Every 70s Movie: robert duvall

Showing posts with label robert duvall. Show all posts

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Tomorrow (1972)

Texan playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote was involved with two of Robert Duvall’s most important acting performances, his early breakthrough appearance as mysterious recluse Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and his Oscar-winning portrayal of faded country singer Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies (1983). Between those projects, the duo collaborated on Tomorrow, the screenplay for which Foote adapted from the William Faulkner story of the same name. It’s a minor piece, rightfully overshadowed by Duvall’s mainstream films of the same era, notably The Godfather (1971). Still, those who respect Duvall’s extraordinary talent and Foote’s homespun poetry can find much to appreciate here, because Tomorrow is a sincere character study exploring the repercussions of a simple man’s clumsy attempt at forming a human connection with a stranger.

Shot in black and white and mostly set in and around a ramshackle sawmill that’s inactive during the off season, the picture betrays its theatrical origins—Foote’s first adaptation of the Faulker story was a play, which he expanded into the script for this project—and some viewers will find the experience of watching Tomorrow claustrophobic and dull. The characters in this piece are plain rural folks, and Duvall plays a man who mostly communicates through physical actions, drawling his sparse lines in a guttural monotone whenever he actually speaks. Yet while the accoutrements of the piece are specific, the themes are universal.

Duvall plays Jackson Fentry, a man who has rarely ventured beyond his father’s farm until he takes a job as the winter caretaker for a sawmill located deep inside a thick forest. Claiming he doesn’t mind the prospect of spending months by himself in the woods, he’s in fact painfully lonely, so he welcomes the surprising arrival of Sarah Eubanks (Olga Bellin), a young pregnant woman who stumbles upon the mill one day. Abandoned by her husband and shunned by her parents, she’s even more alone in the world than Jackson. He provides shelter, and over the weeks preceding the arrival of her baby, they bond. Jackson proposes marriage, despite knowing that Sarah already has a husband somewhere. Thereafter, fate intervenes in cruel ways.

The intimate scenes work best, with Duvall’s repressed primitivism balancing Bellin’s vulnerability and warmth—she comes across like a backwoods Blythe Danner. Scenes involving outsiders are almost as effective, because Foote articulates how Jackson tries to protect his newfound love, only to get harsh reminders of his powerlessness. The wraparound bits framing the story have less impact, and probably could have been discarded entirely, especially since they add another layer of sadness to a story that’s already downbeat. If only because Duvall is in nearly every scene, anchoring the film with intensity and emotional truthfulness, Tomorrow merits consideration as one of his key films, but it’s not for everyone.

Tomorrow: GROOVY

Monday, March 17, 2014

The Great Santini (1979)

Robert Duvall was mostly known for brilliant supporting performances until the title role in this melodramatic family story finally allowed the singular actor to display a full spectrum of colors. Portraying U.S. Marine Corps pilot Lt. Col. “Bull” Meechum, Duvall showboats while displaying the character’s mischievous side, torments innocents when exhibiting the man’s mean streak, and unravels while revealing the character’s deep-rooted psychological turbulence. Duvall was entrusted with only one more equally dimensional role—in the poetic character study Tender Mercies (1983)—before slipping into a long run of high-paying but largely unchallenging supporting roles in the ’80s and early ’90s. Given this set of circumstances, The Great Santini and Tender Mercies remain two of the most important artifacts demonstrating Duvall’s unique gifts at full power.

Adapted by Lewis John Carlino (who also directed) and Herman Raucher from a semiautobiographical novel by Pat Conroy, The Great Santini takes place in 1962 South Carolina. Meechum, whose nickname is “The Great Santini” even though he’s Irish, is a hard-driving soldier who feels lost between wars. Unable to take out his aggressions on enemy combatants, Meechum bullies his family even as his wife, Lillian (Blythe Danner), and their four kids adjust to life in a new city. Receiving special abuse is Meechum’s oldest son, Ben (Michael O’Keefe), a high-school basketball player struggling to understand why his father is such a hero on the battlefield and such a monster at home.

Carlino, who only directed three films (the others are the erotic 1976 drama The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sa and the flimsy 1986 teen-sex comedy Class), presents Conroy’s narrative in a beautifully unvarnished way, so the best moments in The Great Santini are the most intimate ones. For instance, it’s hard to forget the brutal scene of Meechum repeatedly bouncing a basketball against Ben’s head, forcing the boy to cry as a means of validating Meechum’s alpha-male role. In fact, nearly every scene featuring Duvall is memorable, because he creates such a full-blooded characterization—Duvall preens, rages, struts, yells and generally releases his character’s sociopathic id, incarnating a mini-Patton without a worthy adversary. And yet for all of the flamboyance the actor brings to the role, the true beauty of Duvall’s performance is the deep sympathy he conveys for Meechum; with Duvall as our guide into this man’s troubled soul, we learn to love a character who does hateful things.

Young costar O’Keefe, appearing in one of his fist features after several years of TV work, gives as good as he gets, offering plaintive sincerity to counter Duvall’s masterful blend of personality traits. The elegant Danner, meanwhile, reveals the fortitude that allows her character to thrive in a difficult marriage. The Great Santini is so dramatically compelling and emotionally truthful that it seems a shame to note its flaws, but there’s no denying the contrived nature of a subplot involving Ben’s black friend, Toomer (Stan Shaw). Injecting wobbly elements of racism, sacrifice, and tragedy into the story, the subplot eventually leads someplace important, but getting there isn’t the smoothest ride. That said, Shaw’s work is deeply affecting, and costar David Keith, who figures in the subplot, makes a vivid bad guy. The bottom line, however, is that The Great Santini is robust entertainment powered by extraordinary acting. Like its main character, the movie is imperfect and impossible to ignore.

