Living In The Past

Here’s one of those facts that means nothing to anyone but me, but THE TWO JAKES was the first movie I ever saw in Los Angeles. I hadn’t moved out here yet. I was just visiting. But I was here, it was the big release I was excited about, it was what I chose. As I think about it now, it looks like a very appropriate choice for the occasion. The film is extremely flawed, but certain elements of it have stayed with me enough that I have returned to it on occasion through the years. And there’s the sentimental fondness for it which I can’t ignore.

For those who have seen CHINATOWN: Los Angles, 1948. Private detective J. J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson, of course), flush from post-war posterity, is going through the motions on a standard divorce case when it results in the jealous husband Jake Berman (Harvey Keitel) shooting the man who he finds with his wife Kitty (Meg Tilly). To complicate matters, the man turns out to be Mark Bodine, Berman’s own business partner. Jake, under suspicion as an accessory, must clear his name but as he listens to the wire recording of the shooting hears the about-to-be murdered man utter the name Kathryn Mulwray, daughter of Evelyen Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) who was killed at the end of the first movie. As the name continues to ring in his ears, he tries to find out what it means and what has happened to Kathryn after all these years. For those who haven’t seen CHINATOWN or aren’t familiar with every single line of dialogue: I don’t know what to tell you. Sit back and eat your popcorn, it’s gonna be a long movie.


THE TWO JAKES, directed by Nicholson himself and written by Robert Towne, was meant to be the middle part of a trilogy focusing on private detective J.J. Gittes and the building of Los Angeles. JAKES attempts to continue the story of CHINATOWN begun by Towne while moving its thematic preoccupation from water to oil (by all accounts the third would have concerned air). Coming sixteen years after the first film, it never really deepens the meaning of that film so much as it acts as an epilogue. In addition to this the plot, at least for first-time viewers, is difficult to penetrate (impossible to understand without having seen CHINATOWN) and I could imagine winners of CHINATOWN trivia contests having trouble following everything. At one point a character played by Tracey Walter makes his entrance excitedly saying, “I know Mr. Gittes from the DWP when I worked for Hollis Mulwray,” only the actor wasn’t in that movie so we don’t pay attention to his exposition-heavy speech while we try to remember if we've seen him before. Characters both major and minor from the first film appear as well (not everyone, which seems realistic) but, along with those who are just being introduced, it’s often unclear who is important and who isn’t. When a character asks Jake, “Who’s that?” and the reply is, “Maddie Rawley. She’s from Pasadena,” it’s tough to figure out how she figures into the plot and when it will be explained how important she is (kinda, but not really). As we all know, nobody has ever been able to follow THE BIG SLEEP either but it gets by on the Hawksian cool of Bogart, Bacall and everyone. THE TWO JAKES, in comparison, attempts to be a mature mediation on human nature and coming to terms with the past, but if we can’t penetrate the plot it’s tough to have any sort of emotional connection for what’s going on. Too much never really registers—to say that the subplot of Jake and his fiancé seems like an afterthought is putting it mildly. What emotion does emerge mostly has to do with the connection to CHINATOWN and not the movie we're watching. I’ve seen the film enough times by now that I can follow the plot pretty well (at least, I think I do) but the mysteries meant to parallel the ones in the first film, while not necessarily predictable, do not necessarily qualify as bombshells either. Yes, there was no way it could ever compare to CHINATOWN both in quality and in coming up with an equivalent for the shocking plot developments. If there was ever something that could have tied all the elements together it feels like the movie never found what that was and even moments of suspense feel muddled—when, during a game of golf, Keitel tells Nicholson to “give me the wire recording by the end of this round or I’ll have you killed,” there’s so little tension you wonder if the movie is even paying attention to itself.


But part of what I’ve always been willing to defend about THE TWO JAKES, apart from any sentimental attachment, is a genuinely humanistic feel which runs through it. It’s hard for me to avoid the feeling that more than anything the film is really about Jack Nicholson’s thoughts about drifting through Los Angeles all the years he has and what that means to him. Little touches that have nothing to do with the story such as the audio drifting out of radios and early televisions feel like they came from his own memories, even if the actor didn’t grow up in the city. The character of J.J. Gittes, like Nicholson, has gotten considerably fatter and more prosperous in the time since CHINATOWN (“My business may not be reputable, but I am. In this town, I’m the leper with the most fingers”—Is Gittes saying this, or Nicholson?) and he seems more confident in his dealings with the world yet can’t help but get sucked back into previous events (“ I don’t want to live in the past. I just don’t want to lose it.” How do we do one without doing the other?). The eye of the director in this case happens to be the eye of the actor playing the lead character and it feels like one soaks into the other, for good and bad. “You stay in this business long enough, every street leads to a place you’d like to forget,” he states in voiceover, something I can imagine anyone living in Los Angeles relating to and the film seems to expose the musings of someone trying very hard not to get lost in memories. He concludes that thought by adding, “…every skirt reminds you of another woman. Or, if you’ve got it bad enough, the same woman.” Not that I have any experience in that sort of thing. There is emotion in THE TWO JAKES. It’s just difficult to stop getting confused by the plot in order to begin to find it.


THE TWO JAKES was meant to be released in Christmas 1989, presumably to be pushed for Oscars, got pushed back to March 1990 and then was finally release in August of that year, soon before the release of Bogdanovich's TEXASVILLE and, also from Paramount, Coppola’s THE GODFATHER PART III—it’s like something was in the air with these belated sequels. The film was reportedly a troubled production (I’m not even going to get into the aborted version of this that was to be shot in ’85, directed by Robert Towne and featuring Robert Evans as the other Jake) and ultimately it feels like the film was never able to overcome this. The extensive narration Jack reads, I assume a post-production attempt to clear up confusion, isn’t bad but seems to overreach for metaphorical significance a few times too many.


The film features a number of actors I like, but few of them are really seen at their best here. Nicholson probably knows the chracter better than anyone, not counting Robert Towne, but it still seems like there's a spark missing from his performance. The comic moments sprinkled throughout are some of his best. Harvey Keitel and Meg Tilly seem either misdirected or under-directed at times, neither one seeming to achieve what is required. When Keitel breaks down in tears near the end, there’s no emotional impact at all (that said, his last moment is his best). In comparison Madeline Stowe, in the role of Mark Bodine’s widow Lillian, hits all the right notes turning in a performance both sexy and funny, providing a dangerous energy the film otherwise lacks. It makes me wish that somebody at the time had taken advantage of this and teamed up the two actors in something where they would both be the leads (Madeline Stowe is missed in movies today). The likes of Ruben Blades, Eli Wallach, Frederic Forrest and Richard Farnsworth all turn up but they never wind up making much impact. Familiar face Tracey Walter, who I always like, had just appeared opposite Nicholson as the Joker’s second-in command in BATMAN. Rebecca Broussard, then Nicholson’s girlfriend, plays Gittes’ secretary. At least she looks the period. Faye Dunaway makes a voiceover appearance as a letter is read in one scene. David Keith plays the police detective son of Loach, the character who fired the fatal shot in the first film, which seems like one of those contrivances that only happen in sequels. Joe Mantell, Perry Lopez, Allan Warnick and James Hong all reprise their roles from the first film and Hong’s scene with Nicholson is particularly good even though it’s a bit much for me to swallow the two characters sitting down for tea. Again, it just seems like one of those sequel contrivances, like the file photos Nicholson looks at which probably came straight from the Paramount archives.


