Using Movies As A Guide For Reality

OPERA aka TERROR AT THE OPERA may have been the first Dario Argento movie I ever laid eyes on, on VHS of course, but I’m not completely certain of that. It doesn’t matter anyway, but watching it again I realize that the earliest exposure you have to something manages to effect the perception you have of it from then on. In a variety of ways, a number of the things that I always expect from Argento in his work deep down can be traced right back to this film. Though I’ve seen it numerous times over the years it had actually been a while when I went to see it as the opening night film of the recent Italian Grindhouse series at the American Cinematheque. Returning to it after a number of years I wasn’t quite certain how it would play but once we hit that masterful transition early on from the apartment to the opening night performance of MACBETH the film had me and, for a brief period of time, I thought that the film might be even better than I remembered—it’s that powerful a moment and I wish the entire picture could live up to what that one brief passage promises. OPERA isn’t quite that good and yes, much of it is as ludicrous as it’s always been. But within all the madness it’s a striking example of the director really trying to dig deep into his own preoccupations and even if it all doesn’t totally connect much of it is extremely well done and effective.


When “The Great” Mara Cecova, world famous opera singer, is injured after storming out of a rehearsal of a new avant-garde version of Verdi’s Macbeth being helmed by horror film director Marc (CHARIOTS OF FIRE’s Ian Charleson) it falls to the understudy Betty (Christina Marsillach) to take over (“It usually only happens to people in the movies”) in spite of her own hesitation that she is too young for the role as well as a fear that she can’t quite articulate. In the finest tradition of old-fashioned backstage musicals Betty is a big success even as an accident during the performance gives rise to the fear that the opera is cursed. All seems to be well until, late that night while at home with boyfriend Stefan (TEXASVILLE’s William MacNamara) Betty is suddenly attacked by a masked assailant who proceeds to tie her up and uses his own means to force her to keep her eyes open as he stabs Stefan to death. Before leaving, the killer unties Betty enough to allow her to get away and she does, leaving Stefan behind without calling the police for reasons of her own. The crime is soon investigated headed by Inspector Santini (Urbano Barberini, recently seen in CASINO ROYALE) but as the company prepares for another performance the killer is out there preparing to strike again and force Betty to watch as someone else close to her is horribly killed.


Taking a fresh look at OPERA there seems to be something in it which sets it apart from standard Giallos, not to mention slasher films or Agatha Christie-type mysteries. There’s the feeling that, as mad as it all is, it’s possible Argento means all this to a greater extent than he ever had before, best represented in the central image of a killer who is forcing the heroine (and, by hopeful implication, the audience) to keep looking at every single unspeakably horrible thing that is occurring (“Keep your eyes open,” said John Goodman in Joe Dante’s MATINEE). It’s as if for the first time he’s trying to really confront the horrific nature of this violence and what it means for him to make films that express it, a concept he would explore further in THE STENDHAL SYNDROME which I still maintain is kind of a masterwork. The plot of TENEBRAE, made several years before was also to a degree about how madness informs the creative process had happened to him but, much as I love that film, it seems to be operating on a surface level. Maybe because the very world it’s set in allows for a more heightened display of emotion, OPERA seems like it’s trying to dig beneath that surface.


It’s arguable whether or not Argento’s murder sequences are any more vicious than in previous films, but there is a density to it all that feels different. OPERA is a particularly nasty film both in tone and in violence, feeling like a decidedly cynical look at the world and how people, good and bad, ultimately relate to each other. It’s the nicest characters most sympathetic to Betty who meet the most horrifying ends (with one key exception that I suppose even Argento couldn’t bring himself to depict), while the selfish ones, whether valid red herrings or not, wind up lurking around the outskirts of the plot unharmed, fitting in perfectly with the cruel reality this is all set in. I’m not even certain whether it’s the most violent of his films but the very nature of certain things definitely makes it seem more brutal.


As might be expected, there are the usual plotting issues that always seem to be there with the director—even watching it at home you can almost hear the audience mumbling in puzzled laughter as Betty leaves the first crime scene without a moment’s thought (right now we won’t even discuss what has to be swallowed to allow the final twist to work). After seeing it all these times I can barely track the killer’s true motivation as well as the demons that haunt Betty but I’m not so sure it really matters. There are demons present as there would be for any artist and they have to be confronted—to be truly looked at—before you can admit to yourself who you really are, which, if this film is to be believed, may in itself be a form of giving into the madness. Whatever else you want to say about the denouement, which was not in the print that was screened and is certainly difficult to defend on any rational level, it does give the impression of coming from a very personal place, just one that it’s difficult for us to enter. Maybe the film is about accepting that artist within you and learning to no longer be afraid of being alone. I can’t be certain—within the film’s density is a seemingly genuine insanity and there are points in the movie, like during the endless attack by the crows or during the legendary peephole sequence (“I want to see your face again!”) we become enraptured by the camerawork and imagery so all we can do is just surrender to the lunacy in front of us.


It of course could be looked at as one of Argento’s most personal films whether it’s about his own relationship to what he creates, the type of artist he wants to be (“I always jerk off before I shoot a scene,” Charleson admits at one point) or the nature of his relationships with the various young leading ladies he often works with (like perhaps PHENOMENA star Jennifer Connelly?) years before he began making films with daughter Asia. It’s telling how self-critical he comes off in much of this, one of the most endearing touches of the entire film. As undeniably powerful as much of it is—the remarkable camera work by Ronnie Taylor deserves special mention--it’s not quite the cohesive whole that I would want it to be deep down. The scattershot nature of the music is a good representation of how every part doesn’t quite connect together, veering from Verdi to Simonetti’s heartbreakingly beautiful main theme to the metal by Steel Grave underscoring several of the murders. That stuff in particular doesn’t work, not meshing well with everything else, it’s not particularly good and, in its hair metal way, dates the picture back in the 80s more than anything else onscreen. The print shown at the Cinematheque titled TERROR AT THE OPERA had the Orion logo on it, for a release in the 80s that never seems to have happened (did it ever play any U.S. theaters, even on 42nd Street?) and has the same dub job that I’ve always heard with it, not the worst in history, but not all that great either. The gore seems to be uncensored (at least, I think it is—no way would this ever get an R rating) but several dialogue scenes have been cut down or missing altogether, including that somewhat notorious coda. On the visual side, the DVD (the most complete version) is letterboxed at an ideal-looking 2.35 Scope, while the print shown is a flat ratio at 1.85 or even 1.66, a slight drawback in how it makes this film seem somewhat visually less than what it is.


Located within all this madness is one of the better ensembles that Argento has had in his career, particularly Marsillach and Charleson both managing to find a human connection in all this madness, even if the script (not to mention the dubbing) doesn’t always make it easy. The film is filled with interesting faces that work well together (even those who don’t have any lines seem to make an impression by appearing slightly suspicious), almost as if they’ve been cast not for a horror film but a dark, character-oriented comedy. Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, who I’ve always really liked, in particular seems to be playing her role as if she’s the overeager best friend in a screwball farce and the bounciness in her character is so enjoyable to watch that it even overcomes how she seems to have been dubbed by a much older English woman and makes it all the more shocking when certain developments occur.


When viewed again in a theater OPERA, flaws and all, offers a reminder of how good Argento can be at his best and how absurd he can be during those times as well. Seeing it this way allows the darkness of its emotion to seep down within you, allowing the imagery to take hold. The genuinely brutal determination it has to really make you watch—to keep your eyes open—transforms it into sort of confrontation that makes it truly memorable. I can’t quite remember exactly what I thought of Argento and this film when I first saw it, but I’m glad that I kept watching to try to figure out exactly what these films were and what they wanted to say. Sometimes when you keep watching the greatest rewards can occur.

Being Willing

Looking around the net, I can tell that I’m definitely not the first person to link Clint Eastwood’s GRAN TORINO with THE SHOOTIST, the last film John Wayne ever made, but the point still seems worth making. We can’t say for certain at this point that TORINO will be the final acting appearance by Eastwood (after all, that seemed to be the case before) but it certainly seems like a possibility and it definitely seems designed as such in how it plays as a sort of final summation of him as a screen persona. There’s no way to know if Wayne approached THE SHOOTIST, released in 1976 with the idea that it would be his ‘final’ film but considering the parallels that could be made between the lead character of that film and his own health problems which were certainly common knowledge, it’s not too much of a stretch (he eventually succumbed to cancer in 1979). Directed by Don Siegel, THE SHOOTIST opens with clips from past Wayne films which are presented as glimpses of the film’s lead character in his younger days (a little like Soderbergh’s THE LIMEY) but there’s not a person who will ever see this film who won’t know what this footage really is. It gives the impression that the movie is pretty much implying that all John Wayne films are pretty much one big film and this is pretty much the end of the story. I don’t know if there’s much to THE SHOOTIST beyond this one simple notion but, in the film’s defense, it doesn’t really try to pretend that there is either.


