Every 70s Movie: david janssen

Showing posts with label david janssen. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Smile, Jenny, You're Dead (1974)

Offering a thoughtful spin on the TV-detective genre, Smile, Jenny, You’re Dead is a reboot of sorts, serving as the second pilot attempt for a series starring small-screen veteran David Janssen as sensitive private eye Harry Orwell. (A few months after this telefilm was broadcast, hourlong series Harry O began its two-year run.) What distinguishes Smile, Jenny, You’re Dead from other TV mystery fare of the same era is a focus on emotions and psychology, rather than action and plot twists. The effort to render a serious crime drama for grown-up viewers is bolstered by imaginative cinematography and moody scoring. Alas, the acting is not universally outstanding, and the suspense quotient is low, an unavoidable repercussion of avoiding the standard whodunnit route. Nonetheless, the movie is in many ways refreshingly humane.

Harry (Janssen) is a cop on disability following an on-the-job shooting, so he picks up extra cash working as a private investigator. Living alone on a Southern California beach, he’s forever toiling on a boat that seems years away from seaworthiness, and his most perverse characteristic—by Los Angeles standards, anyway—is that he doesn’t drive. Another quirk? No gun. When a friend’s adult daughter gets harassed by a stalker, Harry takes the job of protecting her. She’s Jenny (Andrea Marcovicci), a model trying to divorce an overbearing man while taking comfort in the arms of a much older lover; Harry also finds himself attracted to her. Things get dangerous once Jenny’s stalker decides the men in Jenny’s life are better off dead.

Writer Howard Rodman provides nuanced characterizations and slick dialogue, while director Jerry Thorpe periodically uses offbeat camera positions to give the movie an idiosyncratic quality. Accordingly, there are compensations in place of the thrills one might normally expect to encounter in such a piece. Janssen excels in the lead role, channeling his signature grumpiness into something complicated, so he’s at once appealing and harsh. Marcovicci does not leave a lasting impression, but Clu Gulager and Tim McIntire lend twitchy specificity to supporting roles, and Jodie Foster contributes her impressive poise to a small role as a youth separated from her mother. As for Jenny’s twisted tormentor, he’s portrayed by future softcore producer Zalman King, and his onscreen behavior is weirdly fascinating because he manages to simultaneously overact and underact.

Smile, Jenny, You’re Dead: FUNKY

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Night Chase (1970)

David Janssen, the king of the pained facial expression, plays a different sort of fugitive in Night Chase, a somewhat compelling thriller that anticipates the premise of the Tom Cruise movie Collateral (2004), but follows through on the premise with a story that makes a whole lot more sense. Running 95 minutes, long by ’70s-telefilm standards, Night Chase gets repetitive and slow at times, so viewers who enjoy seeing vintage footage of Southern California will get more out of the experience than others. That said, the script is clear and efficient, Jack Starrett’s direction sets an understated tone that suits the material, and costar Yaphet Kotto’s performance is so loose and vivid that he greatly elevates the material. Ultimately, Night Chase isn’t consequential in terms of social relevance or themes, so it’s just a disposable thriller with welcome aspects of humanism. Nonetheless, with so many pointlessly nihilistic thrillers out there, the compassion infusing Night Chase makes watching the picture mildly edifying.

As in Collateral, the story gets underway when a mysterious white man flags down a black cab driver for a ride. Specifically, Adrian (Janssen) grabs a taxi from the Los Angeles International Airport after his flight gets cancelled. Ernie (Kotto) gets the fare, and he’s surprised when Adrian asks for a 200-mile ride to San Diego. Once the men are in close quarters, Ernie catches disturbing clues—blood on Adrian’s shirt, skittishness whenever police cars pass the cab. Eventually, it emerges that Adrian shot a man in Baltimore, and he’s on the way to Mexico, where he plans to use his gun again.

