Only now does it occur to me... GETTING STRAIGHT (1970)

Only now does it occur to me... to say a few words in praise of Harrison Ford's "schmacting"...but mostly to extol the bountiful virtues of not giving a shit.

In 1970, Harrison Ford's credited screen performances included episodes of THE VIRGINIAN, IRONSIDE, MY FRIEND TONY, THE F.B.I., and LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE; and a pair of Westerns nobody saw, one of which was ghost-directed by Roger Corman. Suffice it to say that he wasn't quite yet setting the world on fire. One could theorize that his relative lack of commercial success thus far was rooted in a kind of desperation to give the best, most noticeable performance imaginable, even if the role didn't call for it. In GETTING STRAIGHT––a counterculture campus film by the incomparably creative Richard Rush (THE STUNT MAN, PSYCH-OUT, FREEBIE AND THE BEAN)––Ford plays an art student, and in his brief screen-time he runs the gamut of widened eyes and indicating eyebrows and slack jaw and furrowed brows... it's an entire encyclopedia of trying too hard––known to many as "schmacting."



(It must be noted that while there are moments of levity throughout, GETTING STRAIGHT is not a screwball comedy, and in fact, its major setpiece is a police crackdown on unarmed campus protesters––furthermore, it was released to theaters a mere ten days after May 4th shootings at Kent State University.)

In Ford's three brief scenes––two of which, where his main character motivation is to invite Elliot Gould and Candice Bergen to a party in his apartment––he overreacts to every happening and tries to imbue each line with an accompanying, on-the-nose facial expression. I've found this sort of thing to be quite common among anxious, eager young actors who sometimes pin their hopes and dreams and desperation onto "under-five" roles that were never intended to be the center of the film's universe. The result is a roller-coaster ride of disparate reactions and maniacal acting choices––which is something that I obviously enjoy quite a bit, in the right context.




The world had not yet broken young Harrison––he hadn't yet bombed out of the movies and turned back to carpentry (from which he would be notably rescued by George Lucas during AMERICAN GRAFFITI), and he had not yet perfected his James Garner-ian tonal authority, his Lee Marvin-style physicality, or his Bob Mitchum-esque art of not giving a shit.


Harrison Ford, giving all the shits, so many shits, WHYYY AM I SO MISUNDERSTOOOOD, MAN

Compare this to the opposite end of the Fordian spectrum––perhaps the voiceover of BLADE RUNNER (mercifully unused in the director's/final cut), where he was actively trying to be terrible... which is certainly awful in its own way, but again note that it involves "actively trying." I think Ford is at his cocky, lazy best when he's coasting through the universe like he owns it (Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Rick Deckard etc.). The best part is that I think Ford himself is well-aware of the acting tendencies he had as a young man, because the only other times I've see it is when Ford's character is "acting"––i.e., when Indiana Jones pretends to be a Scottish tapestry enthusiast in INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE or when Rick Deckard impersonates a nerdy moral crusader in BLADE RUNNER.

Anyway, I think there's a lesson here about detachment and confidence and self-awareness and nervousness and desperation; in short, the art of letting go––and the grand and mysterious power sometimes vested in not givin' a shit.

Film Review: THE STUNT MAN (1980, Richard Rush)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 131 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Peter O'Toole, Steve Railsback (LIFEFORCE, HELTER SKELTER, SAVE ME), Barbara Hershey (THE RIGHT STUFF, THE NATURAL), Sharon Farrell (CAN'T BUY ME LOVE, IT'S ALIVE), Alex Rocco (Moe Greene in THE GODFATHER, FREEBIE AND THE BEAN). Music by Dominic Frontiere (HANG 'EM HIGH, THE OUTER LIMITS). Cinematography by Mario Tosi (CARRIE, RESURRECTION). Stunts coordinated by Gray Johnson (ZAPPED!, THE BEASTMASTER). Additional stunts by myriad stuntmen, including Dick Warlock (THE THING, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, CHRISTINE, MR. MAJESTYK, THE ABYSS).
Tag-line: "If God could do the things that we can do, he'd be a happy man . . ."
Best one-liner: "Besides, I've fallen madly in love with the dark side of your nature." (Smarmily intoned by Peter O'Toole.)

THE STUNT MAN. Hot damn- what a specimen! One of the great films of the 1980s. It's a wild-pinball game of a movie, full of brilliant, inventive visual pops and gags that zig and zag and zing throughout, around, and across the movie with a demented, electric exuberance. As the film played out, I found myself brimming with primitive excitement: for the first time in a long time, I felt as if I was watching something alive, insane, full of pulsating energy– something NEW. (And naturally, the director, Richard Rush, has only directed one fiction film in the thirty-one years since– damn you, Hollywood, for rewarding the uninspired and punishing the innovative!)
Right off the bat, Rush lets us know exactly what kind of a mad, irreverent journey he's about to lead us on: a dog licks its own balls.

