These were my two favorite films last year. I treat them a bit like I do the Lord of the Rings films, they are a piece and should always be connected to one another. Getting a chance to see both of them on the bog screen again was fantastic, and delightfully, they are shown as the story chronologically, not in how they reached the audience the first time around. I am not the only one with high praise for the films, the Paramount's main programmer Stephen Jannise, said as much when he introduced the program on Saturday night.
The audience was packed and it was a great surprise to see that more than half of the people attending indicated that this was going to be a first time watch for them. Listening to the laughter and the sound of breath being held, the audience got the picture. It sure sounded like they were responding appropriately. Having just reviewed these films last year, I will skip most of the critical analysis and direct you to those two reviews. "X" was the first to be released. It is the one set in 1979 and it owes everything to the Drive-In exploitation films of the era. Later this week we will be seeing the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and it would be a good companion piece to watch if you want a sense of the tone of films from this period.
"Pearl" is the prequel that came after the star and director created such an elaborate backstory for the character in X, that they had basically created another movie. More ambitious in story than "X", and although she does not get to play two roles in the film like she did in "X", Mia Goth simply takes your breathe away with the strength of her performance. If you want to be disturbed by a character, you could just skip to the credits at the end of this movie watch her smile for four or five minutes straight. It is as eerie as anything in that other horror film from the same month "Smile".
Watching the films in chronological order is not essential, but it does make the events of "X" a lot more understandable. Howard as a character is the one who seems to have changed the most in the sixty years between the events. If there is ever going to be a spinoff series, his story arc would probably be the place to start. Of course we are all anticipating the third film in the "X" universe. Maxxxine is currently in post production, for a release sometime next year. Naturally, I'd hoped somehow that we would get the first drop of the trailer for that film, sadly it was not to be. There was an odd performance by a local drag celebrity prior to the first film, it seems to have been inspired by "Pearl" even if it was not particularly organic.
The Paramount did a nice job setting up some photo ops for fans. We of course took advantage and here are a few of the pictures.
Here is the teaser trailer for Maxxxine that ran at the end of "Pearl" in it's original release, but not last Saturday at the Panic! at the Paramount screening.
I am not a Swiftie by any stretch of the imagination. I enjoyed several of her early recordings in a casual way but I have never listened to a whole album except in the car when being played by my daughter who is a big fan. She actually attended two of the L.A. Concerts that this movie was made from, and I suspect seeing this film is a way to reconnect with that experience as well as putting more money into Taylor Swift's bank account. The idea of five shows at a sold out SoFi Stadium is impressive, that's well over a quarter of a million people seeing this in the one venue. I remember when Led Zeppelin did six shows at the nearby Forum back in the seventies and that seemed like an impressive number. The experience though has to be extremely different.
The idea of covering different periods of her musical journey is a good one, I was a little surprised that it was not chronological, but there may be a reason for that. Of the ten albums that she features in the show, the strongest songs are from the middle and early years, although I did appreciate a few bits that take place in the final album, I think the songs work much more effectively in a live show than they did in the car. When listening to her while driving, the latest period of her music sounds faceless, tuneless and lacking melody. On stage, with a dance troop, visual effects, and a lot more personality in the presentation, they came off pretty well.
Visually, the concert experience was incredibly ambitious, with an elaborate stage, proscenium and background sets, there was a lot to look at. The stage floor as well as the proscenium extending out on the field of the stadium, are integrated with video feeds that constantly change and reflect the songs or eras that are being performed. My favorite visual moment took place when she appears to dive right into the floor below her and can he seen moving as if under the surface of the water until she emerges, complete with costume change at the other end of the outcrop. Sections of the stage raise and lower depending on what is called for and they contain dance sequences, pantomimes and sets that make up what comes across as the world's most elaborate cabaret act.
Maybe the filming of the concert draws attention to a mild weakness from my point of view. There are way too many dance sequences that consist of Taylor Swift, flanked by her primary dancers, walking in synchronized steps down toward the front of the proscenium. Often they have the detached facial expressions of models on a runway but in a more martial formation and maybe a little too ponderous. If it happened only seven or eight times I might not have cared, but by the middle of the film I had had my fill of this particular choreography. Had I been in the stadium, I doubt that this would have bothered me, but it seems like director Sam Wench is in love with that shot and uses it whenever there is nothing else to focus on.