January, 1901. Legendary gunfighter J.B. Books (Wayne) makes his way to Carson City, Nevada to see old friend Doc Hostetler (none other than James Stewart, coming in for a few scenes) to learn the cause of some pain he’s been feeling. It doesn’t take long before Hostetler tells Books the bad news, that he has “a cancer” and it’s not going to be very long until the end, either. Seeking a place to wait things out until the end, Books rents a room from the widow Rogers (Lauren Bacall) and her son Gillom (Ron Howard). He tries to keep things quiet, not even giving his real name, but it doesn’t take long until not only is his presence known, but of how little time he has and certain people are determined to settle and score once and for all.


Some westerns might be about waiting for a gunman to arrive on the next train. THE SHOOTIST, on the other hand, is just about waiting for death to come (yup, I know how to pick my fun Saturday night viewing). All the signs that the future is coming are everywhere in Carson City—telephone wires, horseless carriages, even a Coca-Cola sign is seen, signaling how much the lead character’s time has already passed and THE SHOOTIST is basically a funeral dirge for one of the most legendary stars in the history of Hollywood and that’s really all it is. In addition to Bacall and Stewart a number of other famous faces turn up in roles including Harry Morgan, John Carradine, Hugh O’Brian, Scatman Crothers, Bill McKinney and Sheree North as if to say farewell. Considering that THE SHOOTIST consists of not much more than waiting around for the end, it’s not exactly dull—the charisma of Wayne and a few of the other actors help with that—but even with Don Siegel directing it’s a flat-looking picture that resembles a movie made for television back in the seventies with very little oomph of any kind. It’s visually and dramatically static to the point that it’s not difficult, with a few tweaks, to imagine the entire script presented on live telelvision back in the fifties. There’s some location work done in Nevada—the book it’s based on was set in El Paso, but the more wintery setting of the film was a good choice—but most of it looks to be shot on the backlot in Burbank (the layout of the town square is familiar to anyone who’s seen stuff shot there) and there’s a simplicity to the production which feels like it was done to accommodate Wayne as much as possible. There’s not much action, very little humor (except for Harry Morgan’s Marshal, thrilled that this famous gunfighter isn’t going to be a threat) and not even much of a plot either—just John Wayne hanging around with a bunch of people pretending that there’s actually a movie here, not just a monument erected all around him.


Parallels to GRAN TORINO are pretty clear—the lead character’s approach towards the climax is certainly similar as is Wayne’s relationship with the boy played by Ron Howard, though TORINO managed to make the film more about the younger character which helped focus that story (for the record, I like that film quite a bit—watching THE SHOOTIST, I like it even more now). More surprising are a few similarities to UNFORGIVEN—Books is described as a “a notorious individual, utterly lacking in character or decency” by Bacall’s character and there’s even a scene where he has to deal with a news reporter played by Richard Lenz, interested in telling his story which certainly recalls Saul Rubinek’s writer (‘of letters and such?’) in the Eastwood film. There’s talk of Books brooding over how he feels about having killed so many people but it just feels like sentimental homilies as opposed to whatever is eating up Eastwood’s William Munny from the inside in the 1992 film. The script for UNFORGIVEN was written years before it was actually filmed I can’t help but wonder if part of the inspiration for the screenplay by David Webb Peoples was to craft a version of this story that would really examine the nature of such a character, as opposed to simply being about what a legend John Wayne (or Clint Eastwood, or whomever) is. This makes me wonder what a version of UNFORGIVEN starring Wayne made in the mid-60s would have been like but I can’t quite imagine Wayne confronted with a girl offering him a ‘free one’ like Anna Thomson offers Eastwood. (How many films better than UNFORGIVEN have there been in the past twenty years? Not very many, I’d say. I once met Peoples but didn’t tell him how much I love it. I regret that now.) As funeral dirges go, THE SHOOTIST isn’t bad but it still feels unfortunate that it didn’t try to be something other than a tribute to its star.


In spite of the flatness of the visual style (which seems to prove how wrong anyone who criticizes Ford’s THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE for the same thing really is) it could be argued by someone that it doesn’t matter considering that the film is really about Wayne as cinema icon starring in a western one last time. It may not be a great performance—the basic material doesn’t really allow for that—but it is an affecting one and he works very well in the frame with each of the other actors, even at time coming off as generous to them. As if to act as a contrast, Lauren Bacall doesn’t seem at all interested in playing her role as a figure of Hollywood history. Instead she’s completely present, totally committed to the character and in that sense she brings much of the dramatic power that the story, independent from John Wayne, actually has. Among the other familiar faces that turn up, John Carradine as the local undertaker is very enjoyable in what is pretty much the John Carradine role and Sheree North is particularly good in one long scene with Wayne as a former conquest who shows up for reasons he isn’t aware of at first. Playing a role that should be more of the center of the film, Ron Howard was never the weightiest of dramatic actors and his basic likeability only gets him so far (you can’t buy Ron Howard taking an experienced swig of whiskey, that’s just never going to happen) but his casting here still seems important, as if the likes of Wayne and Stewart are passing the torch along to the next generation, somebody who’s going to direct the latter-day equivalents of their starring vehicles with people like Tom Hanks and Russell Crowe. Thinking about what lay in his career’s future, I kept imagining him paying more attention to how the film was being put together by Siegel than ever thinking about his character.


As a film, there’s not much to say about THE SHOOTIST. It’s visually bland, dramatically inert and ultimately not very much happens. But there is the feeling of it being the ultimate, no fooling, this is the final hurrah, last gasp of any element of the old studio system, coming fourteen years after the release of John Ford’s THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, also with Wayne and Stewart, which Peter Bogdanovich has pegged as representing the final film of Hollywood’s golden age. Ford died in 1973 and Howard Hawks, Wayne’s other favorite director, was at this point just a year away from dying himself. But here we still have Wayne in a film that is about nothing more than his star power and what that means. How many other Hollywood legends have appeared in what was such an obviously symbolic ‘final’ film? It doesn’t make it any better than it is, but it still seems significant and the genuine desire to celebrate every single step the actor takes across the screen got to me at a certain point. As he gets on a streetcar near the very end to head for his appointment with destiny he greets a pretty young girl (Melody Thomas Scott, also in Siegel’s THE BEGUILED, among other credits) sitting across from him with a “Good morning.” She then replies with all the naiveté in the world, “Morning, sir. Isn’t it a beautiful day?” and so help me, the absolute, unabashed sweetness of what she says made me tear up a little. There’s of course a shootout climax which follows but as Wayne replies, “It sure is,” knowing that this just may be the last peaceful moment that he’ll ever experience in this lifetime, I could almost have shut the DVD off right there. In some ways, that’s how we want to remember the legends of Hollywood that we love in the end, whatever else we know about their politics or anything else. For just a moment, everything is calm and their place in history is just what it is supposed to be. THE SHOOTIST probably didn’t affect that place very much one way or the other, but taken as the postscript to a career that it is it still feels like it matters even if only in a small way.

Parachuting In Daylight

A BRIDGE TOO FAR has been brought up by legendary screenwriter William Goldman in interviews and his own books on screenwriting, particularly “Adventures in the Screen Trade,” as an example of a film that had its own particular problems. These are issues that he seems proud to have worked out as he wrote the script but nevertheless the film did not become the grand acheivement that it feels like its makers intended. Released in June 1977, it’s possible that it may have come a few years too late, past the roadshow era where the idea of three hour, multi-star WWII movies seemed to make sense. There’s also the issue that the film is kind of a downer (not really a spoiler—it’s in the title) and while it isn’t quite the European Theater equivalent of TORA! TORA! TORA! it’s still not exactly the most uplifting of all war epics. It is, however, cinematically notable for all devotees of the Caine-Hackman Theory which, as anyone who’s seen PCU will know, postulates that no matter what time it is, 24 hours a day, you can always find a movie starring either Michael Caine or Gene Hackman on TV—as I write this, both THE DARK KNIGHT and MISS CONGENIALITY can be found on a few channels. A BRIDGE TOO FAR, of course, is the final argument as it features both actors in the cast, though sadly never together.


Based on the book by Cornelius Ryan and directed by Richard Attenborough, A BRIDGE TOO FAR tells the story of the Battle of Arnhem, an attempt by the Allies, believing that the war is nearing its end, in September 1944 to break through German lines in the occupied Netherlands and take several bridges. The ultimate goal of the plan would lead to taking the bridge at the Lower Rhine River and push further into Germany. But in spite of the bravery of the Allies, unforeseen problems arise, the German forces prove stronger than expected and it leads to the plan that has been worked out finally going “a bridge too far.” The massive all-star cast includes, in no particular order, Sean Connery, Robert Redford, Anthony Hopkins, James Caan, Elliot Gould, Laurence Olivier, Liv Ullmann, Ryan O’Neal, Hardy Kruger, Maximilian Schell and, of course, Michael Caine and Gene Hackman.


