Stagecoach (1986, directed by Ted Post)

Posted on July 11, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

The year is 1880 and Geronimo and his Apaches are on a warpath against the people who have taken their land. Despite the warnings of the local Calvary officers, one stagecoach tries to make the long journey from Arizona to New Mexico. The seven passengers may start out as strangers but they’re going to have to work together to survive the journey. The most famous passenger is dentist-turned-gunslinger Doc Holliday (Willie Nelson). The most infamous is the Ringo Kid (Kris Kristofferson), an outlaw who has recently escaped from prison and who is looking for revenge against the men who framed him for a crime that he didn’t commit. Henry Gatewood (Anthony Fraciosa) is a banker who has embezzled money and is looking to make a quick escape. Foppish Trevor Peacock (Anthony Newley) sells liquor. Dallas (Elizabeth Ashley) is a former prostitute looking to start a new life. Mrs. Mallory (Mary Crosby) is nine months pregnant and traveling to reunite with her husband, an officer in the Calvary. Finally, Hatfield (Waylon Jennings) is a chivalrous gambler. Riding atop the stagecoach is Buck (John Schneider), who gets paid 8 dollars a month to risk his life taking people through Apache country, and Curly (Johnny Cash), the tough-but-fair town marshal who plans to arrest the Ringo Kid as soon as they reach civilization.

Made for television, Stagecoch is an adequate remake of the John Ford classic. The story remains basically the same, with the main difference being that the majority of the characters are now played by country-western singers who are a few years too old for their roles. Doc Holliday, who died of “consumption” when he was in his 30s, is played by Willie Nelson, who doesn’t look a day under 70. The Ringo Kid is played by Kris Kristofferson, who, despite having literally played Billy the Kid a decade earlier, still doesn’t look like he’s ever been called a “kid” at any point in his life. Compared to their original counterparts, the remake’s characters have been slightly tweaked so that they fit with the outlaw country images of the singers playing them. Doc Holliday sympathizes with Geronimo and says that his use of whiskey is “medicinal.” Kristofferson’s Ringo Kid is more openly contemptuous of authority than John Wayne’s. Waylon Jennings is less of a cynic in the role of Hatfield than John Carradine was and Johnny Cash sits atop the stagecoach like a man on a holy mission.

The cast is the main reason to watch this version of Stagecoach. The film can’t match the original but Nelson, Kristofferson, Jennings, and Cash obviously enjoyed playing opposite each other and, even if Nelson and Kristofferson are miscast, all of them bring some needed country-western authenticity to their roles. As for the non-singers, Mary Crosby, Elizabeth Ashley, and John Schneider all make the best impressions while both Franciosa and Newley seem too 20th Century for their western roles. Director Ted Post does a good job with the action scenes and keeps the story moving, even if the remake’s status as a TV production keeps him from capturing visual grandeur of Ford’s original. Stagecoach is a respectful remake of a classic, one that can be appreciated when western fans on its own merits.

Film Review: Convoy (dir by Sam Peckinpah)

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, it looks like we’ve got ourselves a Convoy!

The 1978 film Convoy opens with the image of a truck passing by some hills that have been covered with snow. At a certain point, it actually looks like the truck is descending into a sea of white powder. It’s an appropriate image because, to film lovers and cinematic historians, Convoy will always be associated with cocaine.

Convoy was meant to be a relatively small-scale B-movie, one that was meant to capitalize on the popularity of a novelty song, as well as the recent success of other car chase films. Instead, it became a notoriously troubled production that went famously overbudget and overschedule as director Sam Peckinpah turned Convoy into a personal statement about modern cowboys and independence. When the film was finally released, it was the biggest box office hit of Peckinpah’s storied career. However, because so much money had been spent making the film, it still failed to make a profit and the film is regularly described as being one of the many flops of the late 70s that eventually led to the power in the film industry shifting away from the directors and over to the studio executives. Many in Hollywood grumbled that it was Peckinpah’s well-known cocaine use that led to him having such trouble with what should have been a simple B-movie. That’s probably a bit unfair to Peckinpah as it’s been written that just about everyone in Hollywood was using cocaine in 1978.

Add to that …. Convoy‘s not that bad.

