Only now does it occur to me... FALLING IN LOVE (1984)

Only now does it occur to me... that I must say a few words about the romantic drama FALLING IN LOVE (1984), which, despite being generally forgotten today, seems to have maintained a small but fierce cult following. 

I could tell you that it stars Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro, and that they have been occasionally celebrated for their chemistry here despite De Niro coming across as brooding and sinister even in moments like their Christmas meet-cute, whereupon they accidentally collide with heaping bags of Christmas presents including the clichéd "pair of skis with a bow on it," which, I would wager, is gifted far more often in Hallmark movies than in real life.

I could tell you that it's inspired mostly by David Lean and Noel Coward's seminal BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945),

 

which means that the two are already married, and their long-suffering spouses are played by, respectively, MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE's Jane Kaczmarek

and David Clennon ("Palmer" from John Carpenter's THE THING).

 

I could tell you that it features bit parts by Victor Argo (KING OF NEW YORK, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST), Frances Conroy (SIX FEET UNDER, THE AVIATOR), and Kenneth Welsh ("Windom Earle" on TWIN PEAKS), but in larger supporting roles, it manages to completely waste both multi-Oscar winner Dianne Wiest (HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS) 

 and Harvey Keitel (TAXI DRIVER, RESERVOIR DOGS).

They languish in rote The Best Friend™ roles, dramaturgically existing only when they're on screen, to be used as nothing more than generic sounding boards for the protagonists.

But what I want to tell you about FALLING IN LOVE is that one of Streep and De Niro's first dates takes place in Manhattan's iconic Chinatown.

And that said date leads them to a peculiar 1970s arcade, where they are able to place coins in a machine to... play tic-tac-toe against a live chicken.

 

This was clearly a real, found location (the Chinatown Fair on Mott Street), featuring this incredible bit of bizarro entertainment. I love that the chicken makes its moves from a "Thinkin' Booth."

 

 

 

 

 

I love that De Niro gets in an argument with the chicken because it keeps winning.

 

 

 

 

I love that the prize it pays out is supposedly "a large bag of fortune cookies if you beat the chicken."

 

 

I love that when the chicken defeats you, there's a light-up sign announcing, "BIRD WINS."

 

This feels like something out of Werner Herzog's STROZEK (1978), which features the absurdist closing image of a coin-operated "dancing chicken" machine. 

 

This is the unequivocal high point of FALLING IN LOVE, and on this subject, I'm afraid I cannot be swayed.

See also: my thoughts on the animatronic bar fixture "Dirty Gertie" in Robert Altman's THREE WOMEN (1977).

Only now does it occur to me... GLORIA (1980)

Only now does it occur to me... that Gena Rowlands truly belongs in the Eastwood-Bronson canon. Her performance in John Cassavetes' GLORIA––as a brassy New Yorker who ends up playing bodyguard to a neighbor kid when his family is massacred by the mob––is majestically badass, as if Bette Davis were cast as Paul Kersey in DEATH WISH. I'd rank it among the best performances in any 80s action-thriller. It's a remarkable role because there's really nothing to compare it to: she's a fifty-something female action star who does most of her badassery while slinging around a oversized grandma purse, wobbling on open-toe Salvation Army heels, and dressed like she's on her way from a halfway house to a librarian's job interview.


Obviously, this is my new favorite thing in the world. Watch her get the upper hand on a mobster in a subway car (who I believe is a young Sonny Landham from PREDATOR and 48 HRS.)








For my money, this actually bests the "Do you feel lucky, punk?" speech from DIRTY HARRY.

All of this is set among a sleazy 1980, pre-Giuliani NYC––from deep in the Bronx to deeper in Queens––a gritty world where Lawrence Tierney's the bartender

young Tom Noonan (MANHUNTER, ROBOCOP 2) is a lanky mob henchman,

and there are bit parts by a desperate Buck Henry (THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, THE GRADUATE)

and a nervous Julie Carmen (probably best known to readers of this site for IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS).

This whole thing is set to a deliciously melodramatic score by Bill Conti (ROCKY, THE KARATE KID). I'd long heard GLORIA written off as a "Cassavetes goes mainstream" sort of project (although Akira Kurosawa ranked it among his favorite films), but it's truly a master's class in acting, as intense as any of his more highly regarded masterpieces (THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE, A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, etc.), and I can't recommend it enough.

Only now does it occur to me... A STRANGER AMONG US (1992)

Only now does it occur to me... I'm pretty sure that once upon a time in the late '80s, somebody was watching a Harrison Ford double-feature: WITNESS and WORKING GIRL. They were left with the sensation that they wanted to remake WITNESS, but they also wanted to see Melanie Griffith continue doing her WORKING GIRL schtick. So they pitched the following: How 'bout WITNESS, except instead of Harrison Ford we have Melanie Griffith, and instead of the Amish we have the Brooklyn Hasidim?

Furthermore, it's directed by Sidney Lumet, who I have to imagine was a hired gun to give it "gritty NYC flavor." The problem is, instead of the next SERPICO or PRINCE OF THE CITY or DOG DAY AFTERNOON we have something a little closer to THE WIZ.

 

Well, if Club ZAP! is in a movie, it can't be all bad

So we have Melanie Griffith as a hard-boiled hot-doggin' cop who is totally subjected to the classic "next time you act like such a goddamned maverick I'm gonna need your badge and gun on my desk!" speech

only she's making no effort whatsoever to appear tough n' gritty, opting for the "Marilyn Monroe-via-BODY DOUBLE" baby voice throughout. Which is frankly kinda great.

Anyway, there have been some murders in the Flatbush Hasidic Jewish neighborhood, so she's sent in to go undercover (!) by a screenplay that A. thinks it's definitely going to win some Oscars, B. is dedicated to the idea that Melanie will learn a lot from the Hasidim and the Hasidim will learn a lot from Melanie, and C. really wants to shoehorn a bodice-ripping romance with a rabbi in here somewhere. This is obviously a recipe for success, if by success you mean alienating the religious community you are attempting to depict as well as causing a variety of audience members to snort their beverages through their noses. Allow me to demonstrate what I mean:

They're a regular Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant, aren't they. And that's right, her name is "Detective Eden"... like the garden from that book

She shore is a sassy shiksa

First, note Mia Sara (FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF, LEGEND, TIMECOP) playing Hasid. Second, note that Melanie Griffith's character, when informed that someone "died in the camps," does not know what the camps are.

HEY WHAT DO YOU MEAN "YOU PEOPLE"

This is just poetry, a Song of Songs if you will

If FLEABAG brought us "Hot Priest Summer," truly A STRANGER AMONG US brings us "Lukewarm Rabbi Summer." The crux of it is that she doesn't even want to date him, it's just kind of an experiment to prove a point about repression or something

Along the way, in attempts to summon some New York-realness, we have young James Gandolfini as a low-level mobster:

 

John Pankow (TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.) as a likably dorky detective:

some full-FIDDLER dance scenes:

use of the brilliant catchphrase "Okey-dokey":

and an amazing scene where for some reason Melanie Griffith deputizes the rabbi:

This whole thing is so absurd that you end up being slightly more puzzled than offended. Also, they totally tried to sell it like it was from the same genre as BASIC INSTINCT:

 

a desperate early '90s decision that tells me they knew they had a real winner on their hands.