This sets off a chain-reaction of events which involves helicopters, electricians, a diner, an errant apple-core, an actual game of pinball, an arrest, an escape, and, in general terms, the subsequent events of the film. But allow me to take a step back for a moment: a movie that begins with a dog licking its own balls was nominated for two Oscars, and even more surprisingly– really deserved them. Obviously, this is a candidate for the Junta Juleil Hall-O-Fame.

Now I won't say too much about the plot of the film, but it involves a fugitive drifter (played by a rugged, fuzzy Steve Railsback, whose performance here occasionally has the feel of a young Tommy Lee Jones)

Railsback: Here, more HELTER SKELTER than LIFEFORCE.

who accidentally brings about the death of a stunt man as a war movie is being shot in a small town by a psychotic director (Peter O'Toole, in one of his finest hours). In return for not turning him in to the police, O'Toole requires the somewhat naive Railsback (who's excited to risk his life for $600 a go) to impersonate the deceased stunt man– dangerous, show-stopping feats and all. Simultaneously, Railsback builds a burgeoning romance with co-star Barbara Hershey as events spiral continuously and exponentially out of control. It's a film of döppelgangers and secret sharers, of lofty gods and mere mortals; of men who fight wars, men who fight windmills, and men who fight to make movies. Along the way, it toys with the many disconnects between reality and illusion in film, and more cleverly than any other movie I can think of– latex is peeled off, body parts retrieved, rugs pulled out from beneath us, and you're eternally left guessing as to whether the punch-line will take place in the real world or in the film-within-a-film.

Some of my favorite moments include a gaggle of gum-chewing tourists watching the brutalities of war being recorded on 35mm and applauding like they're at the State Fair, lens flares used as bizarre transitions, Steve Railsback doing the Charleston on the wing of an airborne biplane,

an extraordinarily visceral depiction of drowning, a shitload of mind-blowing stunts,


Dominic Frontiere's infectious Euro-style score, and, in general, Mario Tosi's breathtaking cinematography.


O'Toole, as always, deserves special mention– he floats about on a crane like an omnipresent cine-deity,

coming down from Olympus only to manipulate his insignificant cast, to blow smoke rings, and to drip sugar off of a knife while exuding utter disinterest.

Replace that bowl of sugar with a bowl of booze, and O'Toole might be able to muster some enthusiasm.

When he first appears in earnest, he embodies absolute, self-possessed lunacy without even opening his mouth.

When he does, it's usually to announce something incredible like "I'LL KILL THEM, AND THEN I'LL EAT THEM!" or bellowing orders that "NO CAMERA SHALL JAM, AND NO CLOUD SHALL PASS BEFORE THE SUN!"

Is O'Toole three sheets to the wind in this freeze frame? I'll leave that to the film historians to decide.

It's got the zaniness of HOOPER, the energy of Ken Russell, the groundbreaking creativity of films from the likes of Welles or Buñuel, and a shocking amount of class– not to mention that it's from the director of FREEBIE AND THE BEAN (which had a rumored feud between director Rush and actor Alan Arkin pertaining to... the performing of dangerous stunts). In short, it's the kind of movie that I really think you should see. Five stars.

-Sean Gill

Side note: In 2001, Richard Rush made only the second film he's made in the last thirty-one years: a documentary on THE STUNT MAN called THE SINISTER SAGA OF MAKING THE STUNT MAN, which I'll have to check out forthwith.

Film Review: FREEBIE AND THE BEAN (1974, Richard Rush)

Stars: 3.2 of 5.

Running Time: 113 minutes.

Tag-line: "Above all...it's a love story."

Notable Cast or Crew: James Caan, Alan Arkin, Paul Koslo (ROBOT JOX, THE STONE KILLER), Loretta Swit (BEER, FOREST WARRIOR), Jack Kruschen (THE APARTMENT, CAPE FEAR), Mike Kellin (MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, SLEEPAWAY CAMP), Linda Marsh (CHE!, HOMEBODIES), Alex Rocco (THE GODFATHER, CANNONBALL RUN II). Music by Dominic Frontiere (THE STUNT MAN, John Flynn's DEFIANCE). Cinematography by Lászlo Kovács (EASY RIDER, GHOSTBUSTERS).

Best one-liner: "Lady, I spend half my life in toilets!"

