Shattered Politics #30: The Candidate (dir by Michael Ritchie)

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“What do we do now?” — Democratic senate candidate Bill McKay (Robert Redford) in The Candidate (1972)

When I reviewed Advise & Consent, I mentioned that if anyone could prevent billionaire Tom Steyer from winning the Democratic nomination to run in the 2016 California U.S. Senate election, it would be Betty White. Well, earlier today, Tom Steyer announced that he would NOT be a candidate. You can guess what that means. Betty White has obviously already started to set up her campaign organization in California and, realizing that there was no way that he could possibly beat her, Tom Steyer obviously decided to step aside.

So, congratulations to Betty White! (I would probably never vote for her but I don’t live in California so it doesn’t matter.) As future U.S. Senator Betty White prepares for the next phase of her career, it would probably be a good idea for her to watch a few movies about what it takes to win political office in the United States.

For example: 1972’s The Candidate.

The Candidate would especially be a good pick for the nascent Betty White senate campaign because the film is actually about a senate election in California! California’s U.S. Sen. Crocker Jarmon (Don Porter) is a Republican who everyone assumes cannot be defeated for reelection. Democratic strategist Marvin Lucas (a heavily bearded Peter Boyle) is tasked with finding a sacrificial candidate.

The one that Marvin comes up with is Bill McKay (Robert Redford, before his face got all leathery), a 34 year-old lawyer who also happens to be the estranged son of former Governor John J. McKay (Melvyn Douglas, whose wife Helen ran for one of California’s senate seats in 1950). As opposed to his pragmatic and ruthless father, Bill is idealistic and the only reason that he agrees to run for the Senate is because Marvin promises him that he’ll be able to say whatever he wants. Marvin assures Bill that Jarmon cannot be beaten but if Bill runs a credible campaign, he’ll be able to run for another office in the future.

However, Jarmon turns out to be a weaker candidate than everyone assumed. As the charismatic Bill starts to close the gap between himself and Jarmon, he also starts to lose control of his campaign. He soon finds himself moderating his positions and worrying more about alienating potential voters than stating his true opinions. (In one of the film’s best scenes, Bill scornfully mutters his standard and generic campaign speech to himself, obviously disgusted with the vapid words that he has to utter in order to be elected.) The film ends on a properly downbeat note, one that reminds you that the film was made in the 70s but also remains just as relevant and thought-provoking in 2015.

Written by a former political speech writer and directed, in a semi-documentary style, by Michael Ritchie, The Candidate is an excellent film that answer the question as to why all political campaigns and politicians seem to be the same. The Candidate is full of small details that give the film an air of authenticity even when a familiar face like Robert Redford is on screen.

Whenever I watch The Candidate, I find myself wondering what happened to Bill McKay after the film’s iconic final scene. Did he ever regain his idealism or did he continue on the path to just becoming another politician. As much as we’d all like to think that the former is true, it’s actually probably the latter.

That just seems to be the way that things go.

Hopefully, Betty White will learn from Bill McKay’s example.

Shattered Politics #29: Billy Jack (dir by Tom Laughlin)

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Go ahead and hate your neighbor; go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of heaven; you can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowin’ come the judgment day
On the bloody morning after, one tin soldier rides away”

— From One Tin Soldier, the theme song of Billy Jack (1971)

Yesterday, we took a look at The Born Losers, the first film to ever feature the character of future U.S. Senator Billy Jack. The Born Losers ended with former Green Beret-turned-gun-toting-pacifist Billy Jack (played, of course, by Tom Laughlin) saving the girl, killing the bad guy, and getting shot in the back by the police. As Born Losers ended, we were left to wonder whether Billy would survive his wounds or would he just be another victim of the establishment.

Well, audiences had to wait five years to find out.

When Laughlin returned to the role in 1971’s Billy Jack, it was revealed that not only had Billy Jack lived but he was now residing in a cave with his wise Native American grandfather. Billy still had little use for civilization but he would occasionally emerge from his cave. Sometimes, it was to protect wild mustangs from being hunted the evil Old Man Posner (Bert Freed) and his sociopathic son Bernard (David Roya). Other times, it was to protect the Freedom School and, even more importantly, the Freedom School’s founder, Jean (played by Laughlin’s wife, Delores Taylor).

The local townspeople viewed the Freedom School with suspicion and whenever the students went into town, they would be harassed by Bernard and his friends. Fortunately, the students could always count on Billy to show up, say a few angry words, and then lose control. Billy may have been a liberal but he was no pacifist. Jean, however, fully embraced nonviolence and she always made it clear that she wasn’t comfortable with Billy providing her kids with a violent example.