The Great Santini: RIGHT ON

Thursday, November 28, 2013

THX 1138 (1971)

George Lucas’ first feature, the sci-fi thriller THX 1138, is not for everyone, since the subject matter is grim and the execution is self-consciously arty. (Some might say pretentious.) Nonetheless, THX 1138 is inarguably the headiest sort of mainstream science fiction—a film of ideas disguised as visually resplendent escapism. Slotting nicely into the Orwellian tradition of fantastical allegory, Lucas’ movie depicts a future Earth where the working class has been figuratively and literally reduced to automatons. The film’s main character, THX 1138 (Robert Duvall), is bald drone wearing an all-purpose white uniform. That makes him a carbon copy of nearly everyone else occupying the mechanized city in which THX lives and works. The masses are kept in line by government-issued drugs that suppress individuality and sexual appetite. Moreover, frightening robotic police officers patrol the city, suppressing any nascent forms of insurrection. Eventually, THX and a coworker, LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie), defy the social order by ditching their daily drug regimen, which allows their long-suppressed human qualities to surface. Acting on unexpected attraction, the couple seeks out private places to explore each other’s bodies—and, eventually, each other’s souls. Once discovered, the illicit relationship places THX and LUH in grave danger.

There’s more to the film’s complex plot, including bold statements about dangerous intersections between religion and totalitarianism, but the core of the piece involves THX and LUH risking everything to discover if there’s more to life than their dehumanizing routine. Whereas in Star Wars (1977) Lucas uses his considerable storytelling gifts to create an intoxicating alternate universe filled with adventure and excitement, in THX 1138 he employs a methodical approach to define a milieu governed by sleek surfaces and omnipresent walls. The leading characters are literally ghosts in the machine until defiance compels them to regain their identities. Some of the visuals in THX 1138 are exquisite, such as the scene of THX and LUH making love in a white room that seems like the living incarnation of infinity, and some of the visuals in the movie are terrifying, such as the vision of metal-masked cops on futuristic motorcycles chasing the heroes through sleek tunnels. The picture can be opaque at times, as if it’s more of an experimental endeavor than a dramatic presentation, but the soulfulness of Duvall’s performance grounds even the most esoteric scenes. (Having twitchy Donald Pleasence in the cast as THX’s workplace superior doesn’t hurt, because nothing can suppress his idiosyncratic energy.)

Ultimately, the intellect and style of THX 1138 linger in the memory the longest: Consider the long-lens shots that suggest alienation, the wildly imaginative sound work that simulates otherworldliness, and so on. Every frame of THX 1138 underscores why Lucas’ talent could not be denied, no matter how much he was demoralized by the problems that plagued this picture after its completion. For those unfamiliar with the saga, Warner Bros. bankrolled the project because Francis Ford Coppola agreed to serve as executive producer, but then the studio hated Lucas’ original cut and shaved half an hour off the running time. Adding insult to injury, the movie flopped. Heretical as it may sound to Lucasfilm purists, however, the 95-minute Warner Bros. cut isn’t a bad way to see THX 1138, because a little of the film’s chilly tone goes a long way. That said, Lucas—ever the tinkerer—returned the project 30 years later, creating a 121-minute director’s cut that includes, predictably, juiced-up special effects that clash with the original 1971 footage. (The alterations are less irksome than Lucas’ changes to his first three Star Wars movies.) THX 1138 may not be essential ’70s cinema, per se, but it’s easily among the smartest sci-fi movies of the decade. Furthermore, as one of only three featues Lucas directed prior to his late-’90s resurgence, it’s a milestone in one of Hollywood’s most important careers.

THX 1138: GROOVY

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Lawman (1971)

Provocative and savage, Lawman offers an unflinching take on the iconography of the Western vigilante, positing that a killer with a badge can be as destructive to society as the criminals he’s charged with bringing to justice. Arriving around the same time as a slew of movies about modern-day vigilantism, Lawman didn’t capture the public imagination like Dirty Harry or Straw Dogs, both of which were released the same year—or even Death Wish (1974), which was made by Lawman’s director, Michael Winner—but Lawman is an interesting companion to those enduring pictures.

An ethical rumination set in such a minor key that many viewers will find the storyline unpalatably depressing, Lawman bravely defines its hero as the worst monster in his bloody environment. If violence begets violence, the movie seems to argue, then rampant violence can easily conjure that most grisly of oxymorons, “justifiable homicide.” And yet the most interesting aspect of Lawman is that the murders committed by the story’s antihero are only nominally sanctioned by society; supporting characters spend the entire narrative trying, in vain, to persuade the titular peacekeeper from using lethal force.

Burt Lancaster, who was always game for playing brutal sons of bitches, puts his florid acting style to good use essaying Jered Maddox, a U.S. Marshal without an iota of mercy. When the story begins, several cowboys from a ranch situated outside of a tiny town called Sabbath—make what you will of the symbolism—accidentally kill a bystander during a drunken binge. Maddox hears of the crime and kills one of the cowboys, then rides into Sabbath and proclaims his intention to eradicate all of the men responsible. This puts him in conflict not only with overbearing rancher Vincent Bronson (Lee J. Cobb), who employs the cowboys, but also with Sabbath’s comparatively weak-willed sheriff, Cotton Ryan (Robert Ryan). As the movie progresses, Maddox resists entreaties to his conscience and to his bank account, even endangering his renewed love affair with an old flame (Sheree J. North), all because of his single-minded devotion to eye-for-an-eye absolutism.

The story stirs up thorny questions about whether a society that kills killers is worth preserving; about how deeply the meting out of deadly justice corrupts the executioner; and about what role compassion plays in the whole mix. Gerry Wilson’s script is probably a bit too literary for its own good, and the pervasive darkness of the story will be a turnoff for those who like their morality plays leavened with escapism. But especially thanks to the presence of a great supporting cast—including Robert Duvall, Richard Jordan, and Ralph Waite—this one goes down smoothly for those with a taste for bitter parables. Best of all, the final scene, in which Cobb’s thunderous performance reaches an ironically pathetic crescendo, resonates on myriad levels.