Nicholson also did not use certain key personnel from the first film, in spite of the fact that they were still alive and active at the time. Vilmos Zsigmond served as Director of Photography replacing John Alonzo and though it’s a beautiful looking movie—I always look forward to the shadows all the women’s hats make in the La Brea Tar Pits scene—the framing feels too erratic much of the time, something I wonder if in this case is more the fault of the director than DP. Van Dyke Parks, who had worked with Nicholson on 1978’s GOIN’ SOUTH, composed the score and while it can’t be compared with Jerry Goldsmith’s work on the original, I find it consistently interesting and intelligently designed, a favorite being the recurring “Jake driving around” music. The locations used throughout work very well, expertly evoking the feel of another time in a more emotional way than the film is at times otherwise unable to. This is another personal connection I have to the film—when Jake arrives to meet Tracey Walter’s Tyrone Otley at the Blue Parrot Bar and Grill (played by the Dresden, address incorrectly given as “On Cahuenga, just south of Franklin”) Nicholson pulls up in front of a building that I am very familiar with. That’s pretty much exactly how it looks from this particular vantage point even today.


It’s that sort of touch which makes me think of the movie fondly in spite of itself, giving me a connection from now to a night long ago when I first saw it in Westwood Village. A film about L.A.’s past which came out at a time when I was considering L.A. as my future but here I am now in the present thinking about that time as the past, one which I suppose I’m trying to avoid losing more than trying to live in it. And that future is still in front of me. It’s kind of a structural mess, it’s overlong and the emotional effect it clearly aims for never happens. I’m not even sure that it contains what could be described as an actual character arc—“It doesn’t go away,” is what Gittes expresses about the past in the end, but it doesn’t seem like an idea which just occurred to him. Of course it isn’t CHINATOWN, but at the very least THE TWO JAKES is earnest in its attempt to express one person’s battle with their past filtered through the history of Los Angeles. It might be Jack Nicholson’s, it might be my own.

Sustaining The Character

If I were going to recommend HERO AT LARGE to anybody for any reason it would be as a snapshot of New York in 1979. The opening shot of the film starts off on that one lone Diamond Vision screen that used to be in Times Square and then zooms way out to show the entire area. On the west side of Broadway there’s a massive billboard for John Badham’s DRACULA with Frank Langella covering the side of a building and when I saw it I had a funny feeling that I was going to be more interested in that DRACULA ad than anything else in HERO AT LARGE. That pretty much turned out to be the case. I think I loved this movie when I was eight but what can I say, things change.

Struggling actor Steve Nichols (John Ritter) is working part time making personal appearances for the just-released "Captain Avenger" movie (starring “Ryan McGraw” for all you LOVE STORY fans) wearing the costume of the lead character when, as he stops in a grocery store late one night after a night of work, finds himself in the middle of a holdup which he thwarts posing as the actual super hero. When word gets out in the media of what has happened, Steve decides to try his luck at being Captain Avenger for real again as both the failing movie’s publicists and the mayor’s office try to work the appearance of this mysterious hero to their advantage.


It’s amiable, fairly likable stuff but, directed by Martin Davidson, pretty unmemorable. As it turned out, I spent much of the film thinking about all the better movies it kind of resembles. A few scenes play like an early version of TOOTSIE, with an out-of-work actor dealing with unsuccessful auditions as well as an agent bearing the last name Fields, but this one, played by Allan Rich, is strictly Tin Pan Alley, not at all like Sydney Pollack. We see Steve Nichols crack up midway through an audition, under circumstances which would probably anger Michael Dorsey and it doesn’t make him more likable. It just makes us look at him as a goofball pretending he’s an actor (for a very random observation, the old woman who blows out half the candles on Michael Dorsey’s birthday cake can be spotted behind Ritter on the street early on). The basic tone of the film seems to strive for a Sturges- Capra feel crossed with a little of that 70s New York-PELHAM ONE TWO THREE feel--PELHAM’s “Old Man”, Michael Gorrin, appears here as the grocery store owner but the Jewish caricature of him and the actress playing his wife is played way up here as opposed to the matter-of-fact nature of his character in the earlier film. It’s spirited, but the whole thing winds up just being bland, not too far off from what the film would have been if Disney had made it as one of their live-action comedies of the time, not too surprising since writer AJ Carothers has some Disney credits from before this. Much more interesting are the allusions to TAXI DRIVER which turn up; Ritter is sitting in a cab in front of the Belmore Cafeteria in one scene, the Mayor is played by none other than Leonard Harris (Charles Palantine himself) and the street drummer who memorably appears as Travis and Betsy walk off to their date (“Now back to Gene Krupa's syncopated style”) even turns up during the opening credit montage. As a matter of fact, buried in this material is the potential for a twisted comic spin on Travis Bickle’s story but very little is ever made of this possibility. What we get instead is an “It’s the idea of Captain Avenger that counts” homily with the big conflict coming when the movie publicists and city officials try to corrupt Steve Nichols for their own benefit. Any real madcap satire gets lost in the idea and what remains is pretty toothless. Good-natured, but toothless.


I always liked John Ritter and though I suppose this was meant to be his big starring vehicle after THREE’S COMPANY hit it big it really isn’t one of his best roles. Steve Nichols isn’t much more than a nice guy, emphasis on the word “nice”, with very little to him otherwise—he even gratefully takes a homeless guy (character listed as “Bum” in the end credits) out for coffee when he can’t find anyone else to talk to. To underscore the point he comes from Cawker City, Kansas (sounds like a place Travis could have come from) and he remains peppy and cheerful even after being kicked out of his apartment, making him seem more naïve than anything. Anne Archer plays J. Marsh, the elegant Jean Arthur-type love interest from across the hall who he zeroes in on when they first meet (her first shot is of her rear as she gets out of a cab but hey, it was the seventies). She turns him down almost instantly making his continued pursuit of her kind of creepy (plus they live in the same building—boundaries, dude). She’s fairly likable in the part but a little too bland and Ritter actually has more chemistry with the briefly seen Marley Sims, playing an actress at the very beginning who he runs lines with but though they plan to meet “on Monday” we never seen her again. She kind of resembles Lisa Edelstein and looking her up reveals that Sims only made a few other appearances before moving behind the camera to work as story editor on shows like SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH. So that’s why I like her—she’s a writer. Bert Convy (looking like he just stepped off the set of MATCH GAME) and Kevin McCarthy play the publicity sleazes who try to use the Captain Avenger situation to their advantage. Archer’s rich boyfriend Milo is played by Rick Podell who looks weirdly like Convy, making me wonder what the subtext is—all nice guys look like John Ritter and all the creeps look like Bert Convy? Jane Hallaren (the victim of an aborted date with Albert Brooks in MODERN ROMANCE) plays The Bitch Reporter intent on finding out the identity of Captain Avenger and seems to represent all the cynicism in the world. Kevin Bacon appears briefly early on harassing Ritter in his costume but longtime New York residents will be interested in various local reporters from the time who turn up, including Rolland Smith, Carol Martin, Chris Borgen and John Roland (I can’t believe I actually remember some of these names).

