of the blaxploitation era. A casual viewer stumbling onto any part of the film would probably find the material shockingly racist, and the reaction would be compounded by the discovery that Coonskin was written and directed by a white man. Taken in context, however, Coonskin is a deeply complicated piece of work. Part satire and part tragedy, it’s a sexualized and violent phantasmagoria about the cancerous reach of racism. The question of whether filmmaker Ralph Bakshi justifies his extremes by placing his work into a sociopolitical framework is one that each individual viewer must explore, because the content of Coonskin is deliberately offensive. By presenting grotesque caricatures of African-Americans, gays, Italians, Jews, rednecks, women, and so on, Bakski tries to confront small-minded attitudes. Yet in so doing, he unavoidably perpetuates stereotypes. Some influencers in the African-American community have embraced the movie over the years, while many others have vilified the piece as the cinematic equivalent of a hate crime.

           Coonsin opens with a series of vignettes. First, two animated characters, both African-American dudes dressed like pimps, appear over a live-action background to deliver a volley of angry humor. (The first line of dialogue is “Fuck you!”) Next, actor/singer Scatman Crothers appears onscreen to perform a jive-talkin’ ditty about the troubles of being a “nigger man” while the opening credits appear. Finally, the story proper begins, with two black convicts, Pappy (Crothers) and Randy (Philip Michael Thomas), prepping for a prison break in a live-action sequence. While the inmates hide from guards, Pappy tells Randy a fable that Bakshi illustrates with animated sequences. The fable involves three black men—Brother Bear (voiced by Barry White), Brother Rabbit (voiced by Thomas), and Preacher Fox (Charles Gordone)—getting into hassles with the law down south. Soon, the group heads for Harlem, where Brother Rabbit kills a high-powered gangster and takes over the criminal’s operation. As Brother Rabbit rises to power, he and his friends get into hassles with corrupt cops, manipulative prostitutes, and vengeful mobsters, among others. Lots of animated bloodshed and sex ensues.

          Many scenes blend cartoons and live-action images within the same frame—Bakshi recruited ace Hollywood cinematographer William A. Fraker to shoot the live-action material, and Fraker provides an appropriately gritty look. Long stretches of Coonskin are surrealistic, with Bakshi embarking on flights of artistic fancy. A woman turns into a butterfly. A deceased fat man gets buried, but his body parts keep popping up through the dirt of the grave, as if the earth can’t contain his girth. A voluptuous streetwalker wearing an American-flag costume blows away a horny guy by using the cannon hidden in her crotch. Concurrently, the race-themed dialogue goes as far over the top as the animation does. “I’m tired of trying to segregate, integrate, and masturbate!” “I sees you, Lord, and you fuckin’ well better see me!” “Killin’ crackers, I guess that’s cool!” Even the religious material is inflammatory. A 300-pound preacher calling himself “Black Jesus” performs in front of his flock while nude, his junk flailing to and fro, and another preacher uses the gospel as a come-on to lure a man into a brothel. When Bakshi opens fire with his satirical machine gun, no one escapes unharmed.

          In many ways, Coonskin is deeply alive, with creativity and indignation and passion powering every frame. And yet the movie is also a mess, with herky-jerky storytelling, potshots at easy targets, and underdeveloped characters. It’s more of an experience than a proper movie. Is the experience worthwhile? For some viewers, the answer to that question will be a resounding yes, because Coonskin gives it to bigots with both barrels. However, the disjointed, grotesque, and juvenile aspects of the movie are big turnoffs for those who expect their sociopolitical discussions to unfold on a higher plane. By any regard, Coonskin is Bakshi’s boldest movie, which is saying a lot seeing as how he made the world’s first X-rated cartoon, Fritz the Cat (1972).