Lawman: GROOVY

Monday, March 25, 2013

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976)

“I never guess,” the detective pronounces. “It is an appalling habit, destructive to the logical facility.” The detective is, of course, Sherlock Holmes (as personified, beautifully, by Nicol Williamson), and his unlikely conversational partner is the father of psychiatry, Sigmund Freud (as personified, with equal flair, by Alan Arkin). The meeting of these two great minds, one fictional and one historical, is the crux of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, a lavish adaptation of the novel by Nicholas Meyer, who also wrote the screenplay. As directed by dancer-turned-filmmaker Herbert Ross, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution combines an ingenious premise with splendid production values and a remarkable cast. This is 19th-century adventure played across a glorious European canvas of opulent locations and sophisticated manners, a world of skullduggery committed and confounded by aristocrats and their fellows.

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution is refined on every level, from its elevated language to its meticulous acting, and for viewers of a cerebral bent, it’s a great pleasure to watch because of how deftly it mixes escapist thrills with psychological themes. The movie is far from perfect, and in fact it’s very slow to start, with a first half-hour that meanders turgidly until Freud appears to enliven the story. But when The Seven-Per-Cent Solution cooks, it’s quite something. The story begins in London, where Holmes is caught in the mania of a cocaine binge. His loyal friend/sidekick, Dr. John Watson (Robert Duvall), recognizes that Holmes needs help because Holmes is preoccupied with a conspiracy theory involving his boyhood tutor, Dr. Moriarty (Laurence Olivier). Using clues related to Moriarty as bait, Watson tricks Holmes into traveling to Vienna, where Freud offers his services to cure Holmes of his drug addiction. In the course of Holmes’ treatment, the detective—as well as Freud and Watson—get pulled into a mystery involving a beautiful singer (Vanessa Redgrave) and a monstrous baron (Jeremy Kemp).

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution tries to do too much, presenting several intrigues simultaneously—as well as building a love story between Holmes and the singer and, of course, dramatizing Holmes’ horrific withdrawal from cocaine. Yet buried in the narrative sprawl is a wondrous buddy movie: Arkin’s dryly funny Freud and Williamson’s caustically insightful Holmes are terrifically entertaining partners. (Duvall, stretching way beyond his comfort zone to play a stiff-upper-lip Englishman, is very good as well, forming the glue between the wildly different tonalities of Arkin’s and Williamson’s performances.) In the movie’s best scenes, Freud and Holmes don’t so much match wits as merge wits, because Meyer’s amusing contrivance is that Freud’s inquiries into the subconscious are cousins to Holmes’ deductive-reasoning techniques. Thanks to Meyer’s elegant wordplay and the across-the-board great acting, moments in this movie soar so high that it’s easy to overlook sequences of lesser power. Ross’ contributions should not be underestimated, however, because the painterly frames and nimble camera moves that he conjures with veteran cinematographer Oswald Morris give the picture a graceful flow and ground the gleefully preposterous narrative in Old World splendor. (Available as part of the Universal Vault Series on Amazon.com)

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution: GROOVY

Sunday, January 27, 2013

The Eagle Has Landed (1976)

Representing a middling finale to an impressive career, The Eagle Has Landed was the last movie directed by action guy John Sturges, whose previous output included such classics as The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963). Considering Sturges’ skill and the caliber of the film’s cast, The Eagle Has Landed should be terrific, but the story is hopelessly convoluted, and the film never quite overcomes the problem of featuring Nazis as protagonists. Based on a novel by Jack Higgins and written by Bond-movie veteran Tom Mankiewicz, who was generally better suited to tongue-in-cheek escapist fare, the narrative concerns an outlandish Third Reich plot to kidnap British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the height of the war’s European action. Some of the Germans behind the scheme are, in descending order of rank, Hitler confidante Heinrich Himmler (Donald Pleasence), an officer named Radl (Robert Duvall, complete with eye patch), an IRA double-agent named Devlin (Donald Sutherland), and a disgraced Nazi officer named Steiner (Michael Caine). The overcooked plot also includes American soldiers (played by, among others, Larry Hagman and Treat Williams), plus a British lass (Jenny Agutter) who shares romantic history with Devlin. (In case you’ve already forgotten, he’s the IRA guy.) Just describing the plot of The Eagle Has Landed is exhausting, and while watching the movie is not quite as much of a chore as this synopsis might suggest, The Eagle Has Landed lacks the jaunty quality of Sturges’ best action pictures. On the bright side, there’s some low-wattage fun to be had in watching Caine play a snotty officer who openly expresses contempt for his superiors, or in watching Sutherland play one of his signature romantic rogues. Plus, Duvall has a few strong moments as the put-upon Radl, a mid-level officer who endeavors to follow orders while slyly working the Third Reich political system to protect himself from punishment in the event of failure. Good luck, pal!

The Eagle Has Landed: FUNKY

Thursday, January 3, 2013

The Revolutionary (1970)

On the plus side, this counterculture-themed drama has a strong sense of time and place. Even though it was shot in England, the movie somehow evokes a vivid sense of America in the student-revolt era, from pristine campuses to trash-strewn ghettos. Furthermore, director Paul Williams and cinematographer Brian Probyn artfully situate characters within painterly shots to provide context for how people relate to different environments. And the overarching narrative is interesting because it tracks how a troubled student shifts from posturing campus demonstrator to radicalized anarchist. Unfortunately, the weakest element of The Revolutionary is the most fundamental one—Hans Koningsberger’s script, which he adapted from his own novel of the same name.