Taylor Swift herself is working her butt off to make the show come alive. I don't think she has a personality that is compelling enough to hold us by itself, but she does have the dance moves down, and she maximizes movement and vocal performance for the best effect possible. When she just addresses the crowd, I think she is sincere but not compelling and she is much better when she plays or sings. The band does appear in a couple of numbers, but for the most part they are sequestered to the side of the stage, hidden from view like the orchestra at a Broadway musical or an opera. For my money, her best moments were during the acoustical set when she is just playing the guitar and singing and is not trying out for a part in the latest Circe de solei extravaganza in Vegas. Some of the moments in the show reminded me of a skit being put on to a record in the background, but other set pieces worked really well. The dancers in the cubicals that descend to the stage, that was great. The dinner table song with a solo dancer acting out a break up dinner date seemed trite.
The show looks great and the high definition photography enhances all the sets and costumes. All of the dancers were excellent and I noticed that they often came in various sizes so that was a nice plus. The back up singers provide terrific support but ultimately it is Taylor Swift you have to love to love the movie. She has many moments where her voice does make an impact, but there were a lot of numbers, especially in the first half of this nearly three hour production, where she is letting the dancing do all the work. Taylor Swift fans will love the movie, movie fans will appreciate the technical aspects and sound quality.
By the way, I saw this with an audience full of Taylor Swift Fans. They were exchanging friendship bracelets, they were decked out in clubbing attire, and they stood up and danced in the movie theater during several moments in the film. So it really enhanced the "live" vibe of the movie. I don't know if the film will play as well without the fan enthusiasm. If they can keep up that energy level for forty more days, maybe they can knock that "Barbie" monstrosity off the top perch of films for the year.
It probably won't happen but it would make me feel better about the movie going public if it did.
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.
Day of the Locust
Well it turns out there was a reason I never rushed to see this film when it came out in 1975. "The Day of the Locust" is a dour, black hearted takedown of the Hollywood Dream and by association the American Dream. It is showered in technical excellence in performances, production design and cinematography, but it is also lathered up by the most vile version of failed movie people you are likely to see this side of "Babylon". At least this film avoids the elephant shit.
One of the reasons I never followed up on the film is that I could never get a sense of what it was about. Maybe I missed the trailers because the one above is pretty direct in saying it is the underside of Hollywood that we are going to see. Look, I know that there was a dark side to the Golden Age, there are always flip sides to any story. It's just there there is almost no one that you care about in the story, so whatever tragic outcome shows up will probably be met with indifference. Donald Sutherland is listed as the first lead in the movie and he does not appear for three quarters of an hour into what we see on screen. Meanwhile, we are introduced to a strange relationship that never takes on the quality it needs to make us want to know more about the two figures who are really at the center of the picture. William Atherton may have the most sympathetic role of his career here. He is notoriously the obnoxious prick in 80s comedies and action films. Maybe he is more sympathetic as a terrorist on the Hindenburg than here, because his character literally tries to rape a woman, and then apologize for it. So Drunken Rapist or murderer against the Nazi Airship, which one is the most appealing character? This was probably his biggest role and he is very good in it, but again, it is hard to feel sorry for people who are so obliviously self destructive.
Karen Black, is the star of the film, playing Faye Greener, an aspiring actress who is struggling to get extra work, and lives with her aging vaudeville performer father played by Burgess Meredith. Faye is a character who seems like she could be appealing to start with, but she rapidly is revealed as a potential gold-digger, and she certainly is aware of the effect she has on the men around her. She is self centered and leads Atherton's character as well as Sutherland and Bo Hopkins and Pepe Serna on for most of the movie. She is mercurial and insecure and thoughtless to the men in her life. You almost sympathize with Atherton's Tod when he does assault her. Maybe we could have more sympathy when she is forced to resort to prostitution, except she is such a bitch to everyone around her that it seems like maybe she has found her real niche.
Fecklessness thy name is Homer Simpson. Not the cartoon character, but the Sutherland role in the film. As a lonely man, maybe a cloistered homosexual, he has difficulty relating to others and when Faye latches on to him, it's like watching a cat play with a mouse. The incongruity of their relationship and her continued connection to Tod is simply befuddling. No one is getting what they want from any of the connections they are forming. Everyone feels like an object of pity. Little Person actor Billy Barty is aggressively confrontational in what is likely to be the biggest role of his career, and Burgess Meredith pushes the pity button but also is cloyingly cliched.
