Throwback Thursday on the KAMAD site will be a regular occurrence in the next year. As a motivational project, to make sure I am working on something, even in a week where I don't see a new film in a theater, I am going to post on movies from 1975. Along with 1984, this is one of my favorite years for movies and it is full of bittersweet memories as well. 1975 was my Senior Year in High School and my Freshman Year in College. The greatest film of the last 60 years came out in 1975, as well as dozens of great and not so great cinematic endeavors. Most of the films in this weekly series will have been seen in a theater in 1975, but there are several that I only caught up with later. I hope you all enjoy.
W.W. and the Dixie Dance Kings
This is a piece of Southern Cornpone that was exactly the kind of thing that would fill a summer night perfectly. Burt Reynolds plays W.W., which doesn't stand for anything, a slick gas station hold up man with a charming approach to his victims and all the confidence in the world. The film is set in 1957 at the crux of country and rock and roll music. W.W. gets tied up with a local band wanting to make it big and he tries his best to help them because he is smitten with Dixie, the singer/guitarist and he wants to prove himself to the doubting members of the band. He drives a fancy gold and black Oldsmobile and continues to steal as he is also becoming the manager for the band.
An additional advantage of the film is that it is filled with musical numbers that are pretty entertaining, as long as you can enjoy some country music. Ned Beatty even gets to sing a number. We get a tour of old Nashville, including the Ryman Auditorium which used to host the Grand Old Opry. So the historical surroundings make the film worth a trip as well. The film is full of a lot of colorful characters, some of whom are not particularly attractive. There are several country music stars in the film including Jerry Reed who worked with Burt Reynolds several times in movies in the 1970s.
This film should be better known because it was made by director John G. Avildsen, who would win the Academy Award the next year for "Rocky". You can see some clever little touches in the transition swipes in the film, they are almost certainly attributable to Avildsen's decisions on making the film feel so corny and hip at the same time. Reynold's was apparently irritated by Avildsen however, because the director was not very understanding of the stutter that singer Mel Tillis suffered from, and Tillis appears as one of the gas station attendants that W.W. holds up.
Of course the whole thing would fall apart if Burt Reynolds had not turned on his charm to eleven. The story is dependent on Southern mannerisms and it has some fun with everyone being so polite even when they are robbing, swindling, or chasing the crooks. W.W. is not such a bad guy but he is way over confident when the stakes get higher and his inability to solve the problem he is faced with in the one chance to get some drama into the comedy and chase scenes.
The film is full of verisimilitude with cars, clothes, and songs that are all from the era. The car W.W. drives for most of the movie is an interesting automobile with a real history, and the country and religious stations that are featured on the radio also sound like the real deal. The backroads that W.W. and the band travel are probably unchanged even today, because those off the beaten path Farm to Market roads, still look the same.
There is a story arc for W.W., it is subtle but emotionally rendered. In the end, it is a minor film but a lot of fun.
I don't have a lot to say about this film, it was fine and I liked the main characters, but it is in a rush to get somewhere after the first act, and that was not necessary. The opening section of the film nicely introduced us to the characters we are going to follow and it sets up the premise pretty well. I liked the photography angle and the story about grief is the hook that provides an emotional reason for watching the film. The problem is that once everyone is in the house the movie gets cluttered.
The number of times I have enjoyed the attraction that the film is based on would be hard to count. Most people will be happy to see the consistency of the references. It just seemed to me however that the film was mostly interested in getting in all those Easter eggs and not particularly interested in keeping the emotional thread at the center of events. There are several shots where it seems like there are dozens, maybe even hundreds of ghosts on screen at the same time. The effects in the mansion are rushed and you get no sense of thrill, fear or adventure from them as a result.
There is a lot of frantic running through the mansion and away from ghosts, but at one point it had been suggested that the ghosts were running and that would have been a more interesting way for the story to develop. LaKeith Stanfield and Rosario Dawson sometimes feel like they are in a different movie than the other stars. Their story is potentially frightening and suspenseful. Owen Wilson, Tiffany Haddish and Danny DeVito are all in a movie that is comedy based. Their antics feel the most like the corny elements of the Haunted Mansion Ride. Jared Leto is a fully CGI character, but his voice and mannerisms (I assume motion captured) are correct for the movie, although the lighting and photography usually emphasizes the light hearted spirit of the film, even though his character is supposed to be quite dark.
