A Movie A Day #166: Warning Sign (1985, directed by Hal Barwood)

Posted on June 23, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

The world might end, again.

There is a laboratory in the middle of the desert. While everyone thinks that the lab is developing pesticides, it is actually a secret government facility where the scientists have developed a chemical that will turn anyone exposed to it into a homicidal maniac. While the scientists are celebrating the success of their project, Dr. Tom Schmidt (G.W. Bailey — yes, Captain Harris from the Police Academy movies) steps on a vial and releases the chemical. The lab locks down and the army (led by Yaphet Kotto) arrives. The government wants to let the scientists kill each other off but a pregnant security guard (Kathleen Quinlan) is also trapped in the lab and her husband, the county sheriff (Sam Waterston), is determined to get her out.

Warning Sign was blandly directed by Hal Barwood, a longtime associate of both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. (Barwood wrote the script for Spielberg’s The Sugarland Express and designed the title sequence for Lucas’s THX 1138.) Barwood tried to take a very Spielbergian approach to Warning Sign, a mistake because successfully imitating Spielberg is easier said than done. Replace the shark with germs and the ocean with a lab on lock down and Warning Sign is like Jaws, without any of the suspense or humor. Sam Waterston’s germaphobic sheriff feels like a knock off of Roy Scheider’s aquaphobic police chief while Jeffrey DeMunn, as an alcoholic scientist, stands in for both Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw. With the violence and the gore kept to a minimum, this is one of the most tasteful zombie films ever made. Just compare it to George Romero’s The Crazies (or even the remake) to see how needlessly safe Warning Sign is.

A Movie A Day #157: Pacific Heights (1990, directed by John Schlesinger)

Posted on June 14, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Michael Keaton is the tenant from Hell in Pacific Heights.

In San Francisco, Patty (Melanie Griffith) and Drake (Matthew Modine) have just bought an old and expensive house that they can not really afford. In order to keep from going broke, they rent out two downstairs apartments. One apartment is rented by a nice Japanese couple. The other apartment is rented by Carter Hayes (Michael Keaton). Carter convinces Patty and Drake not to check his credit by promising to pay the 6 months rent up front. The money, he tells them, is coming via wire transfer.

The money never arrives but Carter does. Once he moves into the apartment, Carter changes the locks so that no one but him can get in. At all hours of the day and night, he can be heard hammering and drilling inside the apartment. Even worse, he releases cockroaches throughout the building. When Drake demands that Carter leave, the police back up Carter. After goading Drake into attacking him, Carter gets a restraining order. Drake is kicked out of his home, leaving Patty alone with their dangerous tenant.

Pacific Heights is the ultimate upper middle class nightmare: Buy a house that you can not really afford and then end up with a tenant who trashes the place to such an extent that the property value goes down. As a thriller, Pacific Heights would be better if Drake and Patty weren’t so unlikable. (When this movie was first made, people like Patty and Drake were known as yuppies.) Much like Drake’s house, the entire movie is stolen by Michael Keaton’s performance as Carter Hayes. Carter was not an easy role to play because not only did he have to be so convincingly charming that it was believable that he could rent an apartment just by promising a wire payment but he also had to be so crazy that no one would doubt that he would deliberately infest a house with cockroaches. Michael Keaton has not played many bad guys in his career but his performance as Carter Hayes knocked it out of the park.

One final note: Keep an eye out for former Hitchcock muse (and Melanie Griffith’s mother) Tippi Hedren, playing another one of Carter’s potential victims. Her cameo here is better than her cameo in In The Cold of the Night.

Pure 80s Hokum: Let’s Get Harry (1986, directed by Alan Smithee)

Posted on May 4, 2016 by Jedadiah Leland

Let’s Get Harry opens deep in the jungles of Columbia. The newly appointed American Ambassador (Bruce Gray) is touring a newly constructed water pipeline when suddenly, terrorist drug smugglers attack! The Ambassador, along with chief engineer Harry Burck (Mark Harmon, long before NCIS), is taken hostage. Drug Lord Carlos Ochobar announces that both the Ambassador and Harry will be executed unless the U.S. government immediately releases Ochobar’s men. However, the policy of the U.S. government is to not negotiate with terrorists. As grizzled mercenary Norman Shrike (Robert Duvall) explains it, nobody gives a damn about a minor ambassador.

Nobody in a small blue-collar town in Illinois gives a damn about the ambassador either. But they do give a damn about their friend Harry! When its obvious that the bureaucrats up in Washington are not going to do anything, Harry’s younger brother, Corey (Michael Shoeffling, Sixteen Candles), decides that he and his friends are going to go to Columbia themselves and get Harry! Helping him out are Bob (Thomas F. Wilson, Back to the Future), Kurt (Rick Rossovich, Top Gun), Spence (Glenn Frey!), and Jack (Gary Busey). If Jake Ryan, Biff Tannen, Slider, Buddy Holly, and the guy from the Eagles who wasn’t Don Henley can’t get Harry, then who can!?