That New York flavor we get even extends to a late night car chase through midtown around Grand Central that ends with a crash at about Park and 53rd, as well as a fight scene on an elevated train somewhere in the outer boroughs. None of it’s done with any particular flair but it’s fun to see these kind of sequences filmed on location. During one exterior outside of Sardi’s we can see THE CHAMP on the marquee of the Loews Astor Plaza down the street, placing when the scene was shot at somewhere between April and June of 1979. Once again, I’m finding myself more interested in the stuff going on in the corners of the Manhattan frame than the actual movie. I was paying so much attention to this aspect that when the film got to the big burning building climax (a lot of elements in this seem to have turned up in the SPIDER-MAN movies, but that probably comes with the territory) and familiar face Kenneth Tobey turned up playing the firechief I figured this section had to have been filmed on a backlot in Hollywood (no local reporters turn up here either). It was probably easier considering all the logistics involved and the movie manages to cover it well—the sequence climaxes in a pretty impressive physical effect as well. Immediately following this, the film even cuts back to location footage in New York for the final shot and the result is pretty seamless. Things like that probably impressed me more than anything else in HERO AT LARGE and while it’s ultimately kind of forgettable, it’s too likable for me to get worked up over. And yes, it sucks that John Ritter is still dead.

Overpopulation

As THE DESTRUCTORS opens, some nasty types in a car chasing someone down a dark, deserted street, pause before pinning him to turn some classical music on. It sounds like it could be the opening of some post-Tarantino thriller from the nineties but THE DESTRUCTORS aka THE MARSEILLE CONTRACT (thank you, TCM) actually dates from 1974 and is directed by Robert Parrish, best remembered now for being one of five directors on the 1967 CASINO ROYALE. At the very least, THE DESTRUCTORS is another item to check off on the list of 70s Michael Caine films to see. There’s the added interest of music by Roy Budd, composer of the legendary score for GET CARTER, which certainly helps. THE DESTRUCTORS isn’t exactly a total bust, but I don’t feel particularly enriched after having seen it either.

When Steve Ventura (Anthony Quinn), a U.S. narcotics agent who heads up the Paris bureau becomes frustrated at not being able to take down drug kingpin Jacques Brizard (James Mason) he decides to seek out a hit man that turns out to be old friend John Deray (top-billed Caine) who he sends to Marseille to do the job. Naturally, things do not go exactly as planned.


At first it appears that Quinn is the lead here and that Caine, who enters close to one-third in, is taking a supporting role but once he turns up his manic energy takes over the movie to the point that it becomes a little unclear what and who THE DESTRUCTORS is really about. Is it about Quinn? Is it about Caine? Both of them? I suppose this question is ultimately answered, considering the direction the plot takes, but for a while it makes things rather confusing and Quinn, considering he seems to be the lead, is offscreen way too long in the middle section. He’s given a subplot where he is having an affair with the wife (DAY FOR NIGHT’s Alexandra Stewart) of an agent who is killed. The guilt over this presumably spurs him into action to seek out Caine’s hitman but when Stewart disappears from the movie soon after, the motivation feels muddled and gives the impression that something is missing. As Caine takes off for Marseille to get mixed up with James Mason and his people the focus soon becomes lost. Caine’s scenes are enjoyable throughout—when asked what aspect of the environment interests him he replies “Overpopulation”--but the film needs more and never gets it. Ultimately, it feels like one of those movies where not very much happens and things still wind up being overly complicated.


Given the timeframe the film was made in, it’s no surprise that it seems somewhat like THE FRENCH CONNECTION, to put it kindly, and setting much of the film in Marseille slightly before FRENCH CONNECTION II actually gives the slight impression of cramming elements of both films into one. The most distracting element of this is the casting of CONNECTION bad guy Marcel Bozuffi (he’s the one being shot by Gene Hackman in the famous poster) in essentially the same role here. This actually makes James Mason’s kingpin come off as even more of a second-rate Fernando Rey than he already seems like—really, Phillip Vandamm deserves better. A more surprising resemblance to another film comes when Caine, in an effort to get near Mason’s Brizard, deliberately pursues Mason’s beautiful daughter played by Maureen Kirwin in his car around the hills over Marseille as they engage in a flirtation on wheels (of course, it’s a prelude to romance). It’s shockingly like the sequence where Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond first encounters Famke Janssen’s Xenia Onatopp on the road over Monte Carlo in GOLDENEYE right down to certain shots and angles being recreated for the Bond film (me sitting alone watching THE DESTRUCTORS at this point: “Hang on a second!”). Looking around the net I discovered I’m not the first person to make this connection (a similar sequence in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE II has also been pointed out) but either way, Martin Campbell has something to answer for.

At one point late in the film, Quinn makes a dramatic statement and walks off into the sunset as a gentle theme plays. It’s probably designed to add some weight to the character even though by that point the film has been taken over by Caine and it seems like the sort of thing which could confuse somebody only half paying attention into briefly thinking, “Huh? Is the movie over?” For whatever reason, a variation on the shot actually occurs when the credits really do roll. In their scenes together, you can feel Quinn working it while he quietly gets blown off the screen by Caine, who seems to achieve the proper weight without displaying any effort (Quinn’s best moments are when Caine isn’t around). Actually, Caine’s autobiography doesn’t even mention the film and elsewhere it’s been reported that Caine accepted the part without reading the script for the sole reason that it would be filmed in French locations during the wintertime. Even if the character of John Deray isn’t the sort of tough guy performance which will be ranked among his best, he’s still a lot of fun to watch.


James Mason, who also appeared in THE LAST OF SHEILA and 11 HARROWHOUSE around this time, doesn’t seem to do much with a role that, again, we’ve pretty much already seen played by Fernando Rey. Pierre Salinger, of all people, plays a government official in a scene with Quinn and he isn’t bad. I recognized one minor player as being the castle butler from INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE and when I looked up Vernon Dobtcheff, the man in question, I encountered an actor with hundreds of credits to his name, including the bookstore manager in BEFORE SUNSET. I point this out only because something like this makes me think of the connection movies we know very well have with movies which are unknown and, well, I can’t think of much else to say about this movie.


The score by Roy Budd is enjoyable, although sometimes it feels like it’s working a little too hard to make the action scenes more exciting than they really are and at times it feels like some of the action would have worked better with no music at all. One of these scenes is a car chase where Michael Caine has to drive a van against oncoming traffic which sounds great, but it’s hurt by multiple close-ups of him obviously pretending to steer on a mock-up (other shots elsewhere are just as clearly him on location, so go figure) and the feeling that the big stunt that climaxes the sequence either didn’t get the appropriate coverage or is just clumsily staged. There are a few points throughout where I also found myself rewinding to unclear catch bits of action of the “Did he just get shot?” variety. Even the ending was one of those things where I found myself torn between admiring the staging and thinking, “That wouldn’t work”. THE DESTRUCTORS has a slick sort of European 70s vibe to it which is fun, but the whole thing feels undernourished and maybe a little too polite, with too many elements that don’t seem to amount to anything in the end. Michael Caine/Roy Budd completists will want to seek it out. Everyone else should make it a point to see GET CARTER and become a Michael Caine/Roy Budd completist.