The remaining details are best discovered as the story unfolds, but the gist is that Adrian feels tortured by not only what he’s already done but by what he’s contemplating doing next. Although saying that Janssen’s performance is infused with nuance would require considerable overstatement, he mimics anguish well, and his intensity is sufficiently persuasive that it’s believable when he makes everyone around him nervous. Kotto’s work exists on a different level. At the beginning of the picture, he conveys affability and world-weariness in equal measure, and as the story progresses, he hits notes of despair, heroism, and terror. Night Chase is yet another reminder of his incredible power and versatility. While the film is mostly a two-hander, Elisha Cook Jr., William Katt, and Victoria Vetri all do strong work in small supporting roles.

Night Chase: FUNKY

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Golden Rendezvous (1977)

Adaptations of Alistair MacLean’s pulpy adventure novels emerged regularly throughout the ’70s, though none achieved the stature of The Guns of Navarone (1961), the most successful movie yet derived from a MacLean story. Watching Golden Rendezvous offers a quick reminder of why so many of these pictures failed to generate excitement. An action saga set on the waters of the Caribbean, Golden Rendezvous has a little bit of everything—bombs, double-crosses, fist fights, gambling, gun fights, hijacking, knife fights, murder, sex, and so on. The overarching story makes sense once all the pieces fall into place, but the character work runs the questionable gamut from iffy to one-dimensional, and the gender politics belong to an earlier era. In other words, Golden Rendezvous is regressive macho silliness so determined to avoid depth and substance that whenever it seems like a moment of true human feeling is about to appear onscreen, the filmmakers introduce some element of danger and/or violence. And if there’s any meaning or theme being served here, then it’s only because the filmmakers failed in their efforts to keep such things at bay. Golden Rendezvous is pleasant enough to watch for the action scenes, and the cast is plenty colorful, but you’ll forget having watched the thing before the end credits finish rolling.

Richard Harris stars as John Carter, first officer on a boat that hauls cargo but also includes a high-end casino. When criminals led by Luis Carreras (John Vernon) hijack the ship, Carter springs into action, forming covert alliances with trustworthy crewmen and passengers while also using sneaky tactics to eliminate thugs one by one. The plot becomes more ridiculous with each passing scene, so by the end of the picture, Golden Rendezvous involves not just the hijacking but also a blackmail scheme and even a nuclear bomb. MacLean was a whiz at generating suspenseful situations, but credibility was never his strong suit. Still, Harris is enjoyable here, all lanky athleticism and roguish charm, and several solid actors support him. Besides Vernon’s reliable villainy, the picture offers, in much smaller roles, John Carradine, David Janssen, and Burgess Meredith. As for leading lady Ann Turkel, one can’t blame Harris for trying to help his then-wife build an acting career—this was the third of four Harris movies in which she costars. As went their marriage, alas, so too did her run in big-budget movies.

Golden Rendezvous: FUNKY

Friday, May 16, 2014

The Swiss Conspiracy (1976)

Perhaps because he always wears a pissed-off expression on his face, as well as swinging-single outfits noteworthy for plunging necklines that showcase his manly pelt, David Janssen looks like an unhappy tourist in many of his ’70s films. It’s as if he walked from the airport to the location, spat out his lines, and then left with a check in his hands, the ink still wet. One hopes that Janssen at least got to enjoy some sightseeing whenever he wasn’t sleepwalking through his leading role in The Swiss Conspiracy, which makes decent use of beautiful locations throughout Switzerland. The story is a convoluted and forgettable caper about crooks blackmailing account holders of a Swiss bank, with lots of double crosses and “surprise” twists, but so little attention is given to character development that it’s impossible to care what happens to any of the people onscreen. Furthermore, the movie is edited so tightly (The Swiss Conspiracy runs just 89 frantic minutes), that the logical connections between scenes occasionally become obscured. The result is a bit of a hectic blur, though the producers toss lots of eye candy at viewers in the form of attractive women, expert gunplay, high=speed chases, nasty fist fights, and even a few colorful explosions. Adding to the soulless spectacle is the presence of several name-brand actors who do perfunctory work, including John Ireland, Ray Milland, John Saxon, and Elke Sommer.