Coonskin: FREAKY

The Day of the Dolphin (1973)

          It’s easy to pick apart The Day of the Dolphin, not just because it’s an awkward hybrid of loopy ideas and straight drama, but also because it was such a bizarre career choice for screenwriter Buck Henry and director Mike Nichols, who previously collaborated on the social satire The Graduate (1967) and the surrealistic war movie Catch-22 (1970). Yet even though The Day of the Dolphin doesn’t bear obvious fingerprints from either Henry or Nichols, it subtly reflects both artists’ focus on meticulous character development and thought-provoking concepts. As to the larger question of whether the movie actually works, that’s entirely a matter of taste. Undoubtedly, many viewers will find the central premise too incredible (or even silly). As for me, I find the picture consistently interesting even when believability wavers.

          The plot revolves around Dr. Jake Terrell (George C. Scott), who operates a privately funded marine laboratory where he studies the communication behaviors of dolphins. Or at least that’s what he tells the public. In secret (known only to his staff), Terrell has trained two dolphins, Alpha and Beta, to speak and understand a handful of English words. Predictably, problems arise when Terrell shares this information with his chief benefactor, Harold DeMilo (Fritz Weaver). Shadowy forces learn about the dolphins and kidnap the animals for an evil purpose—the bad guys want to train the dolphins to assassinate the U.S. president by delivering underwater bombs to his yacht while the president is on vacation. (As noted earlier, the premise borders on silliness.)

          What makes The Day of the Dolphin watchable is how straight the material is played. During the movie’s most evocative scenes, Terrell bonds with Alpha and Beta through underwater play that’s scored to elegant music by composer Georges Delerue; for viewers willing to take the movie’s ride, it’s easy to develop a real emotional bond with the animals, and to sympathize with Terrell’s desire to protect them. In that context, the assassination conspiracy isn’t the driving force of the story so much as a complication that tests an unusual relationship.

          Obviously, having an actor of Scott’s power in the leading role makes all the difference. His gruff quality steers the animal scenes clear of Disney-esque sweetness, so when the movie finally goes for viewers’ heartstrings, the bittersweet crescendos of the story feel as earned as they possibly could. There’s not a lot of room for other characters to emerge as individuals, but Nichols stocks the movie with skilled actors who lend nuance where they can. Edward Herrmann and Paul Sorvino stand out as, respectively, one of Terrell’s aides and a mystery man who infiltrates Terrell’s laboratory. A key behind-the-scenes player worth mentioning is cinematographer William A. Fraker, who captures the beating sun and lapping waves of the film’s oceanside locations with crisp realism while also creating a magical world underwater.

The Day of the Dolphin: GROOVY

Dusty and Sweets McGee (1971)

          Writer-director Floyd Mutrux displayed a great gift for capturing atmosphere in his early films, even if his eye for evocative details sometimes distracted him from presenting compelling plots. His style came together beautifully in his second film, the lovers-on-the-run drama Aloha Bobby and Rose (1975), though some fans understandably prefer his debut feature, Dusty and Sweets McGee, which offers an unvarnished look at the drug culture in early-’70s Los Angeles. As photographed by the venerable William A. Fraker, who shot all of Mutrux’s ’70s pictures, Dusty and Sweets McGee has texture to burn, thanks to languid montages of characters doing everyday activities while stoned.

          Fraker photographed much of the picture through soft haze filters, so it’s as if the story is seen through the fog of a narcotic-induced stupor. In fact, verisimilitude was the priority during production, since the film is half-documentary, half-narrative. Much of the movie comprises real addicts describing their lives, and these nonfiction moments are intercut with a loose plot about casual users Tip (Clifton Tip Fredell) and Nancy (Nancy Wheeler) drifting deeper into the heroin scene as their addictions grow more powerful.

          Some recurring characters appear in their storyline, like a mysterious white-bearded dealer (played by Fraker in his only significant acting role), but mostly the picture meanders through the controlled-substances netherworld, giving viewers a sense of how often the stoner scene shifts from mellow to malevolent. In an effective directorial flourish, Mutrux uses a tasty soundtrack of pop songs to provide a kind of Greek Chorus commenting on the moods of particular moments; featured songs include Blues Image’s rousing “Ride Captain Ride,” Van Morrison’s seductive “Into the Mystic,” and Del Shannon’s driving “Runaway,” plus a handful of doo-wop/Motown numbers that seem to sing for the characters’ heartsick souls.