For instance, the lead character is known only as “A,” even though we see nearly every aspect of his life—his classwork, his home, his lover, his parents—so it’s clear right from the start that Koningsberger can’t decide whether to operate on a metaphorical or realistic plane. Worse, the storyline is logy and meandering, with excessive screen time devoted to uninteresting relationships. Much of the movie comprises A’s romance with Helen (Jennifer Salt), a rich girl whose lifestyle is pure Establishment, so it seems as if the focus is A choosing between creature comforts and political integrity. But then, nearly three-quarters of the way through the movie, A joins forces with Leonard II (Seymour Cassel), a radical whose activism involves outright lawlessness. So if the story is about how far A will go to serve his principles, then why bother with the Helen scenes or, for that matter, the unsatisfying bits with Despard (Robert Duvall), a mid-level organizer who debates politics with A but never has much impact on the overall narrative?

To be fair, the goal of The Revolutionary may simply have been to raise questions. However, the sponginess of the story is compounded by the middling nature of Voight’s performance. Yes, it’s tough to dramatize a character who’s racked by indecision, but spending 100 minutes watching someone almost do this and almost do that challenges viewers’ patience. Still, the film gets points for tackling worthwhile subject matter, and the technical execution is terrific. (Composer Michael Small deserves special mention for imbuing many scenes with tension.) Yet just like director Williams’ next film, the drug drama Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (1972), The Revolutionary strives for profundity it never quite achieves. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

The Revolutionary: FUNKY

Sunday, February 5, 2012

The Betsy (1978)

Stupid and trashy, but inadvertently amusing exactly because of those qualities, The Betsy was adapted from one of Harold Robbins’ shamelessly eroticized potboiler novels. Like Jackie Collins and Jacqueline Susann, Robbins made a mint writing sleazy books about rich people screwing each other over (and just plain screwing), so anyone expecting narrative credibility and/or thematic heft is looking in the wrong place. That said, The Betsy delivers the type of guilty-pleasure nonsense that later dominated nighttime soaps like Dallas and Dynasty, along with some R-rated ogling of celebrity skin. And the cast! Great actors slumming in this garbage include Jane Alexander, Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, and the legendary Laurence Olivier. They’re joined by young beauties Kathleen Beller, Lesley-Anne Down, and Katharine Ross, all whom disrobe to some degree; Beller’s memorable skinny-dip scene helped make this flick a regular attraction on cable TV in the ’80s.

The turgid story revolves around Loren Hardeman (Olivier), an auto-industry titan who rules a fractious extended family. Now semi-retired and confined to a wheelchair, Hardeman hires maverick racecar designer/driver Angelo Perino (Jones) to build a new car with terrific fuel efficiency, because Hardeman wants to leave as his legacy a “people’s car” like the Volkswagen Beetle. This plan ruffles the feathers of Hardeman’s grandson, Loren Hardeman III (Duvall), who wants to get the family’s corporation out of the money-losing car business. As these warring forces jockey for control over the company’s destiny, with Loren III’s college-aged daughter, Betsy (Beller), caught in the middle, old betrayals surface. It turns out Hardeman the First became lovers with the wife (Ross) of his son, Loren II, driving the younger man to suicide. This understandably left Loren III with a few granddaddy issues. There’s also a somewhat pointless romantic-triangle bit involving jet-setter Lady Bobby Ayres (Down), who competes with Betsy for Peroni’s affections. Suffice to say, the story is overheated in the extreme, with characters spewing florid lines like, “I love you, Loren, even if I have to be damned for it,” or, “I always knew it would be like this, from the first time I saw you.”

John Barry’s characteristically lush musical score adds a touch of class, Duvall somehow manages to deliver a credible dramatic performance, and Alexander is sharp in her small role. However, Beller, Down, Jones, and Ross coast through the movie, trying (in vain) not to embarrass themselves. As for Olivier, he’s outrageously bad. Hissing and/or screaming lines in an inept Midwestern accent, Olivier has no sense of proportion, playing every scene with such intensity that his work reaches the level of camp. Especially since Olivier was still capable of good work at this late stage of his life (see 1976’s Marathon Man), it’s depressing to watch him flounder.

The Betsy: LAME

Friday, December 30, 2011

Breakout (1975)

If you set your brain on standby mode to groove on cheap thrills and star power, the Charles Bronson action picture Breakout is enjoyably pulpy. In the convoluted story, unlucky American Jay (Robert Duvall) gets framed and thrown into a nasty Mexican jail, thanks to the machinations of his evil father, Harris Wagner (John Huston); it seems Jay is in a position to expose some of Harris’ nefarious activities. Unaware of Papa’s real agenda, Jay’s dutiful wife, Ann (Jill Ireland), conspires to get Jay released. When legal procedures prove fruitless, she attempts bribing guards and tries smuggling in tools for an escape attempt, but nothing works. Eventually, Ann is introduced to Nick Colton (Bronson), a small-time pilot willing to break the law for a buck. After a few false starts, Nick contrives an audacious plan to fly a helicopter into the jail. Drama, such as it is, stems from Ann’s difficulty balancing her devotion to Jay and her attraction to Nick, plus the challenges Nick encounters while recruiting accomplices for a possible suicide mission. All of this is palatable in a Saturday-matinee kind of a way, which means that Breakout is never boring even though it’s never believable. The movie suffers tonal hiccups whenever it tries to get serious, as in the subplot of Jay’s mental state deteriorating after extended incarceration, and there’s not much in the way of character development. Still, Bronson makes a charming lowlife, all bravado and sarcasm, while supporting players Sheree North and Randy Quaid offer flair as Nick’s long-suffering redneck pals. Ireland, Bronson’s frequent onscreen costar and real-life wife, is a bit spunkier than usual, and Duvall adds a measure of gravitas by playing his prison scenes with great intensity. (Huston is wasted in a tiny role.) So, while Breakout is contrived and silly in the extreme, a few thrilling sequences (and one shockingly gory death scene) ensure that fans of manly-man action will find plenty to enjoy.