At heart, this remains a kids movie. It has a PG-13 rating, and I am trying to remember what it was that would have pushed it over the PG edge. Maybe the subject of spooks is just enough to have the MPAA and the film makers squeamish about showing it to kids, but I think if your kids have seen Ninja Turtles, then they are probably fine to see this without too many reservations. I do think the fact that all the effects are CG does tend to render the film a little more safe, that's an artistic and financial choice that Disney has made.
The 2003 version with Eddie Murphy is a vague memory. I think a couple of characters share the same names, but the story premise was not anything like this, at least as far as I recall. It looks like if you want to see this in a theater, you should get cracking. Last week's boxoffice was weak, we were the only two in the theater today, and other films are sucking up all the oxygen, so this will probably be streaming by September.
This year makes the 40th Anniversary of some of our favorite films. The Summer Classic series is featuring several of them and that makes me pretty happy, as does this film. "The Big Chill" is not the kind of film you see much anymore. It is a character piece, dependent on a good script and a talented cast. There are several incidents in the story, but the major event that brings all of the characters together, happens at the start of the film and mostly off screen.
When you look at the cast of the film, it is pretty impressive. Kevin Kline, future Oscar winner, William Hurt, future Oscar winner, Glenn Close, multiple Oscar nominations, Tom Berenger, future Oscar Nominee, Jeff Goldblum, film icon with no nominations, Mary Kay Place, Emmy winner, Meg Tilly future Oscar Nominee and JoBeth Williams, fresh off her triumph of "Poltergeist". This was a talented cast for sure. (Oh Yeah, Kevin Costner was famously cut from the film) They were gifted with the chance to work with screenwriter/director Lawrence Kasdan, who would be nominated for the screenplay of this film. The film would also be nominated for Best Picture.
What most people of my generation and a little earlier, will most vividly remember about the film is the soundtrack. The film is filled with needle drops that will evoke a smile, a winsome memory or outright want to make you start dancing yourself. The story centers on a group of college friends, from the radical 1960s, who, fifteen years later, come together and question the choices that they have made. It is sometimes sorrowful and not everyone is convivial about connecting again. The suicide of one of their friends is the catalyst for everything that happens, but it is the sincerity of the characters and especially the actors that make it work. When they dance in the kitchen, you can believe for a moment that they have recovered some common ground. The Motown classics on the stereo probably echo even more for them since they are all graduates from the University of Michigan.
Everyone who had a close group of friends in their teens or college years, knows that even though your lives may have diverged, that common experience was something that shaped you and keeps you connected in spite of long periods of absence. Sitting together on the couch after a funeral, commiserating about the decedent and your past, is exactly the way most of us would give a group hug to get through the moment. The fact that it sometimes becomes tense does not diminish the importance of the relationships.
In addition to the music, the thing that most makes this film memorable is the humor. Tom Berenger's Hollywood TV star trying to make the leap into a convertible like he does in the opening of his show is sure to get a laugh. Mary Kay Place offering sardonic commentary on the clients she represented as a criminal attorney was priceless. And throughout the film, Jeff Goldblum steals every scene he is in, even the ones where his character is passed out. There is a lot to relish about "The Big Chill" which is why it is so great to see it again with an audience on the big screen.
We had started the day with "Disney's Sleeping Beauty", but we finished it with two Vincent Price Horror Classics. A pretty good juxtaposition for a Saturday spent in a movie theater.
HOUSE OF WAX
Vincent Price started his career as a horror icon with this 1953 production. Up to this point he had been a reliable secondary character who sometimes got a chance to steal a scene, but this is the film where his melodious voice starts being used for terrifying purposes. If you watch the trailer above, Price gets a small mention. but the thing that was being used to sell this movie was the 3-D presentation. I know that I saw this in 3-D at one point, because I remembered a couple of the obvious gimmicks they included to make the 3-D pop. I had this on my itinerary for the TCM Festival this year, but when we had to cancel our attendance at the last moment because our dog had to have life saving surgery, it went by the wayside, along with all of my other plans and money.