Six Double Bills

Well over a week ago I was tagged by both DVD Panache and Moon in the Gutter to take part in the latest meme that was started over at Lazy Eye Theater. The idea is to program my very own festival at the New Beverly. Naturally, I spent way too much time overthinking the whole thing, as if I was doing it for real. Of course, there’s no way to squeeze elements of every single thing I love about films into six double bills, but I did my best.

Here are the rules:

1) Choose 12 Films to be featured. They could be random selections or part of a greater theme. Whatever you want.

2) Explain why you chose the films.

3) Link back to Lazy Eye Theatre so I can have hundreds of links and I can take those links and spread them all out on the bed and then roll around in them.

4) The people selected then have to turn around and select 5 more people.

It wasn’t easy and I came up with plenty of ideas that fell by the wayside. No Wilder. No Sturges. No Dante. No Argento. No THE UNTOUCHABLES. I also discarded a few gag ideas, including pairing Lars Von Trier’s THE IDIOTS with John Landis’s THE STUPIDS (Still, the New Beverly should do that one anyway).What I came up with probably won’t shock anyone who knows me or reads this blog but here it is. Would Diablo Cody show up? Would any of my friends? Would anybody at all? Anyway, here it is:

Monday
SHAMPOO (1975, Hal Ashby)
BULWORTH (1998, Warren Beatty)
Two of Warren Beatty’s best, funniest and most biting films, each focusing on sex & politics in the recent past (now, not so recent) of southern California. I wish we would get a third.

Tuesday
THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE (1974, Joseph Sargent)
FREEBIE AND THE BEAN (1974, Richard Rush)
The 70s. Cops. Laughs. Violence. Profanity. All you’ll ever need.

Wednesday
THE BIG SLEEP (1946, Howard Hawks)
THE LONG GOODBYE (1973, Robert Altman)
A little obvious, maybe, but I can’t resist. Maybe putting these two disparate takes on Chandler together would shed some light on both of them. And maybe a fight would break out as people argue the merits of both. Plus it’s a way to squeeze both Hawks and Altman into this festival. Plus you get Elliott Gould. Plus you get Dorothy Malone in the bookstore.

Thursday
THE NEW AGE (1994, Michael Tolkin)
FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON (1970, Mario Bava)
Ennui among the rich and those looking to be rich. Maybe the pairing will make sense if you see it, maybe not.

Friday
BAY OF ANGELS (1963, Jacques Demy)
MODEL SHOP (1969, Jacques Demy)
Yes, I’m stealing this one from the American Cinematheque which ran it in June. But the emotional effect it had on me, along with the nature of how the two films wind up tying into each other, was so potent that I genuinely want to share these two sadly underseen films with other people.

Saturday
SECONDS (1966, John Frankenheimer)
“10” (1979, Blake Edwards)
A pair of films about men, terrified that the years are slipping away from them, yearning to achieve something which they can’t seem to put into words. They are very similar to each other.

And that about does it. I’m not going to tag others, but anyone reading this who wants to come up with what they would show at the New Beverly, please do. Now that I’ve done it, I’m looking forward to going there again and hopefully that’ll happen soon.

Having Your Cake And Eating It Too

Since I recently watched “10” yet again, I thought it might be an ideal time to revisit the other Blake Edwards-Dudley Moore collaboration, MICKI + MAUDE. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it and when the films of Blake Edwards are discussed it seems to have fallen through the cracks for everyone else as well, never getting much mention on either the usual lists of the best or worst films by the director, even though it was received very well upon release in Christmas 1984, including a rave from Vincent Canby in the New York Times, a place on Gene Siskel’s ten best list (ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA got the top spot) as well as a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture Comedy/Musical. Dudley Moore won the Globe in his category as well. The surprise in revisiting it, especially considering how much I’ll defend Edwards’ films, is that MICKI + MAUDE is, well, kind of boring. Yes, it’s fairly well done and played but, surprising for the director, there seems to be a decidedly low energy level running through most of it. It’s a ‘nice’ movie, it really is, but it’s a valid question just how much good a purely ‘nice’ Blake Edwards movie does for anyone.

Dudley Moore is Rob Salinger, TV reporter for the show “America Hey!” who is desperate to have a baby with his career-minded wife Micki (Ann Reinking). When she puts off trying for a child yet again, Rob happens to meet beautiful cellist Maude (Amy Irving) and begins an affair with her. When she informs him that she is pregnant he reluctantly decides to divorce Micki but before he can tell her she informs him that not only is she is pregnant, but realizing how much she loves Rob she's decided to put her career on hold and have the baby. Feeling that he has no other option, Rob chooses not to tell Micki yet marries Maude as well. Now that he is married to both women, each going through a pregnancy, he is continually forced to go to great lengths to ensure that neither one will catch on to the double life he is leading.


When Ben Stiller starred in the bad remake of THE HEARTBREAK KID last year there was much talk of how unlikable his character was. In the case of MICKI + MAUDE, what Dudley Moore’s character does is of course pretty unconscionable as well, but I suppose the idea is that he’s likable enough to get away with it. As a matter of fact, the film seems to bend over backwards in multiple exposition scenes to both make him more sympathetic and to explain away any logic questions anyone might have (Rob can’t tell Micki because her pregnancy is so delicate he doesn’t want her to lose the baby, that sort of thing). Maybe it’s that going to comic extremes while lusting after Bo Derek can be very funny but going to such extremes while wanting a baby, while dramatically valid, really isn’t. After all, is bigamy inherently funny? Too often the movie feels like it’s trying to squeeze in comic bits, like Moore’s reaction to a drink in an early party scene, as opposed to it emerging organically from the material which is usually something that Edwards excels in. I also found myself thinking too much about the realities of the matter. Wouldn’t Maude ask questions about the divorce he supposedly got? Shouldn’t Richard Mulligan, as his friend, tell him to suck it up and do the right thing from the start?


It’s to the movie’s credit that, in addition to never stacking the deck in favor of one woman against the other, they both are presented as well-rounded individuals, with Edwards never letting either one become a stereotypical shrew or bitch like could be imagined in other films. Even when both characters separately express worries about their pregnancy, even in a slightly comic way, it never feels done in an exaggerated fashion. The drawback to this approach, again, is that it feels so ‘nice’ that it feels like any edge the material may have had is being shaved off. Reinking and Irving both seem very nice, but comic actors they’re not. For a long stretch of screen time, the only scenes that have any zip to them are the ones Moore plays with best friend/boss Richard Mulligan. The bulk of the exposition has to come out here, but it’s still fun to watch the two actors bounce off each other, with some of the best dialogue in the film. Incidentally, MICKI + MAUDE is the rare Edwards film with another writer, Jonathan Reynolds, credited with the screenplay (presumably this is why it’s “A Blake Edwards Film” and not “Blake Edwards’ MICKI + MAUDE”), but it doesn’t seem like too much of a reach to imagine that Edwards worked on it. Some of the dialogue in the Mulligan scenes feels most like this, such as a bit where he and Moore argue over the meaning of the phrase “Eat your cake and have it too” when they should of course be focusing on other things.