Breakout: FUNKY

Thursday, December 29, 2011

The Greatest (1977)

As a keepsake depicting the heyday of one of modern sports’ most celebrated figures, The Greatest is priceless, because boxer Muhammad Ali plays himself in a brisk overview of his illustrious career’s most notable moments. As a movie, The Greatest is, well, not the greatest. Setting aside the issue of Ali’s amateurish acting, since he never claimed thespian skills among his gifts, the picture is so flat and oversimplified that it’s more of a tribute reel than an actual film. At its worst, The Greatest is outright ridiculous. For instance, the opening-credits montage features Ali jogging while George Benson croons a maudlin version of “The Greatest Love of All,” which was composed for this movie even though most people know the song as a Whitney Houston hit from the ’80s. The problem is that the main lyric, “Learning to love yourself/is the greatest love of all,” doesn’t really apply to the former Cassius Clay, whose bravado is as famous as his pugilistic skill; for this man, self-love was never in short supply.

Nonetheless, it seems the goal of this picture was to portray Cassius/Muhammad as a simple man trying to find his identity while he clashed with racist white promoters and, during his Vietnam-era battle against being drafted into military service, the U.S. government. Unfortunately, the picture doesn’t dig deep enough to feel believable as an examination of the inner man, especially since most of the events depicted in the picture are familiar to everyone, from Ali’s friendship with Malcolm X (James Earl Jones) to his conversion to Islam. The movie’s credibility is damaged further by the filmmakers’ use of actual footage from Ali’s biggest bouts: The movie frequently cuts from shots of a well-fed 1977 Ali to clips of the same man looking leaner in earlier years, even though the disparate shots are supposed to be contiguous.

Accentuating the cheesy approach are distracting cameo appearances by Jones, Robert Duvall, David Huddleston, Ben Johnson, and Paul Winfield, all of whom breeze in and out of the movie very quickly. (Ernest Borgnine has a somewhat more substantial role as trainer Angelo Dundee.) FYI, cult-fave director Monte Hellman provided uncredited assistance during post-production after the death of the film’s credited director, reliable journeyman Tom Gries; Hellman performed similar duties two years later on the misbegotten thriller Avalanche Express, joining that production after director Mark Robson died.

The Greatest: LAME

Thursday, August 18, 2011

The Killer Elite (1975)

Part action picture, part conspiracy thriller, and part revenge epic, The Killer Elite is a mess. As directed by Sam Peckinpah, whose creative decline was rapidly underway at this point, the picture boasts a handful of exciting scenes and several vivid performances, but its intentions are as vague as its storyline. James Caan and Robert Duvall star as a pair of gunmen who work for a private espionage group that’s hired by the CIA for covert operations like securely transporting international political figures who’ve been targeted for assassination by foreign governments. For reasons that are never particularly clear, Hansen (Duvall) shoots Locken (Caan) after a successful operation, betraying his buddy and leaving Locken a near-cripple thanks to wounds to his elbow and knee.
The movie then devotes about 30 minutes to methodical scenes showing Locken’s recovery; as soon as Locken’s back in fighting shape, Hansen conveniently surfaces with a contract to kill an Asian dissident (Mako). Locken recruits a driver (Burt Young) and a sniper (Bo Hopkins) to help protect the dissident and, with any luck, confront Hansen. Also layered into the story are a series of double- and triple-crosses involving Locken’s bosses (Arthur Hill and Gig Young). Oh, and there are ninjas, too. Lots of ninjas.

None of it makes very much sense, but the journey is still somewhat interesting because Caan is so charismatic and because Peckinpah knows how to shoot action scenes. (Extensive San Francisco location photography is another plus.) When The Killer Elite clicks, it delivers visceral moments like a shootout in a crowded street that expands into a nasty high-speed car chase. When the movie doesn’t click, it delivers spastic sequences like the climactic confrontation, during which Locken’s crew takes on an army of ninjas aboard a decommissioned warship, all of which leads up to a big swordfight between two supporting characters. Whatever.

Luckily, the picture knows better than to take itself seriously, so sarcastic humor is woven into nearly every scene. Caan’s buddy-movie shtick with his sidekicks is terrific (Young is consistently amusing and Hopkins is memorably twitchy), and it’s also entertaining to watch Caan’s character get exasperated whenever the dissident spouts Eastern philosophy. “I understand now,” Caan opines bitchily at one point. “He wants to go back and die on his native soil. It’s that salmon-up-the-river shit.”

The Killer Elite: FUNKY

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (1972)

Two different eras of Hollywood filmmaking clash uncomfortably in The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, a sloppy but interesting-ish look at one of the Wild West’s most notorious criminal outfits, the James-Younger gang. The picture gets studio-era romanticism from producer-star Cliff Robertson, who plays Cole Younger as a wide-eyed dreamer more reliant on guile than gunplay. Offering a bracing counterpoint of New Hollywood realism is Robert Duvall, who plays Jesse James as a crude sociopath prone to outbursts of messianic frenzy. Unsuccessfully attempting to blend these tonalities is writer-director Philip Kaufman, helming his first big-budget picture.

Even with veteran action cinematographer Bruce Surtees on his team, Kaufman seems unsure how to orchestrate complex scenes; the camera is often focused behind or to the side of the main action, which is incredibly distracting. Even simple dialogue scenes suffer from clumsy execution, because Kaufman can’t seem to decide whether he wants glossy artificiality or hard-hitting authenticity. Kaufman’s screenplay is as jumbled as his direction, although to be fair, The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid feels as if it might have been significantly reconfigured during editing; the film’s choppy montage sequences and clunky narration seem like they were added to clarify story points that were muddy in the original footage.

Still, the underlying historical facts are compelling, and Kaufman’s method for contrasting James and Younger works. In parallel storylines, the two factions of the James-Younger gang converge on the town of Northfield, Minnesota, giving viewers distinct perspectives on the character of each faction. With an eye on robbing Northfield’s bank, Younger insinuates himself into the local populace, persuading townies to fatten the bank’s value with new deposits. Meanwhile, James suffers delusions of grandeur even though he lacks Younger’s intellectual discipline and strategic acumen. When the factions merge, disharmony between James’ savagery and Younger’s slyness leads to disaster. And while the climactic scene of the Northfield robbery is exciting and imaginative, everything that happens before and after the big scene is haphazard.