Convoy tells the story of Rubber Duck (Kris Kristofferson), a legendary trucker who has never joined the Teamsters. He’s an independent. Rubber Duck’s nemesis is Sheriff Dirty Lyle (Ernest Borgnine), who is also an independent. He’s never joined the policeman’s union. As Rubber Duck puts it, “There’s not many like us anymore.”

Anyway, for reasons that are only vaguely defined, Rubber Duck leads a convoy of trucks across the southwest while being pursued by the police. It has something to do with protesting the law enforcement tactics of Dirty Lyle, despite the fact that Rubber Duck appears to kind of like Lyle. Soon hundreds of other independent truckers are joining Rubber Duck’s convoy, all to protest law enforcement. Among those in the convoy are Pig Pen (Burt Young), Widow Woman (Madge Sinclair), and Spider Mike (Franklyn Ajaye), who just wants to get home to his pregnant wife. Traveling with Rubber Duck is Melissa (Ali MacGraw), who is supposed to be some sort of photojournalist. Rubber Duck and Melissa fall in love but there’s only so much you can do with a love story when it centers around two of the least expressive stars of the 70s. During the chase, Rubber Duck picks up some non-truckers supporters, including some religious fanatics in a microbus. He and the truckers also drive through and destroy a lot of buildings, which kind of makes it look like the cops might have had a point.

What sets Convoy apart from other chase films of the 70s is just how seriously it takes itself. There’s an undercurrent of melancholy that runs through the entire film. Rubber Duck seems to know that America is changing and as people become more comfortable with the idea of sacrificing their freedoms, his days as an independent trucker are numbered. Dirty Lyle also seems to be stuck in a permanent existential crisis, taking no joy in being a crook but still forced to do so by being a part of an inherently corrupt government system. There’s a scene where a truckstop waitress offers herself up as a gift to Rubber Duck on his birthday and Peckinpah films it as if he’s making an Italian neorealist drama about Rome after the war. When Spider Mike says that he has to get home to his wife, he says it with the pain of a man who knows that the system only cares about control and not happiness. These aren’t just truckers. These are men and women who are on the front lines battling a creeping culture of oppression.

Surprisingly enough, the film’s serious tone actually works to its advantage. You may not fully understand why Rubber Duck is leading that convoy but you hope that it succeeds because you get the feeling that the world might end if it doesn’t. When the film ends with Ernest Borgnine laughing like a maniac, it comes across less like a moment of amusement and more like an acknowledgment that the universe is a tragic farce. Life is a riddle wrapped inside an engima and only Rubber Duck and Dirty Lyle seem to understand that fact.

Add to that, this is a film about independents refusing to allow themselves to be limited by the regulatory state. In its way, it’s one of the most sincerely Libertarian films ever made and, with all of us currently living under “lockdowns” and hoping that our governors don’t join those who have already surrendered their better instincts to their inner tyrant (sorry, Michigan, Kentucky, and New Jersey), Convoy remains an important film. Go, Rubber Duck, go!

Outlaw Justice (1999, directed by Bill Corcoran)

Posted on January 28, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

During the closing days of the old west, the evil Holden (Sancho Garcia) guns down retired outlaw, Tobey Naylor (Waylon Jennings). Tobey’s son, Bryce (Chad Willett), is determined to get revenge so he teams up with three members of Tobey’s old gang, Lee Walker (Willie Nelson), Jesse Ray Torrance (Kris Kristofferson), and Sheriff Dalton (Travis Tritt). They ride into Mexico, searching for one final shootout. Along the way, they befriend the locals, find time to rebuild a burned-out church, and bicker like aging gunslingers in a Larry McMurtry novel. Chad Willett and Willie Nelson also find time to fall in love with local women because, obviously, the entire film can’t just be gunfights and church-building.

Outlaw Justice is a standard western, which is distinguished only by the casting of the pioneers of outlaw country music as actual outlaws. Since this was made during the Lonesome Dove-Unforgiven era of westerns, there’s some talk about how Lee and Jesse Ray are past their prime but otherwise, it’s an angle that largely left unexplored. Of the singers, Kris Kristoffeson and Travis Tritt are probably the best actors but Willie Nelson seems to be having the most fun. (Nelson has enough natural charisma that he can get away with a lot.) If you’re a fan of westerns who doesn’t demand too much from the movie you’re watching, Outlaw Justice will probably be entertaining enough. Otherwise, it’s pretty forgettable.