After a long, fairly dreary middle section detailing Rob’s home life with both women, neither of whom seem to have any friends in their lives who might get suspicious at the odd hours Rob keeps, the movie fortunately picks up speed as Rob finds himself at a doctor’s office with both wives at once, followed by the farcical show-stopper of both of them going into labor in the same hospital at the same time in adjoining rooms. Now that’s the sort of Marx Brothers stateroom scene that we want out of this and it’s expertly staged by Edwards. The problem is that after all this madness the film has to deal with the reality of the matter, not something the Marx Brothers ever had to deal with and the nature of the deception is much more serious than what Dustin Hoffman had to deal with at the end of TOOTSIE. As a result, it feels like the movie writes itself into a corner and is unable to find a way out, at least not in a way that feels satisfying. Thinking about this, it occurs to me that a number of Edwards movies seem to sputter to a halt at the end, the equivalent of shrugging its shoulders and saying “Well, I guess that’s about it,” which hurts some films more than others. With “10” and S.O.B. it works fine but I honestly feel that if it wasn’t for a lousy ending VICTOR/VICTORIA might justly be thought of as a classic. (THE BIG LEBOWSKI is one of the only films I can think of that ever pulled off this sort of finish). The way MICKI + MAUDE is plotted it needs a concrete, satisfying ending and it unfortunately doesn’t get it. One imagines Blake Edwards waking up in the middle of the night years later exclaiming, “THAT’S how I should have ended it!” What that might be, however, I really don’t know.


Moore is very good in the role but, again, it’s more enriching to see him playing somebody slightly cracked, whether in the earlier film with Edwards, FOUL PLAY or ARTHUR. Here, by nature, he’s meant to be more of a mature adult—the actor was probably trying to stretch—and that’s perfectly believable, but it doesn’t make it much fun. Reinking and Irving, again, both manage to create believable, likable characters with the main drawback being neither one is very good at comedy. This turned out to be Reinking’s last film role and one of the things she’s best remembered for now is a legendarily bad performance of Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds” at the Oscars that year. Outside of Mulligan, the only actors who get a chance to make an impression are the always welcome Wallace Shawn as Micki’s doctor and Lu Leonard as a suspicious nurse and the punchline to their little subplot is one of the most enjoyable things in the two hours. H.B Haggerty plays Maude’s intimidating pro wrestler father who provides another reason why Rob doesn’t come clean right away and various real life wrestlers, including Andre the Giant, appear in cameos.


Adding to the slightly off feel of the movie is the fact that it’s one of the few Blake Edwards films not scored by Henry Mancini, but beats me why this is the case. Was he held hostage by Tobe Hooper on LIFEFORCE at the time? The score we do get by Lee Holdridge is serviceable (the sappy song “Something New In My Life” is written by Michel Legrand with lyrics by by Marilyn and Alan Bergman) but it’s hard not to think about the added levity that a Mancini score could possibly have provided the film.

I’m open to the possibility that the nature of MICKI + MAUDE isn’t necessarily what I want from Blake Edwards movies but I’d like to think that if I thought it worked better that wouldn’t be too much of a concern. As it is, the way the overly cuddly approach mingles uneasily with its subject matter and this contrast in tones never seems to let the film glide along like some of the director’s best films do. The adult approach is a definite plus and prevents any of the characters from becoming stupid, refreshing these days, but I'm not sure that any farce was ever made funnier by making it more mature. MICKI + MAUDE is neither the best nor the worst film that Blake Edwards ever made. Which, come to think of it, is how I started this whole thing in the first place.

Italian Possession

I’ve seen a few EXORCIST knockoffs in my time, but wouldn’t call myself an expert on the matter, especially when we’re talking about Italian EXORCIST knockoffs. That said, 1975’s THE CURSED MEDALLION (IL MEDAGLIONE INSANGUINATO, released in the US the following year as NIGHT CHILD), a film I had never heard of a few days ago, turned out to be a big surprise. It’s very clearly a film that wouldn’t have been made if THE EXORCIST didn’t exist but like a number of other Italian films from that decade knows how to assemble the expected pieces and maintain its own particular feel in such a way that it becomes effective in its own right for its own reasons.


BBC documentary filmmaker Michael Williams (Richard Johnson—Bulldog Drummond in DEADLIER THAN THE MALE), whose wife was killed in a fire, travels to Spoleto, Italy (leaving behind a home in London with an interior that looks suspiciously like it could be in Georgetown) to film a documentary on occult paintings with his young daughter Emily (Nicoletta Elmi, familiar from Bava’s TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE and Argento’s DEEP RED) and Kitty Winn-type nanny Jill (CASE OF THE SCORPION’S TAIL’s Evelyne Stewart). Once there, Michael takes an immediate shine to his American producer Joanna Morgan (Joanna Cassidy-yes, THAT Joanna Cassidy) as well as a particular interest in one painting he finds, while Emily, who has been displaying mental problems already, begins to have strange visions using notable near-subliminal imagery, almost as if she has been to this place before. A local psychic (TORN CURTAIN’s Lila Kedrova) begins to take an interest in the family as a triangle starts to develop between Michael, Jill and Joanna leading one to suspect more than just supernatural causes for Emily’s behavior.


The pieces are all in place for EXORCIST shenanigans but THE CURSED MEDALLION, by Massimo Dellamano, continually arranges them in ways which are slightly unexpected. Part of this is the Italian-ness of the whole thing, with an intoxicating Stelvio Cipriani score and attractive widescreen lensing. The film seems to take more interest in the subtext of the family breakup causing what is happening to the girl in question than I suspect William Friedkin ever did giving the film a surprising amount of depth and sensitivity to it (leaving it up in the air for a while just how much of what is going on can be deemed supernatural), even as Emily begins flailing around on the bed, something which occurs though not as much as you’d think. At its best, THE CURSED MEDALLION is extremely creepy and effective and it’s slightly disappointing when the second half doesn’t live up to the promise of the first. A genuinely surprising plot development occurs near the midway point (I’m being careful with spoilers here, even if it’s not an easy film to seek out) which promises to take the plot in some unexpected directions but the reactions certain characters have diminishes the credibility which has been carefully built up by that point. In addition, some back-and-forth travel late in the film ultimately seems unnecessary and winds up robbing the film of a lot of its tension as we move into the third act. I’m also not 100 percent on what exactly happens at the end, but I’ll avoid discussing that. Bottom line: the drama is surprisingly layered, some of the most potent imagery is actually genuinely scary and we get a mid-70s Joanna Cassidy in a robe pouring a tall glass of J&B while easy listening music by Cipriani plays on a nearby phonograph. I have no strong complaints.