While watching A BRIDGE TOO FAR I found myself thinking about why some of these war epics are tough for me to get into. Yes, it wouldn’t hurt if I read up more on World War II so I could actually learn a few things but from my vantage point the films are often too static and remote, trying to get me to learn history while providing the illusion of entertainment. These films are often so staid and earnest that they seem determined for me to know how good they are for me. Maybe that’s why I love THE GREAT ESCAPE so much—it’s a clearly defined story well-told with unpredictable plot turns, engaging characters and a balance between that boys-adventure thing and displaying the genuine gravity of the war. I feel like I could watch that film any time. Recently I took at look at THE LONGEST DAY, a much starker look at the war which seemed correctly balanced with telling the story of a turning point in the war which resulted in victory, even if with great consequence. It’s got truly stunning camerawork, something like fifty recognizable stars and in the end it felt like it rewarded my patience even if I don’t particularly need to see it again. A BRIDGE TOO FAR has some truly impressive sequences, enjoyable actors in showy roles and is technically extremely well done yet there’s a certain amount of politeness that keeps it from really kicking on all cylinders. Stupid decisions were made, the Allies involved are brave and noble nevertheless but in the end….what? I’m not quite sure. It is a downer but, unlike the end of THE GREAT ESCAPE (with Attenborough in the cast, not that I needed to mention that) it just leaves us kind of empty. It’s of course good to be reminded of how courageous the Americans, Brits and others were but what else is there for us to get out of it? I’m not really sure. The scale of the production is impressive, with some of the real money shots coming out of the massive parachuting sequences set in daylight, but even though there’s a lot of plot in this three-hour film way too much screentime is spent on explosions, gunfire and other warfare which by a certain point just seems to drag. Maybe this worked better in the theater as spectacle but even though I could believe that there’s more story to be told (a few of the big stars seem to just drop out after a certain point) it still feels like it could have been cut down to a more reasonable length.


The reason something like THE GREAT ESCAPE came to mind was that the sections that worked best were the more intimae, self-contained points where I could really connect with things. One of the most successful plot strands involves James Caan as an Army sergeant determined to keep a promise he makes to his Captain and the extent he goes to accomplish this. It could almost be cut into a short film all by itself and would still be gripping. Caan nails this section big time and the close-up he’s given at the end of his section feels like an acknowledgement by his director to this one of the most rewarding moments of any kind that the film displays. Aside from that there are moments throughout of the big names interacting with each other that I enjoyed (why do I like Elliott Gould and Michael Caine exchanging joking dialogue with each other? Who knows?) but some of the stars (Connery and Hopkins in particular have a lot of screentime) spend a fair amount of time just exchanging grim military orders with each other. Maybe trying to find things beyond the spectacle to be interested in, Attenborough does seem to occasionally pause to observe the nature of how the British soldiers interact (he dotes on them more than the Americans, anyway) which isn’t that surprising and the film occasionally pauses to take in some odd bits here and there, like the inmates from a lunatic asylum that seem to be almost mocking the soldiers at one point (didn’t Fuller do this in THE BIG RED ONE?). It’s hard not to be impressed by how damn big and technically complex the thing is but the honest truth is that it’s three hours long and it feels like a long three hours.


At the very least, the big stars who appear throughout all make vivid impressions, even when they are doing little more than discussing field maneuvers—that would be Connery, who is particularly good (unless I’m missing somebody, he’s the only person here who’s also in THE LONGEST DAY). Many of them are used in interesting and engaging ways—Redford, given a real star role, doesn’t turn up until the final hour—something that hasn’t been the case in every multi-star film I’ve ever seen and I’m not just referring to disaster movies. Even if they did all just turn up for their few weeks of work here and there, it feels like at least Attenborough paid enough attention to them so they weren’t just ciphers spouting off exposition. There really isn’t a single bad performance among all these big names—O’Neal, playing a General was apparently a controversial casting choice due to his age which would be valid except he was the same age as the real guy. Hackman, playing a member of the Polish Armed Forces, is slightly problematic due to his accent (I kept thinking of Lex Luthor putting on a funny voice) but his scenes are well-played otherwise and his clear-headedness in regards to his reluctance about the operation comes across clearly. Various other familiar faces turn up throughout, including John Ratzenberger, living in England at this point, and Denholm Elliott, who has a particularly nice scene where he tries to explain the concept of fog to Gene Hackman.


I could also make the comment that to fully understand the nature of all the military operations that are presented, I would have to know a lot more about World War II than I do. So that’s my fault. But the real problem with A BRIDGE TOO FAR, at least seen at this point in time, is not only the lack of real flair to be found beyond its scope but that it’s difficult to say what is to be gotten out of it. Veteran producer Joseph E. Levine was responsible for putting this all together and William Goldman in “Adventures in the Screen Trade” wrote of one day when in the middle of numerous technical difficulties he asked Levine what was the point of all the headaches the project was causing, why was it worth it, when Levine turned towards him almost with anger. “I’m seventy years old,” he said. “I’m seventy years old and I want to do this thing.” The intentions behind making it, no doubt coming out of the producer’s own passion for what World War II represented, were certainly honorable and the final product is itself honorable, to a point. But the passion in that single statement, the reason why this story needed to be told, doesn’t necessarily come across in the final film. The parachute drops are pretty cool, though.

An Example Of Human Charm

I wonder how much of a tradition there is of comedians who, years after their death, wind up being known by certain people for certain random films more than anything else. There might be somebody out there who only knows Jack Benny from Lubitsch’s TO BE OR NOT TO BE and that would be their loss. More to the point, are there people today who only know Richard Pryor from SUPERMAN III and if so, what does that say about his legacy? However you look at this, it might be safe to say that whatever Andy Kaufman is remembered for these days, it most likely isn’t HEARTBEEPS, his only starring vehicle (he had small roles in a few other films). Not a box office success when it was released during Christmas 1981, it’s comes off mostly as a curiosity today and in many ways feels misconceived but there is something a little endearing about how odd it ultimately is. It’s at least bizarre in its slow-motion sort of way. I watched it late at night, not a problem because of the brief running time, and its pokiness kind of went well with the hour.


Sometime in the future, a pair of service robots meet while in a factory waiting for repairs. Val Com 17485 (Andy Kaufman) is a valet robot (hence the name) and Aqua Com 89045 is a hostess robot who specializes in poolside parties (again, hence the name). Soon after meeting Val and Aqua fall in love at which point they decide to escape from the factory to discover what is in the outside world. Taking off with robot comic Catskill (voice by Jack Carter, really bad jokes written by Henny Youngman) who communicates only by telling jokes. They create their own robot child that they name Philco, eventually shortened to Phil (which actually kind of resembles WALL-E and is voiced by none other than Jerry Garcia) and set off looking for a place to live and also to deal with their dwindling power supply. Hot on their trail is the Crimebuster, a robot crimefighter who speaks in nonstop law enforcement jargon intent on incinerating everything in its path.


Directed by Allan Arkush, who’ll always be OK in my book for directing the great GET CRAZY, HEARTBEEPS began shooting in June of 1980 but didn’t appear in theaters until a year and a half later. Press accounts of the time indicate that production was interrupted by the legendary 1980 Actors Strike a few weeks into shooting but the brief running time of just over 77 minutes and abruptness of a few plot points gives the impression that it spent a protracted amount of time in post-production as well. The Oscar-nominated makeup by Stan Winston is remarkable, no doubt about it, but the more I looked at it the more I wondered if its extreme complexity may have affected the production to the point that everyone could have become preoccupied with it at the extent of everything else. As a result, pacing and comedy may have wound up taking a back seat. Sold as a comedy, understandable considering it stars Kaufman, a fair chunk of it is played fairly straight. There is the robotspeak of the two leads as well as plenty of attempts at laughs from the Catskill and Crimebuster robots, but by a certain point these things feel like overkill. For the most part it feels like a bit of misguided sweetness not really aimed at children (though there isn’t anything that would be considered inappropriate) and not appealing for adults either. It’s an odd misfire—too earnest and technically impressive to be included in some sort of ‘so bad it’s good’ list but not particularly enjoyable either. Too many things don’t quite mesh--the funky, lived-in feel of this future world (nice use of colors in the repair factory) combined with the woodsy setting at least feels different from other films but it all feels a little random. Written by John Hill (QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER) it’s entirely possible that it would have worked better as a straight science-fiction novel and I can’t help but wonder how Isaac Asimov would have approached this story within the confines of his own Robot Universe. At one point Kenneth McMillan says to fellow repair factory worker Randy Quaid, “You think too much,” and the idea that it’s a film about robots who are unable to think for themselves in a world of humans who have chosen to stop thinking for themselves makes for an interesting subtext but there’s not enough done with the notion. At times it does feel like things are missing, particularly in the party scene which climaxes almost as soon as it starts as well as the film’s ending which is a little too abrupt and unsatisfying, but plotwise there isn’t a great deal going on anyway. There’s an idea in the film that could be something, whether a comedy or not, and I’ll freely admit that particularly near the end I found the romance to be rather sweet (it’s Bernadette Peters--I’m not made of stone), but ultimately it all seems to just become about the makeup.


