Swashbuckler 1976 A Movie A Day Day 60

SWASHBUCKLER: Movie TrailerMovie Trailers, Peter Boyle

OK, a second day in a row on the ocean with the great Robert Shaw. Amanda took a class on the films of Steven Spielberg last year, and her professor said that after making Jaws, Spielberg wanted to make a pirate movie with Robert Shaw. It turned out that he was already making this pirate movie so Spielberg waited 15 more years and made Hook, part pirate part kids movie. If you have ever seen Hook, you know it is a great looking movie but it moves like an elephant and feels like a musical without the songs. A pirate movie needs to be lively, quick and have a great sense of adventure to it, for the most part this movie accomplishes those objectives.

Shaw looks great in his red outfit, swinging from the mast to rescue his buddy in the opening scene. His pirate partner is none other then Darth Vader himself, the terrific James Earl Jones. The movie opens with Jones about to be hung and his pirate buddies coming to the rescue and shooting their cannons at the whole fort. They didn't waste time setting this up, it is as if we stepped into the story as is is actually going along. The only thing wrong with the opening is that Beau Bridges is overplaying the comedic role and seems not to be in on the fun. You know it is a lighthearted movie when the military man after the pirates is called Major Folly. He reoccurs in several places and there is just the same sort of edge to his performance. It does not seem relaxed and confident, it comes across as shrill and a bit annoying. Other than that I have no complaints about the picture.

A couple of things I had always remembered from the movie were how Peter Boyle, the evil Governor of Jamaica was having his back waxed as he lays out one of his plots. I always thought it was a little disgusting, especially when we see the dirt in the wax cast pulled off of his back. The other item I remember, was that he had a lute playing boyfriend that he is in the tub with at one point. This guy had some long claws that he would put on to torture a victim, and they turned out to be his undoing in the end. Boyle seems like an odd choice to be playing this part, he has a very modern voice and his eyes are a little out of whack, so I'm not sure it is the best choice in the world, but he plays the part oozing menace to everyone around him. There is no charm in him as a villain but there is plenty of hate that we build up and we are ready to see him vanquished.

A couple of other casting notes, Angelica Huston is cast as the villains female love interest and she is billed as Woman of Dark Visage. She has no name and she also has no lines, same as the boyfriend. I thought it was interesting that opposite Shaw was Genvieve Bujold, who played Anne Boleyn in "Anne of a 1000 Days" for which she received an Academy Award nomination. Two years before her nomination, Shaw had been nominated for an Academy Award for playing Henry VIII in "A Man for All Seasons". So in a way they were cast together again in this film, although they actually were in different movies. Geoffry Holder, know as Baron Samedi in the James Bond film, "Live and Let Die" also appears as a knife throwing pirate. People of my generation will remember him from the Uncola ads for 7Up in the 1970's. He also has a terrific voice, and works a lot like James Earl Jones doing voice-work. It is great to see them on screen and together here.

Dee and I saw this movie in Cerritos, the year it came out. We had really just begun dating seriously, so it might be one of the first movies I ever took her to. I'm not sure if she liked it as well as I did, but if she did not, she has kept it hidden for a long time. Amanda is a Robert Shaw completist, so she is looking for all of his movies. We watched this a year or so ago when it came in the mail and she seemed to like it. Today she was a little distracted as we all are since Dee and I are leaving for Alaska and we have a lot to do. I wanted to get this one last blog post in before I take a week off. Amanda will be updating you for the next few days so enjoy.

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The Deep (1977) - A Movie A Day Day 59

After Jaws was a huge bestsellar, and after it became the biggest movie in history, the author Peter Benchley was hot, hot, hot. He wrote several more books that featured nautical themes. The most successful of his non-Jaws works was "The Deep". Film makers were quick to grab onto his concepts and turn them into commercial properties. I have never read any of his novels except Jaws. It is an OK book, but a much better movie. I have even told Amanda that she should not taint her movie crush on Jaws by reading the novel. The Deep on the other hand is not in the same class. It is a fine film but not on the same plane of existence as Jaws, although the makers of the film did everything they could to keep the idea of Jaws in the audience's head while promoting the movie.


Of course the first thing to exploit was the name of Peter Benchley as the author. You heard it mentioned in the trailer, radio ads, TV ads and on the poster. Speaking of the poster, it is a reversal of the original Jaws image, the struggling girl is under the water trying to reach the surface instead of being on the surface threatened by something under the water. Even the color palate of the poster is reminiscent of the earlier film. Finally, they may have killed off Quint in the 1975 classic, but they try to revive him in this movie. Robert Shaw returns, not as the same rough-hewn fisherman, but as a well know treasure hunter that also knows the ins and outs of the local criminal scene. He doesn't have the same colorful mannerisms, but he has all the testosterone that a movie like this needs. Nick Nolte should have been enough, but his character is young, eager and although skilled at physical challenges like climbing Mt. Everest, he lacks much direction. It takes an old salt like Treece to show the young guns how things really work.