The strength of the actors helps a lot with Johnson lending more depth than his stoic persona would indicate. Stewart, looking like AIRPORT-era Jacqueline Bisset, and the young Cassidy, still years away from playing Zhora let alone Margaret Chenoweth, play off each other in an interesting fashion, able to give their scenes a great deal of tension from their suspicions of each other with very little being said in the dialogue, leading us to continually be one edge what their true motivations are (just to point out, the version I saw was in Italian with English subtitles, so no familiar voices). This is also the largest role I’ve ever seen for Nicoletta Elmi, whose parts in the Argento and Bava films are pretty minor and while at times she seems little more than a child play-acting, this inexperience actually winds up adding to the tension at certain points and her wide-eyed stares of terror are undeniably effective.


Sometimes I see one of these movies and it sets something off in me, thinking, “Oh, THAT’S why I’m into these movies.” It’s the mood, the vibe, the willingness to offer surprises in plot, style and approach. Everything about THE CURSED MEDALLION doesn’t necessarily click together but it still takes what you would figure to be a story with no originality and does something unexpected with it. That works for me.

Deserters, Cutthroats and Thieves

The line was already well down the block when I showed up for Enzo G. Castellari night at the New Beverly on Wednesday. His 1977 World War II opus INGLORIOUS BASTARDS was being shown and with Quentin Tarantino about to go into production on his own World War II film of the same name (although, as far as I can tell, it’s in no way a remake) the Castellari film has been receiving extra attention recently, with a 3-Disc DVD recently released. Tarantino, surprisingly, did not show up, even though he’d done a q&a with James Toback just a few nights before, but the packed house was instead treated to appearances of Enzo Castellari himself along with the film’s stars Fred Williamson and Bo Svenson. All three men looked in good spirits and very happy to be there. Before the film we were treated to a long run of trailers for films involving Castellari and Williamson like WARRIORS OF THE WASTELAND, 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS and others I’ve never seen—what in the name of all that is holy is FIST OF FEAR, TOUCH OF DEATH? Best of all was the trailer for the long-buried GREAT WHITE, a JAWS ripoff which allegedly came so close to the original that Universal had it legally withdrawn from circulation. The jaw-dropping trailer even seems to be narrated by familiar voice Percy Rodriguez (you’d know it of you heard it) who also did the legendary JAWS trailer and it obviously comes so deliberately close to the original that it seems like nothing less than a version of JAWS from an alternate dimension. We were told later that the New Beverly had wanted to screen it on this double bill, but Universal immediately clamped down on them. At least we got to see the trailer.


And we got to see INGLORIOUS BASTARDS (actually, there should be a THE in there), shown in a brand-spanking new 35mm print. American soldiers being transported off to prison take advantage of a massive ambush to escape and as they attempt to head off to presumed freedom in the neural territory of Switzerland they soon find themselves mistaken for a real squadron by the French underground. This of course brings us to the guys-on-a-mission plotline, leading the men to have to act like a real squadron as they are forced to try to be the heroes that they clearly have no interest in being. Svenson and Williamson, very cool of course, are the leaders of the group and Ian Bannen plays the Colonel parachuting in for the big mission who doesn’t get the squadron he was expecting. The film was obviously made on a budget and period detail is at a minimum—Donald Sutherland in KELLY’S HEROES was nothing in comparison—but the movie obviously wants to be nothing more than a fun romp and pretty much succeeds. I’d list all the movies it is reminiscent of, from Aldrich to Peckinpah, but you could probably name some of them just from the synopsis. It’s funnier than expected, with my favorite moment being when Williamson checks his dog tags when reeling off his name and number like always happens in these movies. The plot is really nothing more than a bunch of stuff happening leading up to a big climax, but the actors are fun, the action is pretty constant, there’s lot of gunfire and other methods of killing Nazis with many people shooting up into the air after grenades go off. Also, Fred Williamson actually jumps onto a train from a bridge (he’s too cool to need a stuntman) and naked girls fire machine guns. What else do you need? It played great with the crowd.


The post film q&a had Williamson, who doesn’t look like he’s aged a day, talking about that jump—with the steam from the train he couldn’t see what he was doing so he wasn’t able to ‘jump cool’. He also went into how the comedy from the film came out of Castellari continually trying to get him to add his own ideas to scenes. Bo Svenson talked about the difficulties of post-synch dubbing while still adding that he loved working over in Italy and Castellari, celebrating his 70th birthday, looked thrilled at the response to his film as both actors spoke glowingly of him (this is all on Youtube, for anyone interested). Williamson pointed out Larry Cohen sitting in the crowd and everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to Enzo. As they broke, off to the side some of the people running the event began selling the new DVD of the film which came with an INGLORIOUS BASTARDS t-shirt and you can bet that I made sure to get one.

By the time the second film, BATTLE SQUADRON, finally started it was about eleven, so it was too late for me to stay. Many others left as well but the feeling in the air was that everyone was clearly very glad that they had been there for this. Would more people have stayed if the New Beverly had been able to screen a 35mm print of GREAT WHITE? Sadly, we will never know.

Sufficient Probable Cause

Looking back, I guess I can now see why my parents were upset that they let me go see SUDDEN IMPACT in the theater when, after I'd already gone, they went to see the film themselves. It is, after all, a pretty sleazy, adult, violent film and not really like the standard cops and robbers thing I may have expected. But in my defense, they should have known what the film might be like based on the earlier Dirty Harry films which, of course, I hadn’t seen yet and there’s no logical reason why I should be held responsible for the violence in a movie that I was allowed to go see. I’d ask my mother about this but somehow I have a feeling that she’s gotten over it by now. I hope she doesn’t get upset that I watched it again.

I don’t know why Clint Eastwood chose this entry, out of the four sequels he made to DIRTY HARRY, to be the only one he would direct but it’s possible that he felt that this was the one story which warranted a little extra attention. Amidst the sleaze and general unpleasantness it does feel more like a real movie than the other sequels, mostly because of the added weight the story has. It’s not one of Eastwood’s best films, and it’s certainly no DIRTY HARRY, but maybe it belongs in the upper half of the middle section of the ones he directed.


As Harry Callahan deals with his usual concerns of trying to put away mobsters and having hired killers come after him, the more central storyline follows well-known artist Jennifer Spencer (Sondra Locke) who at the start of the film is beginning to seek out her revenge of a long-ago gang rape that she and her sister, now practically catatonic, were victims of. The first killing, with the victim’s genitals blown off, happens up in San Francisco on Harry’s watch. After one attempt on his life too many, Callahan is sent down to San Paulo to investigate a lead, although it’s clear that his superiors just want him out of town for a little while (“You’re a walking friggin’ combat zone! People have a nasty habit of falling dead around you!” shouts his Lieutenant) Of course, Jennifer Spencer is in San Paulo as well, officially to restore the local boardwalk carousel, but really looking to complete her revenge on a few of the locals. As everyone knows, “Go ahead, make my day,” came from this one. Warner Bros. must have known they were onto something with the catchphrase since the trailer makes sure that we see Clint say the line twice in under a minute.