Duvall’s scenes are stronger because his characterization is more believable, a small man drunk on his own fame. Robertson’s scenes are elaborate, though overly reliant on gimmicks like his repeated line, “Ain’t that a wonderment?” Matters are not helped by the preponderance of overly familiar character actors, including R.G. Armstrong, Luke Askew, Matt Clark, Elisha Cook Jr., Royal Dano, and Dana Elcar, which lends the picture the generic feel of episodic television. (The less said about Dave Grusin’s weird musical score, which features everything from bouncy calliope music to acid-rock guitars, the better.) The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid can’t be dismissed because it’s filled with interesting ideas, but it can’t be praised very highly because only a few of those ideas are brought to fruition.

The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid: FUNKY

Friday, April 15, 2011

Lady Ice (1973)

Calling Lady Ice a routine heist movie is an insult to routine heist movies, because this lifeless flick has all of the trappings of the genre but none of the appeal. Donald Sutherland plays an insurance-company investigator who romances a rich young woman (Jennifer O’Neill) in order to prove she’s a fence for stolen jewels. Sutherland seems game for playing a suave secret agent, flirting his way through a charming performance as a cocksure operator who may or may not be out of his depth, but the vapid script generates neither excitement nor suspense, so Sutherland ends up treading water. However O’Neill, the wholesomely beautiful ex-model who made such a memorable impression in Summer of ’42 (1971), is amateurish. Though she’s enchanting when she smiles with her impossibly white teeth contrasting her deeply tanned skin, she’s boring when she speaks because of her inability to invest dialogue with emotion or reality. Had the film given her anything interesting to do, the shortcomings of her performance might not have been as obvious, but then again, there’s a reason why less than ten years after Summer of ’42, O’Neill had slid so far down the Hollywood ladder that she spent 1979 costarring with the likes of Lee Majors and Chuck Norris. The great Robert Duvall shows up in Lady Ice as well, though just barely, in a small and underwritten role as a cop trailing Sutherland’s character, and the film’s other appeal is extensive location photography showcasing the sights of Miami and Nassau. But thanks to paper-thin characters, a rudimentary storyline, and long stretches in which nothing much happens, Lady Ice isn’t worth examining for hidden virtues.

Lady Ice: LAME

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Joe Kidd (1972)

Possibly Clint Eastwood’s least interesting Western, this threadbare action flick has an impressive pedigree—celebrated novelist Elmore Leonard wrote the screenplay, and macho-cinema veteran John Sturges, of The Magnificent Seven fame, directed. Despite the participation of these boldfaced names plus that of Robert Duvall, who plays the heavy, Joe Kidd tells a forgettable story unimaginatively, so it’s only watchable because of production values, star power, Lalo Schifrin’s assertive score, and Bruce Surtees’s robust cinematography. Also working in the movie’s favor is brevity, since Joe Kidd runs just 88 minutes. After a lugubrious first act, the story gets going when rapacious developer Frank Harlan (Duvall) hires former bounty hunter Joe Kidd (Eastwood) to track Mexican revolutionary Luis Chama (John Saxon), whose rabble-rousing has interfered with Harlan’s schemes. Beyond some minor drama involving Joe’s shifting allegiances, there’s not much more to the plot, so lots of screen time gets consumed by macho posturing and lengthy sequences of characters stalking each other. A probing exploration of frontier morality this is not. One can find glimmers of Leonard’s signature pulpy style in Kidd’s bitchy dialogue, but while the best Leonard-derived Westerns have rock-solid conceits (see both versions of 3:10 to Yuma), the storyline of Joe Kidd is leisurely and unfocused, with characterizations—usually a Leonard strength—given depressingly short shrift.

The movie looks good enough with Surtees behind the lens, though it seems he was asked to light sets more brightly than he usually does and he’s hampered by Sturges’s stodgy compositions. As for the actors, Eastwood conjures a few mildly amusing tough-guy moments, for instance when his character casually sips beer while watching a shootout. Duvall does what he can with a role so trite and underwritten it would stifle any actor, though his trope of mispronuncing the name of Saxon’s character conveys an appropriate level of arrogance. The wildly miscast Saxon snarls lines through a silly Spanish accent, and he also fails to demonstrate the charisma one might expect from a grassroots leader—one imagines that Leonard envisioned a more nuanced portrayal. Adding minor colors to the movie’s canvas are Paul Koslo, Don Stroud, and James Wainwright, who play nasty hired guns. Anyway, while some of the shootouts in Joe Kidd are moderately entertaining, the fact that such incidental details as the use of unusual firearms and an appearance by Dick Van Patten as a hotel clerk stick in the memory more than the main narrative underscore why the watchword here is unremarkable.

Joe Kidd: FUNKY

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Network (1976)

There’s a reason why sophisticated contemporary screenwriters from Billy Ray to Aaron Sorkin bow at the feet of playwright-screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, and the script that best exemplifies that reason is Network, Chayefsky’s audacious satire about a TV personality who becomes a pop-culture phenomenon by going insane while America watches. By the mid-’70s, Chayefsky was a veteran dramatist with credits dating back to the ’50s heyday of live TV, and his reputation was such that his words reached the screen more or less untouched. For Network, Chayefsky let loose with all of his literary powers, constructing an outrageous plot, symbolic characters, and wordplay so dense and dexterous that each monologue is like a high-wire act.

Network is filled with such esoteric verbiage as “multivariate” and “sedentarian,” and the ideas the script presents are as elevated as the language. In the story, network-news anchorman Howard Beale (Peter Finch) gets sacked for low ratings, then responds by announcing on air that he plans to commit suicide. His stunt triggers a ratings spike, but concerns his deeply principled boss and best friend, news-division chief Max Schumacher (William Holden). An ambitious executive from the network’s entertainment division, Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), sees an opportunity to exploit Beale’s breakdown. Backed by Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall), the omnivorous lieutenant of the corporation that just bought the network, Diana seizes control of the nightly news broadcast and turns it into a circus act featuring crazies like Howard and “Sybil the Soothsayer.”