Finally, both Jean and Billy’s convictions were put to the test. First off, the bigoted townspeople tried to close the school. Then, Jean was raped by Bernard. And finally, Billy found himself barricaded in an old mission, surrounded by police and national guardsmen. Even as Jean pleaded with Billy to lay down his weapons and to peacefully surrender, Billy made it clear that he was willing to die for his beliefs.

And, as the film ended, you would never guess that Billy Jack would eventually become a member of the U.S. Senate. But, in just a few years, that’s exactly what would happen in Billy Jack Goes To Washington!

Now, of course, Billy Jack is ultimately a product of its time and that’s both a blessing and a curse. To be honest, if anything could transform me from being the socially liberal, economically conservative girl that you all know and love into a card-carrying right-wing extremist, it would be having to spend any time with the students at the Freedom School. They are all so smugly convinced of their own moral superiority that the townspeople almost start to look good by default. Whether they’re attending improv class or disrupting a meeting at town hall, the majority of the students come across like a bunch of rich kids from the suburbs, playing hippy and slumming by hanging out with poor minorities. As you watch them, it’s difficult not to suspect that most of them are going to get bored with rebelling after a year or two and eventually end up growing up to be just like their parents.

Fortunately, the film is saved by the pure sincerity of Laughlin and Taylor. For all the attention that the film gets for the scenes of Billy Jack beating people up, the most compelling scenes are the ones where Jean and Billy Jack debate nonviolence. There’s an honesty and a passion to these scenes, one that proves that Laughlin and Taylor, as opposed to so many other self-styled counterculture filmmakers, were actually serious about their beliefs. Billy Jack is an essential film, not only as a time capsule of the era in which it was made but also as one of the few films to actually make a legitimate attempt to explore what it truly means to embrace nonviolence.

Billy Jack is also a historically important film. When American Independent Pictures withdrew from the production, Laughlin took Billy Jack to 20th Century Fox. When 20th Century Fox looked at the completed film and did not know how to market it, Laughlin distributed the film himself, without the support of a major studio. And, despite what all of the naysayers may have predicted, Billy Jack was a huge hit.

And every indie filmmaker since owes a huge debt of gratitude to Tom Laughlin.

Shattered Politics #28: Maidstone (dir by Norman Mailer)

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Rip Torn in Maidstone

If you ever find yourself on the campus of the University of North Texas and you need to kill some time, stop by the UNT Library, go up to the second floor, find the biographies, and track down a copy of Peter Manso’s Mailer: His Life and Times.

Back in December of 2007, at a time when I really should have been studying for my finals, I spent an entire afternoon in the library reading Manso’s book. I didn’t know much about Norman Mailer, the Pulitzer prize-winning writer and occasional political candidate, beyond the fact that he died that previous November and that a lot of older people who I respected apparently thought highly of his work. Though Manso’s book had been written 20 years earlier, it still provided an interesting portrait of the controversial author. It was largely an oral history, full of interviews with people who had known Mailer over the years. As I skimmed the book, it quickly became apparent that, among other things, Mailer was a larger-than-life figure.

For me, the book was at its most interesting when it dealt with Mailer’s attempts to be a filmmaker. In the 1960s, Mailer directed three movies. All three of them also starred Norman Mailer and featured his friends in supporting roles. All three of them were largely improvised. And, when released into theaters, all three of them were greeted with derision.

Maidstone, Mailer’s 3rd film, was filmed in 1970. In the film, Mailer played Norman Kingsley, an avante garde film director who is running for President. Over the course of one weekend, while also working on a movie about a brothel, Norman meets with potential supporters and debates the issues. And, of course, shadowy figures plot to assassinate Norman, not so much because they don’t want him to be President as much as they want him to be a martyr for their vaguely defined cause.

Just based on what I read in Manso’s book, it’s hard not to feel that the making of Maidstone could itself be the basis of a good movie. Mailer essentially invited all of his friends to his estate and they spent 5 days filming, with no script. It was five days of drinking, drugs, and bad feelings.

At one point, actor and painter Herve Villechaize (who would later play Knick Knack in The Man With The Golden Gun) got so drunk and obnoxious that he was picked up by actor Rip Torn and literally tossed over a fence. The unconscious Villechaize ended up floating face down in a neighbor’s pool. After fishing Villechaize out of the pool, the neighbor tossed him back over the fence and shouted, “Norman, come get your dwarf!”

Eventually, after five days, filming fell apart. Some members of the cast were okay with that. And one most definitely was not..