Like the other sequels, SUDDEN IMPACT, especially the first half, feels cobbled together with elements from what feels like different scripts written for possible Harry sequels (three different writers are credited). All the mobster stuff never really amounts to anything except for some good action scenes—well, that’s why we’re watching it, after all—but it does work in convincing us that Harry Callahan hasn’t been resting during the seven years since THE ENFORCER. The most goofily enjoyable sections of the movie come out of this—Harry Callahan seems to stumble onto crimes in progress like Jessica Fletcher stumbles onto dead bodies—and these scenes keep SUDDEN IMPACT from getting too overwhelmed by the seriousness of the rape-and-revenge plotline. Harry is also given a dog when he gets to San Paulo for an attempt at a little comic relief. There’s no one great action sequence in the film but the ones we get are all well-engineered enough that I don’t have any complaints. And when the movie focuses more and more on Sondra Locke’s story in the second half, allowing Harry and Jennifer to interact with each other it correctly finds its focus and ultimately works well as a very adult action film. One that, yeah, I guess I shouldn’t have been seeing then. I vaguely remember Clint’s TIGHTROPE, which came out the following summer also having a sex and sleaze storyline, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen that one. Lalo Schifrin is back doing the music after being absent from the last entry and it’s a very good score, my favorite track probably being “The Road to San Paulo” which reminds me of “On the Way to San Jose” from the BULLITT soundtrack. Schifrin wrote great driving music.


This was of course the period where Sondra Locke was the Jill Ireland to Clint’s Bronson and this was the last of the six films they appeared in together. I’ve always kind of liked her, especially in THE GAUNTLET, and while she may not be the actress Tyne Daly was in THE ENFORCER, she does project the conflicting emotions burrowing within pretty well. Maybe because the two leads were so familiar with each other it means something to have an actress in this part who you could tell was very willing to challenge Eastwood with her eyes in scenes ("You want to be alone tonight, Callahan? Neither do I."). It also says something about Clint’s ego that he was willing to give her what was clearly the best part in the film. He does say ‘swell’ a lot, though—how many times does he do that in the Harry movies? Michael Currie makes his first of two appearances in the series as Donnelly, Harry’s superior, Bradford Dillman gets great billing for one scene as Captian Briggs—essentially the same prick desk jockey who yells at Harry he played in THE ENFORCER but strangely given a different name. I guess you could do that sort of thing more in the pre-video days. Pat Hingle, also in HANG ‘EM HIGH and THE GAUNTLET, is the San Paulo police chief and Albert Popwell, who played different bad guys in the first three films, this time plays a buddy of Harry’s (Harry Callahan has friends?). Michael V. Gazzo appears uncredited as a mob boss in the fondly-remembered wedding scene and Audrie Neenan, then a star of HBO’s NOT NECESSARILY THE NEWS (anyone remember that? I was probably more familiar with her than anyone else in the cast) plays the meanest lesbian in the history of the world. When fully aware that her number’s up she takes a last sip of Coors it’s one of the best moments in the movie. And I guess that really is Camryn Manheim standing behind Harry in the early elevator scene. She’s hard to miss.

SUDDEN IMPACT is nasty, yet no classic, so I may not want to watch it as much as DIRTY HARRY or even one of the goofier entries in the series (I promise, I’ll get to THE DEAD POOL soon). But it’s ambition and fairly solid story makes it easily the second-best in the series and it very clearly is a step forward in Eastwood’s career leading him towards the even better films he would eventually make. By then, he wouldn’t have to worry about providing Warner with Dirty Harry sequels anymore.

But would somebody please tell me, what exactly is wrong with putting ketchup on a hot dog?

Still Wanting to Believe

I watched THE X-FILES on a pretty regular basis back in the day but I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that the show was allowed to go on several years too long. I’m pretty sure I watched the final episode when it aired but don’t remember a single thing about it. I know I couldn’t explain the mythology of the conspiracy to you and I’m not sure anyone could. I’m not sure that people who actually worked on the show could. This has caused episodes that focused on the mythology to be pretty unwatchable in reruns while the standalones, whether they were the darker stories or some of the more lighthearted ones the show did more of as it went on, have usually played just great when I’ve flipped by them in the middle of the night. Not that I’ve done too much of that lately. I haven’t thought about the show much at all for a while and I still can’t quite remember exactly where the show left everything when it finally ended.


The solution THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE offers to this problem is to present the characters as having been active in their fictional universe but clearly focusing on other things. By ignoring the wide-ranging issues the movie almost seems to be saying that what Mulder and Scully were uncovering was never really as important as how what they uncovered affected them. This at least meant I didn’t have to go read up on things to refresh my memory before seeing the movie but it also is the somewhat surprising move in that the resulting film is much moodier and character oriented than you would expect from a big-studio franchise movie released in the middle of summer. The plot—Mulder and Scully, neither seeming very happy these days, are brought back in to the FBI fold to assist in a case involving missing women and a pedophiliac former priest who claims to have visions of what has been happening—feels surprisingly small-scale at times and even more serious than you’d probably expect. Along with the overly dark, downbeat nature of some of the plot (even, it should be said, for THE X-FILES), the film is set in what looks like the most immensely cold and snowy West Virginia winter possible (shot, of course, in Vancouver) and it’s hard not to feel like the film would have been more at home in theaters in, say, February than during a hot summer. It feels daring to make a summer movie which is more interested in characters discussing concepts of faith and belief than in wall-to-wall action, quite a surprise when compared to how THE X-FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE, ten years old this summer, hopped all over the map. At a certain point when a foot chase breaks out I was almost relieved at the opportunity to get some actual movement going and was a little sorry that the chase wasn’t better than it was (for a really good foot chase, go see TELL NO ONE. As a matter of fact, just go see TELL NO ONE anyway). Much of I WANT TO BELIEVE, directed by series creator Chris Carter and written by Carter and Frank Spotnitz, feels too murky in its plotting, maybe partly the result of a script going into production during the writers’ strike, and while this is at times frustrating, the film does become better and more involving as it goes along. Certain plot elements do begin to come together, with some of what occurs actually reminding me of Gordon Hessler’s cult classic SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN (if you haven’t seen it, give it a try) and even that film ultimately feels more like a work of science fiction. But what works best in this return to THE X-FILES, and what the film ultimately seems most interested in, is how it presents the characters of Mulder and Scully and where they’ve gotten to in their journey by this point. Someone I know asked me, “Are they a couple now?” but that turns out not to be the issue at all. Their relationship is presented as being refreshingly, believably complicated on an adult level which makes the romance angle irrelevant. Of course they love each other, that much is very clear, but there’s still lots of messiness in their past and it’s something they still have to confront. It’s as if before fighting the greater threat of the conspiracy in any sequel (not that there’s much chance of that now with the box office figures coming in) they first have to settle the conflicts within themselves.


David Duchovny is the best thing here, giving the film the right amount of energy and making us believe this is Fox Mulder several years later. In contrast, you can feel the effort Gillian Anderson is making as Dana Scully a little too much and the less assured nature of her characterization gives the impression she’s having trouble figuring out how Scully may have changed. As some of the other FBI agents who figure into the story, Amanda Peet feels slightly let down by the thin role she’s given and Alvin “Xzhibit” Joiner is, it has to be said, flat-out bad with his role feeling truncated to allow for a late-in-the-game surprise appearance by a very familiar face. As the disgraced priest, Billy Connolly in what is really the main guest star role is excellent, with the scenes he has with Anderson being some of the best stuff in the film when Duchovny’s not around.