Humbly presented, for your consideration... It's not just another San Francisco cop movie... It's FREEBIE AND THE BEAN.

Hell, it supposedly was Stanley Kubrick's favorite movie of 1974 (the same year as THE GODFATHER PART II, CHINATOWN, THE CONVERSATION, A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, LENNY, DEATH WISH, and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, not to mention FOXY BROWN, MR. MAJESTYK, and SPASMO). Well, I'd kinda like a swig or a hit or a toke of whatever hallucinogenic substance Mr. Kubrick was enjoying at the time he made that ludicrous statement, because if it was capable of making FREEBIE AND THE BEAN the best film of that or any other year, who knows what other, wondrous fantasies it could conjure? But I don't mean to be a dick- FREEBIE AND THE BEAN is not a bad movie, it's merely an extremely choppy, vaguely offensive one which gets a lot of bonus points for great bantering leads (Caan & Arkin), and the infusion of some genuine, back alley grit. Kind of like a lesser, 70's RUNNING SCARED? I mean, I'm not sure I ought to be tossing around phrases like 'a lesser RUNNING SCARED' with reckless abandon, but here we are.

It's directed by Richard Rush (THE STUNT MAN, PSYCH-OUT), who, by all accounts, is a somewhat reckless, passionate 'soldier of cinema.' A fan of Proust and BATMAN comics who started off making propaganda films for the government and later 'hippies gone wild' biker/drug movies, he evolved into one of those eccentric auteurs who makes a picture once a decade, if they're lucky. Alan Arkin's evidently spoken about dangerous working conditions on the set of FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, and you have to wonder if Rush based THE STUNT MAN on reality. (Conversely, Rush has spoken out about Arkin as difficult to work with.) Regardless, this film has a very sprawling, organic feel to it; sort of the cinematic equivalent to speeding the wrong way down a one-way street with a madman at the helm– sometimes it's going to be breathlessly inspired gold, and sometimes it's going to be a goddamn train wreck. It's definitely going for a 1970's Keystone Kops vibe, an ambition more satisfying attained by the far superior 1974 Ivan Passer film, LAW AND DISORDER.

Now let me tell you a little bit about the plot- James Caan and Alan Arkin play a couple of cops who play by their own rules and bicker like an elderly couple. Caan likes free shit. Sometimes he steals it, just to make sure it's free. Thus, he's so aptly named, "Freebie." Arkin is (apparently) Hispanic. He always wants to go out for a burrito, but Freebie is always shutting him down. He bears the oh-so-appropriate moniker, "Bean." In a wacky series of events, they end up protecting a mobster that they've sworn to destroy because they're waiting on a warrant for him at the same time that hordes of hit men are descending upon the city.

Under different circumstances, this movie certainly could have been unbearable, but the dynamic between the smarmy Caan and the deadpan Arkin is infectiously fun to watch. Their bad attitudes and endless, smartass banter frankly feel a little ahead of their time.

Paul Koslo even shows up as yet another stringy-haired goon, a role which he inhabited many times throughout the 1970's (THE STONE KILLER, MR. MAJESTYK, CLEOPATRA JONES).

Arkin practices some zany police brutality.

The visuals are fantastic. Lensed by the late, great Hungarian cinematographer, Lászlo Kovács (THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS, TARGETS, SHAMPOO), he manages to combine slick, balanced compositions with an inherent grittiness.

The chases, while not approaching the greatness of say, THE FRENCH CONNECTION or THE SEVEN-UPS, are creative, whacky, and presented with a visual flair worthy of Buster Keaton- or at the very least, Jacques Tati. In one of my favorite scenes, a chase collides with a parade, and a marching band gets mowed down with extreme prejudice.

Elsewhere, James Caan's stunt double leads an outrageous motorbike pursuit which involves driving on top of traffic, and ultimately knocking down an enormous set of dominoes, which just happen to be set up in his path.

Yes, dear reader- THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENS.

FREEBIE AND THE BEAN gets a little weird as it goes along. I mean, the hair-raising, largely unfunny jokes about police torture, racism, trans folks, and the like seem ill-advised. Regardless of the era, it's enough to put a bad taste in my mouth. But then James Caan will do something like this:

KER-SQUAAASH

and I'll feel like the film should wear its oafishness on its sleeve as a badge of pride (which it does). There're also a few odd moments where the film blindsides you with something utterly devoid of humor...

...and you know that Rush is aware of it- in fact, he's likely reveling in it- but on the whole, the film has the feel of disparate puzzle pieces, haphazardly jammed together into an amusing little slice of chaotic life. You enjoy it, but it makes you uneasy. A little over three stars.

-Sean Gill