          Viewed strictly as a narrative, Dusty and Sweets McGee is slow and uneventful, with long strings of seemingly inconsequential scenes merging into a steady hum of grime and self-destruction. But as a snapshot of a historical moment, the picture is virtually peerless, a West Coast counterpoint to the similarly atmospheric New York-set heroin picture The Panic in Needle Park, which was also released in 1971. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Dusty and Sweets McGee: GROOVY

A Reflection of Fear (1973)

          There are a number of provocative ideas buried inside the perverse thriller A Reflection of Fear, and the picture also boasts a gorgeous surface, thanks to luminous photography by László Kovács. So, even though the movie is a total jumble from a narrative perspective, it offers many textural pleasures. The story centers around Marguerite (Sondra Locke), a disturbed 16-year-old girl who lives in luxurious isolation with her wealthy mother (Mary Ure) and grandmother (Signe Hasso) on a sprawling private estate. Marguerite’s room is crowded with dolls whom she believes are alive, and she’s obsessed with horticulture; in other words, the movie does everything but brand the word “psycho” across her forehead.

          Marguerite’s absentee father, Michael (Robert Shaw), shows up for a visit one summer because he wants a divorce from Marguerite’s mother so he can marry his girlfriend, Anne (Sally Kellerman). When Michael finally meets the daughter he’s never known, he becomes worried about her oddball nature and decides to rescue her from the grips of her family. Before he can do so, someone murders Mom and Grandma. In the aftermath, a local cop (Mitchell Ryan) tells Michael and Anne not to leave town, so the lovers move into the estate. As weird goings-on continue, Marguerite develops a quasi-incestuous obsession with her father, which understandably displeases long-suffering Anne. And so it goes as the movie spirals toward a psychosexual “twist” ending that’s neither satisfying nor surprising.

          Based on a novel by Stanton Forbes, the script for A Reflection of Fear vacillates awkwardly between intimate psychological tension and full-on horror jolts, so the tone is as disjointed as the story is murky. Most of the actors underplay their scenes, as if they’re not sure which way to take the material, but Locke eschews subtlety by complementing her peculiar appearance (she’s one of the palest people ever committed to film) with a breathy little-girl vocal delivery. It’s either an awful performance, if the goal was to be taken seriously, or an effective one, if the goal was merely to seem weird.

           Cinematographer-turned-director William A. Fraker, stumbling after his promising directorial debut Monte Walsh (1970), can’t pull the story together, but he does a fantastic job creating atmosphere with haze filters, ornate production design, and smoked sets. A Reflection of Fear isn’t particularly frightening, but it’s easily one of the best-looking movies of its type, and some viewers will find the picture’s strange mood and enigmatic dramaturgy mesmerizing. (Available through Columbia Screen Classics via WarnerArchive.com)

A Reflection of Fear: FUNKY

Aloha, Bobby and Rose (1975)

          Although the ’70s produced a seemingly endless stream of dramas about mixed-up kids roaming the country and getting into trouble, many of these films felt as aimless as their protagonists. Aloha, Bobby and Rose is an exception. Atmospheric, credible, deliberate, and sensitive, the picture is a sharply observed story about a young man destined for difficulty and the damaged single mother who’s vulnerable enough to get drawn into his world.

          Bobby (Paul Le Mat) is a wiseass auto mechanic who bluffs his way through a pool game with tough East-LA Latinos until they discover he doesn’t have the cash to pay off his gambling debts. They give him a beating and promise there’s more to come if he doesn’t return the following evening with money. Bobby hustles friends for the bread but can’t put it together, then gets distracted when pretty young Rose (Dianne Hull) brings her car into the shop where he works. Characteristically ignoring his responsibilities, Bobby spends the day and evening courting Rose when he should be assembling a bankroll, and then he really gets into trouble—when Bobby pretends to stick up a convenience-store clerk, ostensibly for Rose’s amusement, the previously unseen store owner emerges with a gun and fires. The gunshot kills the clerk, and Rose instinctively whacks the owner on the head.