The biggest asset in promoting the movie was probably not any of these things. The other star of the movie is Jacqueline Bisset, and she earns half of the movies take in the opening scene of the movie. She was and is one of the most beautiful women to ever appear in films. In this movie, she is diving and searching through the sunken ship in the first segment, wearing a white tee shirt and her diving gear. This is where the idea for wet tee shirt contests came from. She is not nude in the film, but is tantalizingly close to it and that image was on posters and in movie magazines, so you know that the male segment of the audience came looking for her. The movie business changes in the 1980's, teen films featuring topless actresses would become ubiquitous, but in 1977 unless you went to a grindhouse or a drive-in, you did not see this kind of image, and no one in any of those kinds of movies ever looked like Jacqueline Bisset.

This is a great summer movie for some very basic reasons. There is adventure in the treasure hunt, danger in the shipwreck and on the land, and a beautiful woman in jeopardy, that everyone wants to see succeed. The opening segment brings in the under sea danger and sets up the resolution of the movie very clearly. It is telegraphed but not in such a way that we don't care when it happens. There are two or three good fight scenes that are violent and in two of the situations events come out the way we would hope for our heroes. Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset are the eye candy, they are a bit stiff and shrill in their performances, but they are a good looking couple that the audience can identify with. Robert Shaw gets to match wits and acting talent with two well know scene stealers, Louis Gossett Jr. and Eli Wallach. Both of these pros bring exactly what is needed to the proceedings, a little bit of honest acting and some menace to ratchet up the tension. The music for The Deep was written by John Barry, a guy who did more James Bond films then either Sean Connery or Roger Moore. The score is effective but not obtrusive until the final credits, and then we get a disco tuned theme song. In the film as I looked at it today, we don't get a vocal performance, it may be somewhere in the background of the movie, but Donna Summer is credited with singing the title song. It is so out of place with the rest of the music it was a little startling. Maybe it would have fit if there had been some more Caribbean themed music in the movie.

For a summer evening in 1977, Dolores and I enjoyed this film at the Santa Anita Cinema. They were small theaters so when a moderately popular film played, the house was usually pretty full. The images of the film are what is memorable about it, the story is mostly boiler plate adventure stuff. It was well produced and competently directed, and best of all for the investors, it was sold properly. A couple of years later, Benchley's book "The Island" was made into another summer film, this one starring Michael Caine. He should apparently stay away from the ocean because,"The Island" ended Benchley's winning streak and Jaws the Revenge could have ended his. Better to remember the two summer films from Benchley that worked, including this effective but not classic thriller.

The Wind And The Lion-1975 A Movie A Day Day 58

This is the Rif. I am Mulay Ahmed Muhamed Raisuli the Magnificent, sherif of the Riffian Berbers. I am the true defender of the faithful and the blood of the prophet runs in me and I am but a servant of his will.

1975 was a fantastic year for movies. I have already written about the great Spielberg film of Jaws, Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Bite the Bullet. Two of my favorite films of all time came out in 1975, both starred Sean Connery and both have a connection to the great John Huston. Huston directs Connery and Michael Caine in "The Man Who Would be King" which would not be released until December. In "The Wind and the Lion" however, John Huston is on screen as an actor, playing Secretary of State John Hay to Brian Keith's Theodore Roosevelt. This is our movie of the day posting for today, but it may be the Movie of the Week posting and maybe of the Summer. I have seen Jaws a hundred times and it is as I've said before, Spielberg's masterpiece. "The Wind and the Lion" may not be in the same league, but it is the most romantic, thrilling and emotionally evocative movie I have watched for this blog this summer. I have already said that I am a sucker for a swashbuckler movie. Errol Flynn in Robin Hood is my favorite film, but "The Wind and the Lion" came out in theaters when I was alive and going to movies. I did not experience it for the first time on Television, it did not exist before I was even born, instead, it burst forth the summer I graduated high school, it starred the man that made James Bond my favorite character and it features the music of my favorite film composer. This confluence of events is just too overwhelming for me to be dispassionate about. I have said before and my family will confirm, I am a romantic at heart. My throat closes tight at a romantic gesture, my eyes weal up in tears at heroic moments and I have to catch my breath at the beauty of certain images. All of these things happen in this movie.