Fortunately, Maidstone is currently available on YouTube so I watched it last night. Unfortunately, the film itself is never as interesting as the stories about what went on behind the cameras. Maidstone is essentially scene after scene of people talking and the effectiveness of each scene depends on who is in it. For instance, Norman’s half-brother is played by Rip Torn, a professional actor with a big personality. The scenes with Torn are interesting to watch because Rip Torn is always interesting to watch. However, other scenes feature people who were clearly cast because they happened to be visiting the set on that particular day. And these scenes are boring because, quite frankly, most people are boring.

And then you’ve got Norman Mailer himself. For an acclaimed writer who was apparently quite a celebrity back in the day, it’s amazing just how little screen presence Norman Mailer had as an actor. Preening for the camera, standing around shirtless and showing off his hairy back along with his middle-aged man boobs, Mailer comes across as being more than a little pathetic. He’s at his worst whenever he tries to talk to a woman, giving off a vibe that’s somewhere between creepy uncle and super veiny soccer dad having a midlife crisis.

It’s an uneven film but, for the first half or so, it’s at least interesting as a time capsule. For those of us who want to know what rich intellectuals were like in the late 60s, Maidstone provides a service. However, during the second half of the film, it becomes obvious that Mailer got bored. Suddenly, all pretense towards telling an actual story are abandoned and the film becomes about Mailer asking his cast for their opinion about what they’ve filmed so far.

And then, during the final 15 minutes of the film, Norman Mailer decides to have the cameramen film him as he plays with his wife and children. This is apparently too much for Rip Torn who, after spending an eternity glaring at Mailer and undoubtedly thinking about everything he could have been doing during those five day if he hadn’t been filming Maidstone, walks up to Mailer, says, “You must die, Kingsley,” and then hits Mailer on the head with a hammer.

This, of course, leads to a long wrestling match between Mailer and Torn and, as the cameras roll, blood is spilled and insults are exchanged. There’s a lot of differing opinions about whether this final fight was spontaneous or staged. Having seen the footage, I get the impression that Mailer was caught off guard but that Torn probably let the cameraman know what he was going to do ahead of time.

Regardless, it’s hard to deny that the pride of Temple, Texas, Elmore “Rip” Torn, appears to be the one who came out on top. After the fight, Mailer and Torn have a lengthy argument that amounts to Rip saying that he had to do it because it was the only way that the film would make sense while Mailer replies with some of the least imaginative insults ever lobbed by a Pulitzer winner.

(So basically, Rip Torn won both the physical and the verbal rounds of the fight.)

Anyway, you can watch the entire Rip Torn/Norman Mailer confrontation below.

Now, while the fight is really the only must-see part of Maidstone, it still has considerable value as a time capsule of the time when it was made. You can watch it below!

Shattered Politics #27: Medium Cool (dir by Haskell Wexler)

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past few days, I’ve been chronologically reviewing 94 films about politicians and, to a lesser extent, politics. Four days ago, I started in on the 60s by taking a look at Sunrise at Campobello, one of the most traditional-minded and pro-American movies ever made. And now, I’m closing out the decade by taking a look at 1969’s Medium Cool, a film that is — in style, ideology, and content — the exact opposite of Sunrise at Campobello.

I should admit that I’m cheating a bit by including Medium Cool in this series of reviews. When I first started Shattered Politics, I said that I would be reviewing films about politicians. While Medium Cool is a fiercely political film, there are few elected officials to be seen on screen. That said, it was shot during the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention and, as such, the politicians are present regardless of whether or not they’re seen.

Plotwise, the film follows a news cameraman, John (Robert Forster), and his sound guy (Peter Bonerz) as they go around Chicago, searching for stories. Along the way, they interview the disturbingly cheerful owner of a gun club (played, in his film debut, by Peter Boyle), several people who volunteered on Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign, and, in one of the film’s best and most awkward scenes, a group of Black Panthers.

Throughout the first half of the film, John remains detached from the stories that he covers. He’s more concerned with getting the footage and getting a good soundbite than in really listening to what anyone is saying. (In many ways, he’s like a less sociopathic version of the character played by Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler.) It’s not until John discovers that his station is sharing his footage with the FBI that John finally starts to show some political awareness. Unfortunately, he also shows some anger and ends up losing his job as a result.

Now unemployed, John meets Eileen (Verna Bloom), a single mother who has recently moved to Chicago from West Virginia. Now that he’s free from the detachment of his job, John actually starts to develop feelings for both Eileen and her son, Harold (Harold Blankenship). When Harold runs away, Eileen and John search Chicago for him. Unfortunately, their search happens at the same time as the 1968 Democratic Convention. While John and Eileen search, the Chicago police are busy beating protestors in the street.