Fortunately, The Paramount Classic Summer Film Series programmed it for this year. Maybe as a result of Steve, the main programmer having seen it himself at the TCMFF, which he referenced in his introduction of the films. Unfortunately this was not a 3-D screening, but the film doesn't really need that gimmick to work, it is very solid on it's own. Price is Professor Henry Jarrord, a sculptor who works in wax back in NYC around the turn of the 20th Century. He has great artistic pretentions and is a little too enamored by his Marie Antionette. When his business partner tries to murder him in an act of arson, he appears to have survived, but his hands are so injured that he cannot sculpt anymore. How does he compensate? Ah, that is where the mystery comes in.
The plotting is a little old fashioned but it moves along at a solid pace and the actors are interesting enough for us to follow along. Especially delightful is Carolyn Jones who most people will recognize from the 1960s version of the Addams Family. She plays the roommate of the main female lead, a girl who is a little free for the times and ends up like a lot of sexually liberated teens do in modern slashers. Her friend and the main character Sue is played by Phillis Kirk (pretty close to my Mom's Name, they both had SAG cards in the early fifties). The movie plays out as Sue is stalked by a mysterious lurker, and a boy she is romantically involved with, takes a role as sculptor for Jarrod's revived House of Wax.
There are several grim scenes that might bug sensitive souls, but there is no gore in the film. The Wax figures are interesting but the set up is primitive compared to the way later exhibits would take on the sensational and macabre scenes that draw people in addition to celebrity's figures. Price is just great as a talented but demented figure, driven mad by the loss of his life's work and his talents. You will get a kick over his enthusiastic line readings when he talks about the sculptures as if they are real. He romanticizes his work to the nth degree.
THEATER OF BLOOD
To the best of my recollection, I saw this while I was in High School. My friend Don Hayes seems to remember going with me, and that is quite possible. I know we saw "The House That Dripped Blood" together and so it's very likely we saw this one as well. Vincent Price himself thought of this as one of his favorite films, and it is easy to see why. In addition to playing a mad actor wreaking revenge on critics who had maligned him, he gets a chance to quote liberally from the works of Shakespeare and it is a bit like a compilation reel for a stage actor to have when called for. His range is very good.
Like most horror films, it is the kills that the audience is waiting for and the trick here is that Edward Lionheart, the actor Price is playing, uses scenes from the Shakespeare plays he performed in his last repertory season. The film is as much a comedy as it is a horror film, so the gruesome deaths are often accompanied by a quip or two that might have come from either the Bard himself, or a stage critic. Either way, the justice that Lionheart feels he is doling out is poetic as a result.
The film might very well encourage you to seek out some of the plays featured, because they are not all the best known of Shakespeare's works. One of the critic's continues to be dismissive of Lionheart, even after several murders when he points out that "The Merchant of Venice" has no murder in it, he declares " It's him, all right. Only Lionheart would have the temerity to rewrite Shakespeare!". Of course others have been doing so for years before and after this film, but it is still a funny line.
As we encounter the critics, we can begin to see the coarseness of their opinions and the way those words might have a deeper impact than merely being playful metaphors in a review. Although it is one of the more creative murders in the story, the death of Robert Morely's character feels a little sadder because it is not just he who suffers the wrath of Lionheart. I heard several intakes of breath at the screening when audience members suddenly realized what was about to be revealed. It was a cruel moment with a horrifying visual exclamation point, but it is also completely memorable and in keeping with the thrust of the film.
The band of addicts that make up Lionheart's new troupe of actors are the strangest part of the story, but I am willing to go along with their crazy behavior as long as it makes the film interesting. Diana Rigg plays Edward's loyal daughter and biggest fan. She bounces between scenes as a member of the crazed troupe and as a tech working on films, who provides some exposition for the chief critic that will be the last target of Lionheart. There are several very recognizable actors who play the guest victims if the film, and they also seem to be having some fun.
In a complete turnaround from the previous night's Rocky Horror extravaganza, the Paramount had this Walt Disney Classic Scheduled, complete with Princess Aurora in the lobby to take pictures with for all the little princesses who came to the screening. Amanda was wearing her Sleeping Beauty dress, but I could not convince her to pose with Aurora.