And with the two leads speaking with the same robotic-monotone for the entire time it affects the pacing drastically making this short film seem longer than it is. Seeing Kaufman and Peters playing their roles like this certainly adds to the curiosity factor but it can be a little tough to take at feature length. The work they do here is interesting (I particularly enjoy watching Peters walk and move throughout) but it winds up slowing the pace down to a crawl, even affecting what the actors playing humans are doing. Arkush’s GET CRAZY is about as fast-paced and anarchic a comedy ever made—I’m not saying that would have been appropriate here but it definitely had a rhythm that this film never seems to find. In addition to supporting players Randy Quaid, Kenneth McMillan, Christopher Guest, Melanie Mayron and Richard B. Shull, we also get Arkush regulars like Mary Woronov, Paul Bartel and a slick-looking Dick Miller making welcome appearances. Ron Gans, who narrated many New World trailers that Arkush cut with Joe Dante when they worked for Corman, is the voice of the Crimebuster. And it needs to be said that this must be the only film ever made where Kathleen Freeman plays a helicopter pilot. In addition to the Winston makeup, there’s some striking matte work by Albert Whitlock (it definitely looks like a real movie) as well as a mention a score by none other than John Williams that combines some gently lyrical passages that sound very much like the composer’s work with some funkier electronic work, similar to what Jerry Goldsmith was doing at the time and it provides the film with most of the bounce that it has.


HEARTBEEPS is stranded somewhere between being a futuristic comedy and an odder, more idiosyncratic piece. It’s at least unique enough that I’m surprised it doesn’t have more of a cult because of how sweet it ultimately is. The film doesn’t quite work but at least a chance was taken. The degree that the makeup overwhelms everything makes it all the more unfortunate that this is one of the few records of Kaufman on film, but maybe he would have even taken pleasure in that element of perversity.

Now I’m just going to hope that Allan Arkush doesn’t see this. I was thrilled that he left comments in my piece on GET CRAZY and I’d rather he read the nice things I write about his movies.

No Patience For Details

John Madden’s KILLSHOT began shooting way back in 2005 with an impressive pedigree that included an Elmore Leonard novel for source material, a cast featuring Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane and Thomas Jane as well as the director of SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE at the helm. Once filming was completed it then proceeded to spend the next several years in post-production hell at the Weinstein Company and after whatever reshoots or reedits that took place it finally received a small theatrical run in Arizona earlier this year, probably for contractual reasons, followed by an unheralded release on DVD. Why didn’t the Weinstein Company give it a wide release, especially considering they could have put a Mickey Rourke film into theaters just as he was being praised for THE WRESTLER? Well, it’s the Weinsteins, so why do they ever do anything? I’ll freely say that if I’d paid money to see KILLSHOT in a theater I wouldn’t have felt particularly ripped off—I’ve paid to see much worse—but now that I’ve seen it I can safely say that whatever went on during those several years, it wasn’t worth all that trouble.


On the run after killing the wrong person during a job, hitman Armand “The Blackbird” Degas (Mickey Rourke), still haunted by the death of his younger brother during another assignment, takes on two-bit crook Richie Nix (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as a partner and the two attempt to extort money from a real estate bigshot. When the plan goes wrong and Degas is spotted by real estate agent Carmen Colson (Diane Lane) she and estranged husband Wayne (Thomas Jane) are placed in the Witness Protection Program to get her to testify. As the two try to figure out the state of their marriage in this new setting, Degas insists to their hyper partner that this loose end has to be dealt with, saying,“You don’t ever leave things undone. You don’t ever think somebody’s not going to remember you.” This leads the two men to do whatever they can to track down the Colsons who soon realize that even the government cannot fully protect them.


It’s not exactly bad—it’s certainly watchable and anyone who Netflixes it probably won’t be too upset but overall the end result is pretty lifeless. Madden seems to be too polite in his filmmaking style to have much flair for this genre and if there was ever any sort of real energy present it feels like it’s been removed with the finished version pared down to not much more than just the plot. As a result, things move so fast that very little is ever particularly believable even on a pulp level. Jane’s character seems to settle into his new life in about five minutes (there’s zero credibility to this stuff) and the few details we get about the couple being placed into witness protection makes it seem like it’s not all that different from taking a weekend trip out of town. The plot at least makes sense on a basic level even if there are holes but troubles in post become fairly evident (quick flashbacks to remind us why the characters are behaving a certain way, that sort of thing) and at times it feels like it’s in a rush to get to the 90 minute mark so we can wrap things up and just get it over with. Photographed by the great Caleb Deschanel (BEING THERE, THE RIGHT STUFF) it certainly isn’t a bad-looking film but nothing in the staging ever seems particularly inventive and, mostly set in Michigan and Missouri, it all has that bland shot-in-Canada quality (it was shot in Toronto and a few scenes actually takes place there) which adds to how the film just feels sort of blah. Even the score by Klaus Badelt is so dry and sparse it’s easy to wonder if he even got paid his full fee for the job he turned in. But everything else aside, the biggest problem with KILLSHOT is structural—when the film begins it’s clear that Rourke’s Blackbird is the lead character. He’s a ruthless killer, not particularly likable, but Rourke helps to automatically make him intriguing. For the first ten or so minutes it’s clear that the film is about him and considering the source material is from Elmore Leonard (a book I unfortunately haven’t read) it’s a nice daydream to imagine it having been a pretty good Charles Bronson film back in the 70s during the MECHANIC/MR. MAJESTYK days. Then, as Lane and Jane are introduced and find themselves in their predicament while dealing with their marriage the film suddenly becomes about them which just confuses things. It's as if somebody decided to focus the story on who was believed to be sympathetic as opposed to who should be the center of a hard-boiled crime thriller. Rourke (playing half Indian and, as someone else on the net has pointed out, looking disturbingly like the killer in BODY DOUBLE) and his character are always interesting but, much like his work in Tony Scott’s DOMINO by a certain point I felt like he was doing more for the film than it was doing for him. Late in the film he tells someone, “I’m not the same as him,” referring to someone who’s even worse but though we’ve seen evidence of that dimension the film just doesn’t earn such a moment. By the end, he’s little more than the villain who needs to be vanquished and how the plot winds up isn’t bad but it unfortunately chooses the least interesting way to get there.


With Rourke slightly stranded by the film (although he really is good here and it’s great to think that maybe he’ll be seen in films on a more regular basis now), it’s Diane Lane who does the best work, bringing a great deal of dimension to a part that may have been made more threadbare by the cutting (when asked how many children they have, the tone of her voice when she replies, “Almost one,” suggests a level of complexity beyond anything the film is going to try to approach). She and Jane work together extremely well but their story still feels perfunctory due to how fast things move. In comparison, the reunion of Rourke and Lane decades after RUMBLE FISH brings real energy to their scenes beyond what the story requires. It’s hard not to wish that their material gave the two of them more to play off of each other with than just a few enigmatic glances. Rosario Dawson has a few moments in a fairly small role and she gets extra points for allowing herself to look believably bad, which makes sense for the character. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who did some good work in THE LOOKOUT a few years ago, acts up a storm in every single scene he’s in but as a tough guy I didn’t buy him for a second, even one who’s as stupid as the character he’s playing is. He just comes off as a Vincent Chase-type trying to pretend he’s a cheap crook and it seriously hurts the film as a result. Hal Holbrook appears briefly in a crucial role early on and the tension he shows acting opposite Rourke makes it seem like the film is going to have more punch than it does. Reports indicate that Johnny Knoxville was once in the film playing a supporting role but all traces of him have been cut out, though he’s still listed as co-starring in the Netflix plot summary.


It’s too bad because this type of film is right up my alley and I’d like to see more of them but they really do need to be made by people who understand what they should be—some portentous narration by Rourke near the beginning and end seem to be reaching for a significance that isn’t there and, frankly, doesn’t need to be. Mickey Rourke, who made this well before THE WRESTLER, is obviously coming out of this unscathed and Lane & Jane will as well but it’s a shame when actors like this are clearly able to pull off the best possible version of what should be a cool, no-nonsense crime thriller but don’t quite get the chance because of other factors involved. It definitely has its moments and there are far worse ways to spend 95 minutes but you might want to have another film standing by when it’s finished in case you feel a little undernourished when the end credits roll.

Some Things Are More Important Than Winning

I’ve seen both CANNONBALL RUNs, I’ve seen CANNONBALL! and now I’ve finally seen THE GUMBALL RALLY which is pretty much the best of all of them. And I say that fully aware that there’s going to be no stealing away the cult status of THE CANNONBALL RUN anytime soon. Hey, I get it, I know. I’ve watched THE CANNONBALL RUN countless times through the years and I could quote it as well as anybody. I’m not out to trash Hal Needham’s magnum opus that means so much to everyone out there in the world, especially not when several of its stars have recently left us (the sequel, on the other hand…). THE GUMBALL RALLY, based on the same race that the other films based their plots on, is pretty much what THE CANNONBALL RUN would be if it were made by people who’s first goal was to make a funny, exciting movie with real attention paid to both the characters and the feel for driving out on the open road, not just focused on shooting out a few of the big name guest stars in a few days so everyone can head off to the bar before happy hour ends. THE GUMBALL RALLY, also more of a comedy than the action-focused CANNONBALL! (which isn’t bad, if memory serves), is pretty modest stuff in the end but it does everything it wants to do in just the right way and put me in a better mood than I was before. It has to be one of the most purely pleasant car crash pictures ever made. As we sometimes remember, it was the seventies.


Bored business man Michael Bannon (Michael Sarrazin) is suffering through an extremely dull business meeting when he suddenly picks up the phone, dials a number and speaks one word: Gumball. It means only one thing, that the Gumball Rally is on once again and the various members, those who have “The necessary skills and the determination to succeed,” of this secret society soon gather in New York to begin another race to drive across the country in the fastest amount of time possible. The rules: there are no rules. As the drivers set out to break the previous year’s record of 34 hours and 11 minutes, Lieutenant Roscoe (Normann Burton, Felix Leiter in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, at one point seen reading “The Sound and the Fury” in a cute touch) continually tries to remain hot on their tail, hoping to put an end to the Gumball Rally once and for all.


A cult movie that never seems to have become a cult movie, THE GUMBALL RALLY is pretty much like a feature length version of Hanna-Barbera’s WACKY RACES. It’s light, it’s minor, but it is fun with well-established, um, wacky characters that include now-familiar faces like Raul Julia, Gary Busey and THE TOWERING INFERNO’s Susan Flannery. Directed by Charles Bail (lots of TV, but also CLEOPATRA JONES AND THE CASINO OF GOLD) it never quite hits the height of hysteria of something like FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, to name another 70s piece of car-chase madness from Warner Brothers, but it is consistently enjoyable from start to finish. Taking pleasure in the small things, it lets us get an idea of the small details of how the race is organized and, unlike CANNONBALL RUN, actually offers a feel of what it would be like driving out there on the open road for long stretches of time. Nobody watching these movies really cares about the logistical details of such things but the degree of attention it pays to when the race starts, how long it takes and the hours passing helps us pay attention to what’s going on as well as making it even more fun. I guess you could compare it to IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD but as much driving and destruction as there is the film is so breezy and relaxed in its comic nature (especially when compared to the top-heavy earlier epic) that it would almost be misleading to do so, though the trailer on the DVD tries for it anyway. The precision of the sequence where a certain Rolls Royce drives through an array of collisions, leaving destruction in its wake yet emerging unscathed isn’t flashy on any level—you never feel like it’s screaming ‘Hey! The Rolls didn’t get hit!’ at you--but the joke gets across and it’s pretty damn funny. That approach sums up a lot of the film as well. It’s goofy, but never too over-the-top in its comedy (well, maybe a few times…). There’s a nice spirit to the whole thing as well—except for Burton’s law enforcement representative (as benign a villain as you could possibly get) there aren’t any bad guys in the actual race, though some mean bikers turn up—hey, just like CANNONBALL RUN! While everyone clearly wants to win they’re also there for the thrill and the camaraderie of it all, making the overall feel of the film even more likable. At one point one of the characters states, “If I have to die, I want to die trying,” which pretty much sums up the philosophy the film lays out. Though there are occasional signs of 70s sleaze to be found (hey! There’s a streaker!), it rarely comes close to rising above PG-level goofiness. There’s also some very good location work all through it (much of it apparently in Arizona; there’s stuff shot in Los Angeles and Long Beach as well), particularly in New York when the race begins, giving a nice look at the city in the 70s. The streets are empty (it’s supposed to be early morning) but people can clearly be seen on the sidewalks watching the cars and there’s some particularly neat footage of a few of the cars speeding through a nearly-empty Times Square (JAWS and LET’S DO IT AGAIN can be seen on marquees).


It’s not a movie about performances but the cast made up of unknowns and familiar faces like Sarrazin, Busey, Flannery, Joanne Nail, Tim McIntire, Harvey Jason, Nicholas Pryor, Tricia O’Neil and others are all very enjoyable, with Julia especially good, no surprise, as the Italian Franco Bertollini. As he says when the race begins, “First rule of Italian driving: What’s behind me is not important!”, while throwing his rearview mirror away. Burton is also particularly funny as the practically sympathetic bad guy. Colleen Camp turns up along the way and actor Med Flory, playing a highway cop who gets conned by a few of the racers, stands out in a funny scene in which he seems to be doing some sort of odd Henry Fonda impression. Even the music by Dominic Frontiere fits it with the tone just right and at times is cartoonish enough that I wonder if this was another part of the film inspired by WACKY RACES (why do I even remember that show?).

There’s not too much analysis to get into about THE GUMBAL RALLY because it’s really not that kind of film. It’s just a fun, easygoing 70s comedy with lots of fun car stuff, twisted characterizations and a nice vibe to it all. I don’t know if this is one of those little-known 70s films that I would proclaim to be a newly discovered masterwork and go shouting from the rooftops about, something that FREEBIE AND THE BEAN is a perfect example of. But in its own modest way it can be pretty damn fun as well as a nice reminder that seeing cars drive fast and sometimes crash into each other can be very enjoyable to watch.

“Gumball.”

The Best Always Have Style

On the long list of films that I’ve never gotten around to seeing for no particular reason, I can now cross off LONE WOLF McQUADE. An oddball mish-mosh of different styles ranging from Leone westerns, DIRTY HARRY and maybe a little Peckinpah & Hawks, it’s probably one of the best Chuck Norris vehicles I’ve seen…not that I’m any expert on Chuck Norris or anything. Released in April 1983, at times it’s so enjoyable on its own pure, drive-in movie level that it made me wish that Norris had continued to make movies in the 80s for actual studios (I should revisit CODE OF SILENCE sometime) instead of winding up as part of the assembly line at Cannon. Of course, as the 80s continued the big studios weren’t making this kind of film very much anymore, but even so LONE WOLF McQUADE feels like it’s exactly what it was trying to be. And Barbara Carrera is in it, always a plus for me.


J.J. “Lone Wolf” McQuade” (Norris, of course) is a Texas Ranger who prefers to work alone which leads to him getting yelled at by his captain (R.G. Armstrong) in the Texas Ranger equivalent of “In this department we do things by the book!” as he is assigned a new partner (Robert Beltran, later of STAR TREK: VOYAGER) to watch over him (Armstrong does in fact say, “Meet your new partner,” at which point Norris gets annoyed). After learning that his ex-wife and daughter are moving to another part of the state, he gets mixed up in a gun-running investigation that leads him to black marketer Rawley Wilkes (David Carradine, R.I.P., so cool that he puffs cigar smoke at a guy holding a gun in his face during his first scene) as well as local rich widow Lola Richardson (Barbara Carerra) who takes an immediate interest in him because--well, I guess because he's Chuck Norris.


It’s not the most intricately laid out plotline to summarize, but that’s ok. Beginning with an extended sequence after the credits that holds the first appearance of any dialogue until several minutes of screentime have passed, LONE WOLF McQUADE speeds along at a nice clip throughout, moving so fast that it wasn’t until pretty deep into the movie that I realized that the film felt more like a bunch of scenes coming one after the other than any sort of actual story. But the action is good and with a decent amount of intentional humor it somehow figures out the right tone for this type of genre film. No doubt about it, this is the Chuck Norris who can mow down an entire gang of horse thieves in the first scene all by himself, the one which all those “Chuck Norris Facts” jokes are made about. As much as is going on, it never tries to insert any sort of drama that we don’t need in this movie and many of the characters seem to be enjoying each other’s company so much that it does lend a certain Hawksian flavor to things— when Norris and Carradine are introduced, it’s hard to believe that these two guys have never met before and even Norris and his onscreen ex-wife (at least, I think she is—it’s never entirely clear) seem to get along better than any such couple in history. Directed by Steve Carver (BIG BAD MAMA and CAPONE, among others), it’s not in any way a revolutionary action film but considering all the ways that these types of things are genuinely lousy it’s to the credit of the guy who made it that he was able to bring skill, flair and a sense of fun, with even the nastier plot turns never becoming too grim (kinda violent for a PG though, even without a lot of blood squibs, not that I’m going to get too upset about it). To help with the spaghetti western vibe (clearly an affectionate tribute though it never tries to simply copy them) there’s also a terrifically enjoyable score by Francesco De Masi who actually scored a bunch of those films back in the day. There’s also a plot point in the second hour, where Norris and a Fed played by Leon Isaac Kennedy fly over a long stretch of desert looking for something that feels lifted right out of the search for the nuclear warheads in THUNDERBALL—even a little of the dialogue sounds the same. It’s a fun movie, ideal for chips and beer and without ever becoming a parody it seems aware of its own absurdity—with a cackling dwarf crime kingpin in a wheelchair it has to be-- that it manages a neat balance between being a straight action film and wanting to have a good time with things. Yes, Norris and Carrera kissing while lying in mud while a garden hose sprays water all around them is completely ridiculous, but I kind of think that the film knows this. The lack of attention to plot sometimes catches up with it—Carrera is introduced as an ultra-cool Hawks chick (possibly an item with Carradine) who rides horses and can take care of herself in a tough bar but as her romance with Norris develops she soon just becomes The Girl (who cleans up Norris’s messy house as well), with the film not really knowing what to do with her. Maybe Carerra wasn’t a great actress (“This is not my idea of fun!”), but…aw, let me have this one. I still like her.


Norris, a regular guy who doesn’t want to drink any beer as fancy as Heineken, is pretty much Norris, coming off as likable and determined, willing to let actors like Carradine, Armstrong, Beltran, Kennedy and L.Q. Jones slightly overshadow him in the charisma department as long as he gets to be in the center of the screen and kick all the ass that he can. Carradine, driving a Mercedes with a license plate reading “CARATE”, is so cool in his first scene that it’s almost too bad that he has to be a bad guy but he’s pretty damn effective as an ultra-evil guy as well. Carerra, driving a Rolls Royce with the license plate “LOLAS”, may be a little stiff at times but she exhibits more flair here than she did in certain other roles and seems fully aware of what her character’s place in the film is, even if her place in the plot isn’t always clear. Beltran is likable in one of his first film appearances and William Sanderson, unrecognizable thanks to some huge glasses, is very good as a jittery informant, a good example of how the film lets a minor character make an impression. Yes, this film isn’t about the actors, but to its credit I got the feeling that Carver never minded pausing in the plot to let them add their own quirks like when Beltran stops to keep from walking under a ladder or Carrrera singing to herself as she vacuums up McQuade’s place. Bits like this throughout add to the good vibes and make the film more likable in the end.


There’s lots of fighting and there’s some pretty big explosions as well—one involves Norris and Sanderson (at least I think it’s them) actually in the shot which looks pretty crazy but it’s still kind of cool. And there’s also the big scene near the end where McQuade is in a truck and—actually, no point in giving it away, but it’s a neat moment of me saying, “Wow, did he just do that? Did they actually think they’d get away with that?” And they do. I’m not going to try to claim the LONE WOLF McQUADE is any better than it is, but it is entertaining whether someone is planning on laughing with it or at it and an enjoyable genre piece of the sort that unfortunately isn’t made anymore. And certainly not with Barbara Carrera playing the female lead.

“Get me a beer, kid.”

A Little Luck

THE ROCKETEER opened on my birthday back in 1991 and as far as birthday movies go (this year it was WHATEVER WORKS, which I wholeheartedly enjoyed), I’ve always had a particular soft spot for it. Heavily promoted with a beautiful one-sheet and released against the Julia Roberts dud DYING YOUNG (which no one remembers), the film only did so-so business at best, putting a stop to whatever franchise Disney was hoping to get out of the concept. Still, I’m guessing it has its fans out there and I’m one of them. But much as I may like the film there’s something about it in the script, the production, the overall look, that always gave it a sort of close-but-no-cigar feeling for me, falling short of the mark it was trying to hit. But I get a lot of enjoyment out of it to this day so I have no problem in saying that I like it. Hell, I may as well flat out admit that I love it, problems and all. It’s fun, it’s exciting and it offers an overall feel of innocence that makes watching it even more wistful as time goes on.


Set in 1938 Los Angeles, the film opens on test pilot Cliff Secord (Bill Campbell) trying out the plane that he hopes will be his ticket to glory, when the flight is interrupted by a shoot out between the Feds and some mobsters who are trying to get away with a mysterious device. The plane is destroyed in the shootout, but Cliff and his trusty mechanic Peevy (Alan Arkin) later find what one of the mobsters hid when they were trying to make their getaway—a mysterious rocket device that Cliff quickly deduces is designed to be worn by the user in order to fly. The two agree to keep it under wraps, not even telling Cliff’s girlfriend Jenny Blake (Jennifer Connelly) but things change when Cliff realizes he has to use the rocket during a malfunction at the local air show. Now everyone wants to know the identity of the mysterious “Rocketeer” as he is quickly dubbed, especially the gangsters who are in cahoots with famed matinee idol Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton) who has his own reasons for wanting the rocket which he keeps to himself. As it turns out, Jenny is working as an extra on his latest film THE LAUGHING BANDIT and when he overhears Cliff talking to her Sinclair soon decides to use this to his advantage.


Directed by Joe Johnston, THE ROCKETEER was based on an acclaimed graphic novel by Dave Stevens (who sadly passed away in 2008), clearly inspired by both pulp novels and movie serials with a slightly more adult tone than the film it spawned—for one thing, in that format Cliff’s girlfriend, there named Betty, was very obviously meant to be Bettie Page. This was all toned down by Disney to make it more family friendly, though a few remnants of that approach survive in the final film (like a bit involving W.C. Fields admiring Connelly’s breasts—hey, I’m not complaining about the close-up we get but still…), giving it a slightly uneven tone throughout, as if there were agreements over what exactly the audience was going to be. The film is so genuinely exciting, fast-moving and flat-out fun that I always find myself wishing that it were as good as I want it to be. There’s something about the mostly-all-in-one-night storyline that has always made the plotting seem a little slight and while bringing Nazis into the mix shows that some of it is clearly inspired by INDIANA JONES (and, in its Hollywood setting, 1941 with one of the key gags coming right from that film) the staging at times feels lacking. This is particularly true during the South Seas sequence which cries out for some genuine flair in both the design of the place (sometimes the film feels like it wants the sort of budget DICK TRACY had) and also how it’s shot, particularly in how in the end it doesn’t really build to anything more than just the Rocketeer bursting in and aimlessly flying around the place for a while. While these flaws are never quite forgotten about, what the movie does have going for it is an innocent sense of old-time fun and an earnestness that makes the movie-movie nature endearing. Johnston doesn’t bring anything new and different to this type of film, but very little of what he does ever seems wrong. It’s very clear that he knows how to keep things likable and continually moving as well and it all holds together with the right spirit. Even the James Horner score, which sounds exactly like every other score Horner did before or since, has a feel of matinee excitement that just flat out works here. Something about this approach makes it feel like more of a relic now than it did then--the film was released just a few weeks before TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY happened, changing everything in the summer movie fame forever and there is a sense that the approach THE ROCKETEER takes is still stuck back in the 80s.


The setting of a kind of fantasy version of Los Angeles & Hollywood of the 30s adds to the feel such as how the design of the Bulldog Café perfectly evokes that type of diner that can be seen in old photographs and such real locations such as Griffith Observatory that are used fit in perfectly. There’s also the Oddjob/Jaws-type henchman played by Tiny Ron, meant to be a dead ringer for BRUTE MAN Rondo Hatton, as well as the character of Neville Sinclair being based on Errol Flynn and certain allegations about his private life. There’s also the use of real-life figure Howard Hughes (Terry O’Quinn) in a key role, making for a mixture of real and fanciful elements that gives everything an ideal pulp feel. Not to mention that it’s hard to dislike any film, particularly from Disney, that presents us with an animated Nazi propaganda film, detailing how they intend to conquer America. The portrayal of 1938 isn’t always accurate—the music being played when we see THE LAUGHING BANDIT being shot in particular has always really bugged me—but the film does succeed in portraying what we like to imagine as a more innocent time and that feeling is what I always take with me after seeing THE ROCKETEER.


This feeling extends to the cast. Bill Campbell became neither a success nor a pariah based on this film and he’s at least worked through the years. He’s likable enough here in a gee-whiz way that totally works for the role. Jennifer Connelly is an absolute vision, just terrific as Jenny Blake, making for a perfect damsel in distress although I freely admit that I’m more than a little biased when it comes to her--sometimes I think of 1991 Jennifer Connelly and weep (There’s a reason why I haven’t embarrassed myself by writing about CAREER OPPORTUNITES yet). The movie makes good use of the array of character actors who appear, especially Dalton who is a blast as the bad guy but there’s also Arkin, Paul Sorvino, Ed Lauter, Jon Polito, William Sanderson and O’Quinn who is particularly good in his few scenes as Howard Hughes. Melora Hardin, now and forever Jen Levinson on THE OFFICE, appears as the singer at the South Seas Club, with her renditions of “Begin the Beguine”and “When Your Lover Has Gone” turning up on the soundtrack album.


I put the disc into the player the other night almost on the spur of the moment and quickly found myself having a great time watching it again after not having seen it for a while, so it’s nice to know that it’s aging pretty well. It’s also much more successful at nailing this tone than other 90s attempts at this sort of thing like THE SHADOW and THE PHANTOM. The optimistic feeling THE ROCKETEER offers is still there, even if I’ve long since given up on ever winning the heart of Jennifer Connelly. And if the problems that were there on that birthday long ago are there as well, it remains extremely enjoyable, notable because these things seems to go for the bombast over the fun these days. Hell, even the zeppelin climax works pretty well on every level and how often does that happen anymore? THE ROCKETEER has its heart in the right place and the genuine sense of earnest fun that comes from it is still there. I’d love to see the New Beverly run it at midnight some Saturday in the future. If they want to wait for my next birthday, I’ll definitely make sure to be there.