When It Comes To Halloween, Should You Trust The IMDb?

Posted on October 1, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Dr. Sam Loomis

Like a lot of people, I enjoy browsing the trivia sections of the IMDb. While it’s true that a lot of the items are stuff like, “This movie features two people who appeared on a television series set in the Star Trek Universe!,” you still occasionally came across an interesting fact or two.

Of course, sometimes, you just come across something that makes so little sense that you can only assume that it was posted as a joke. For instance, I was reading the IMDb’s trivia for the original 1978 Halloween and I came across this:

Peter O’Toole, Mel Brooks, Steven Hill, Walter Matthau, Jerry Van Dyke, Lawrence Tierney, Kirk Douglas, John Belushi, Lloyd Bridges, Abe Vigoda, Kris Kristofferson, Sterling Hayden, David Carradine, Dennis Hopper, Charles Napier, Yul Brynner and Edward Bunker were considered for the role of Dr. Sam Loomis.

Now, some of these names make sense. Despite the fact that Sam Loomis became Donald Pleasence’s signature role, it is still possible to imagine other actors taking the role and perhaps bringing a less neurotic interpretation to the character.

Peter O’Toole as Dr. Loomis? Okay, I can see that.

Kirk Douglas, Sterling Hayden, Charles Napier, Steve Hill, or Lloyd Bridges as Dr. Loomis? Actually, I can imagine all of them grimacing through the role.

Walter Matthau? Well, I guess if you wanted Dr. Loomis to be kind of schlubby….

Abe Vigoda? Uhmmm, okay.

Dennis Hopper? That would be interesting.

Mel Brooks? What? Wait….

John Belushi? Okay, stop it!

Dr. Sam Loomis

My point is that I doubt any of these people were considered for the role of Dr. Loomis. Both director John Carpenter and producer Debra Hill have said that they wanted to cast an English horror actor in the role, as a bit of an homage to the Hammer films of the 60s. Christopher Lee was offered the role but turned it down, saying that he didn’t care for the script or the low salary. (Lee later said this was one of the biggest mistakes of his career.) Peter Cushing’s agent turned down the role, again because of the money. It’s not clear whether Cushing himself ever saw the script.

To be honest, I could easily Peter Cushing in the role and I could see him making a brilliant Dr. Loomis. But, ultimately, Donald Pleasence was the perfect (if not the first) choice for the role. Of course, Pleasence nearly turned down the role as well. Apparently, it was his daughter, Angela, who changed his mind. She was an admirer of John Carpenter’s previous film, Assault on Precint 13. Carpenter has said that he was originally intimidated by Donald Pleasence (the man had played Blofeld, after all) but that Pleasence turned out to be a professional and a gentleman.

Laurie Strode

Of course, Halloween is best known for being the first starring role of Jamie Lee Curtis. Curtis was actually not Carpenter’s first choice for the role of Laurie Strode. His first choice was an actress named Annie Lockhart, who was the daughter of June Lockhart. Carpenter changed his mind when he learned that Jamie was the daughter of Janet Leigh. Like any great showman, Carpenter understood the importance of publicity and he knew nothing would bring his horror movie more publicity then casting the daughter of the woman whose onscreen death in Psycho left moviegoers nervous about taking a shower.

There was also another future big name who came close to appearing in Halloween. At the time that she was cast as Lynda, P.J. Soles was dating an up-and-coming actor from Texas named Dennis Quaid. Quaid was offered the role of Lynda’s doomed boyfriend, Bob but he was already committed to another film.

Not considered for a role was Robert Englund, though the future Freddy Krueger still spent some time on set. He was hired by Carpenter to help spread around the leaves that would make it appear as if his film was taking place in the October, even though it was filmed in May.

