Tintorera (1977)

Mexican shlockmeister René Cardona Jr. strikes again with this lurid Jaws rip-off about a mammoth tiger shark preying upon sexy singles near a Mexican beach resort. The movie is abysmal, of course, but Tintorera delivers the goods in three respects—it’s gory as hell, the production values are better than one normally expects from Cardona, and there’s an enormous amount of nudity. Cheap thrills aside, however, Tintorera is a painful to watch because of the stupidity on display both in front of and behind the camera. The characterizations range from nonexistent to superficial; the story is a muddled blend of horror and melodrama; the picture features several distasteful scenes of real animals being killed; and the dialogue is marred by bad acting, ghastly writing, and (for actors not native to English) sloppy dubbing. The narrative revolves around two Mexican studs, Miguel (Andrés García) and Steven (Hugo Stiglitz), who make their living as shark hunters near a resort. The studs hook up with a sexy British tourist, Gabriella (Susan George), for an idyllic period of hookups and threesomes. Tintorera is basically just a compendium of scenes featuring attractive people screwing, stripping, and swimming, and once in a while the shark shows up for a snack. Further, it seems as if the studs are the only people who get the idea of fighting back, even though the shark’s body count is astronomical. The vibe of Tintorera is weirdly lackadaisical, although the intensity of the gore occasionally demands attention; scenes of a shark with someone’s head in its teeth, and of the dismembered lower half of a human body floating to the bottom of the ocean, are particularly realistic. Yet the kills aren’t the least bit scary, especially because Cardona employs a ridiculous device of playing heavy breathing on the soundtrack whenever the shark approaches a victim. Huh? Still, for those who care about such things, the movie’s eye-candy quotient is significant, with starlets Priscilla Barnes, George, and especially Fiona Lewis generously sharing their physical gifts. Even the actors playing the studs get into the exhibitionist act.

Tintorera: LAME

Eagle’s Wing (1979)

          There’s a good reason you’ve likely never heard of a Western called Eagle’s Wing: It tells such a diffuse and underdeveloped story that even with dynamic actors Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston starring, the picture is painfully dull. On the plus side, the movie looks gorgeous—director Anthony Harvey and cinematographer Billy Williams arrange visuals with artful precision. Yet the only thing more dispiriting than Harvey’s lethargic pacing is the director’s inability to fuse his narrative’s various strands. Eagle’s Wing bounces around between vignettes involving Plains Indians, white fur traders, a displaced Irish priest and his sister, and the denizens of a Mexican hacienda. The various characters eventually converge, more or less, but it’s a long haul getting to the point where the story feels unified. Worse, since the heart of the piece is really just a simplistic macho duel between an Indian (Waterston) and a trader (Sheen), everything else feels like a distraction.
          Before moving onto anything else, by the way, it’s worth noting that Wasterston’s casting as a Native American isn’t as ridiculous as it might seem. Yes, there were plenty of Native actors would could have played his role, and yes, Waterston is a Northeastern WASP, but with his lean physicality, massive eyebrows, prominent nose, thin eyes, and generally sober demeanor, the actor cuts a striking figure.

          The plot isn’t worth describing in detail except to say that the Indian and the trader begin their duel over possession of a horse, and then deepen their conflict once the Indian abducts the priest’s sister. (English actress Caroline Langrishe, playing the girl, lends grit and loveliness but has virtually nothing to do except suffer and watch while male characters advance the narrative.) The reason the plot isn’t worth describing is that it doesn’t seem to be of particular importance to the filmmakers—Eagle’s Wing is primarily a mood piece about desperation, obsession, and survival. However, these themes are not dramatized effectively. Many of Sheen’s sequences, for instance, comprise the actor soliloquizing in order to explain what his character is thinking. (It’s a rare movie that makes one wish Sheen would stop talking, given that he possesses one of Hollywood’s most mesmerizing voices.)

          Further, the film is littered with wordless scenes in which nothing of significance happens, or in which significant events are shown at excessive length—such as an interminable scene of Sheen’s character breaking a horse. Virtually the only stretch of the film that sustains interest is the long opening sequence featuring Harvey Keitel; he and Sheen play bickering partners until Keitel’s character meets the business end of an arrow. Nonetheless, if you’re able to groove on a movie simply for the beauty of its visuals, you might be able to do so with Eagle’s Wing, at least for a while, because the film offers an endless procession of elegantly minimalistic images sculpted from subtle textures of color and light.