Concurrently, Diana makes a deal with a terrorist organization to film its insurrectionist crimes, so before long the network’s top two shows are the vulgar “news” show and the brazen “Mao Tse Tung Hour.” Firmly situated as the story’s drowned-out voice of reason, Max is briefly seduced by the lure of slick sensationalism—he ends up in Diana’s bed even though he’s married—but once he comes to his senses, all he can do is bear witness as primetime becomes a madhouse.

Director Sidney Lumet, unobtrusively serving Chayefsky’s script, tells the story with methodical precision, orchestrating a handful of astonishing performances. Finch gets the showiest role, ranting through moments like the famous “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” speech; the actor died just before receiving an Oscar for the role. Holden, his once-gleaming features ravaged by years of drinking, is a vivid personification of an idealist-turned-cynic, and his runs through long speeches are as graceful as they are muscular. Dunaway, burdened with the most overtly symbolic characterization in the piece, is so chillingly soulless that she makes the contrivances of her role seem necessary and urgent. Duvall, adding an almost Biblical degree of rage to his previously muted screen persona, is layered and terrifying. And Ned Beatty, who pops in for a cameo as Duvall’s boss, blows away any memories of his usual bumbling characters by portraying a sociopathic corporate overlord.

Network is filled with nervy scenes, like the vignette of network executives negotiating a contract with gun-toting terrorists, and the climax is thunderous. And although it comes awfully close, Network isn’t perfect; some scenes, like Max’s confrontation with his wronged wife (Beatrice Straight), are overwritten to mask their triteness, and Max’s final monologue to Diana summarizes the picture in a manner that’s contrived, obvious, and unnecessary. But even in that scene, arguably the most film’s laborious, Chayefsky’s language is intoxicating: In the course of excoriating the reductive nature of television, Max laments that “all of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality.” Especially since most of Chayefsky’s bleak predictions about television have come true since Network was released, this profound film has lost none of its elemental power.

Network: OUTTA SIGHT

Thursday, January 27, 2011

The Outfit (1973)

An action thriller with an effectively unvarnished style, The Outfit presents a believably grim portrayal of life among professional criminals. The picture also features a tasty cast—led by Robert Duvall, in one of his first star turns after achieving notoriety with The Godfather (1972)—plus contributions from a pair of top action specialists, composer Jerry Fielding and cinematographer Bruce Surtees. Orchestrating the onscreen violence is writer-director John Flynn, arguably best known for helming a subsequent tough-guy flick, Rolling Thunder (1977). If dwelling on peripheral information suggests that trivia pertaining to The Outfit is more interesting than the movie itself, that’s somewhat true. While the movie is not without its pulpy merits, the content and vibe are so perfunctory that The Outfit fails to leave much of an impression (unless you’re Quentin Tarantino, who devoted an entire obsessive chapter in Cinema Speculation to this flick).

Based on a novel by bestselling crime guy Donald E. Westlake (via his Point Blank alias Richard Stark). The Outfit stars Duvall stars as Macklin, a small-time hood who once helped rob a bank controlled by Mobsters. In the aftermath of the crime, Macklin ended up in jail and his brother, who participated in the robbery, ended up dead. That’s why Macklin and the third robber, Cody (Joe Don Baker), embark on a campaign to rip off Mob-controlled operations until they compel the Mob into paying them off. Unsurprisingly, the Mob—personified by big boss Mailer (Robert Ryan)—doesn’t like the idea of caving to blackmailers, so a war ensues, with Macklin and Cody alternating between raiding Mob establishments and engaging in shootouts with enforcers. Caught up in the action is Macklin’s companion, Bett (Karen Black), who occasionally serves as an accomplice.

Although The Outfit neither presents a discernible theme nor transcends its genre limitations, the picture accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish. The shadowy look of the movie suits the frontier-justice milieu. Some flourishes are intense, as when Duvall’s character shoots a thug’s hand to demonstrate dominance. Regarding the actors, second lead Baker’s country-fried blend of charm and menace lends helpful dynamism given how extremely Duvall underplays his role; laconic Hollywood vet Ryan gives one of his characteristically seething late-career performances as the main villain (his main scene with Duvall is a highlight); future Blade Runner costar Joanna Cassidy turns up in her first significant role, playing Ryan’s irritable arm candy; and Richard Jaeckel, Bill McKinney, and Sheree North add verve to small roles.

The Outfit: FUNKY

Friday, January 7, 2011

Badge 373 (1973)

After their involvement in a giant drug bust was fictionalized in the blockbuster crime thriller The French Connection (1971), real-life New York City cops Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso were fictionalized again in two separate 1973 releases. Robert Duvall plays an Egan-inspired character in Badge 373, and Roy Scheider mimics Grosso in The Seven-Ups. Neither is a great movie, but The Seven-Ups is exciting and stylish; by comparison, Badge 373 is turgid and old-fashioned, a bland whodunit filled with uninteresting subplots and dreary music. At the beginning of the picture, swaggering Irish cop Eddie Ryan (Duvall) leads a raid that results in the death of a Puerto Rican. He’s suspended from the force, and pilloried by the press and the Puerto Rican community as a racist. When his partner is murdered, Ryan investigates even though he doesn’t have a badge, and ends up in the crosshairs of the Puerto Rican revolutionary group connected to the murder. The setup is unnecessarily convoluted, and Duvall’s characterization has none of the edgy charisma that made Gene Hackman’s French Connection take on Egan so compelling. Instead, Duvall portrays Ryan as a hateful, shoot-first-ask-questions-later thug. A few scenes exploring Puerto Rican identity are interesting, like those featuring an immigrant crime boss (Henry Darrow), and the setpiece of Ryan commandeering a city bus is colorful, but the movie gets lost in one trite cop-movie trope after another. Duvall’s also uncharacteristically phony, except in one or two emotional moments, and he’s pretty much the whole show—but the real Eddie Egan offers a bit of helpful authenticity with his salty performance as Ryan’s long-suffering supervisor.