Since these performers are directed by Jack Arnold, a capable craftsman whose best work comprised a string of Atomic Age sci-fi classics including The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1955), The Swiss Conspiracy looks and sounds like a real movie even though it’s standard-issue European junk. Janssen plays David Christopher, an American security expert hired to help bank manager Johann Hurtil (Milland) identify and capture the criminals who are extorting Hurtil’s customers. Complicating matters is the presence of Robert Hayes (Saxon), an American gangster who recognizes Christopher as a former police officer and summons Mafia hit men to Switzerland. Predictably, Christopher makes room in his schedule to romance attractive jet-setter Denise Abbott (Senta Berger), one of the blackmail victims. Story-wise, The Swiss Conspiracy is a washout. Escapism-wise, it’s not awful. Powered by a cheesy electro jazz/rock score, the movie zips along from one high-octane scene to another, mixing death and deceit into a Saturday-matinee soufflé—albeit one that never fully rises. No wonder Janssen looks so irritable in every scene.

The Swiss Conspiracy: FUNKY

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Warhead (1977)

Offering a textbook illustration of the need to imbue even the simplest films with proper character development and dramatic tension, the military thriller Warhead squanders a colorful premise and a unique location simply because the storytelling is so enervated. The movie’s just barely passable, thanks to the presence of a few violent action scenes, but, man, does Warhead seem amateurish at times. Cowritten and produced by Buddy Ruskin, whose principal claim to fame is creating the Mod Squad franchise, the picture stars humorless David Janssen as an American nuclear-weapons expect. Here’s the laughably contrived setup. After an American plane suffers mechanical problems and accidentally drops an (unexploded) experimental nuclear weapon near the Israeli-Jordanian border, Tony Stevens (Janssen), gets sent on a solo parachute mission with orders to find and defuse the bomb. Meanwhile, Israeli soldier Liora (Karin Dor), survives a sneak attack on a school bus by PLO guerilla Malouf (David Semadar). She gets teamed with Israeli commando Ben-David (Christopher Stone) to return to the scene of the crime and kill Malouf. Yet in the time Liora’s away from Malouf’s stomping grounds, Malouf finds Tony and the nuclear bomb. A struggle for control of the warhead ensues.
Shot in Israel, the picture takes an extreme approach to sociopolitical stereotyping. Every Israeli citizen is portrayed as a saint, every PLO soldier is depicted as a rapist and/or murderer, and Tony—the sole American principal character—is depicted as the stooge of a warmongering superpower insensitive to the suffering of the noble Israeli people. It says a lot that the only scene in the movie with any idiosyncratic flair is the bit when a shlubby Israeli soldier (Art Metrano) castigates a fellow commando for sitting on the nuclear bomb. The location shooting adds a bit of flavor to the piece, especially during two minor scenes filmed at the Wailing Wall, but director John O’Connor exhibits precious little visual imagination, capturing dialogue scenes in static frames and photographing action in a rudimentary way. (The less said about the weird optical-spin transition the filmmakers employ to depict a rape, the better.) As always, Janssen trudges through the movie like’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders, which is to say he performs every scene with exactly the same degree of all-purpose intensity. Warhead is frequently very silly, with its ample clichés and platitudes, but at least it’s brisk and coherent.

Warhead: FUNKY

Friday, April 4, 2014

Macho Callahan (1970)