Director John Schlesinger has mounted a admirable visualization of old Hollywood, finding the homes in the hills to shoot scenes at, constructing moments of behind the camera elements for the work being done at a studio, and working with Cinematographer Conrad Hall, to produce a soft focus view of the corruption we are seeing on the screen. The work earned him a well deserved Academy Award nomination. Schlesinger's collaborator on previous films, Editor Jim Clark, probably needed to find a way to make the story flow a little faster, although his work on the two best scenes in the film is excellent.
Those scenes that will remain with me, as the highlights of this movie, include an on set disaster during the making of a Napoleonic War film, and the extremely disturbing climax of the picture. Novelist Nathaniel West, on whose book this movie is based, clearly was down on the American dream and his nightmarish vision of the culture is embodied in the climax of the film where a character murders a child, is subsequently murdered by a mob, all of this taking place at the site of the most lavish of images from the 1930 depression era, a Hollywood Movie Premiere. The satire and cynicism in the two scenes is not subtle, but both sequences are staged very effectively and I think would justify a viewing of this film, if you can put up with the dark side of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
[I watched this on a cropped laserdisc version, not the ideal aspect ratio]
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.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Obviously we were going to get to some of the prestige pictures of the year 1975. In addition to "Jaws", "Dog Day Afternoon", which I have talked about on this project, the other Oscar Nominees for Best Picture are "Nashville", "Barry Lyndon" and the ultimate winner "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". Famously "Cuckoo's Nest" won the top five prizes at the awards that year, tying a record with "It Happened One Night" and later repeated by "Silence of the Lambs". This was the fifth nomination for Jack Nicolson and the first time he won. As you watch the film it is evident why this was going to be the outcome. Maybe Ken Kersey thought Nicolson was wrong for McMurphy, but for a cinematic experience he is the perfect fit.
The part of McMurphy is that of a joker in a situation that is grim, an outsider in the ultimate inside game, and the reluctant hero to a group of reluctant fans. He gets to indulge some of his wild mannerisms and facial expressions, but there are also a number of equally quiet and serious moments. The tension between McMurphy, the prisoner faking mental illness and the head nurse, Miss Ratched, is evident in their looks at one another and their voices express a barely suppressed distain. McMurphy of course, is much more open in his aggressive manner of interacting, Louise Fletcher has to hold her emotions back in the passive aggressive pattern that the nurse uses with all of the patients. Her deliberately calm demeanor may be meant to create a safe space for all of the group, but it comes off as condescending at times and she exerts her power with an icy stare rather than a raised voice. This is a film with two fantastic parts and both actors are completely up to the task of bringing them to life.
Maybe this is about the machine and how it grinds everybody down, or maybe it is a film about individuality and the importance of fighting to keep your unique identity. I always think it is about the banality of evil. Miss Ratched seems on the surface to care about her patients, and she probably thinks she is doing right by them, but at every step of the process, her manner sends the signal that they all need to conform and submit to her power. Authoritarians always think they are right and acting in the greater good, regardless of who's necks they have to stand on and what the cost is. She is the embodiment of the Covid Crusaders who wanted everyone to do as they were told, regardless of what the consequences might have been to someone else's life. Ratched acts more aggressively when her power is threatened. What happens to Billy Babbit is a result of her turning the passive control she has exerted over him, into a cudgel, and his betrayal of McMurphy and the self consciousness about being with a woman and the way it will impact his mother are a recipe for disaster, and Nurse Ratched is the one who puts it on the stove to cook.
In an institution filled with troubled souls, you would have a hard time differentiating the patients from the actors. Vincent Schiavelli, Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd are three actors early in their careers and their looks were not typical. When you throw in horror icon Michael Berryman in the background, the group seems very much a set of misfits. Sydney Lassick and William Redfield are both very good in parts that have a greater degree of dialogue. Cheswick will make you take pity on a lost soul and everyone will be frustrated with the obtuse Harding, but they are still essential to the group. The other two performances that need to be singled out are key characters in the plot. The "Chief" was played by non-actor Will Sampson. a large man of native American Indian ethnicity, and he makes a great impression in a nearly wordless performance. The moment he does utter a single word, is a transcendent one in the film. Brad Dourif as Billy Babbit makes us root for him and wonder at the world that has produced this sensitive kid that can hardly express himself. Dourif got the nomination that would have gone to the entire supporting cast if the SAG awards Ensemble category had existed in 1975.