Eagle’s Wing: FUNKY

Bamboo Gods and Iron Men (1974)

One of several mid-’70s flicks meshing the blaxploitation and martial-arts genres, Bamboo Gods and Iron Men is either mediocre and substandard, depending on your tolerance level. The film has a simplistic storyline that only occasionally lapses into incoherence, so it’s not an outright train wreck, and the sleaze factor isn’t too extreme, so the movie doesn’t represent an assault on good taste. But, man, is Bamboo Gods and Iron Men dull, particularly since it’s purported to be a comedy/action hybrid—the comedy isn’t mostly absent, and the action is underwhelming. Impressively built James Inglehart stars as Cal Jefferson, an American prizefighter honeymooning in the Philippines with his new bride (Shirley Washington). The Jeffersons stumble into two fraught situations. First, Cal saves a local man (played by Filipino comedy star Chiquito) from drowning, thus triggering the man’s unwanted servitude, in accordance with local custom. Second, Cal buys an artifact as a gift for his missus, unaware that gangsters want the item. Chases and fights ensue. The bull-in-a-china-shop possibilities of a towering black boxer brawling his way through the Philippines are largely underused, since the direction and script are unimaginative, so the only novel scene involves Chiquito’s character sparring with his “master”; after Cal tries to teach some sweet-science techniques, the tiny Asian whips off his gloves to display martial-arts acumen. Inglehart’s acting is neither embarrassing nor memorable, and Washington is merely attractive, but Bamboo Gods and Iron Men is filled with anonymous supporting actors of dubious credentials. Playing the main villain, for instance, is a bland white dude named Ken Metcalfe, who also co-wrote the movie; his stilted acting wouldn’t pass muster in a high-school theater production. About the kindest thing one can say about Bamboo Gods and Iron Man is that it might satisfy some undiscriminating viewers with its abundance of brawls, funky music, and lurid nude scenes.

Bamboo Gods and Iron Men: LAME

Money Talks (1972)

Following the release of his sleazy feature debut, What Do You Say to a Naked Lady? (1970), producer/director/host Allen Funt made one more attempt at shifting his small-screen Candid Camera franchise to the world’s cinemas. Alas, while Money Talks is less inherently exploitive than its predecessor, the rambling quasi-documentary offers only the slimmest of rewards for viewers who trudge through all 81 minutes. Even more so than the previous film, Money Talks is an extended Candid Camera episode, featuring hidden-camera footage, staged gags during which actors coached by Funt interact with unsuspecting passersby, and man-on-the-street interviews. All of the material concerns modern Americans’ relationship with money—those who crave it, those who shun it, and so on. This is a worthy topic for serious study, to be sure, but with Funt at the helm, serious study is not the order of the day. Rather, the film features gags such as an attractive woman standing on a New York City street with a dollar bill pinned to the seat of her jeans; Funt uses a hidden camera to see which people try to grab the cash, which people try to grab the girl, and which people kindly inform the young woman of her situation. The novelty of the bit lasts all of about 30 seconds, but the sequence drags on repetitiously for several minutes. And so it goes with other vignettes, like the set-up featuring Muhammad Ali pretending he’s too cheap to pay for a C.O.D. package, much to the consternation of folks tasked with delivering the item to the heavyweight champ. Probably the most interesting sequence involves Funt talking to hippies about their counterculture attitudes toward currency; it’s interesting to watch straight-laced Funt’s brain shut down when shaggy kids say naïvely idealistic things like, “I believe in working for mankind, to keep mankind going—I just believe in working on life.” Unfortunately, the film’s credible content is outweighed by crap including montages set to horrifically bad original songs. For instance, during a sequence for which Funt rigged a parking meter to spew coins in order to trigger reactions from pedestrians, a singer croons the following inanities on the soundtrack: “He hits the jackpot and nickels fall like rain/ He bends down to pick them up but his pants can’t stand the strain.” Any questions why there wasn’t another Candid Camera flick after this one?

Money Talks: FUNKY

The Jericho Mile (1979)

          Michael Mann didn’t just introduce himself to viewers with his first feature-length directing job. He dazzled them. Arresting, emotional, and smart from its first frame to its last, this made-for-TV drama delivers an unusual story with meticulous realism, showcasing Mann’s signature tropes of a hip visual style, deeply felt character work, and ingeniously integrated music. The picture also demonstrates why Mann is virtually peerless in his depiction of the criminal mind, because he doesn’t portray crooks as monsters—rather, he portrays them as self-aware professionals ruled by strict codes.

          Set inside a maximum-security prison, The Jericho Mile revolves around Larry Murphy (Peter Strauss), a lifer who obsessively runs “fast miles” every day in the prison courtyard. Isolated from all but a few fellow inmates, Larry lives inside himself; the exhilaration of athletic challenge give his existence meaning and structure. One afternoon, humanistic prison shrink Dr. Bill Janowski (Geoffrey Lewis) clocks Murphy and realizes how fast the man is moving, so he confers with Warden Earl Gulliver (Billy Green Bush). An innovative penologist, Gulliver realizes that nurturing Murphy’s talent might inspire other inmates to break the cycle of jailhouse profiteering and post-incarceration recidivism. Gulliver invites a nationally ranked running coach, Jerry Beloit (Ed Lauter), to observe and possibly train Murphy. After staging a race between Murphy and several professional runners, Beloit declares that Murphy has Olympic potential. Yet that’s only the surface of the story. Unfolding concurrent with Murphy’s surprising odyssey is a grim drama involving powerful inmate Dr. D (Brian Dennehy), who runs a jailhouse drug ring and gets into a hassle with Murphy, which inadvertently sparks a prison-wide racial conflict.