Disney's Sleeping Beauty was the last of the strictly hand drawn animation films, other processes using different technologies have followed. It is a fabulous looking movie with vivid colors, detailed backgrounds and characters with very distinctive features. The three fairies Flora, Fauna and Merryweather are delightful in their differences, and the color scheme becomes a running joke in the film, which ties them to the vision of the movie as well as the plot.
In fact, the good fairies are really the main characters in the movie even though there is a love story and a hero. Merryweather is able to change the evil spell that Maleficent, an evil fairy has cast, so that it is sleep rather than death which ensnares the princess. The fairies are the ones who take the princess as an infant and hide her. When they discover that the young man that Briar Rose (Aurora) has fallen in love with, it is they who come to his rescue when he is captured by Maleficent. They give him weapons to fight her and cast spells to assist him. Aurora and Prince Phillip are almost secondary characters to the story of the fairies.
The film uses a score adapted from the Tchaikovsky's ballet "Sleeping Beauty." The music then feels completely familiar. The main theme which becomes the song "Once Upon a Dream" is lovely and very recognizable, even for neophytes of the ballet world. The style of the castles seems to be authentic of mediaeval European eras but my guess is that is was most closely based on the castle that was already at Disneyland and called Sleeping Beauty's castle, even before the film was finished.
Maleficent is an evil and compelling villain and her look was so effective that when the reimagining of fairy tales fad took over a few years ago, she was a natural. I did not really think it was needed, and I am happy with this iteration of her character. The animals in the film are well used, including three birds who reflect the colors of the good fairies and the raven which is Maleficent's familiar. The two kings are great contrasts visually, one being stout and the other quite lean.
Just as an aside, this is one of the most beautiful LaserDisc packages of a movie.
The greatest cult movie of all time was featured in the Summer Classic Film Series at the Paramount Theater in Austin last night. The theater was packed with over 900 unconventional conventioneers.
It may have been almost forty years since I saw this in a theater with an enthusiastic crowd. Thank goodness for this opportunity, because I'm not sure I will ever make it to a midnight screening again. Last night's show was at 9 pm, and I don't think waiting another three hours would have made the crowd any less raucous.
Almost a third of the crowd had some kind of costuming. Some were quite elaborate and accurate to the screen characters, others just went with the spirit of the film without trying to do literal cosplay. I myself has a medical coat, I could just not bring myself to only wearing my underwear underneath. I think I spared the rest of the audience some trauma as a result.
The Paramount is an older Movie Palace, so in deference to maintaining her condition, many of the props I remember from my days of Midnight screenings were missing. No Cards, Toast, Rice, Squirt Guns were present, and I did not see a Janet Umbrella, although it would be fine to use those. Maybe the fact that no one reads newspapers is the explanation for that.
Many of the call backs, shout outs and interjections that were from my days, were still being used. Brad is still an Asshole, Janet is a Slut and Rocky Responds "What!" at several points. There were new comments being shouted as well, and a few audience members were over doing it because they insisted that everything have a commentary. That might have been a little irritating if not for the fact that the audience also joyfully sang along with most of the songs. The biggest response was of course when Tim Curry descends in the elevator for his big reveal, the audience response go even wilder.
It was so much fun being out with fans who really want to get into the experience.
Throwback Thursday on the KAMAD site will be a regular occurrence in the next year. As a motivational project, to make sure I am working on something, even in a week where I don't see a new film in a theater, I am going to post on movies from 1975. Along with 1984, this is one of my favorite years for movies and it is full of bittersweet memories as well. 1975 was my Senior Year in High School and my Freshman Year in College. The greatest film of the last 60 years came out in 1975, as well as dozens of great and not so great cinematic endeavors. Most of the films in this weekly series will have been seen in a theater in 1975, but there are several that I only caught up with later. I hope you all enjoy.
Report to the Commissioner
One of the lost gems of 1975 is this gritty police thriller that draws us once again into the mean streets of NYC in the seventies. Much like "Serpico" which came out two years earlier, it follows a rookie police detective as he ends up over his head with official corruption and nasty criminals which are hard to sort out. It is hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys sometimes, because the cops can get just as violent as the crooks. There is also a heavy pall of racism hanging over the detective squad that our young protagonist is assigned to.