(The video below is long, but worth watching, as is the entire film.)

Now, I know that, in the past, I’ve been critical of many of the counter culture films of the late 60s and early 70s, describing their politics as being shallow, trendy, and faux Leftist. (And if you doubt me, read my reviews of Getting Straight, Zabriskie Point, and R.P.M.) However, Medium Cool is an exception to those films, in that it actually works. Medium Cool was directed by famed cinematographer, Haskell Wexler. Wexler began his career shooting documentaries and, in many ways, that’s exactly what Medium Cool is. Though Robert Forster may be an actor, many of the people that he interviewed in the film were not. When he talks to the former Kennedy campaign workers, he’s talking to actual volunteers and getting their true feelings, as opposed to something written for them by an out-of-touch screenwriter. When we see John and Eileen trying to survive the violence outside the Democratic Convention, we’re also seeing Robert Forster and Verna Bloom attempting to do the same thing. The protestors being attacked were real. The cops doing the attacking were real. The violence was real.

And, considering that Medium Cool was released 46 years ago, the issues raised by the film are still real. When the Black Panthers suspiciously view John and his sound guy, we’re reminded of the protestors in Ferguson demanding that the national media get out of their way. When we see the protests outside the 1968 Democratic Convention, how can we not compare them to the protests that we still see every day? When the cops line up in military precision and we hear that orders must be followed, are we watching Medium Cool or are we watching CNN?

During one of Medium Cool‘s better known moments, an off-screen voice is heard to shout, “Look out, Haskell! It’s real!,” warning director Haskell Wexler that the violence he’s filming is actually happening. And that’s a warning that’s still appropriate and relevant today. We may be watching from the safety of our homes but it’s still real.

(Of course, it should be mentioned that, according to Wexler himself, “Look out, Haskell! It’s real!” was actually added to the scene in post production.)

It’s perhaps indicative of how much American culture changed in the 60s that a decade that started with Ralph Bellamy playing Franklin D. Roosevelt would end with Medium Cool. Fortunately, Medium Cool gives us plenty of evidence about how that change happened.

Shattered Politics #26: Wild In The Streets (dir by Barry Shear)

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I am really not looking forward to turning 30.

Seriously, the great thing about being in your 20s is that everything is set up to specifically appeal to you. Everyone wants your attention, your money, your tweets, your ideas, you love, and everything else. And, yes, I understand that most people neither like nor respect my generation but oh well and whatever. Trust me, the generation coming up behind mine is a hundred times worse.

2008 was a great time to be a politically knowledgeable millennial. Everyone running for President was desperate to get our vote and they were willing to promise us anything. And, since my age group voted overwhelmingly for Obama, all of the old elitists in the national media briefly fell in love with us. (The genius of Obama’s 2008 campaign was to tell us that we were the people that we were waiting for. Technically, it’s a bit nonsensical but never doubt what you can accomplish by appealing to the ego of the electorate.)

Of course, over the past few years, my generation has essentially been fucked over by both political parties and, since we dared to complain about it, nobody likes us anymore. But, oh well and whatever. American culture is basically built around our whims so we really don’t need anyone else’s love.

And, if all this sounds a little bitter or angry, I would point that young people and old people have been at war since time began. Generational conflict is nothing new. And if you need proof of that, I suggest watching a film from 1968 called Wild In The Streets.

Wild in the Streets tells the story of Max Frost (Christopher Jones), a rock star who lives in a gigantic mansion with his band and his groupies. When Max is asked to perform at a campaign appearance for senate candidate Johnny Fergus (Hal Holbrook), he agrees to do so because Fergus supports lowering the voting age. (When Wild In The Streets was made, you had to be 21 to vote. So, if your birthday fell on election day, you could cast your first vote and then go have your first legal drink.) However, at the rally, Max announces that he wants 14 year-olds to have the vote and then performs a song called “14 or fight!”

Max’s song is such a sensation and leads to so many protests that, in a compromise, the voting age is lowered to 15. Johnny Fergus is elected to the Senate and, before you can say “Blue dog,” promptly starts to ignore the will of the people who supported him. So, Max arranges for his girlfriend Sally (Diane Varsi) to be elected to the U.S. House. After spiking the water supply of Washington D.C. with LSD, Sally gets a bill passed and the age requirement for holding political office is lowered to 14!