          Laced into all of this is a potent revelation of Murphy’s layers. We don’t learn about the nature of his original crime until we’ve already become invested in his journey, so Murphy emerges as a profoundly sympathetic character—we’re able to root for him with full awareness of what he’s done, and full awareness of his capacity for future violence. Presenting Murphy without apologies might, in fact, be the greatest accomplishment of this fine film, so it’s no surprise that Strauss took home an Emmy for his dimensional performance, or that Mann and co-writer Patrick J. Nolan shared an Emmy for the picture’s outstanding teleplay. Yet on many levels, The Jericho Mile is most impressive as a compendium of all the skills Mann had developed thus far as a writer-producer on episodic TV shows, and that he would continue to embellish in his extraordinary feature career. He uses editing and music to create vivacious rhythms; he shoots real locations and sets equally well to conjure an engrossing sense of place; and he guides actors toward naturalistic performances.

          Character players including Bush, Lauter, Lewis, and Roger E. Mosley do some of their career-best work here, imbuing their roles with lively individuality. Dennehy, still very early in his screen career, is animalistic and frightening, and Strauss achieves several moving moments by channeling a volatile combination of compassion and rage. (Strauss totally nails Mann’s trademark device of having criminals speak without contractions to avoid misunderstanding, so he seethes when delivering such lines as, “Man, I am into nothing! That is how I do my time!”) Plus, as he so often does, Mann pulls the whole movie together with an ingenious musical flourish, turning a Latin-ized version of the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” into Murphy’s searing theme song.

The Jericho Mile: RIGHT ON

High-Ballin’ (1978)

          While it’s unmistakably a drive-in action flick about truckers, High-Ballin’ has a much more serious vibe than its silly poster and title might suggest. In fact, within the confines of being a clichéd thrill ride about cartoonish villains preying upon one-dimensional heroes, the picture has a more or less credible storyline, as well as a few passages of comparatively heavy drama. So, while the movie ultimately succumbs to mediocrity, it goes down a lot smoother than the usual “10-4, good buddy” junk. Set in Ontario, the picture depicts a rapidly escalating battle between independent drivers and thugs in the employ of King Carroll (Chris Wiggins), a trucking magnate who’s trying to put competitors out of business. King Carroll’s chosen technique is hiring attractive women to feign roadside trouble as a way of luring truckers into the proximity of armed hijackers who emerge from hiding to beat the truckers and steal their rigs.

          When the story starts, amiable trucker Duke (Jerry Reed) greets old friend Rane (Peter Fonda), a former trucker now living a vagabond lifestyle as a born-t0-be-wild biker. Together with Rane’s new love interest, a tough-talking lady trucker named “Pickup” (Helen Shaver), Duke and Rane try to survive hauling a shipment through King Carroll’s territory. The highlight of the picture is an extended chase scene that’s fairly exciting—Rane climbs onto Duke’s trailer, which is full of cars, and detaches the cars to use them as projectiles. Then, after Duke gets taken out of commission, Rane declares revenge, leading to a major standoff.

          Nothing in High-Ballin’ will tax your intelligence, but even if the overall concept is trite, the scene-to-scene energy of the movie is moderately engaging. Fonda’s got a great laid-back rapport with Reed, and the love scenes between Fonda and Shaver play up his everydude charm and her take-no-guff brand of sexiness. The picture drags in the middle, big-time, with too many chatty vignettes between action scenes, and colorful supporting players including Clint Howard and Michael Ironside are underused. (Plus, despite some online listings to the contrary, Joe Don Baker isn’t in the movie—more’s the pity.) It should also be noted that the movie is quite tame in terms of language, sex, and violence, which could be interpreted as a strength or a weakness; viewed favorably, the picture exercises restraint, but viewed unfavorably, the flick is toothless. Either way, this is undemanding cinema that provides intermittent entertainment.

High-Ballin’: FUNKY

Cisco Pike (1972)

          During the early ’70s, one of the most happening scenes in the music business revolved around the Troubadour club in West Hollywood, the watering hole of choice for folks like Jackson Browne, the Eagles, and Linda Ronstadt. Perhaps no single narrative movie captures the texture of this scene better than Cisco Pike, which tells the story of a rock star who turns to dealing grass when his career goes cold. Starring singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson in his first acting role, Cisco Pike exudes atmosphere and authenticity as the storyline winds through nightclubs, recording studios, and the streets of Los Angeles—at its best, the movie almost feels like a documentary capturing what it was like to be high on tunes (and weed) in the City of Angels during a transitional moment between the idealism of the late ’60s and the decadence of the late ’70s.

          The weird part, though, is that Cisco Pike isn’t really a story about the music business. It’s a crime thriller exploring what happens when the title character gets into a hassle with a whacked-out cop who’s playing both sides of the law. The basic story involves an LAPD psycho named Leo Holland (Gene Hackman) forcing rocker-turned-recidivist Cisco (Kristofferson) to sell a huge trove of pot that’s fallen into Holland’s hands. In shaking down his old music-industry contacts for cash, Cisco finds out which friends have integrity and thereby arrives at a new but unsettling understanding of his place in the world. Thanks to this offbeat storyline, viewers can consume Cisco Pike several different ways. For instance, it’s possible to groove on the picture as a nostalgia trip, and it’s also possible to enjoy the narrative’s mild suspense.