          Bobby and Rose flee, afraid they won’t be able to prove their innocence. Demonstrating that she’s cut from the same cloth as Bobby, Rose skips out on her kid to run away with Bobby, and during their travels they meet unruly Texans Buford (Tim McIntire) and Donna Sue (Leigh French); the couples spend a wild night in Tijuana before Bobby and Rose decide to retrieve her son from LA. This being an angst-ridden ’70s drama, suffice to say things don’t go according to plan.

          As in his debut picture, 1971’s Dusty and Sweets McGee, writer-director Floyd Mutrux swaths this movie in rich atmosphere. Every grimy wall and every banged-up prop feels right, and a long sequence of Bobby and Rose cruising the Sunset Strip—zooming past billboards for iconic ’70s rock albums—creates a vivid sense of a lost time. Cinematographer William A. Fraker, an old-school Hollywood pro best known for slick studio films, lends the same palpable realism to this picture than he gave to Dusty and Sweets McGee; his soft filters simulate the steamy haze that envelops Southern California on hot days. The soundtrack is terrific, annotating the heroes’ sad journey with tunes by Bob Dylan, Elton John, and various Motown artists (Little Eva’s “Locomotion” is used to ironic effect during a key scene).

          As for the performances, they’re naturalistic and vivid. Le Mat works the James Dean-wannabe groove typical to this type of picture, adeptly illustrating Bobby’s charms and shortcomings; Hull is frayed as a girl not yet ready for adult obligations; and McIntire is a force of nature as Buford, a crazy man who dances on tables, urinates in cars, and talks a great line of bullshit. Yet, even with all of these virtues, the beauty of Aloha, Bobby and Rose is that it’s so focused: Instead of trying to make a grand statement, it’s nothing more than a sensitively crafted drama filled with insights about the restless hearts of the young.

Aloha, Bobby and Rose: RIGHT ON

Monte Walsh (1970)

          A lovingly photographed ode to an aging cowboy trying to make sense of his life in the waning days of the Old West era, Monte Walsh is evocative and humane despite glacial pacing and murky storytelling. One of the few films directed by the venerable cinematographer William A. Fraker, the picture looks fantastic from start to finish, with dusty scenes of hard men battling nature plus glamorously lit romantic vignettes; furthermore, the production design makes every costume and prop feel like a real object that’s been used for tough work. The authenticity continues through to the dialogue, which is effective in an unpretentious sort of way (“I ain’t gonna spit on my whole life,” the title character says when faced with the prospect of becoming a performer in a Wild West sideshow). The big problem with Monte Walsh is that for all of its insight and texture, the picture doesn’t have a particularly strong story.

          Based on a novel by Jack Schaefer, the tale concerns graying cowboys Monte (Lee Marvin) and Chet (Jack Palance), who struggle to find work as employers including straight-shooting rancher Cal (Jim Davis) lose market share to omnivorous conglomerates. Meanwhile, the boys fall into a violent ongoing rivalry with Shorty (Mitch Ryan), a younger man with a bad temper and a buffoonish tendency to show off his riding skills. Monte also has an ongoing quasi-romance with a French prostitute, Martine (Jeanne Moreau), and even though they talk about settling down, she knows Monte will be out riding horses until he dies.

          There’s a somber quality to the whole picture, as if every character knows a gloomy future awaits, and the film uses irony for effective counterpoint (Mama Cass sings a wistful theme song, “The Good Times Are Coming,” which is appears as a sad refrain throughout the movie). Unfortunately, even though many moments are touching, there’s a fundamental lack of psychological clarity, so heavy scenes of characters facing their demons are perplexing. For instance, what is Monte trying to prove during the movie’s biggest action scene, when he breaks a bronco over the course of a wild ride that destroys half a town?

         Despite the handicap of a muddy script, Marvin and Palance give plaintive performances, and the supporting cast is strong. Though Moreau is badly underused in one of her few English-language pictures (Monte Walsh isn’t terribly concerned with the lives of women), Davis, Ryan, Billy “Green” Bush, Matt Clark, and Bo Hopkins all essay vivid frontier types. FYI, Hollywood took another crack at Schafer’s novel when Monte Walsh was remade for television in 2003, this time with Tom Selleck in the title role.

Monte Walsh: FUNKY