Of course, in the next election, 24 year-old Max Frost is elected President of the United States. Soon, anyone over the age of 35 is being sent to re-education camps where they are force-fed LSD. Max is so ruthless that he even sends his own mother (Shelley Winters) off to re-education.

And, with all the old people gone, everything is perfect for Max. Except for that fact that 10 year-olds are now demanding the vote…

In many ways, Wild in the Streets feels like a film that could have only been made in 1968. From the psychedelic direction to the costumes to the hair to music, everything about this movie screams late 60s. But, at the same time, it’s still a genuinely amusing satire, largely because generational conflict is timeless. We all think that those older than us are clueless and that those younger are spoiled. There’s a lot of things in your life that can control. Sadly enough, getting older is not one of them.

Wild in the Streets is a fun and amusing time capsule. See it now before the younger generation comes of age and totally fucks up the world.

Shattered Politics #25: The President’s Analyst (dir by Theodore J. Flicker)

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“If I was a psychiatrist, which I am, I would say that I was turning into some sort of paranoid personality, which I am!” — Dr. Sidney Schaefer (James Coburn) in The President’s Analyst (1967)

Let’s just be absolutely honest about something. Judging from what they regularly get caught saying and from some of the policies that they support, a good deal of politicians could probably use some sort of professional help. That’s probably especially true of the men who sit in the Oval Office. It can’t be easy to have to hide so many secrets, tell so many lies, and be constantly aware of how close the government is to actually collapsing. We’ve had 44 Presidents and I imagine all of them probably could have used someone to talk to.

But here’s the thing. We spend so much time worrying about the well-being of the President that we often don’t stop to think about the people who have to listen to them speak on a daily basis. I imagine that being the President’s therapist must be a thankless job. Not only do you have to spend hours listening to someone who you may not have voted for but, at the same time, you can’t share any of the information that you’ve learned.

That would certainly seem to be what’s happening with Dr. Sidney Schaefer (James Coburn), the title character of the wonderfully psychedelic 1967 satire, The President’s Analyst. At the start of the film, Sidney is a supremely confident psychiatrist. He can calmly and rationally deal with all of his patients problems and, in order to keep from getting overwhelmed, he has his own analyst (Will Geer).

One of his patients is Don Masters (Godfrey Cambridge), an agent for the Central Enquiries Agency (CEA) who is first seen casually murdering a man on the streets of New York. (When Sidney discovers that Don is an assassin, he’s thrilled and impressed to discover that Don has managed to channel all of his hostility into his job.) What Sidney doesn’t realize is that Don is testing him to see if he’s up to the job of serving as the President’s analyst.

At first, Sidney is thrilled with his new position but he soon discovers that being the closest confidante of the leader of the free world has its downside. For one thing, Sidney is viewed by suspicion by Henry Lux (Walter Burke), the head of the Federal Bureau of Regulation (which, in this film, is exclusively staffed by people who are less than 5 feet tall). Even beyond being targeted by the FBR, Sidney struggles with not being able to see his own therapist and discuss what he’s been told by the President. Soon, Sidney is becoming paranoid and is even convinced that his girlfriend is a spy.

(And, of course, she is.)

So, Walter does what any sensible and paranoid person would do. He makes a run for it. Pursued by the FBR, the CEA, and a Russian assassin (a funny performance from Severn Darden, who also played Kolp, the sadistic torturer in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes), Sidney hides out with everyone from a group of hippies to a family of heavily armed, karate-trained, middle class “militant liberals.”

(The father of the militant liberal family is played by William Daniels, who decades later would play Mr. Feeney in Boy Meets World.)

Of course, there’s an even bigger conspiracy at work than even Sidney realizes. The real threat is the TPC and I’m not going to tell you what that stands for. You need to see the movie.

And really, The President’s Analyst is a film that you really should see. What makes this film truly special — beyond the clever dialogue and the excellent performances and the great direction — is that it’s both a product of when it was made and a timeless portrait of power and paranoia. It’s a time capsule that still feels incredibly relevant.

Shattered Politics #24: The Born Losers (dir by Tom Laughlin)

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past few days, I’ve been in the process of reviewing 94 films about politics and politicians. With that in mind, you may be wondering why, after reviewing films like The Last Hurrah, Sunrise at Campobello, and Advise & Consent, I am now reviewing a 1967 biker film called The Born Losers.