          What makes film so rich, besides the colorful details woven into writer-director Bill L. Norton’s script and the extensive location photography, is the lively cast. Beyond Kristofferson, who exudes such powerful natural charisma that he subsequently became a movie star, Cisco Pike benefits from Hackman giving an energetically weird performance as the dirty cop, as well as Harry Dean Stanton blending humor and pathos as the title character’s once-and-future singing partner. The picture also features ’70s stalwarts Allan Arbus, Karen Black, Roscoe Lee Browne, Antonio Fargas, Howard Hesseman, and Severn Darden. For some fans, however, the highlight is a cameo by real-life rocker Doug Sahm, who plays a campy riff on himself—rhapsodizing about the virtues of great ganja and spewing subliterate hipster jive about music, he epitomizes the far-out vibe of stoned ’70s rock.

          It’s easy to find flaws with Cisco Pike, because the movie’s energy is fairly low and because Norton’s filmmaking style is way more conventional than, say, Dennis Hopper’s mind-bending approach, which might have suited this milieu better. But considering how many interesting things Cisco Pike presents in its 95 minutes, complaining that it could have been a stronger picture seems petty.

Cisco Pike: GROOVY

Octaman (1971)

While it might be overreaching to describe Octaman as the worst creature feature ever made, since the monster genre has spawned some truly ghastly cinematic atrocities, it’s fair to say that Octaman comprises 76 minutes of stultifying pabulum. The story, which borrows heavily from the classic monster flick The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1955), is the usual noise about a scientist accidentally disturbing the natural habitat of a missing-link beastie, thereby invoking primeval wrath. In this case, the beastie is an octopus who walks like a man—as depicted, I shit you not, by a dude walking around in a silly green suit with a giant green head and flailing tentacles. Amazingly, this terrible suit was co-created by future Oscar-winning effects great Rick Baker, so one presumes his best intentions were impeded by budget limitations and poor execution; even shrouding the monster in shadow and spritzing the costume with some sort of moisture would have delivered better results than showing the thing dry and in full sunlight, as happens periodically. It also doesn’t help that Baker and crew failed to articulate the monster’s eyes, which just sit there, disallowing any illusion of life. And the Octaman costume isn’t even the worst thing in the picture. For instance, Octaman has a baby, which is depicted through the use of a floppy little glob of painted rubber that gets tugged along the floors of locations by unseen strings. Writer/director Harry Essex relies heavily on stock footage, and it’s obvious that even though the story is supposed to be set in some exotic South American jungle, the whole thing was shot in and around such overly familiar L.A. locations as the Bronson Canyon caves. Making the whole enterprise seem even tackier is that fact that Essex has a screenwriting credit on the original Creature from the Black Lagoon—he’s incompetently plagiarizing himself. About the only entertaining aspect of Octaman is seeing how many pathetic attempts Essex makes to portray the titular critter as a killer. At various points, Octaman bitch-slaps enemies with his tentacles, strangles people with his tentacles, and even impales victims with the tips of his tentacles. The only fearful thing about this interminable crapfest is the prospect of actually watching the movie.

Octaman: SQUARE

Chisum (1970)

          A textbook example of movie-star ego riding roughshod over a potentially engrossing storyline, this latter-day John Wayne Western puts the Duke’s character at the center of a notorious real-life feud that involved dueling ranchers, out-of-control capitalism, and frenemies Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. Chisum has so many story elements that it feels like a highlight reel from a miniseries, but the centrality of a typical Wayne protagonist bludgeons interesting nuances, transforming Chisum into a flat story of he-man heroism. Making matters worse are such painfully old-fashioned flourishes as the corny songs that play over tedious montages. Chisum has many watchable passages, thanks to abundant action scenes, vibrantly colorful location photography, and zesty supporting performances, but the picture is something of a mess.

          Set in New Mexico circa the late 1870s, the movie revolves around a rivalry between noble cattleman John Chisum (Wayne) and his disreputable competitor, Lawrence Murphy (Forrest Tucker). Chisum owns huge tracts of land but treats people fairly, whereas Murphy is an avaricious creep willing to cheat, lie, and steal in order to expand his holdings. As Murphy’s greed becomes more rapacious, Chisum gathers colleagues including crusty sidekick Pepper (Ben Johnson), fellow gentleman rancher Henry Tunstall (Patric Knowles), and principled nomad Pat Garrett (Glenn Corbett). Also drawn into the good guys’ armada is semi-reformed outlaw William “Billy the Kid” Bonney (Geoffrey Dueul), who works for Tunstall but romances Chisum’s niece. Meanwhile, Murphy gathers a horde of snarling henchmen, played in cartoonish fashion by lively actors including Robert Donner, Christopher George, and Richard Jaeckel. The cast of Chisum is huge, and as a result, most of the actors get shortchanged in terms of character development and screen time.