Verisimilitude in the film is one of the things that makes the story work. The therapy group sessions are forced, like a true psych experience might be. The patients are all resistant to participating or saying anything that could have a negative consequence. The fact that they shot in a real, active mental institution means that the sets never feel like they are cardboard fronts but caged windows, communal tubs, and a near dormitory existence. The ECT treatment that McMurphy gets looks real and by all accounts represents an accurate portrayal of the procedure. The patients lining up for their medication also seems too real.
The two best sequences in the film are of course the ones that give Jack the biggest opportunities to play to his strengths. When McMurphy breaks out to take the group on the fishing expedition, he plays with all of the other characters and gets a lot out of what is going on. It is a collective moment that he inspires. However, the greatest moment is his improvised calling of a World Series Game that isn't on the TV. Although all of the supporting cast backs him up, it is really his moments and it feels perfect.
I make no secret of my preference for another film this year, but if "Jaws" is not going home with the stupid trophy, I'm glad that this film did.
Whenever you can listen to a live orchestra play a film score, go. When the film is included, question your sanity if you skip it, because these are great experiences. If you are dealing with a John Williams score and the film is "Star Wars" you can just pencil me in and meet me at the door. I love film music and scores. I enjoy classical music although I am not an aficionado. So this was an event that was easy for me to book and look forward to all summer.
The first time I saw Star Wars, at the Chinese theater in Hollywood, on opening day, I was awed by the sound of the film and the music. The score reminded me of the music from the 1930s and 40s. Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner were my training ground for what film music should sound like. I was a big fan of Jerry Goldsmith's Patton Score and this horn and string dominated score reminded me of some of the same heroic themes and triumphs of that film.
The title sequence of course is legendary as the opening scroll moves up the screen and then the music transitions to the action of the attack by the Empire's cruiser. When Darth Vader appears on the screen we get a villain's cue and the music again clues us in as to who the good guys and the bad guys are. When we get to Tatooine, we start to get the recurring themes that will come up for the rest of the film. Luke is on a heroes journey and there were a some great scenes with his theme. The dual sunset is one of those moments and the discovery of his Aunt and Uncle's burned bodies is another.
Leia has a theme as well and both themes will be used for the subsequent films. Ben Kenobi's sacrificial death also is an iconic music moment and it pushes Like's desire to succeed even further. This is a film, much like "Jaws" that gets half of it's emotional energy from the score. When played by a live orchestra the music is even more stirring. By the time we get to the throne room medal ceremony, we have had a succession of great music highlighting terrific action scenes and character points.
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.
Breakout
It's been a month since I posted one of these Throw Back Thursdays films, in that time I have traveled literally from one side of the country to the other. So many logistics have been involved that it has not been reasonable for me to catch up on a film for the purpose of this series. One thing however that I did do while pausing the viewing of films from 1975, was acquire a couple of those films for later use. Today's film would be one of those. I was sure I had a copy of the Charles Bronson/Robert Duvall film in my collection, but when I went to find it, there was no disc or box. I was puzzled because I wrote about this movie back in 2016, but I guess I must have watched it on one of my services. Thankfully Kino Lorber had a nice Blu-Ray with extras. [By the way, while writing this I went to the Kino Lorber site and dropped a bundle]
This is a terrific Bronson film that came out right after "Death Wish" and right before "Hard Times" so it is in the sweet spot of his most productive era. The film was also on the cusp of the new marketing strategy by the film studios of front loading their films into as many locations as possible, simultaneously. This strategy would be revolutionized by the film "Jaws" the very next month after this was released. Get paid now instead of slowly rolling out your film. With heavy advertising the movie did quite well and returned a profit with a couple of weeks.
"Breakout" is based on a real life prison break from Mexico, by a shady character who was accused of murdering his shady partner, but the body was not identifiable and the convicted guy proclaimed his innocence vehemently. For legal reason, the producers never refer to the book that the film is made from and they don't even use the famous "inspired by true events" tag. The Mexican government was not happy that a movie was being based on the real escape, the first to use a helicopter, and the film makers tried to distance themselves from the story because there was also an implication that a relative of the convicted man was framing him to keep an inheritance out of his hands.
Robert Duvall plays the prisoner, and he does most of his acting with a look of stupor on his face. The character is going mad, drinking excessively, and is physically declining so that gives the plot a sense of urgency. Jill Ireland plays his loyal wife who is plotting escapes but not having a great deal of success. She hires Bronson, a plane pilot with some smuggling background to help her get her husband out before he just gives up the ghost. There are some effective scenes when she visits him in prison and she struggles with the unwanted attention from the guards who search her and a lack of desire to have a conjugal visit in the pigsty of a room that she and her husband are given. Ireland was a beautiful woman but sometimes a bit wooden as an actress. Here though, she acquits herself quite well opposite Duvall. Even though her character loves her husband, she does have a rather flirty relationship with the impish pilot played by Bronson. He seems to be doing the job as much for her as for the money, and he develops a big crush on his client.