Happy Birthday Dear Somebody

I doubt that Blake Edwards’ S.O.B. was ever a particularly believable look at the goings-on of Hollywood. Of course, that’s not at all the point of the film. Instead, it’s clearly meant to be an exaggeration, but more importantly it’s supposed to be as bitter and angry as cinematically possible. Released on July 1, 1981 we don’t need to know much of the history of the director’s career to guess that the Hollywood portrayed probably made more sense in the context of the early 70s, when the events that inspired this pitch- black farce occurred. That the film is set slightly out of time doesn’t hurt it now. If anything, it makes the film seem more fanciful than ever since compared to the film industry portrayed in ENTOURAGE this film feels set on Mars in comparison. I’ve always loved multi-character comedies like this, the ones that demand a full cast-recap of the main players at the start of the closing credits. It’s arch, it’s dark and it’s not without its own problems but it shows Blake Edwards as writer and director more confident and fearless than he ever was before or since.


NIGHT WIND, the new big-budget family film from producer Felix Farmer (Richard Mulligan) and starring wife Sally Miles (Julie Andrews) has just opened to universal disdain and record low box office. As Sally leaves the house with their kids intent on separation, Felix cracks up. With Capitol studio head David Blackman (Robert Vaughn) unable to reach Felix, some of his closest friends such as NIGHT WIND director Tim Culley (William Holden in his final role), publicity man Ben Coogan (Robert Webber) and physician Dr. Irving Finegarten (Robert Preston) make their way to his Malibu home just as Felix is interrupted in a suicide attempt, accidentally drives his Rolls-Royce into the Pacific. After yet another attempt which results in Felix falling and landing on gossip columnist Polly Reed (Loretta Swit), Felix is knocked out into catatonia by the good doctor and when Felix wakes up in the middle of the party/orgy in his own house that his friends are throwing he is struck with an inspiration—reshoot NIGHT WIND to turn it into “$40 million pornographic love epic” starring the normally clean-cut Miles, which will make it the biggest money maker of all time.


Mostly remembered today as the film where Julie Andrews goes topless (the trailer on the DVD includes an offscreen voice exclaiming, “You want America’s G-Rated sweetheart to appear in the nude?” which is never actually heard—it’s a key part of the film, but it’s still only just a part of it) S.O.B. is much more, a full-on nuclear assault on the nature of Hollywood but though it is obviously extremely personal, based on battles that Edwards himself went through (reportedly mostly involving Paramount and 1970’s DARLING LILI) he never makes it an autobiographical piece like 8 ½ or something where the lead is the one noble voice in a sea of sleaze (like how the Paul Mazursky version would have gone). Richard Mulligan’s Felix Farmer isn’t Edwards since he’s the producer of NIGHT WIND for one thing and neither is Holden’s Tim Culley, a hack director being more interested in being “shacked up with a sixteen year-old and a case of Jack Daniels”. None of these characters can be considered tortured artists or auteurs. They’re just in the game for the money, glory and power, like everyone else in Hollywood. It’s not always easy here to know exactly who’s being skewered but knowing that the film is essentially about Paramount (who ironically released the film produced by Lorimar) at the least it’s not too difficult to figure out that Vaughn is supposed to be Robert Evans and negotiations to have girlfriend Marisa Berenson star in a film with a hunky leading man played by David Young appear to be based on what resulted from Evans’ wife Ali MacGraw starring with Steve McQueen in THE GETAWAY. That’s what I’m guessing, anyway. One thing that I’ve always been attracted to about S.O.B. is that not only is there no one single lead, someone that an audience can “identify with”, the film is ruthless in making an audience work to figure out who all these people are. NIGHT WIND has already opened when the film starts and the characters are never really even introduced—they’re all immediately present and accounted for in their first scenes, with a few people who make vivid impressions when first turning up are rarely or even never seen again. Nobody is let off the hook in its pursuit of all-out condemnation, not even the characters (like Andrews’ Sally Miles) who you would expect to behave nobly and everyone, down to the bit player cops who offer to give Farmer some great cop stories for a movie (“And none of that SERPICO crap. The real cops.”) is desperate to claw there way into some sort of power position.


The structure is even a little fascinating—the first fifteen minutes seem to ramp things up before taking off, then it does, with much of the first half happening over the course of a single day, followed by the madness of the NIGHT WIND reshoot, which leads to a third act that deals with the repercussions of something that causes the story to take a horrifically dark turn…but since this is Edwards’ jet-black comic look at things, not really. There’s so much going on in the film that it’s almost easy to take for granted how it contains some of the best, most biting and free-flowing dialogue of Edwards’ entire career—the best example of this is Robert Preston’s doctor, clearly a role designed to steal the movie and just about everything he says gets a laugh from his very first moment onscreen (“Why is it nobody ever asks how the doctor is first? Did it ever occur to you that I could be sicker than the patient?”). If there are any drawbacks on this viewing of S.O.B. for me it’s that much of the hysterical ravings by Felix Farmer about the state of the film industry almost get lost in all the madness. Farmer is kind of this film’s equivalent of Howard Beale in NETWORK (a Holden connection) but it’s tough to know how to read some of it since we never get a good enough look at Felix Farmer in his ‘normal’ state. Mulligan is amazing whether catatonic or ranting—he really dives head-first into this part—but there are times when as much attention appears to be paid to the sheer physicality of his performance and the Scope framing of Edwards at times takes in everything around him as well, so all of these worlds don’t quite register as much as they should. I can’t help but feel like we could use another long speech or two from Felix Farmer that would take things to another level that the film seems to resist, but even behind the ultra-archness in S.O.B. there is genuine anger felt towards all the people who once tried to screw Edwards over. Of course, by the time this film that the director wrote a decade earlier finally opened, audiences were more interested in the likes of SUPERMAN and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK so even taken as an exaggeration it was still considerably out of step with the times, an issue even brought up when Holden says, “It’s been my experience that each time I think I know where it’s at, it’s usually somewhere else,” when he and Mulligan agree on their mutual hatred of LAST TANGO, which the producer wants to emulate (the only mention of a writer in the entire film, which also seems significant considering what Edwards is saying about things). Not that the release date matters much now but thinking about that I can’t help but wonder exactly what we see of the new version of NIGHT WIND is supposed to say about who’s making it. Everything we see appears to be way too consciously symbolic considering what they’ve said but this is never commented on. Maybe these characters are aware of it, but they’re just cynically placing these elements in their film to give the illusion of actual substance. I don’t know if all of these elements hold together seamlessly, but there’s so much going on in the film that I’ve watched it numerous times over the years and I still haven’t gotten tired of it. The film is also loaded with the best of Edwards’s own comically cinematic style, from the fast-cut round-robin of phone calls around town immediately following Polly Reed’s visit to the beach house to the full-circle feel the person who dies in the first scene brings to the plot (no one ever expresses concern for someone in front of them but hearing about it faraway gives them permission to seem worried in Hollywood) to a pretty awesome Malibu party sequence (why haven’t I ever used some of Preston’s armadillo dialogue here myself?) to crazy car-chase slapstick as well as comically horrific injuries suffered by unlikable characters, not to mention what at times feels like more alcohol consumed than in any other film. The nature of the Henry Mancini score means that it really wouldn’t work as an album so it’s no surprise that there was never a soundtrack but he brings more variety to “Polly Wolly Doodle” than should ever be asked of anyone and the ultra-peppy version that plays over the end titles feels just right.


Listing all the dead-on performances would practically be a full cast list (and, interestingly for a film about the movies, a surprising number of people associated with television), but particularly good are Andrews, Holden (I love the moment when he admits to Mulligan that he has lied to him on a few occasions--incidentally, with this actor you could also link this film to SUNSET BOULEVARD), Mulligan, Vaughn, Berenson,Swit, Larry Hagman, Stuart Margolin, Robert Webber and Shelley Winters. It’s a fantastic cast. Rosanna Arquette and Jennifer Edwards are each very funny as the two hitchhikers picked up by Holden—Arquette was apparently displeased by being asked to go topless by Edwards in front of the crew, so maybe there’s a reason why she kind of disappears from the orgy. Benson Fong plays the petty stereotypical Chinese cook for the farmers—hey, at least it wasn’t Mickey Rooney. Larry Storch is the Guru whow delivers a particularly memorable eulogy at the funeral. Herb Tanney plays the key role of the man on the beach, the first person we see in the entire film, credited as “Stiffe” Tanney. For the first time ever on this viewing I realized that in a film that has a line referencing THE THING in a particularly funny moment, it’s Kenneth Tobey, that’s film’s star, who appears briefly doing sound on NIGHT WIND. At least, I think it’s him, since he’s not listed in the credits but there’s something about an actor who was a part of such an important film in Hollywood history playing such a bit part in this film which seems…well, like something out of S.O.B.


Even through all this, the final gesture by a few of the main characters near the end is one of friendship, of trying to cut through what S.O.B. stands for, that does in the end offer this film a small semblance of depth. Even in this town you can find friendship as well as loyalty and on a day like this, one I haven’t really been looking forward to, the ones I know that I can call friends really do mean something to me. S.O.B. is one of my favorite films about this town. Part of that is because of the Blake Edwards-Henry Mancini fantasy of how I would want it to be, part of it is the pure nastiness it reveals. But part of it is because of its ending, which acknowledges that you may resent the town much of the time but by a certain point you never want to be rid of it. With certain people, the ones who really matter to you and are in it as well, you can really know where you stand. And maybe that means something in the very end, even if you wonder where your own life is going in this very dark comedy. Happy birthday dear somebody, indeed.