          Written and produced by Andrew J. Fenady, Chisum attempts to tackle an epic story within the confines of a standard feature, which makes everything seem rushed and superficial. Plus, whenever the movie slows down for something pointless, such as Chisum’s meeting with an Indian chief—a scene that communicates nothing except the lead character’s principles, which have already been described ad nauseum—narrative momentum suffers. As for the performances, Wayne is Wayne, still quite virile and not yet inhabiting the late-life gravitas that made some of his subsequent ’70s Westerns elegiac, while old hands from Johnson to Tucker sprinkle their one-dimensional roles with charm. Unfortunately, the younger players incarnating the star-crossed lovers (any sensible viewer knows it won’t go well for Billy and Chisum’s niece) are bland, and the actors portraying secondary villains have nothing to do except strut around in filthy clothes and shoot likable people.

Chisum: FUNKY

Joyride (1977)

          Featuring a cast of attractive young actors, a somewhat lurid storyline, and the unique atmospherics of Pacific Northwest locations (subbing for Alaska), Joyride should be a distracting romp about ’70s youths seeking adventure in the boonies. Weirdly, however, good intentions derailed the movie’s potential. Instead of being light entertainment with a sprinkling of sex and violence, Joyride sits uncomfortably on the fence between comedy and drama, and the film’s storyline is over-plotted. Lots of things happen, but they aren’t compatible with each other, and they don’t contribute to an overall impact. In trying to do a lot, the filmmakers somehow accomplished very little.

          The picture begins in L.A., where friends Scott (Desi Arnaz Jr.) and John (Robert Carradine), together with John’s girlfriend, Susie (Melanie Griffith), decide to leave the big city for a new life as independent salmon fishers in Alaska. Arriving in the 49th state, the kids are chagrined to discover that work won’t be as easy to come by as they expected. The trio is also riven by romantic tension; not only does Scott lack a female companion, but some degree of threesome activity is implied. The story gets turgid once Scott and John start mixing it up with locals, because Joyride grinds through repetitive scenes of bar fights and such—a thread that culminates with a silly pissing-contest scene—until a fourth member joins the main group. She’s Cindy (Anne Lockhart), a sexy local who’s alternately presented as a prostitute, a tease, and a co-conspirator in a criminal enterprise. After hooking up with Scott, Cindy participates in a strange scheme whereby the Los Angelenos “kidnap” her and seek ransom from her employer, a pipeline company. Whatever.

          Directed and co-written by admirable B-movie helmer Joseph Ruben (who later scored with pictures including the 1991 Julia Roberts thriller Sleeping With the Enemy), this American International Pictures release features a likeably loose vibe and stronger production values than those of the average AIP joint; the abundant location photography of open spaces covered with brooding skies lends credibility. But given the lack of a meaty central storyline, the picture sprawls across 92 logy minutes without any sense of purpose. Even the gimmick of all four leads being second-generation actors doesn’t add anything beyond a marketing hook. (Each of the four actors is okay in his or her undemanding role, with Arnaz the weakest link, but none does anything particularly special.) So, while there’s plenty of diverting stuff in Joyride, from the pop-song score peppered with Electric Light Orchestra hits to the topless scenes featuring Griffith and/or Lockhart, Joyride ends up feeling like a movie caught in an identity crisis. Is it a counterculture story about youths looking for a simpler life away from civilization? Is it a lovers-on-the-run crime saga? Is it a melodrama about romantic entanglements? Actually, it’s all of those things—and less.

Joyride: FUNKY

Bunny O’Hare (1971)

          The fine folks at Wikipedia report that Bette Davis sued the producers of this offbeat comedy because editing changes transformed what Davis had been promised would be grown-up satire into silly slapstick. And while it’s heartening to see that Davis was still her usual combative self even well into the twilight of her career, the question underlying this factoid is why Davis—or anyone, for that matter—could ever have envisioned Bunny O’Hare as grown-up fare, satirical or otherwise. A juvenile predicated on coincidence and contrivance, the film is marred by pervasively nonsensical plotting. The opening scene tells the tale. Bunny O’Hare (Davis) is a dippy widow who flies into a panic when workers show up to demolish her home after she’s defaulted on bank payments. She inexplicably asks a workman named Bill (Ernest Borgnine) to protect her house even though he’s just there to salvage plumbing items for resale. Then Bunny phones her adult children for help, but the kids are too self-involved to recognize that Mom’s in a jam. Next, after Bill fails to protect Bunny’s house (which wasn’t his responsibility in the first place), he succumbs to guilt and offers Bunny a ride. Huh? A series of unlikely situations ensues, during which Bunny discovers that Bill is actually a bank robber wanted by the police, so Bunny blackmails Bill into helping her rob the financial institution that she feels treated her shabbily.