As already stated, the box office on THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE feels dead in the water so prospects of another sequel feel slim (never say never, of course). But while people may be turned off by the grim storyline here I suspect the film might pick up additional admirers down the line when they watch it at home and are able to go with how the film mainly focuses on the two iconic lead characters. It’s probably not what people want—hell, it may not be what I wanted—but at least it tried to be something more challenging than many such films these days would attempt. If this is going to be the last screen case for Mulder and Scully, at least it’s with a film where we get to be once again reminded of who they always were and who they will be, even if we won’t get to see it.

But is Scully really immortal? I guess we’ll never find out the answer to that one.

Whether Or Not You Face The Future

For more 80s films that I don’t feel bad about liking, Diablo Cody brought DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN and PRETTY IN PINK to the New Beverly for the final double bill of her Mondo Diablo Festival. Hey, I clearly remember being there at the Lowes 34th Street on opening day for PRETTY IN PINK and I definitely remember that feeling of excitement in the air. It was the time when John Hughes and Molly Ringwald had us in their grip. My first viewing of SUSAN isn’t quite so vivid but considering how many times I must have seen the “Into the Groove” video on MTV it definitely holds a special place in my memories of the decade. Even better, it’s a very special New York movie and is a nice glimpse at a lower Manhattan that isn’t really there anymore.


Directed by Susan Seidelman and written by Leona Barish, DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN holds up surprisingly well, giving us a female lead who figures out how to take control of her life for the first time but refreshingly doesn’t make too big a deal about it. The plot gimmicks of murderer-after-the-emeralds and amnesia are of course old hat, but are wisely presented in the most matter of fact way possible. The amnesia subplot gets discarded surprisingly early, giving the lead character a chance to drive the plot forward instead of getting dragged along and it’s a wise decision like this that the script makes which keeps things consistently moving. But what Seidelman, who had previously directed the ultra-depressing SMITHEREENS in the same environments, brings to the film is an interest in focusing on the funky nature of free-wheeling mid-80s New York (those were the days), especially lower Manhattan, combined with characters who feel like the natural modern equivalent of classic Hollywood screwball comedy. The film was sold at the time as a Madonna vehicle and Susan does in fact seem like what we imagine the pre-stardom Madonna was like, but Arquette is very good, pulling off seeming flighty but never stupid, naïve but never dumb. She goes well with Adian Quinn in their scenes together too. Mark Blum is especially funny as her hot tub salesman husband Gary Glass, but Laurie Metcalf, Will Patton and Steven Wright (“I guess we’re not gonna see Tony Bennett in this place”) all get their moments as well. I particularly like Anna Thomson nee Levine, who had a bit the following year in SOMETHING WILD and played the cut-up whore in UNFORGIVEN, as Susan’s friend Crystal.


In addition to the fantastic main cast, familiar faces seem to pop up every few minutes in small roles that feel oddly ornamental, suchas Ann Magnuson, John Turturro, Richard Edson, Victor Argo and many others. When a barely-visible saxophone player is briefly seen behind a window I thought to myself, “That has to be John Lurie,” and of course it is. It feels similar to the sort of bit roles that would turn up in films that Jonathan Demme would make for Orion over the following few years and there doesn’t seem to be any real connection between SUSAN and the Demme films aside from that there are a number of interesting names in the crew list, especially some who worked for Woody Allen at this time, on films also made by Orion. It’s easy to forget just how good that studio was for a while. For hip filmmakers, there was no better place and it’s hard to imagine how the likable, free-wheeling movie that SUSAN is could have come from anywhere else. Of course, the film’s director helped to bury Orion and her own career when she directed the terrible SHE DEVIL a few years later and Barish only has a few other credits including, um, BASIC INSTINCT 2. It’s too bad and the movie is so likable that I hope the characters in it wound up with happier endings. What did happen to Roberta and Susan anyway? For that matter, what happens to the characters in any of these movies?


DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN was fun to see again, but the main event of the night was of course the appearance of Jon Cryer before the screening of PRETTY IN PINK. The actor seemed very happy to be there and the Q&A with him and Diablo Cody before the film, which touched on all spoiler topics people wanted to know about, covered his casting as Duckie, how Molly Ringwald wanted Robert Downey Jr. in the role and the controversial issue of the ending, which in its original version had Ringwald’s Andie ending up with him instead of Andrew McCarthy's Blaine. Cryer said that while it was cut together, they never really got the right amount of coverage for the scene and it was felt by those who saw it that it didn’t work. It’s always seemed to me that Ringwald had more romantic chemistry with Andrew McCarthy, which may have been connected to her not wanting Cryer in the role and the movie does seem cut to favor McCarthy in the romance department anyway. I also wonder if they went back later to do more with that. The riding stable scene, even though it is referenced elsewhere, has always felt to me like an addition after the fact designed to bolster that romance and it doesn’t really seem to go with the scenes that come before and after it. Either way, Diablo Cody, along with other girls in the audience, let her long-festering displeasure about the ending they went with be known. For his part, Cryer seems to have gotten over it. The reshoot of course included Duckie locking eyes with bit player Kristy Swanson across the room and he revealed that the look he gives to the camera here was something he just happened to do on set as a way of expressing to director Howard Deutch how ridiculous he though it was. One of the most interesting things he mentioned was that during the last week of shooting he was given an early version of the script for SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL, to possibly star in, which he described as being a more FERRIS BUELLER-type comedy with the same basic premise. The script then went through several directors and revisions before winding up back with Howard Deutch to make it essentially PRETTY IN PINK with the sexes reversed. Though Cryer didn’t say it, I’ve always looked at the ending of that film as John Hughes trying to make up for how PRETTY IN PINK turned out. Even if he does get Emmy nominations for a second banana role on a sitcom, Duckie is probably going to be the role Jon Cryer is remembered for and he seems ok with that. He came off as a very nice guy who I half-expected to go around the theater shaking hands with everyone who had shown up.


As for the film, well, it’s PRETTY IN PINK. It’s not my favorite John Hughes film and I don’t get quite so emotionally invested in films that revolve around going to the prom anymore but it’s a nice bit of nostalgia for me and it’s especially fun to see James Spader slink his way through all of his scenes. It’s a sweet, earnest movie and, fashions aside, there’s very little about it that makes me want to cringe. I even still like a lot of the music. I think I’ll be more interested in seeing SUSAN again down the line, but it was still an enjoyable flashback to the decade sometimes best left forgotten. Diablo Cody did a very good job hosting the festival, especially with the Cryer q&a, and it’s nice to see her helping to support the New Beverly. She thanked me from the stage when I called out the title SHADOWS AND FOG which she was having trouble remembering while going through Madonna's filmography but I never actually went up to meet her. Oh well. Maybe another time.

SUNDAY UPDATE: Well, that didn't take long. While shopping at the Target on La Brea, I spotted a tattoo on a female arm out of the corner of my eye and thought, "That looks familiar." Sure enough, it was the tattoo belonging to Diablo Cody. This time, I made it a point to go up to her to say that I had enjoyed the festival very much and that she did a great job with the q&a's. She was very nice, thanked me, we chatted about things like how great the New Beverly is for another moment and that was it. Sometimes L.A. really is a small town.