John Huston, who had just starred in "Chinatown" the previous year, and was getting ready to shoot "The Man Who Would be King", did one day of work on the film as the mysterious grandfather of Duvall's character. It is very murky why he is working against Duvall, it seems to be tied up with something in their business but those exposition scenes were apparently cut and Huston is only on screen for about two and a half minutes in three brief scenes. Randy Quaid plays Bronson's partner and he gets involved in the plot at one point by trying to dress in drag and connect with Duvall in the prison. This was the second of two escape plans that failed before Bronson lights on the helicopter idea.
The prison scenes will remind you of why you never want to go to jail in Mexico, and the corruption starts at the beginning with the murder of the Man that Duvall is supposed to have killed. He does have a companion in the jail who is sympathetic and facilitates the plan, unfortunately, unlike in the real life incident, he does not make it out with his friend and that is the button on the end of all the visual promotion material for the film. To make the actual escape more engaging and exciting, someone has to die and that is going to be the loyal Mexican compadre of Duvall.
One more spectacular moment takes place late in the film when a spy, trying to thwart the escape for Huston's character, ends up in a fight with Bronson on an airstrip after the fugitives have left Mexico. Plotwise it is never clear why the CIA is working with the grandfather, and the fight feels like a last minute addition. However, if you were disappointed in not seeing the Nazi mechanic in the airfield fight in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" , getting dismembered on screen, there is a shot in this film that should make it up to you.
Charles Bronson plays a different kind of character her, much closer to the pre-murder Paul Kersey in his earlier film than the vigilante that Kersey becomes. While not as slyly humorous as his turn in "From Noon till Three", it is still a comic performance and he nails it pretty well. If you have not seen this film, I would recommend it to you, it is a couple of hours well spent with one of the great action stars of a different and earlier generation.
The film world is full of movies based on plays. Nowadays, there are plenty of plays, usually musicals, that are based on films (See Disney, Back to the Future, Almost Famous and The Producers). This is a play based not on a film, but on the behind the scenes moments of the making of a film, the transcendent and incredibly hard to film "Jaws". If you are visiting this site for the first time, take a look around, you will see that "Jaws" is revered above all other films (with maybe one exception) by the author of these pages. It is a film that I know I have seen well over a hundred times. It will then come as no surprise to longtime visitors to KAMAD, that a play about the making of the film would draw my attention. Last weekend, we made a special expedition to NYC for the purpose of seeing this particular work.
"The Shark is Broken" was written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon. Ian Shaw is the son of actor Robert Shaw, who portrayed "Quint" in the film and was notoriously cantankerous on the set in addition to being well lubricated during his time on the film. Robert Shaw was said to have bullied his co-star Richard Dreyfuss mercilessly and that the two even had some physical set-tos. Dreyfuss has always contended that it was a difficult relationship in shooting but that ultimately he had immense respect for Shaw and they were friends. Ian Shaw was inspired in part by a drinking diary his father had kept, and he knew the film is a key part of his father's legacy, so he started writing. I believe there is a great deal of honesty in the play but that it is also an entertainment first rather than a documentary, so obvious license will be taken in telling the story.
While it might seem strange to start my discussion of the play with the stagecraft rather than the story or the acting, it is not a surprise at all. The set is open from the moment we entered the theater. The only other Broadway style productions that I have seen recently were "Hamilton" and "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child 1/2" and as I recall, there is no curtain raised in either of those experiences either. So the set is right there for as long as you are in the theater before the play begins, and it is hard not to start noticing things and feeling right about commenting on them. The physical set is a cutout of the Orca, Quint's ship, which is the setting for the last half of the movie. There are some props in the hull of the ship but for the most part the action takes place in the small cabin around the table that you see in the film. It looks appropriately claustrophobic and intimate for the three actors to operate in.
Most of the passage of time and change in setting is determined by the lighting and by the screen scenes on the large background screen that contains images of the ocean that the film was shot on. The play actually starts when we see the image of a shark fin in the background, and then a cloud of smoke and steam erupts from the location as the image sinks below the surface. It is the first of many laughs that will fill the auditorium for the next hour and a half. The lighting indicates time of day, sometimes the golden hour, and occasionally the choppy seas the actors were enduring. This simple tech solution to the environment probably keeps costs down but it also encourages us to keep our focus on the actors.