          Bunny O’Hare is a deeply confused movie. For instance, the filmmakers can’t decide if Bunny is competent or helpless. Nor can they decide if the antagonist is a bank, the cops, or Bunny’s children. Yet the myriad story problems aren’t the worst aspects of this dreadful movie. The central visual gimmick involves Borgnine and Davis masquerading as hippies, so viewers are subjected to the surreal sight of bearish Borgnine and tiny Davis decked out in Day-Glo polyester while they hurtle down city streets on a motorcycle. Proving that Davis was at least correct to complain about the film’s editing, the flick is cut and scored with the frenetic, broad-as-a-barn storytelling style of a Jerry Lewis movie. Plus, many getaway scenes feature out-of-place banjo music, as if the picture aspires to be a cousin to Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Davis strives to retain her dignity and plays certain scenes well, but her crisp line deliveries clash badly with Borgnine’s boisterous energy. Costar Jack Cassidy, as the vain cop obsessed with catching the “hippie bandits,” delivers a tiresome caricature in lieu of a performance, while funnyman John Astin, playing one of Bunny’s kids, fares slightly better.

Bunny O’Hare: LAME

A Star Is Born (1976)

          First, the good news: This Kris Kristofferson-Barbra Streisand version of the oft-remade showbiz tale about a rising star’s doomed involvement with a veteran celebrity is not as bad as its reputation would suggest. Considering the vicious criticism the picture has received over the years, one might expect an outright disaster. Instead, A Star Is Born contains some credible dramatic elements, and the production values are terrific. As for the acting, it’s quite good—after a fashion. The main problem, which infects every aspect of the picture, is that viewers are asked to believe Barbra Streisand could have become a rock star in the mid-’70s. Considering that Streisand was a show-tune belter who incidentally dabbled in pop music, her casting creates fundamental believability problems. After all, the biggest song the movie generated was “Evergreen,” a ballad so gentle it could have been recorded by the Carpenters. A further complication is Streisand’s legendary vanity—the degree to which the movie contorts itself in order to showcase her looks is absurd. For instance, the number of Streisand’s costume changes seems even more comically excessive than it might have otherwise given the presence of a unique screen credit during the closing crawl: “Miss Streisand’s Clothes From Her Closet.” Oy.

          Anyway, Streisand plays Esther Hoffman, a singer-songwriter stuck working in small clubs until she meets John Norman Howard (Kristofferson), a darkly handsome rock star. (Never mind that Kristofferson found most of his real-life musical success on the country charts.) Howard mentors Hoffman until she becomes a bigger star than he ever was, at which point Howard determines that he must disappear—in every way possible—so as not to impede his apprentice’s ascent. Woven into this melodrama, naturally, is a love story between the musicians.

          Director Frank Pierson, who by this point in his career was a top screenwriter with such movies as Cool Hand Luke (1967) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975) to his credit, made a major professional leap with this project; before directing A Star Is Born, he’d mostly helmed TV episodes and low-budget features. Considering that poor Pierson must have gotten diva demands in stereo—beyond Streisand’s micromanagement, Pierson had to deal with hairdresser-turned-producer Jon Peters, who happened to be sleeping with Streisand at the time the movie was made—the fact that A Star Is Born moves along fairly well is a testament to Pierson’s innate storytelling abilities. Yes, the flick is overwrought and sudsy, but in some sequences—particularly Kristofferson’s final moments—Pierson renders solid drama about life under the media microscope. The picture also benefits from vibrant supporting turns by performers including Gary Busey and actor/director Paul Mazursky. Does A Star Is Born need to be 140 minutes? Not hardly. But is the picture worthwhile? Yes, especially for Pierson’s close attention to emotional detail and for Kristofferson’s charismatic performance. Plus, it must be said, Babs looks (and sounds) great.

A Star Is Born: FUNKY

C.H.O.M.P.S. (1979)

A pathetic attempt by Hanna-Barbera Productions to mimic the Disney style of special-effects-driven family comedies, C.H.O.M.P.S. has nothing going for it except for glossy production values, a perky leading lady (Valerie Bertinelli), and a scruffy canine star. In fact, the only thing more dispiriting than the picture’s cliché-riddled storyline is the imbecilic dialogue. The plot cobbles together stock elements familiar to anyone who’s seen live-action Disney pictures from the ’70s. Successful entrepreneur Ralph Norton (Conrad Bain) owns a security company, and one of his employs is a ne’er-do-well inventor, Brian Foster (Wesley Eure), who is, of course, in love with Norton’s daughter, Casey (Bertinelli). After Brian gets fired, he shows Casey his new invention, C..H.O.M.P.S., a robot dog designed for home security. Complications of the dullest sort ensue when one of Norton’s competitors, Gibbs (Jim Backus), tries to steal C.H.O.M.P.S. before Norton recognizes the value of the invention. The movie also features inane subplots involving bumbling crooks (played by Red Buttons and Chuck McCann) and a mean neighborhood dog with whom C.H.O.M.P.S. tussles. C.H.O.M.P.S. is crammed with cloying music that erupts into disco jams during chase scenes, suggesting an unholy convergence of Carl Stalling and Giorgio Moroder, and the cast overplays cartoonishly, right down to Backus presenting a black-hat riff on his old Gilligan’s Island characterization. The picture also presents gruesome images irresponsibly. This is the sort of movie where villains get caught in explosions but walk away with nothing but ash-covered faces and ripped clothing; similarly, the bit where Brian rips off his robot dog’s head to display the inner workings to Casey seems unnecessarily savage. Yet the weirdest element is the presence of minor, PG-rated vulgarity (which was excised from G-rated release prints). Monster, the nasty dog who fights with C.H.O.M.P.S., “speaks” in voiceover, saying things like “Up your poop, granny.” If one strained to find a single meritorious aspect of this misbegotten movie, it could be noted that Bertinelli was as the apex of her girl-next-door adorableness—but fans of the actress would do better to scratch that particular itch by watching a One Day at a Time rerun.