What A Shark Looks Like

The thing about JAWS 2 is that the most memorable part of the entire film will always be that amazing teaser poster which contains of the most memorable tag lines ever, “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...” Though I was too young for these movies in ’78 I still remember the impact that simple, brilliant artwork and catchphrase had. I would be that anyone who actually did see it then probably has a fondness for the actual film, never mind how it doesn’t and never could have lived up to the original. I like it pretty well, but every now and then I’ve sat down to watch the movie and found myself thinking, “Why do they spend so much time on these damn kids?” whenever they cut to the damn kids. In fairness, that this happens probably doesn’t hurt the movie as much as the fact that most of the plot seems like its there to give the movie an excuse to spin its wheels for a while, as if pretending that it’s going to be about something other than just another shark showing up in Amity. Of course, it’s really just about another shark showing up in Amity. All this said, I freely admit that I may have liked it slightly better on this viewing than I have at other times, with many of its best setpieces proving to be extremely satisfying. It’s not great, but it gets the job done.

Several years after the events of the first film, Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) is still Chief of Police on Amity Island and as another season is getting started several mysterious events lead him to believe that there just might be another shark in the vicinity. He mentions his suspicions to Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) who brushes him off and even his wife Ellen (Lorraine Gary) begins to express concern how his behavior could disrupt the realty business she now works for. As the evidence mounts, Brody decides to take action which unfortunately turns out disastrously, just as their (surprisingly older, considering their ages in the last one) sons Michael (Mark Gruner) and Sean (Marc Gilpin) are getting more involved with the local sailing culture and decide to head out for a day of boating with Michael’s friends.


Spielberg was off making CLOSE ENCOUNTERS at this point and stated that he had no interest in sequels (not at that time, anyway) so JAWS 2 began production under the direction of John Hancock (LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH). After several weeks of principal photography that was deemed to be unsatisfactory Hancock was fired and was soon after replaced with Jeannot Szwarc, who had previously helmed numerous television episodes as well as the William Castle production BUG at that point. A journeyman director, he may have been just what Universal wanted after the experience with Hancock—someone with the ability to drive the story forward and get us to the shark attacks which, after all, was what everyone was going to want to see in the first place. As much as everyone obviously wanted Roy Scheider back and as much work seems to have gone into giving him stuff to play, the various plot threads introduced (like Brody’s rivalry with realtor Joseph Mascolo) seem there just so they can be dropped by a certain point. After a killer whale washes up on the shore decimated (some sort of wipe at ORCA?) Brody briefly asks an investigating marine biologist if a shark could have been attracted to Amity by a form of sonar from the one killed in the first movie. It’s quickly shot down, but there really isn’t much that could have been done with this idea (what are they going to do? Insert a flashback showing how this shark and the one from the first were close friends?). They also couldn’t have gone the route of having Brody question if his own obsession was getting the better of him—for one thing, it’s revealed to us before anyone in the movie that there really is a shark out there and Universal was never going to let this film be about a shark who may not exist after all (without knowing the specifics, I could imagine that this is something that John Hancock would have focused on, if only based on the tone of LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH). After Szwarc was brought in to start from scratch the production abandoned Martha’s Vineyard and began again in Florida (the water was warmer, for one thing, not to mention that the Vineyard wasn’t particularly welcoming this time around). Carl Gottlieb, one of the writers on the original, was brought in at this point to rework the screenplay (he shares credit with Howard Sackler) and at times the plot structure gives the impression of being scripted under the gun, moving through the various beats of the setup in as streamlined a way as possible so we can get to the second hour, where the real shark stuff is, without too much fuss. Some of the best sequences, particularly the one with the water skier but especially the attack on teenagers Tina and Eddie in their boat, are expertly done (the older I get, the more watching this stuff makes me never want to go out on the water in one of these tiny things) with effective touches in each that insure that they don’t simply feel like they’re being shot by an anonymous second unit. The attack on the rescue helicopter also works extremely well. I definitely get the feeling that all the kinks had been worked out by the crew with Bruce the shark this time around allowing for a greater amount of fluidity in shooting it and Szwarc’s insistence at showing the shark more this time takes good advantage of that (it still looks fake during some of the climax, though). With no attempts to match certain grisly images from the first film in order to get a PG rating (no severed legs falling to the ocean floor this time around) a few of the attacks seems slightly lacking but there’s so ignoring the shock of Tina’s boyfriend Eddie slamming into their boat off-camera and the decision to have the shark horribly scarred much of the time makes for a very effective image every time he shows up.


Much of the human drama never comes together very well in comparison, since the film knows that most of it’s never going to go anywhere and as a result everything just seems a little thin. Roy Scheider gets a drunken monologue when Brody is fired but instead of the character trying to come to grips with his obsession he just talks about how sad he is that he lost his job, feeling his manhood threatened I guess, and there just doesn’t seem to be very much to it. The trio of Brody, Hooper and Quint in the first film lent it much of its power and all three of the actors played together beautifully. Here, the returning Scheider doesn’t really have anyone to play off of in a similar way, with the possible exception of Jeffrey Kramer who makes a welcome return as Deputy Hendricks and has a little more to do this time out. The scene where Brody wades out in the water to investigate something suspicious is a good example of making an effective bit out of nothing but it’s still the actor playing all by himself. The character stuff with the kids doesn’t quite hold together either—Mike Brody is convinced to go out on the big excursion by a girl who is clearly interested him (it’s a plausible enough motivation on his part) but when she’s finally placed into jeopardy his character is elsewhere, not even present for the big climax. Did the actor get hired on another film? No one notices anyway, because we’re really just paying attention to the shark.


And yeah, there’s those kids (including Keith Gordon, a few years before DRESSED TO KILL), who might make this all more nostalgic for anyone who was this age when the movie came out (Release date: June 16, 1978). It’s interesting to consider how this works as an early version of the slasher movie pattern that would begin to develop with FRIDAY THE 13TH just a few years later but even though there are casualties this of course isn’t a body count film. But, more importantly, am I really supposed to be interested in these kids after we got a movie with Robert Shaw? Not to mention Richard Dreyfuss--when Brody is informed that Dreyfuss’s Matt Hooper is in the Anartctic and unreachable until the next year my heart always sinks a little. Szwarc is no Spielberg, but there definitely is more energy to it than any number of other Universal titles from the late 70s (something like ROLLERCOASTER comes to mind pretty easily) and in spite of the different location used (it does seem sunnier out there on the water than in the first film) it does do a pretty good job in seeming like an outgrowth of the first film—John Williams’ score, which builds in natural fashion from the original themes, definitely helps a lot. In the end, it gets the job done well enough which was probably the best anyone ever could have hoped for. It’s not at all unsatisfying but the way the credits are rushed onscreen at the end always makes me think that they wanted to get people out of the theater quick before anyone realized that a fast one had just been pulled. JAWS 2 isn’t the worst sequel ever—hell, it isn’t even the worst JAWS sequel ever—but the notion that it was probably one of the first big-budget follow-ups that made the studios realize how much money they could make off these things really underlines how much it really is just a sequel.

Roy Scheider apparently wasn’t too happy making this movie but, in all honestly, it’s hard for me to keep from enjoying him in this role. The fact that we always trust and like him helps a lot (“Nine-oh-eight means get me out of there!”) and just the sight of him shouting “You’d better do something about this one, because I don’t intend to go through that hell again!” always puts a huge smile on my face. He still has nice chemistry with Lorraine Gary as well and we really do care about these characters of theirs. Murray Hamilton, who just drops out of the picture before the midway point, probably had his role reduced since a crisis with his wife’s health resulted in an agreement to shoot his part out in just a few days. I can almost believe that the actor seems genuinely distracted during some of his screentime and it’s too bad that his character never gets a decent finish—one of the deleted scenes on the DVD shows him as the only holdout on the town council when they vote to fire Brody. This would have taken away some of the sour taste I always felt but the truth is that it’s not a very good scene, so its excision is understandable. The kids have their moments and each of them refreshingly all look like normal kids. A few are just blankly forgettable and there’s no reason to say anything worse about them than that.


Szwarc went onto a lengthy career that continues to this day, directing films like SOMEWHERE IN TIME and SUPERGIRL before landing back in television directing tons of shows like THE PRACTICE, ALLY McBEAL and, more recently, HEROES. Scheider forever refused all offers to play Martin Brody again although Gary, married to then-Universal head Sid Sheinberg did wind up starring in JAWS THE REVENGE in ’87. JAWS 2 did what it needed to do and there are a few scenes where it does better than that. No, it’s not anywhere near the first film and maybe I have gotten impatient with it on a few viewings but it still manages to do the job on those late summer nights when you just need to watch not a great film, but the sequel to that great film. There’s a lot of pleasure to be gotten out of watching a Part Two sometimes. If you can’t enjoy watching one of those, then what’s the fun of any of this?