It all comes down to Billy Jack. In the 70s, Tom Laughlin would write, direct, and star in two hit films — Billy Jack and The Trial of Billy Jack. In these films, Laughlin played the title character. Billy Jack was everything that you could hope for in a counter-culture hero. First off, as an American Indian, he was an authentic American as opposed to just another European intruder. He was a war hero, who had served as a Green Beret in Vietnam. He often carried a gun with him, which meant that he understood and supported the 2nd Amendment and good for him! Billy Jack was also a master of hapkido, which meant that he could kick ass in the most visually appealing way possible.

Even more importantly, Billy Jack called the Man out on his racism and his intolerance. Billy Jack was an environmental activist before anyone else. Billy Jack went on vision quests. Billy Jack was anti-war. Billy Jack was a pacifist. And, of course, Billy Jack ended up killing a lot of people but they were all bad guys.

By making and distributing Billy Jack himself, Laughlin became an independent film pioneer and made history. He also became a counter-culture hero and Billy Jack remains a cult figure even today. But what a lot of people don’t realize is that Billy Jack first appeared in Born Losers and that, in the little seen Billy Jack Goes To Washington, he eventually ended up serving in the U.S. Senate.

When you consider that Billy Jack would eventually be Sen. Jack, that means the Born Losers isn’t just a low-budget, violent biker film. Instead, it’s the exploitation version of Young Mr. Lincoln. It’s a chance to see what Billy Jack was doing before he became a statesman.

(And rest assured, the other three Billy Jack films will be reviewed before Shattered Politics ends.)

As we discover at the start of Born Losers, pre-politics Billy Jack was just an enigmatic veteran who lived in the mountains of California. When we first see Billy, he’s walking along a grassy hill. A deer safely runs by the camera. A rabbit pops its head out of a hole in the ground and looks relieved to see Billy. If I’m being a little bit snarky, it’s because I’ve seen all of the Billy Jack films and I know how often this exact scene is played out over the course of the franchise. But, in all fairness, it’s actually a fairly well-done and visually appealing scene and, as an actor, Laughlin had the presence to pull it off.

A far less pretty scene is occurring in the town of Big Rock, where teenagers are showing up to hang out on the beach and are being harassed by a group of bikers, the Born Losers of the title. The Born Losers are an odd collection of bikers, with half of them looking like extras from Sons of Anarchy and the other half looking like the type of hipsters that I always see whenever I go to a movie at the Alamo Drafthouse. Their leader (Jeremy Slate) is named Danny but the rest of the gang are known by their nicknames.

(For instance, there’s Crabs. Why is he called Crabs? “Because he’s got them!” Danny helpfully explains.)

After the Born Losers rape four girls, they launch a campaign of violence and intimidation to keep the girls from testifying in court. Billy comes to the aid of one of the girls, Vicky (Elizabeth James, who also wrote the script). I related to Vicky, largely because she does things like ride a motorcycle while wearing a white bikini, which is exactly the sort of thing that I would do if I lived in California.

Now, there’s a lot of negative things that I could say about Born Losers. It’s talky. With the exception of Laughlin and Slate, it’s obvious that the majority of the cast was made up of amateurs. The final half of the film drags as you wait for an ending that you have probably already predicted.

But you know what?

I actually like The Born Losers. Hidden underneath all of the exploitation trappings and heavy-handed moralizing, this is a very sincere film. Whatever they may have lacked in budget or subtlety, Laughlin’s films made up for in sincerity. And, as strange as it may be to say about a film that features four rapes and is padded out with a thoroughly gratuitous striptease, The Born Losers is not a misogynistic film. Both Laughlin the director and Billy Jack the character are on the side of the victims of the Born Losers and when the film calls out society for blaming the victims instead of the rapists, it does so with a fury that elevates the entire film above your typical 1967 biker film.

And, while I don’t know if I’d ever vote for Billy Jack, there’s nobody I’d rather have on my side.

Shattered Politics #23: Fail-Safe (dir by Sidney Lumet)

Posted on January 21, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After watching Dr. Strangelove, you may find yourself asking what that film would have been like if it had treated its doomsday scenario seriously. Well, you can find out by watching yet another film from 1964, Sidney Lumet’s Fail-Safe.

What’s Fail-Safe about? Well, basically, it tells the exact same story as Dr. Strangelove, except without the humor. Once again, an American bomber is accidentally ordered to launch a nuclear attack against Russia. Again, the President (played, somewhat inevitably, by Henry Fonda) has to have an awkward conversation with the leader of Russia. Again, a sinister defense advisor (this time played by Walter Matthau) argues that the world can survive a nuclear war.

Admittedly, there is no equivalent to George C. Scott’s Buck Turgidson in Fail-Safe. However, there is a General Black (Dan O’Herilihy) who has a recurring nightmare about watching a bullfight while the sky around him glows with radiation.