C.H.O.M.P.S.: LAME

It’s Showtime (1976)

          After the success of That’s Entertainment! (1974), a slew of anthology films celebrating the Hollywood of yesteryear hit theaters, although few successors matched That’s Entertainment! for sheer ebullience and wow factor. Still, even a second-rate offering in this genre, such as It’s Showtime, has value. After all, where else can viewers survey scenes featuring many of Hollywood’s most famous animal performers, from Flipper to Rin Tin Tin, without having to watch entire movies featuring the performers? Because, let’s face it, after plowing through all 85 minutes of It’s Showtime, you’ll probably feel like you’ve seen enough Flipper and Rin Tin Tin to last the rest of your life. In addition to featuring marquee-name animal performers, It’s Showtime presents obscure bits culled from conventional features (meaning those starring human beings), as well as from shorts and special subjects. For instance, the anthology’s opening number features a chorus and orchestra of dogs performing a routine to “Singin’ in the Rain,” and then It’s Showtime shifts to such random sights as funnyman Joe E. Brown cavorting in an office with a lion; Roy Rogers and his trusty steed, Trigger, doing their thing; and a poodle undulating to the accompaniment of stripper music. Some of this stuff is fun, and a lot of it is odd. (In the case of the bumping-and-grinding poodle, “odd” gives way to “disturbing.”)
          Most of the picture comprises themed chapters grouping clips of particular types of animals (e.g. a section of horse scenes set to “The William Tell Overture,” etc.), but A-list critters including Asta (the Thin Man dog) and Francis the Talking Mule get their own stand-alone chapters. Writer Alan Myerson tries to give the clips some sort of narrative flow, starting with lighthearted comedy before moving into exciting action vignettes and finally tearjerker scenes, but even with this care given to the overall arrangement, the enterprise gets boring after a while. The problem isn’t the clips or the execution, per se, so much as the lack of any storyline. It’s Showtime is the sort of picture where the viewer can walk away from the screen for 10 or 15 minutes and miss absolutely nothing of importance. Aditionally, the tearjerker section gets tiresome thanks to the inclusion of overly long excerpts from Lassie Come Home (1943) and National Velvet (1944). It must be said, however, that seeing highlights of Rin Tin Tin’s myriad screen adventures makes a strong case for the noble German Shepherd as one of the great action stars of the silent era. Watching Rin climb walls, knock bad guys off cliffs, leap off rooftops, and such actually generates real thrills.

It’s Showtime: FUNKY

Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song (1971)

          The lore of Melvin Van Peebles’ breakthrough picture is well known, especially since the maverick auteur’s son, Mario Van Peebles, made an entire movie about the creation of Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song. As it happens, Mario’s highly entertaining behind-the-scenes flick, Badasssss! (2003), is much more accessible than Melvin’s guerilla-style original, in part because Mario’s narrative juxtaposes the overwrought subject matter of Sweet Sweetback with amazing tales about the obstacles Melvin surmounted to get the picture completed.

          That said, Sweet Sweetback occupies a unique place in both film history and sociopolitical history. Perhaps more than any other movie made by an African-American director in the ’70s, Sweet Sweetback captures the rage of the Black Power era by presenting a grim parable about a dude who fights back after getting fucked over by The Man. Sweet Sweetback was famously embraced by members of the Black Panther Party during early screenings, and this groundswell of support helped transform a scrappy little underground project into a surprise hit—despite being made for just $150,000, the movie grossed more than $15 million.

          Melvin Van Peebles’ storyline is lurid and nasty. In a brief prologue, young Mario plays the title character as a teenaged orphan—Sweetback earns his nickname by demonstrating tremendous sexual powers while losing his virginity in an L.A. whorehouse. After the movie cuts to the present, Melvin takes over the title role. (In addition to starring, he wrote, produced, directed, and scored the movie.) Now grown into a regular performer at the whorehouse who impresses crowds with his size and stamina while screwing in public, Sweetback is stuck in a degrading life cycle. Naturally, things get worse. Through a convoluted series of events, Sweetback gets framed for a murder and handcuffed to a Black Panther named Mu-Mu (Hubert Scales). Eventually, Sweetback and Mu-Mu escape police custody, resulting in an extended chase. By the climax of the movie, Sweetback makes a solo run for the Mexican border, surviving through the support of black strangers and, at regular intervals, by trading sex for patronage from women.