This grim and misguided Western stars the perpetually cranky David Janssen as Macho Callahan, a reluctant Civil War soldier who escapes from a horrific Confederate prison, then seeks revenge on the man who tricked Macho into joining the Army. (Don’t ask why a character who wants to avoid the conflict of war would seek the conflict of a vengeance mission.) This peculiar story gets even more contrived when Macho pointlessly shoots a Confederate officer during a minor dispute, provoking the officer’s widow to put a price on Macho’s head. Later, Macho abducts, beats, and rapes the widow—which inexplicably leads her to fall in love with Macho. Rest assured, none of this makes any more sense while it unfolds onscreen than it does in synopsis form. From the standpoint of character logic, Macho Callahan is incomprehensible, and from the standpoint of gender politics, it’s reprehensible. As a result of these problems, the protagonist is revealed as a sadistic thug undeserving of viewers’ attention. Janssen, best known for his work on the tense ’60s series The Fugitive, spends so much time scowling that he seems constipated instead of anguished. Leading lady Jean Seberg can’t seem to decide whether she’s incarnating a tough military bride or a weak-willed victim. And the question of whether these two stars spark any chemistry is moot, since the dynamic between their characters is grotesque and unbelievable. Meanwhile, the actors who deliver vivid supporting performances—David Carradine (as the officer whom Macho shoots), Matt Clark (as a sadistic prison guard), and Lee J. Cobb (as Macho’s arch enemy)—all disappear too quickly from the story. So, aside from some intense action scenes (particularly the disgusting opening sequence in the Confederate prison, which cinematographer Gerry Fisher shoots evocatively), there’s little of note in Macho Callahan, unless an overabundance of brutality qualifies as noteworthy.

Macho Callahan: LAME

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Moon of the Wolf (1972)

For about three-quarters of its brief running time, the TV movie Moon of the Wolf unfolds like a bland but professionally made murder mystery, combining smooth performances with a fair amount of Southern-fried atmosphere, befitting the setting of a small island community in Louisiana. During the last quarter of the picture, however, Moon of the Wolf remembers that it’s actually a monster movie, and the quality of the piece drops precipitously, thanks to hackneyed situations and substandard makeup. So, while it’s accurate to say that Moon of the Wolf is a bust as a creature feature, the movie works fine as an undemanding thriller that simply happens to contain a very silly conclusion involving a rampaging lycanthrope. David Janssen, all disdainful crankiness, plays a small-town sheriff investigating a series of brutal killings, which the unsophisticated locals blame on wild dogs. Over the course of his investigation, the sheriff uncovers tawdry secrets about a wealthy landowner (Bradford Dillman) and his beautiful sister (Barbara Rush); the sheriff also digs into the lives of a physician (John Beradino) and a tempestuous redneck (Geoffrey Lewis).

As directed by Daniel Petrie, a reliable professional with an enormous résumé that includes such respected projects as the award-winning telefilm Sybil (1976), Moon of the Wolf is crafted with more care than the forgettable material deserves (although the monster stuff at the end seems half-hearted). Petrie gets especially good work out of Rush, an elegant beauty who has primarily worked in B-movies and small-screen fare; playing the wayward daughter of a moneyed clan, she invests her part with dignity and poignancy. (Never underestimate an actor who refuses to accept the limitations of the movie in which she’s been cast.) Dillman has some fine small moments as well, playing an aristocrat who’s mortified to have his privacy invaded by circumstance, and nobody does bug-eyed rural rage quite like the versatile Lewis. If all of this praise seems excessive for an obscure TV movie about werewolves, rest assured the goal here is not to suggest that Moon of the Wolf is by any measure a good movie; it’s not. But in the realm of schlocky ’70s horror, thoughtful storytelling is a rarity to be praised when found, even if that’s not the element one actually wants from schlocky ’70s horror. Still, better some decent performances than a bunch of mindless gore, right? Right? On second thought, don’t answer that one.

Moon of the Wolf: FUNKY

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Two-Minute Warning (1976)

The premise of Two-Minute Warning couldn’t be more appealing for fans of cheesy ’70s blockbusters: A sniper takes a position in the clock tower of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during a crowded football game, so cops led by Captain Peter Holly (Charlton Heston) must take the sniper out. Chuck Heston versus a psycho against a backdrop of tragic melodrama—pass the popcorn! Unfortunately, the title of Two-Minute Warning is itself a warning (to viewers), since virtually nothing exciting happens until the last two minutes of the game that provides the film’s narrative structure. Most of the movie comprises a long slog of “character development” in the superficial disaster-movie style, meaning Two-Minute Warning is nearly all foreplay with very little payoff.