It's tough enough being the new guy in any situation, school, a party, or the workplace. When you don't fit in physically or culturally, the inside group looks at you with suspicion and mistrust, and that is the scenario that faces Bo Lockley, played by Michael Moriarty. Moriarty was an interesting actor who is still working but has moved to material that is far from the quality work he did early in his career. He has a baby face and a mild voice, which makes him perfect for the naive and idealistic Detective Lockley. The sincerity of the character is what ends up bringing on the major dramatic points of the film.
Just a quick, synopsis as we get going. Detective Supervisor Hanson and Captain D'Angelo, authorize a questionable undercover operation featuring a pretty young policewoman. Bo Lockley is unwittingly used as cover for her identity, but his dogged pursuit of his assignment, runs afoul of the operation. Hanson is played by character actor Michael McGuire, who will come up in a post on "Hard Times" later this year. D'Angelo is played by the great Hector Elizondo. The year before, he had played the arrogant pain in the ass who may be so mad they threw him out of the Mafia Mr. Grey, in "The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3". D'Angelo is politically adept but soulless and it is his arrogance that leads to the complicated resolution of the storyline.
The film is filled with actors that you will know and others you will recognize. Yappet Kotto is in another NY Detective Squad, and he plays Bo's training officer/partner. Dana Eclar , who you may recognize from "The Sting" and Vic Tayback, play Kotto and Moriarty's superiors. William Devane shows up late in the movie to play a slick,sympathetic, but sinister district attorney, Sonny Grosso, the real life detective that Roy Scheider's character is based on in "The French Connection", plays another detective, naturally. Richard Gere makes his film debut as that most elusive creature, the white pimp.
Susan Blakely, who had a bit part in "Shampoo" and was about to become a TV Icon in "Rich Man, Poor Man", is the doomed undercover detective, who was the women no one could believe was a cop, and sent hundreds of pushers to prison. Her crusading ingenue has a pretty broad range of what is acceptable undercover work. The fact that she is dedicated to staying undercover is one of the complications that the film features as part of the story.
I saw this movie originally, at the El Rey Theater in Alhambra (a location that no longer exists). I went with my best friend Art, who worked for the Edwards Movie chain and got us in for free. I think I paid to see the movie again a couple of weeks later. Or, it may have been a second feature with some other film I saw, and fifty years later I just don't remember.
The two scenes that I do remember vividly were very different from one another. Bob Balaban, plays Joey, a Vietnam War veteran, injured mentally and physically. Bo becomes a bit of a friend of his by returning the roller sled he uses to push himself around the streets on, having lost the lower portions of his legs. Years later, I saw Eddie Murphy riffing on a character like this in "Trading Places". Anyway, Joey tries to follow Blakley's character for Bo, while Bo is having trouble finding a functioning payphone. The sequence I remember is him rolling through the traffic of NYC and holding onto the bumper of a Taxi, so he could keep up with the subjects he is following. It was a pretty harrowing chase, and very different from the usual car chases you get in movies.
The other memorable sequence is the climax of the film, when Bo and "Stick", the pusher/arms dealer that the woman detective was ingratiating herself with, get trapped in an Elevator at Saks 5th Ave, and basically have a Mexican Standoff with each other in a claustrophobic environment. Cop and crook are faced with bad choices and the characters do a little philosophizing while there.
The film is filled with the casual racism of the era, and Yappet Kotto expresses some of the dissonance that he has to accept in order to fit in with his fellow cops. Moriarty is basically playing a hippie type and that also is a source of the alienation he seems to have, even from his own father, for whom he really joined the force for. The squad rooms, decaying lofts, marquees of the Times Square Theaters, all give this film an aura of the times. It is gritty, dangerous and exciting all at once. Bo gets swallowed up in it, just as his partner predicted, and some of the higher ups try to take advantage of that.
Formatting the story as a series of flashbacks, usually punctuating some narration from "The Report", the film feels fresh in contrast to some of the other movies of the time. Director Milton Katselas was a respected acting coach and teacher at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. "Butterfly's are Free" is probably the best know of the few films he directed.
Although the report that is submitted, finally clears things up, this is another one of those 1970s films with a downer ending. "Chinatown", "Dog Day Afternoon", "Electra Glide in Blue" and a dozen others, all follow the trend of the time, and this picture does as well. In this case, the ending is earned, but that doesn't make it any less despairing.