          Viewed through the most forgiving lens, Sweet Sweetback is a revolutionary fable that both employs and subverts clichés about African-American male identity. It’s also, unmistakably, a call for open revolution—if not necessarily violent uprisings, then at the very least angry protests against the racially imbalanced status quo. Because the picture is so politically charged, appraising Sweet Sweetback’s merits as a cinematic experience is something of a pointless endeavor—rather than being pure entertainment, Sweet Sweetback is an incendiary statement.

          And, indeed, Melvin’s politics are more evolved than his filmmaking skills. Certain segments of Sweet Sweetback have great power thanks to the use of trippy montages accompanied by dense sound design, and some scenes pack a punch simply because they contain so much sex and violence. But while the director/star brings innate tough-guy charisma to his leading performance, the supporting cast mostly comprises nonactors, giving many scenes an amateurish quality. Further, the camerawork is dodgy, with lots of grainy shots and hard-to-read nighttime photography. Yet in the end, it’s the attitude of Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song that makes the movie so unique, and that loud-and-proud perspective is characterized by a provocative slogan on the movie’s poster: “Rated X by an All-White Jury.”

Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song: FREAKY

White Lightning (1973) & Gator (1976)

          The voiceover hype in the trailer says it all: “Burt Reynolds is Gator McCluskey—he’s a booze-runnin’, motor-gunnin’, law-breakin’, love-makin’ rebel. He hits the screen like a bolt of white lightning!” Indeed he does in White Lightning, arguably the best of Reynolds’ myriad ’70s flicks about working-class good ol’ boys mixin’ it up with John Q. Law. Whereas too many of the star’s Southern-fried action pictures devolve into silly comedy—including, to some degree, White Lightning’s sequel, Gator—the first screen appearance of Gator McCluskey is a sweaty, tough thriller pitting a formidable hero against an even more formidable villain. If you’ve got a hankering for swampy pulp, White Lightning is the gen-yoo-wine article.

          When the picture begins, Bobby “Gator” McCluskey (Reynolds) is incarcerated for running moonshine. Meanwhile, back home in the boonies, corrupt Sheriff J.C. Conners (Ned Beatty) causes the death of Gator’s little brother. Once Gator hears the news, he swears revenge and joins an FBI sting operation targeting Conners’ crew. Using a staged jailbreak for cover, Gator hooks up with a moonshiner named Roy Boone (Bo Hopkins) and penetrates Conners’ operation in order to dredge up incriminating facts. However, it’s not long before the no-good sheriff smells a rat, setting the stage for a showdown. Written by William W. Norton and directed by the versatile Joseph Sargent, White Lightning is a no-nonsense thrill ride. Even though the filmmakers cram all the requisite elements into the picture’s lean 101 minutes—including a love story between Gator and Roy’s girl, Lou (Jennifer Billingsley)—the focus remains squarely on Gator’s hunger for vengeance, which manifests in bar brawls, car chases, shootouts, and various other forms of 100-proof conflict.

          Working in the fierce mode of his performance in Deliverance (1972), Reynolds is a he-man force of nature, whether he’s punching his way through hand-to-hand combat or, in his own inimitable fashion, clutching a steering wheel and gritting his teeth while his character guides cars through amazing jumps. Reynolds’ fellow Deliverance veteran, Ned Beatty, makes a fine foil, especially because Beatty defies expectations by underplaying his role—hidden behind thick glasses, with his portly frame bursting out of tight short-sleeve shirts, he’s a picture of heartless greed. The gut-punch score by Charles Bernstain jacks things up, as well, so White Lightning lives up to its name—it goes down smooth, then burns when it hits your system.

          Reynolds let a few years lapse before returning to the character with Gator, which also represented the actor’s directorial debut. Essentially rehashing the narrative of the fist picture, but without the emotional pull of a murdered-relative angle, Gator finds our hero released from prison, again, to take down another corrupt lawman. What Gator lacks in originality, however, it makes up for in casting and production values. Country singer-turned-actor Jerry Reed gives great villain as smooth-talking redneck crook Bama McCall, chubby funnyman Jack Weston generates laughs as a sidekick prone to physical injury, and gap-toothed model-turned-actress Lauren Hutton lends glamour as Gator’s new love interest. (TV host and occasional actor Mike Douglas shows up in a minor role, too.) The sheer amount of property destruction in Gator is impressive, though the movie relies too heavily on spectacle since it can’t match the tension of its predecessor.

          Oddly, the weakest link in Gator is Reynolds’ performance, because the actor veers too far into comedy. By this point sporting his signature moustache and demonstrating his gift for pratfalls and other slapstick silliness, Reynolds seems to occasionally forget he’s making a thriller. Sure, some viewers might find this take on Gator McCluskey more fun to watch than the grim characterization in White Lightning, but it’s worth nothing that Gator helped start Reynolds down the slippery slope into his goofy Smokey and the Bandit and Cannonball Run movies. Gator’s worth a gander, since it’s hard to complain about a movie being too enjoyable, but it’s not as satisfying as the title character’s debut.

White Lightning: GROOVY

Gator: GROOVY