Robert Englund, making May look like October

Interestingly enough, Englund nearly wasn’t need for that job because Halloween was not originally envisioned as taking place on Halloween or any other specific holiday. When producer Irwin Yablans and financier Moustapha Akkad originally approached Carpenter and Hill to make a movie for them about a psycho stalking three babysitters, they didn’t care when the film was set. It was only after Carpenter and Hill wrote a script called The Babysitter Muders that it occurred to Yablans that setting the film during Halloween would be good from a marketing standpoint. Plus Halloween made for a better title than The Babysitter Murders.

And, of course, the rest is history. Carpenter’s film came to define Halloween and it still remains the standard by which every subsequent slasher movie has been judged. Would that have happened if the film had been known as The Babysitter Murders and had starred John Belushi?

Sadly, we may never know.

Music Video Of The Day: God’s Gonna Cut You Down (2006, dir by Tony Kaye)

Posted on April 21, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This is a case where I like the song more than the music video. This video was actually filmed three years after Johnny Cash’s death. As far as “official” music videos are concerned, I always feel like a musician should have some sort of say into how their music is visually interpreted. Obviously, Johnny Cash wasn’t around to have anything to say about the video for God’s Gonna Cut You Down.

Since Cash wasn’t available, director Tony Kaye filled the video with cameos from other actors and musicians, a few of whom (though not many) were previous Cash collaborators. Among the celebs who make an appearance in this video: David Allan Coe, Patricia Arquette, Travis Barker, Peter Blake, Bono, Sheryl Crow, Johnny Depp, the Dixie Chicks, Flea, Billy Gibbons, Whoopi Goldberg, Woody Harrelson, Dennis Hopper, Terrence Howard, Jay-Z, Mick Jones, Kid Rock, Anthony Kiedis, Kris Kristofferson, Amy Lee, Adam Levine, Shelby Lynne, Chris Martin, Kate Moss, Graham Nash, Busy Philipps, Iggy Pop, Lisa Marie Presley, Q-Tip, Corinne Bailey Rae, Keith Richards, Chris Rock, Rick Rubin, Patti Smith, Sharon Stone, Justin Timberlake, Kanye West, Brian Wilson, and Owen Wilson. Some of the celebs — like Dennis Hopper and Kris Kristofferson — seem like they naturally belong there. Others seem so out-of-place that you’ll want to throw something. You know how that works,

God’s Gonna Cut You Down is a traditional folk song. I’ve heard countless versions of it. I prefer Cash’s version to the more traditional gospel arrangement but, then again, I tend to find gospel music to be dull in general. Cash’s arrangement brought new life to an old song.

Enjoy!

A Movie A Day #317: Flashpoint (1984, directed by William Tannen)

Posted on November 22, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

November 22, 1963. While the rest of the world deals with the aftermath of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, a man named Michael Curtis drives a jeep across the South Texas desert, heading for the border. In the jeep, he has a $800,000 and a high-powered rifle. When the jeep crashes, the man, the rifle, and the money are left undiscovered in the desert for 21 years.

1984. Two border patrol agents, Logan (Kris Kristofferson) and Wyatt (Treat Williams), are complaining about their job and hoping for a better life. It looks like they might get that opportunity when they come across both the jeep and the money. A bitter Vietnam vet, Logan wants to take the money and run but Wyatt is more cautious. Shortly after Wyatt runs a check on the jeep’s license plate, a FBI agent (Kurtwood Smith) shows up at the station and both Logan and Wyatt discover their lives are in danger.

Though it was made seven years before Oliver Stone’s JFK, Flashpoint makes the same argument, that Kennedy was killed as the result of a massive government conspiracy and that the conspirators are still in power and doing whatever they have to do keep the truth from being discovered. The difference is that Flashpoint doesn’t try to convince anyone. If you’re watching because you’re hoping to see a serious examination of the Kennedy conspiracy theories, Flashpoint is not for you. Instead, Flashpoint is a simple but effective action film, a modern western that uses the assassination as a MacGuffin. Though Kris Kristofferson has never been the most expressive of actors, he was well-cast as the archetypical gunslinger with a past. Rip Torn also gives a good performance as a morally ambiguous sheriff and fans of great character acting will want to keep an eye out for both Kevin Conway and Miguel Ferrer in small roles.