There were a lot of these “American rescue mission” movies made in the 80s, everything from Uncommon Valor to The Delta Force to the Rambo films. Plotwise, Let’s Get Harry adds little to the genre. It’s about as simplistic and implausible as a Donald Trump campaign speech. A bunch of terrorists are holding American hostages and making us all look bad while the establishment refuses to do anything about it? Don’t worry! Here come a bunch of heavily armed, no-nonsense American citizens to save the day and make America great again!

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There are two things that distinguish Let’s Get Harry. First, Let’s Get Harry is one of the many films to have been credited to Alan Smithee. From 1968 to 2000, Alan Smithee was the official pseudonym used by directors who wanted to disown a project. Smithee has been credited as directing everything from Solar Crisis to Morgan Stewart’s Coming Home to The O.J. Simpson Story. In the case of Let’s Get Harry, Smithee was standing in for veteran director Stuart Rosenberg (probably best known for Cool Hand Luke). Rosenberg originally only planned for Mark Harmon to be seen only at the end of the film, much like Matt Damon in Saving Private Ryan. When TriStar Pictures demanded extra scenes featuring Harmon being taken and held hostage, Rosenberg took his name off the film.

(Before Rosenberg signed on to direct, Let’s Get Harry started out as a Sam Fuller project and he received a story credit on the film. With the exception of some of the scenes with Harmon, which may have been shot by a different director, Rosenberg’s direction was adequate but Let’s Get Harry really does cry out for a director like Sam Fuller.)

Secondly, there is the cast, which is a lot more interesting than would be typically found in a low-budget, 80s action film. Not surprisingly, by respectively underplaying and overplaying, Duvall and Busy give the two best performances. Meanwhile, lightweight Mark Harmon gives the worst. Perhaps because of the conflict between Rosenberg and the studio over his character, Harmon spends the entire movie looking lost.

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As an exercise in patriotic wish fulfillment, Let’s Get Harry is pure 80s hokum. It may be dumb but it is also entertaining. After all, any film that features not only Robert Duvall, Gary Busey, and Ben Johnson, but also Glenn Frey is going to be worth watching. Let’s Get Harry has never been released on DVD and is currently only available on VHS. Somebody needs to do something about this.

Let’s get Harry on DVD!

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Shattered Politics #52: Blaze (dir by Ron Shelton)

Posted on January 30, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh those crazy Southern politicians!

As I’ve mentioned in a few other reviews, filmmakers have always loved to make movies about the crazy demagogues that we have historically tended to elect down here in the South. Sometimes, those movies are serious and thought-provoking, like All The King’s Men. And sometimes, like in Hold That Co-Ed, a film will attempt to play up the inherent humor in rabble rousing. And then you’ve got films like Ada and Hurry Sundown, which are so melodramatic that those of us down South just have to shake our heads in amazement that people up North actually believe this stuff.

The 1989 film Blaze (which is currently making the rounds on cable) is a part of this cinematic tradition of films about flamboyant Southern politicians. It’s part comedy and part melodrama and, perhaps not surprisingly, it takes place in 1950s Louisiana.

(Why isn’t that surprising? Listen, my family used to live in Louisiana. I still visit Louisiana on a fairly regularly basis. Louisiana is crazy. That’s one reason why I love it.)

Blaze is based on the true story of Gov. Earl K. Long (played here by Paul Newman). The younger brother of former Governor Huey P. Long (who himself served as the basis for the character of Willie Stark in All The King’s Men), Earl served as governor for three non-consecutive terms. He was a flamboyant populist, in the style of his older brother, the type who campaigned as one of the “common” people and who was either extremely corrupt or extremely progressive, depending on which historian you happen to be reading.

In Blaze, Earl is nearing the end of his third term. Because the state’s constitution does not allow a governor to succeed himself, Earl is currently campaigning for lieutenant governor, with the plan being that one of Earl’s allies will be elected governor and will then resign so that Earl can succeed him. While this is traditionally the sort of thing that voters in Louisiana would love, Earl is struggling because some voters are angry over his support for the civil rights movement.

Earl is also struggling because he’s just met Blaze Starr (Lolita Davidovich), a much younger stripper from West Virginia. For Earl, it’s love at first sight and soon, Blaze feels the same way. Soon, she and Earl are going across the state together. However, after Earl’s opponents arrange for him to be sent to a mental asylum, Blaze is forced to consider that she might be too big of a political liability to remain with the man she loves.

If that all sounds incredibly romanticized — well, it is. After I watched Blaze, I did a little bit research on Earl and Blaze. To say the film is fictionalized would be an understatement. (Though, interestingly enough, Earl actually was sent to a mental asylum while serving as governor.) But is that really a surprise? Would audiences rather watch a movie about a corrupt, old racist who regularly cheated on his wife or would they rather watch a romanticized love story with hissable villains and moments of crowd-pleasing comedy?

As for the film itself, it’s okay. It moves a bit too slowly for its own good and it’s never quite as enthralling as you might hope it would be, but both Paul Newman and Lolita Davidovich are well-cast and have a likable chemistry. I related to the film’s version of Blaze Starr, mostly because we’re both redheads with big boobs who have a natural distrust of authority figures. If you’re into Southern politics and you’re not obsessed with historical accuracy, you might enjoy Blaze.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyK-cD5ffPo