Ian Shaw trained as an actor and has appeared in multiple plays, films and television shows, but it is his resemblance to his father that is the most striking feature when the story gets going. Obviously, he did not have to train for that, just a little hairdressing and makeup to fit the part. His voice, while not a perfect echo of his fathers stentorian voice, it is authoritative and familiar to all of the fans of the film. He gets several inflection moments just right, but he does not seem to be merely mimicking the clips of Robert Shaw from the film, it is an acting performance not a replication. The story does start off lightly but it does go to some dark places along the way, so even though the play is largely comic, Shaw adds plenty of drama to some of the passages. He honestly portrays his father as a driven creative alcoholic with a very competitive nature. His nature was not always easy to accept and that is part of the plot as the three actors are trapped in unpleasant conditions with one another for weeks in this confined space.
Robert Shaw was a veteran screen actor when he took the role of Quint. Richard Dreyfuss had worked in films but was just moving up to featured status and he was just of insecurities and anxiety. It was in large part his belief that he had whiffed his performance in "The Adventures of Duddy Kravitz", that lead him to accepting the part of Hooper, the smart aleck college grad who would butt heads with Quint on the shark hunt. In a way, it was the contrasting personalities of the two actors that helped create the dynamic that makes the film such a great character piece. Alex Brightman is the actor who gets to play Dreyfuss in this production, and he knocks it out of the park. His energy and staccato delivery of lines, matches the tone that Dreyfuss had in the film. Brightman has to do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to the comedy, because he is the most physically active character in the play, in spite of the sub-plot about him being physically overwhelmed on the shoot. He has all many of the big punch lines to the humorous script and just like Dreyfuss himself, he is not afraid to mug a little for the audience.
The part of peacemaker seems to have fallen to Roy Scheider on the Jaws set, and here actor Colin Donell does a solid job as the voice of reason on the set. His appearance as Chief Brody is visually well cast, and he has the moderate voice range that is characteristic of the actor he is playing, particularly between the two more outlandish characters he plays against. I think it is the lines that he has, that sometimes draw attention to the theatrical nature of his part. He is a part time narrator, part time mediator, and often is the wall between the tension of the other two. As a result, he sometimes feels like he fades into the background and when he does get a chance to shine, it feels a little more obvious that he is now speaking, rather than having a natural transition to his lines. Donell does get to shine in one regard for sure, he strips down to a swimsuit as Scheider to sunbath on the deck and he is chiseled, unlike Dreyfuss/Brightman, and his physique drew a few awes and in-takes of gulped air from appreciative audience members.
Story structure starts the play in the eighth week of shooting on the water, when nerves are beginning to fray, but at least there is a sense of gallows humor about the logistics of what Spielberg was attempting. The characters are killing time by telling stories and making jokes, and in Shaw's case, drinking obsessively. By the tenth week, they are playing made up bar games when no deck of cards is handy, and the talk gets to be more serious, although there is usually some levity to be found. When Dreyfuss tosses Shaw's bottle overboard, the unpleasant physical confrontation brings a whole lot of matters to the surface. The name calling seems a lot less just guys kibbitzing and more in line with real tensions. Everyone tells a little bit of their character's back story and the writing seems a little more self conscious in these moments. It is well known that the Indianapolis Speech was critical but also trouble from the start. Shaw ties to wrestle it into a coherent shape but his intoxicated performance destroys the impact of the scene, and this is the dramatic climax of the three characters on the boat. The audacity of featuring the greatest scene in the movie as a failure is remedied in the coda of the story as Ian Shaw does a credible job of performing as his father when he gets a second chance to do it right. No curtain needs to drop, the lights just go down and the memory of the film, combined with the live performance, provides the chill on the back of the neck that punctuates the whole enterprise.
The screen fills with production shots from the 1974 shoot and the actors take a well deserved bow. The play is entertaining as anything you might hope to see. Sometimes the play is a little obvious in the laughs it goes for, but those laughs still come and a real fan of the movie will enjoy every moment of it. The three actors are superb in their parts and although Shaw is the real focus of the story, Brightman walks away with some of the best moments. I flew 1700 miles, just to see this play. We did do a couple of other things on the trip, like eating at a couple of great spots, but even if we had not, for this fan of the Movie "Jaws", the trip was worth it.