A Movie A Day #251: Cisco Pike (1972, directed by Bill L. Norton)

Posted on September 16, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Yesterday, the great character actor Harry Dean Stanton passed away at the age of 91. Cisco Pike is not one of Stanton’s best films but it is a film that highlight why Stanton was such a compelling actor and why his unique presence will be missed.

Cisco Pike (Kris Kristofferson) is a musician who has fallen on hard time. After having been busted several times for dealing drugs, Cisco now just wants to spend time with his “old lady” (Karen Black) and plot his comeback as a musician. However, a corrupt narcotics detective, Leo Holland (Gene Hackman), approaches Cisco with an offer that he cannot refuse. Holland has come into possession of 100 kilos of marijuana. He wants Cisco to sell it for him and then Leo plans to take the money and retire. Cisco has the weekend to sell all of the weed. If he doesn’t, Holland will arrest him for dealing and sent him back to prison,

About halfway through this loose and improvisational look at dealers, hippies, and squares in 1970s Los Angeles, Harry Dean Stanton shows up in the role of Jesse Dupree, an old friend and former bandmate of Cisco’s. Jesse is a free-living wanderer, too old to be a hippie but too unconventional to be a member of the establishment. Unfortunately, Jesse also has a nasty heroin habit. Jesse Dupree is a prototypical Harry Dean Stanton role. Like many of Stanton’s best roles, Jesse may be sad and full of regrets but he is not going to let that keep him from enjoying life. Stanton may not appear in much of the film but he still takes over every scene in which he appears.

Stanton is, by far, the best thing about Cisco Pike. As always, Gene Hackman is entertaining, playing the inverse of The French Connection‘s Popeye Doyle and Karen Black is her usual mix of sexy and weird. The weakest part of the movie is Kris Kristofferson, who was still a few years away from becoming a good actor when he starred in Cisco Pike. It is interesting to consider how different Cisco Pike would have been if Stanton and Kristofferson had switched roles. Stanton may not have had Kristofferon’s movie star looks but, unlike Kristofferson, he feels real in everything that he does. With his air of resignation and his non-Hollywood persona, Stanton brought authenticity to not only Cisco Pike but to every film in which he appeared.

Along with Stanton, several other familiar faces appear in Cisco Pike. Keep an eye out for Roscoe Lee Browne, Howard Hesseman, Viva, Allan Arbus, and everyone’s favorite spaced-out hippie chick, the one and only Joy Bang.

Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door: PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID (MGM 1973)

Posted on August 28, 2017 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

(PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID airs tonight at 11:45 EST on TCM. Do yourselves a favor… watch it!)

PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID was director Sam Peckinpah’s final Western, and as usual it’s about more than just the Old West. It’s about the new breed vs the old establishment, about the maverick auteur vs the old studio guard, and about his never-ending battle to make his films his way. The fact that there are six, count ’em, SIX different editors credited tells you what MGM honcho James Aubrey thought of that idea! They butchered over 20 minutes out of the movie, which then proceeded to tank at the box office. Fortunately for us, PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID has been restored to its full glory, and we can enjoy Peckinpah’s original artistic vision.

I’m not going to try to make excuses for Peckinpah; he was a legitimate pain in the ass, a…

View original post 616 more words

Insomnia File #24: A Star is Born (dir by Frank Pierson)

Posted on April 25, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you found yourself awake and unable to sleep at 2:30 this morning, you could have always turned over to TCM and watched the 1976 film, A Star is Born.

A Star is Born gets off to a good start by having Gary Busey give Kris Kristofferson a hit of cocaine. As I pointed out on twitter, no movie that starts with Gary Busey offering cocaine to Kris Kristofferson can be all bad.

Anyway, Kris is playing John Norman Howard. John Norman Howard is a big 70s rock star, which means that he has a beard and a bad case of ennui. Despite all of the cocaine and whiskey, his career is on a downward spiral. Part of the problem appears to be that he only sings one song and, half the time, he still can’t bring himself to remember all of the lyrics. The song opens with John growling, “Are you a figment of my imagination or am I one of yours?” and John always ends up storming off stage before we can hear the rest of it.