Fail-Safe has the same plot as Dr. Strangelove but none of the humor. In fact, Fail-Safe has absolutely no humor at all. It’s one of the most somber films that I’ve ever seen. It has a good opening with General Black’s nightmare and an effective ending that makes excellent use of freeze frames but the middle of the film is basically just a collection of endless debates.

And I’m sure that approach made sense at the time because, after all, Fail-Safe was dealing with a serious theme, it was directed by a serious filmmaker, and it featured a bunch of serious actors. And maybe if I had never seen Dr. Strangelove, Fail-Safe would not seem like such a slow and boring movie. But I have seen Dr. Strangelove and, as a result, it’s impossible to watch Fail-Safe without wanting to hear Henry Fonda say, “You can’t fight here! This is the war room!”

Shattered Politics #22: Dr. Strangelove Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (dir by Stanley Kubrick)

Posted on January 21, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Gentlemen! You can’t fight here! This is the war room!” — President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) in Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love the Bomb (1964)

The next time you hear someone bragging about how their favorite politician is an intellectual who always acts calmly and rationally, I would suggest that you remember the example of President Merkin Muffley, one of the many characters who populate the 1964 best picture nominee, Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

As played by Peter Sellers, Merkin Muffley is the epitome of rational political action. Speaking in a steady (if somewhat muffled) midwestern accent and always struggling to remain calm and dignified, Muffley keeps order in the War Room as the world edges closer and closer to apocalypse.

Just consider, for example, this scene where President Muffley calls the Russian leader (the nicely named Dimitri Kissoff) and explains that a little something silly has happened.

As Muffley explains in the above scene, Gen. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) has gone crazy. Convinced that the Russians have been sapping his precious bodily fluids, Gen. Ripper has ordered a nuclear strike on Russia. Unfortunately, Russia has built a Doomsday Machine that, should Russia be bombed, will destroy the world.

While Muffley is at fist skeptical about a doomsday machine, his advisor, Dr. Strangelove (also played by Peter Sellers), explains that the doomsday machine not only exists but that it’s actually a pretty good idea. The wheelchair-bound Dr. Strangelove speaks in a German accent and appears to have lost control over the left side of his body. At random moments, his left arm shoots up in a Nazi salute. At other times, his hand tries to strangle him. Making these surreal moments all the more memorable is the fact that nobody in the War Room seems to notice or question them.

And, while it’s always tempting to dismiss a character like Dr. Strangelove as being an over-the-top caricature, the fact of the matter is that, following the end of World War II, several Nazi scientists ended up working for the U.S. government. In many ways, the U.S. space program was the creation of a bunch of real-life Dr. Strangeloves.

Of course, President Muffley and Dr. Strangelove aren’t the only roles played by Peter Sellers in this film. Sellers also plays Lionel Mandrake, a British officer who — as the result of an office exchange program — happens to be at Burpelson Air Force Base at the same time that Gen. Ripper orders the attack on Russia.

As famous as his Sellers’s performances as Dr. Strangelove and President Muffley may be, I actually think Mandrake is his best performance in the film. In many ways, Mandrake is the audience’s surrogate. He’s the one who gets to hear Ripper’s rambling explanation for why he launched an attack on Russia. He’s the one who has to try to convince the hilariously unhelpful Col. Bat Guano (Keenan Wynn) to help him find a quarter so he can call the Pentagon.

(“You’re gonna have to answer to the Coca-Cola company,” Guano says, before shooting open a Coke machine to get change.)

Sellers plays Mandrake as a parody of the traditional, stiff upper lip British army officer. Not only does that allow some great humor as Mandrake keeps a calm demeanor while listening to Ripper’s increasingly crazed monologue but it also allows Mandrake to be the only sane man in the movie.

(Of course, the whole point of Dr. Strangelove is that the world’s become so insane that one sane man can not make a difference. )

Sellers earned a best actor nomination for playing three different roles and he deserved it but, for me, the two best performances in the film come from Slim Pickens and George C. Scott.

Pickens, of course, is the bomber pilot who ends up riding an atomic bomb like a bull in a rodeo. As a character, Maj. Kong may be a bit too much of a spot-on stereotype but Pickens brings such sincerity to the role that it doesn’t matter. Oddly enough, you feel almost happy for him when he rides that bomb to his death. You know that’s exactly how he would have wanted to go out.