That said, if you dive into the movie aware that it’s a slow burn, the combination of enterprising location photography and enthusiastic performances might be enough to keep you interested. The main relationship in the movie is between Captain Holly, who spends most of his time watching the sniper through a video feed originating in the Goodyear Blimp (!), and hotshot SWAT team commander Chris Button (John Cassavetes). Holly wants to remove the sniper without gunplay, whereas Button is itching for a shootout. Watching these alpha males clash provides a smidgen of macho entertainment, though one wishes the filmmakers had found a way to make their conflict more dynamic. The lack of strong leading characters lets supporting players run away with the picture. Brock Peters stands out as a Coliseum maintenance man who tries to be a hero, and Beau Bridges has some sorta-affecting moments as an unemployed dad fighting with his wife and kids in the stands, unaware of the danger lurking behind the end zone.

Two-Minute Warning hews so closely to the disaster-movie paradigm that the story also includes an aging pickpocket (Walter Pidgeon), a football-loving priest (Mitchell Ryan), and a bickering couple (played by David Janssen and Gena Rowlands). Yes, it’s the old “Who’s going to live, who’s going to die?” drill. Director Larry Peerce rounded out the cast with his then-wife, Marilyn Hassett, the star of his maudlin The Other Side of the Mountain movies, although casting his missus appears to be as close as he got to emotionally investing in this trifling potboiler. Since the Coliseum figured prominently in ’70s pop culture (it was used for Heaven Can Wait, North Dallas Forty, and innumerable TV episodes), the venue provides as comforting a presence as any of the name-brand actors, and Peerce shoots the location well. Overall, however, Two-Minute Warning is a missed opportunity given all the possibilities suggested by the premise. Fumble!

Two-Minute Warning: FUNKY

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Once Is Not Enough (1975)

New cinematic freedoms in the ’60s and ’70s emboldened pandering producers to adapt trashy bestselling novels for the screen, resulting in a series of godawful epics based on pulpy books by the likes of Harold Robbins, Sidney Sheldon, and Jacqueline Susann. A typical example of the breed is the Susann adaptation Once Is Not Enough, an overwrought melodrama about a beautiful young woman tormented by a daddy complex.

Deborah Raffin stars as January, the teenaged daughter of a macho movie producer named Mike Wayne (Kirk Douglas). When the story opens, January is completing her lengthy recovery from a bad motorcycle accident, so when she finally returns home from the hospital, she discovers that Mike’s career has hit the skids, and that he recently married the super-rich Deidre Granger (Alexis Smith) in order to provide for January.

This discovery sends January into an emotional tailspin—and eventually into the arms of Tom Colt (David Janssen), an alcoholic novelist who becomes a sexual surrogate for dear old Daddy. The sleazy storyline also includes Deidre’s lothario cousin (George Hamilton); Diedre’s secret lesbian lover (Melina Mercouri); and January’s promiscuous best friend (Brenda Vaccaro). These self-involved and/or self-loathing characters fight, scheme, and screw in an endless cycle until enough of them are either dead or neutralized to arrive at an arbitrary conclusion.

Once Is Not Enough lacks any tangible relation to the real world, just like it lacks any sense of higher purpose, so the movie’s supposed entertainment value involves reveling in sleaze. The storyline of he-man Douglas emasculating himself by marrying for money offers some amusement, but it’s difficult to enjoy the principal narrative about January, which careers between her pseudo-incestuous preoccupation with her father and her odious sexual involvement with Tom, who’s forty years her senior.

The screenplay, by Casablanca co-writer Julius J. Epstein, has a few zippy dialogue exchanges, but relies too much on Susann’s patois of contrived world-weariness. Similarly, the performances are erratic: Raffin is terrible (flat line readings, unconvincing emotional shifts), Douglas is okay (hammy but intense), and Vaccaro is great (bitchy, fragile, funny). A handful of worthwhile elements, however, are insufficient to justify the picture’s deadly 121-minute running time, so a more appropriate title would be Once Is More Than Enough.

Once Is Not Enough: LAME