Anyway, John ends up at this club in Hollywood that looks a lot like the place that Ryan Gosling opened up at the end of La La Land. While at the club, John gets into a fight with Robert Englund (who I assume was playing a young Freddy Krueger) and totally interrupts the performance of the Oreos.

Who are the Oreos? They’re a folk-singin’ power trio. There’s One (Venetta Fields) and Two (Clydie King). (According to the credits, that’s actually their names.) And then there’s Esther Hoffman, who has a truly horrid perm and who is played by Barbra Streisand. One and Two are black. Esther, who stands right in the middle whenever they perform, is white. And they’re called The Oreos!

Uhmmm, yeah…

Anyway, we really don’t learn anything about One or Two, beyond the fact that they are totally and completely devoted to Esther. When Esther gets them fired from recording a cat food jingle, they just smile and laugh. Sure, why not!? After all, it’s not like struggling musicians need money or anything. When Esther interrupts a performance to yell at John, One and Two smile and laugh. When Esther, under John’s tutelage, becomes a big star and basically abandons the Oreos, One and Two show up at a recording session and smile and laugh.

Last night was my first time to actually see A Star is Born, though I had heard and read quite a bit about it. Of all the versions of A Star is Born, this one made the most money at the box office but it also got the worst reviews. Reportedly, the film’s production was a trainwreck with Barbra Streisand and then-boyfriend Jon Peters fighting with … well, everyone.

And yet, like so many cinematic trainwrecks, you simply cannot look away from it. This version of A Star is Born gets so many things wrong that it becomes rather fascinating to watch. Perhaps the scene that epitomizes A Star is Born comes when John refuses to perform his one song at a benefit concert and instead, brings out Esther and has her perform her songs. First off, John’s hard rock band suddenly transforms into a Broadway orchestra and John’s audience — who presumably had paid money to hear that growling song about imagination — is overjoyed to instead have to listen to Esther’s style of lite pop/rock. (Actually, to even call it rock is to needlessly stretch the definition of rock to its breaking point.) Making the scene even more bizarre is that 1) John is basically exploiting a benefit concert to launch Esther’s career and 2) since the concert was being performed to support the American Indian Movement, the disembodied head of a Native American woman keeps appearing over Esther’s shoulder while she’s performing songs that have absolutely nothing to do with the cause that the concert is supposedly supporting. It’s kind of the cinematic equivalent of that Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial.

Anyway, things get even better when John buys an empty field and, in a ten minute montage, John and Esther literally build a house. Seriously, I’m not kidding. At no point do we see anyone other than John and Esther working on that house and yet, within a matter of minutes, they have an adobe mansion to live in. I had no idea it was so easy to build a house. It makes me wonder why people waste money buying houses when they can just buy an empty field and build their own.

(Maybe they’re scared of the poltergeists. Imagine how different this version of A Star Is Born would have been if it ended with Esther grabbing John and screaming, “YOU MOVED THE HEADSTONES BUT YOU LEFT THE BODIES, DIDN’T YOU!? YOU LEFT THE BODIES!”)

Kris Kristofferson is well-cast as John Norman Howard but the film is pretty much centered around Barbra. That, in itself, wouldn’t be a problem if not for the fact that Barbra is completely miscast. She’s a great singer but she’s not a rock singer. You never believe that the same people who want to hear John sing his one song would also want to hear any of Esther’s songs. The fact that the film is basically 140 minutes of everyone insisting that Esther is the future of music only reminds us of the fact that she’s not. Her style is throwback to the past, which is one reason why everyone’s grandmother loves Barbra Streisand.

This wouldn’t be such a big deal if Barbra and Kris actually had any chemistry but they really don’t. There’s a scene where Barbra and Kris take a bath together and Barbra puts makeup on Kris’s face. Between two people who have chemistry, that would be sexy and sweet. Between Kris and Barbra, it’s just kind of icky and you find yourself wondering who took the time to light the hundreds of candles surrounding them. Whenever Barbra and Kris kissed, I worried for her just because all I could think of was the stubble burn that Esther would have to deal with later.

Yet, in the end, the film makes so many mistakes that it becomes one of the most watchable movies ever made. It may not be good but it sure is entertaining.