And then there’s George C. Scott, playing the role of Gen. Buck Turgidson. From the safety of the War Room, Turgidson looks forward to nuclear war and worries when President Muffley invites the Russian ambassador to join them. (“But he’ll see the big board!” Turgidson exclaims.) Turgidson is both hilariously stupid and hilariously confident. Perhaps my favorite Turgidson moment comes when he trips, falls, and stands back up without once losing his paranoid train of thought.

(Though he doesn’t have a big role, James Earl Jones makes his film debut in Dr. Strangelove. The way he delivers the line “What about Major Kong?” makes me laugh every time.)

50 years after it was first released, Dr. Strangelove remains a comic masterpiece of a nightmare, a film that proves that political points are best made with satire and not sermons.

Shattered Politics #21: Kisses For My President (dir by Curtis Bernhardt)

Posted on January 20, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If there’s anyone who deserves to be the subject of a big budget biopic, it’s Victoria C. Woodhull. Back in the 19th century, at a time when women were not even allowed to vote, Victoria C. Woodhull was not only the first woman to ever work as a stockbroker but also the first to ever found her own newspaper. A fierce advocate for women’s right and free love, Victoria Woodhull was also the first woman to ever run for President. She was nominated in 1872 by the Equal Rights Party and, for the crime of trying to cast a vote for herself, she spent election day in jail.

Since that day, many more women have run for President but none have been elected. Since 1984, two women have received major party nominations for vice president but neither came close to being elected. Since 1964, Margaret Chase Smith, Shirley Chisholm, Patsy Mink, Ellen McCormack, Patricia Schroeder, Elizabeth Dole, Carol Mosely-Braun, Michele Bachman, and Hillary Rodham Clinton have all campaigned for the presidential nomination of one of the two major political parties but none of them have been nominated.

I do believe that a woman will be elected President within my lifetime. In fact, it could even happen in 2016. But until then, the only place where you can find a female President is on TV and in the movies.

Take, for instance, today’s final entry in Shattered Politics, the 1964 film Kisses For My President. This may very well have been the very first movie to feature a woman as President. Needless to say, in 1964, this idea was considered so outrageous that it had to be played for laughs.

Kisses For My President starts with an image of hundreds of women chanting “We want Leslie!” We get a shot of Fred MacMurray looking out over the crowd. The next scene, the new President is being sworn in. We start with a close-up of the chief justice reciting the oath of office to “Leslie Harrison McCloud.” The camera pans over to Fred MacMurray, listening intently. However, just when 1964 audiences were expecting MacMurray to swear to uphold the constitution, the camera pans yet again, over to …. Polly Bergen!

“OH MY GOD!” audiences in 1964 gasped, “LESLIE McCLOUD IS A WOMAN!”

That’s right. Polly Bergen is playing President Leslie McCloud and Fred MacMurray is playing her husband, Thad. As the film makes apparent in its opening scenes, Thad is not quite sure what his role is supposed to be. He has an office in the White House but it’s just so … feminine! And it’s full of painting of previous first ladies who were all ladies! And, at one point, Thad even imagines a picture of himself wearing a lady’s hat!

Oh my God!

Now, to be fair to the movie, Polly Bergen does get a few scenes where she shows herself to be a strong President. There’s a great scene where she coolly dismisses a condescending senator (Edward Andrews) who suggests that, as a woman, Leslie might not be up to the task of standing up to America’s enemies. It’s a brief scene but it’s a good one.

But, ultimately, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that Kisses For My President, a film about the first female President, is mostly interested in how Thad handles being “first gentleman.” It’s a film that imagines a historic moment for women and then focuses on what it would mean for one man.

How 1964!

On the one hand, Kisses For My President is a dated comedy that runs way too long and tries to get too much mileage out of one joke (i.e., Fred MacMurray looking confused). However, the film also features a great performance from Eli Wallach. Playing a strutting dictator named Vasquez, Wallach is a lot of fun and the scenes where MacMurray shows him around Washington are the best in the film. I also appreciated the fact that the President’s daughter reacts to the restrictions of living in the White House by dating a guy that she knows her parents will hate, largely because I would have done the same thing in her situation.

I’m a little bit torn on the ending of Kisses For My President. (Should I spoil it? No, I don’t think I will.) On the one hand, it’s outrageously sexist and seems to suggests that Leslie — despite being a strong President during the few times we actually get to see her doing the job — should have been content to just be a wife and mother. On the other hand, it’s one of those endings that would seem to perfectly capture the dominant culture of the time when the film was made. So, it has some worth from a historical point of view.

When last I checked, Kisses For My President is currently available for free on YouTube. The film is interesting as a historical document if nothing else.