Badge 373: FUNKY

Saturday, January 1, 2011

MAS*H (1970)

   A brilliant antiwar comedy that turned Robert Altman into an A-list director, cemented the stardom of Elliot Gould and Donald Sutherland, inspired one of the most beloved series in TV history, and pissed off supporters of America’s involvement in Vietnam without once uttering the word “Vietnam,” M*A*S*H encapsulates almost everything that made the counterculture movies of the ’70s wonderful. Brash, inappropriate, and vulgar, the picture tackles a controversial topic from an unexpected angle, resulting in outrageous comedy setpieces, seamless acting work by a terrific ensemble, and touching moments of unexpected humanity. Plus, even though some of Altman’s excesses are plainly visible, like his tendency toward misogynistic portrayals of attractive women, M*A*S*H is his most accessible movie, displaying all of his clever storytelling techniques without getting sidetracked by his esoteric narrative interests.
   The story, of course, depicts the wild adventures at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, focusing on three gifted peacenik doctors drafted into military service: “Duke” Forrest (Tom Skerritt), “Trapper” John McIntyre (Gould), and “Hawkeye” Pierce (Sutherland). To numb themselves against the insanity of war—and the inanity of military bureaucracy—they spend their downtime bedding nurses, downing copious amounts of homemade booze, and violating every imaginable code of conduct. Their primary nemesis is another surgeon, the impossibly straight-laced Frank Burns (Robert Duvall), who preaches a nice god-mother-and-country line even though he’s a having an illicit affair with nurse Margaret “Hot Lips” O’Houlihan (Sally Kellerman). Skerritt's funny and loose, though he gets eclipsed as Gould and Sutherland congeal into a perfect comedy team over the course of their first (and best) film together. Playing broader types, Duvall and Kellerman strike satirical sparks lampooning conservative hypocrisy.
   The supporting cast is deep and democratic, with Rene Auberjonois, Roger Bowen, Bud Cort, Jo Ann Pflug, John Schuck, Fred Wiliamson, and others all getting memorably outrageous things to do, plus the movie includes Gary Burgoff’s first appearance as his indelible character “Radar” O’Reilly, the ESP-equipped company clerk he played during most of the M*A*S*H series’ historic 11-year run.
   Working from Ring Lardner Jr.’s Oscar-nominated script, which in turn was based on a novel by Richard Hooker, Altman presents a string of irreverent scenes, like the football game in which doctors use syringes to dope the opposition, Hawkeye and Trapper’s debauched field trip to Japan, and the famous “Suicide is Painless” sequence that spotlights the franchise’s moody theme song (with lyrics!) while giving a shout-out to the Last Supper. From start to finish, the film achieves a delicate balance by satirizing everything inhuman about the military while at the same time celebrating the sacrifices of honorable men and women, so it’s a deeply felt statement that made waves when the movie was released in 1970, at the height of the Vietnam War. Bloody, funny, raunchy, serious, silly, and smart, M*A*S*H set a standard for tonally unpredictable satire that few films have matched since.

M*A*S*H: OUTTA SIGHT

Friday, December 10, 2010

Apocalypse Now (1979)

   One of the definitive cinematic statements of the ’70s, Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War drama is indulgent, pretentious, and undisciplined, but the film’s narrative excesses perfectly match its theme of men driven mad by an insane world. Famously adapted from Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness by gonzo screenwriter John Milius, then rewritten by Coppola and sprinkled with evocative narration by Michael Herr, the harrowing movie follows the journey of military assassin Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), sent by his U.S. Army masters to take out a rogue Green Beret, Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has established an ultraviolent fiefdom in Cambodia. The irony of the Army condemning one of its own killing machines for being too bloodthirsty is just part of the film’s crazy-quilt statement about the obscenity of war in general and that of the Vietnam conflict in particular; even though the narrative wanders into many strange places along the way, it always returns to the maddening central idea that murder is acceptable as long as it’s done according to plan.
   Moving away from the classicism of his early-’70s triumphs and entering a vibrant period of expressionist experimentation, Coppola oversees a string of bold and inspired sequences, many of which have become iconic. The opening salvo, with hallucinatory intercutting of jungle imagery and a sweaty Saigon hotel room while the Doors’ menacing song “The End” plays on the soundtrack, goes beyond masterful and enters the realm of tweaked genius. And how many scenes in other movies match the audacity of the helicopter attack scored with Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries”? The film’s dialogue is just as vivid, from “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” to “The horror, the horror.” Sheen is extraordinary, channeling his intensity and remarkable speaking voice into a performance of perverse majesty, while supporting players Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper match him with crystalline personifications of two different brands of lunacy. Famously overpaid and uncooperative costar Brando gives Coppola fragments of brilliance that the director stitches into something weirdly affecting, and the fact that Brando’s performance works is a testament to the heroic efforts of a team of editors including longtime Coppola collaborator Walter Murch.
   Speaking of behind-the-camera participants, it would be criminal not to sing the praises of Vittorio Storaro’s luminous photography, which somehow captures not only the heat but also the suffocating humidity of the jungle. Actors Sam Bottoms, Laurence Fishburne, Albert Hall, and G.D. Spradlin all contribute immeasurably as well, and Harrison Ford pops up for a bit part. After consuming the powerful 153-minute original version, consider exploring the fascinating (and even more indulgent) 202-minute extended cut titled Apocalypse Now Redux, and by all means seek out Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, possibly the most illuminating behind-the-scenes documentary ever made.

Apocalypse Now: OUTTA SIGHT