When I wrote about seeing Jaws back on the fourth of July, I mentioned that Dan Hasegawa and I saw it without our friend Art Franz, because he was taking a girl out to another movie. This was the movie he took Laura Charca to see, before he went into the Army later that Summer. I saw this movie by myself, at the Alhambra Theater, probably in August of that summer. It took a while for it to make it's way out to our neighborhood. Art was trying to impress Laura, so I know he took her down to Hollywood to see this. My second year on the debate team at U.S.C., a guy from Fresno State transferred in, his name was Dave Cosloy. He actually was debate partners with Dan at the University of Utah tournament in January 1977. Rick Rollino and I were debating together at that point, and we all were staying at the home of one of the Utah debaters. I remember how cool it was when sitting in this house, surrounded by snow, getting ready to go to the tournament, Cosloy shouted out "I am Mulay Ahmed Muhamed Raisuli the Magnificent, sherif of the Riffian Berbers. I am the true defender of the faithful and the blood of the prophet runs in me and I am but a servant of his will." Another movie romantic was in our midst. Someone else shared my love of this movie, and he knew the quote and used it. I had never done that before, but I have many times since felt compelled to proclaim myself Raisuli.

There are historical and political overtones everywhere in this movie. So in addition to swordplay and horses and explosions, we get Theodore Roosevelt and the Big Stick Policy. The movie is based on an actual event involving a businessman being held for ransom by Berber pirates. The character is changed to a woman, which of course make the kidnapping and rescue romantic automatically. The goal is not mere ransom, but rather there are political objectives. And the two characters of the President of the U.S. and the Muslim sherif are contrasted as a way of seeing the change in world affairs and how each sees the adventure and romance being taken out of the conflicts and politics of the future. I apologize for another Jaws reference here but it is necessary. If Robert Shaw was robbed by not even being nominated for his role in Jaws, then Brian Keith was also mugged by the same bandits. He embodied the character of the American President so well, that even today, when I read biographies about Roosevelt, I can still hear Keith's voice. He has some incredible lines in the movie, that probably were never said by Teddy but should have been.Theodore Roosevelt:" The American grizzly is a symbol of the American character: strength, intelligence, ferocity. Maybe a little blind and reckless at times... but courageous beyond all doubt. And one other trait that goes with all previous.Loneliness. The American grizzly lives out his life alone. Indomitable, unconquered - but always alone. He has no real allies, only enemies, but none of them as great as he. The world will never love us. They respect us - they might even grow to fear us. But they will never love us, for we have too much audacity! And, we're a bit blind and reckless at times too.

The other stars of the film are also excellent. Sean Connery might seem an odd choice for the part of a desert dwelling Arab/Berber but the beard and the gleam in his eye work perfectly. The slap he gives Candice Bergen when they first meet is harsh, but we come to see that it has less to do with his personal ego and everything to do with the cultural standards of status in his world. At least he does not behead her as he does others that disrespect him. Candice Bergen is just proper and aloof enough to fit into the character of a woman of the time, but also sensitive enough to be romantically moved by a man that faces death to possess her, even if it is in a chaste way. Geoffrey Lewis, working without Clint this summer, was good casting as the American Ambassador, John Huston, with that magisterial voice comes across as the political voice of reason that understands what Roosevelt needs and also what he represents. Roosevelt is the American character at the turn of the twentieth century. Brash, confident, unwilling to acknowledge weakness but also recognizing the burdens we were assuming in the world, and sad that the world we would dominate will never be the one that we would most like it to be.

Jerry Goldsmith, was nominated 18 times for the Academy Award for his music. He won only once, for "The Omen" in 1976. The score for "The Wind and the Lion" may very well be his best. The timpani and horns are stirring and romantic. There are elements of two other scores of his in the film. In the battle scenes you can here the forerunner of his Klingon theme from the Star Trek film in 1979. And as Mrs. Pedecaris and her children are trying to escape, there are echos of the Planet of the Apes Theme he did a few years earlier. This is one of the pieces of music I have on my i-pod right now. The suite from the collection of music in this film is featured on the two disc Jerry Goldsmith collection that is available. Well worth listening to all by itself. There is a small taste included here.

I can't think of many ways to spend a better two hours than watching this movie. If you have the heart of a romantic and always wanted to be a hero in an adventure, you can identify with most of this movie. Even better than that, we have a real American Hero, portrayed warts and all in an indelible performance. So what are you waiting for?

To Theodore Roosevelt - you are like the Wind and I like the Lion. You form the Tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the Ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours. - Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates.