4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today, we celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of the great director, Robert Altman! It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Robert Altman Films
MASH (1970, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Harold E. Stine)
The Long Goodbye (1973, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Vilmos Zsigmond)
Nashville (1975, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Paul Lohmann)
3 Women (1977, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Charles Rosher, Jr.)
In 1995’s Bloodknot, we are introduced to a grieving family.
Evelyn (Margot Kidder) and Arthur (Allan Royal) are mourning the death of their oldest son, who was in the military and who died during a military operation in the Middle East. Their other son, Tom (Patrick Dempsey), spends his time working on cars and helping out local racecar driver Mike (Craig Sheffer). Youngest daughter Gail (Ashleigh Ann Wood) doesn’t really have much of a personality but she’s definitely worried about her mother.
Suddenly, Connie (Kate Vernon) shows up in town. Wearing a uniform that is slightly too large for her, Connie claims that she served with Evelyn’s dead son and that they eventually became more than just friends. That’s strange, Evelyn says, he never mentioned you. Connie replies that she encouraged him to write more but, for whatever reason, he didn’t. Everyone agrees that what’s important now is that Connie has introduced herself to the family. Soon, Connie is living at the mansion and making flirtatious eye contact with both Arthur and Tom. One might expect Evelyn to be concerned about this but instead, Evelyn is too busy walking around in a depressed daze and blaming her “sinful” past for all the recent tragedy.
You probably already guessed that Connie is not who she says she is. Indeed, Connie has come to the family with an agenda of her own. She’s looking for vengeance and I won’t spoil it by revealing what she’s upset about but I will say that it’s fairly dumb and makes less sense the more that you think about it. Tom’s girlfriend, Julie (Krista Bridges), suspects that Connie is a liar but can she prove it? Julie even talks to the officer from whom Connie stole her uniform after Connie met and seduced her at a bar. Why would Connie, who seems to be willing to kill anyone, leave that one person alive? Obviously, it’s so Julie can learn the truth but still, it’s an oversight on Connie’s part that makes little sense.
(Julie isn’t a very interesting character but she does get to wear a really nice pair of boots so at least she’s got that going for her.)
Looking at the members of this film’s cast — Patrick Dempsey, Craig Sheffer, Kate Vernon — and you have to wonder if someone specifically said, “Let’s make an paranoia-themed, erotic thriller with the least interesting actors of the 90s.” (Yes, Dempsey got better but, in this film, he was still doing the goofy awkward thing.) This film goes through all the usual steps. Connie starts out as being friendly and then progressively reveals herself to be more and more unhinged. The men are reduced to stuttering incoherence by the sight of Connie smiling at them. For this type of film to work, the actors have to be fully willing to embrace the melodrama but instead, both Kate Vernon and Patrick Dempsey give oddly lowkey performances, with Vernon’s attempt at a seductive smile instead coming across like a smirk that should have clued everyone in to the fact that she was not to be trusted. If you’re appearing in a film like this, you should at least have a little fun. As for Craig Sheffer, he’s as mind-numbingly dull as ever.
The film does improve a bit towards the end, largely because Connie’s secret reason for harassing the family is so implausible that it can’t help but be a bit entertaining to listen to the characters discuss it. Overall, though, this was pretty boring. Let this film be a lesson to all — embrace the melodrama!
Today is the anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest of the screen tough guys, Mr. Lee Marvin! Today’s scene that I love comes from the 1967 film, Point Blank. In this short but emotionally exhausting scene, Angie Dickinson hits Lee Marvin’s career criminal, over and over again. Marvin, for his part, barely reacts. This scene is the epitome of Lee Marvin’s mystique. He played men who only showed emotion when it was necessary. Dickinson hits Marvin to try to make him feel something but Marvin’s career criminal in beyond such concerns.
From Point Blank, here is today’s scene that I love:
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
John Frankenheimer was born 95 years ago today, in New York City. He got his start working in live television and went on to become one of the best directors of thrillers around. After getting off to a strong start in the 60s, directing several classic films (many of which had a political subtext), Frankenheimer struggled in the 70s (though even that decade saw him directing the classic Black Sunday) before making a comeback in the 90s. (1998’s Ronin is regularly cited as having one of the best car chases ever captured on film.) He was also one of the first film directors to make the transition to regularly working for cable channels like TNT and HBO. Indeed, the films that he made for HBO played no small part in establishing HBO’s reputation as being a “prestige” network.
It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 John Frankenheimer Films
The Manchurian Candidate (1962, dir by John Frankenheimer, DP: Lionel Lindon)
Seven Days In May (1964, dir by John Frankenheimer, DP: Ellsworth Fredericks)
Seconds (1966, dir by John Frankenheimer, DP: James Wong Howe)
Black Sunday (1977, dir by John Frankenheimer, DP: John A. Alonzo)
I couldn’t let today go by without recognizing John Travolta. I’ve enjoyed so many of his films over the years, especially movies like GREASE, BLOW OUT, PULP FICTION, and GET SHORTY. But the movie I probably love the most is FACE/OFF. I remember watching it at the movie theater back in 1997 and thinking it was the best movie ever. It came out at a perfect time when I was obsessed with John Woo, and I was still enjoying Travolta’s mid-90’s comeback. I still watch FACE/OFF at least once every year.
Enjoy this excellent scene from John Woo’s FACE/OFF!
A group of American soldiers are searching for militants. Amongst them is the grim-faced William “Spooky” MacPherson (Val Kilmer). When an adorable little girl with a teddy bear approaches the soldiers, MacPherson barely notices. His mind is on adult threats. But when the girl reveals that she has a bomb in her backpack, the majority of the soldiers are blown up with her. MacPherson survives, though he loses a leg and ends up with such severe PTSD that he can no longer carry a gun or even make a fist. Helping him recover from his wounds is his best friend and fellow soldier, Miguel (Greg Serano).
A year or so later, MacPherson is back home. He lives in a run-down apartment in New York and spends most of his time with a naked woman who speaks Russian. (Whether she was meant to be his girlfriend or just someone he hired is unclear.) Miguel continually calls him up and asks him to come down to New Mexico and work on his ranch. MacPherson refuses at first. He wants to remain isolated from the world. But when his flashbacks of the explosion become too intense, MacPherson finally decides to accept Miguel’s offer. MacPherson pawns a gun so that he’ll have enough money to get a bus ticket. And then, he heads for New Mexico.
The only problem is that, once MacPherson arrives in New Mexico, Miguel is nowhere to be seen. Walking through a town that appears to have recently been constructed, MacPherson meets a lot of people who insist that they’ve never heard of Miguel and that there is no ranch at the address that Miguel gave MacPherson. The police carefully watch MacPherson as he makes his way from business to business, searching for his friend. No one in town is friendly. No one seems to want MacPherson around. Eventually, MacPherson is approached by Rhodes (Gary Cole), the businessman who is building the town and who apparently controls everything that happens within the town limits. Rhodes is friendly. Rhodes says that MacPherson, with his white skin and blonde hair, is exactly the type of person that he likes to see in his town. Can you tell where this is going?
You probably already guessed that Rhodes is an evil businessman who is involved in human trafficking and who smuggles Mexicans across the border to work for his company before then sending back to their home country with next to no money. You’ve also probably figured out that Miguel was killed by the corrupt police force. If you haven’t figured that out, you’ve never seen a movie before. MacPherson teams up with the only kind person in town, Joanna (Jennifer Esposito), and they try to stop Rhodes’s operation. The entire movie seems to be building up to a scene where MacPherson and Joanna take on the whole town but instead, somewhat anticlimactically, everyone just stands around and watches Rhodes battle MacPherson. Conspiracy promises a lot but it doesn’t really deliver.
This was one of Val Kilmer’s first straight-to-video roles and he gives a rather detached performance, which is a shame because an actor of Kilmer’s talent could have really done something with this role if he had been in the mood to do so. But I don’t blame Kilmer for not seeming to be that invested in Conspiracy. It’s not a very interesting film. Even the usually dependable Gary Cole just seems to be going through the motions. The film’s attempt to comment on the pressing political issues of 2008 — illegal immigration, the war in Iraq, the burst of the housing bubble, the recession — only serve to reinforce how shallow and heavy-handed the film actually is. Watching Conspiracy in 2025, the most interesting about it is that the issues it deals with are the issues that, 17 years later, Americans are still dealing with.
With its portrayal of an isolated town and a scarred war veteran looking for a missing friend, Conspiracy has a lot in common with the classic 1955 film, Bad Day At Black Rock. Now, that’s a film that is definitely worth seeing!
Today’s scene that I love comes from 1986’s Pretty In Pink, starring Molly Ringwald, Andrew McCarthy, Jon Cryer, and James Spader and written by John Hughes.
In the final scene, we discover Andie at prom with Duckie. Fortunately, Blaine shows up. Listen, I know that there are a lot of people who think that Andie should have ended up with Duckie. That’s how the script was originally written and the film’s ending was reshot after test audiences literally booed the idea of Andie going to prom with her best friend. In this case, though, the test audience was correct. Duckie was sweet but he wasn’t a prom date. Andie and Blaine belonged together.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Director John Hughes would have been 75 years old today. It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 John Hughes Movies
Sixteen Candles (1984, dir by John Hughes, DP: Bobby Byrne)
The Breakfast Club (1985, dir by John Hughes, DP: Thomas Del Ruth)
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986, dir by John Hughes, DP: Tak Fujimoto)
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987, dir by John Hughes, DP: Donald Peterman)
I’m guessing it started with JAWS (1975) and JAWS 2 (1978) since they played often on Fox-16 out of Little Rock when I was a kid, but I’ve been a fan of actor Roy Scheider for as long as I can remember. He’s one of those actors who has his own section in my massive collection of physical movie media. I’ve read about every film he’s ever made, and I’ve watched most of them. Surprisingly, THE SEVEN-UPS is the first Roy Scheider film I’ve written about on The Shattered Lens.
NYPD detective Buddy Manucci (Roy Scheider) leads a team of elite cops, known as the “seven-ups.” They’ve acquired this nickname because most of the criminals they arrest receive sentences that are 7 years and longer, which makes their superiors on the force very happy. Granted, the team does use a variety of unorthodox methods to find and arrest the criminals, which can also rub their superiors and some of their fellow cops the wrong way. Buddy’s childhood friend Vito Lucia (Tony Lo Bianco), an undertaker by trade who has his finger on the pulse of the criminal activities in his community, serves as an important snitch for the team, with his information often leading to major busts. Unbeknownst to Buddy, prominent members of various organized crime families and other white-collar criminals start getting kidnapped and held for ransom in the community. Buddy’s unaware of the full extent of the kidnappings, but he asks his old friend / snitch Vito about this when he actually witnesses the abduction of a crooked bail bondsman he’s following named Festa. We know that Vito is the mastermind behind all of the kidnappings, and his two main henchmen, Moon (Richard Lynch) and Bo (Bill Hickman), are impersonating cops just long enough to confuse and abduct the various criminals. When the Seven-Ups stake out a funeral meeting of various mobsters in the area, squad member Ansel (Ken Kercheval) is killed as part of a screwed-up abduction attempt. Buddy spots Moon and Bo trying to flee the area and tries to chase them down in an incredible car chase that ends when Buddy is almost decapitated in a violent collision with a parked 18-wheeler. With one of their own dead and with the wild chases through the streets, the members of the team are placed on suspension and even investigated as suspects for the kidnappings. Not content to just lay low during their suspensions, the seven-ups continue to try to figure out what’s going on, doing whatever it takes to get the information they need. When Buddy and his group start applying incredible pressure to some of the local mobsters about who shot Ansel, he gets information that ties the killing and the kidnappings to his friend Vito. This time when he meets with Vito, Buddy feeds him false information, thus setting a trap to bring the whole operation down.
After viewing THE SEVEN-UPS again for the first time in a while, it continues to be my opinion that this movie is severely underrated. It’s a great cop film from the early 70’s, anchored by an excellent lead performance from Roy Scheider, who’s wearing one of the coolest leather jackets in the history of cinema. Coming in hot off the heels of THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971), and with many connections to the Oscar winner, it seems that somehow this great film has fallen through the cracks over the years. I mean, how often do you hear people talk about this movie? THE SEVEN-UPS is directed by Philip D’Antoni, his only directorial credit, although he did serve as the Producer for both BULLITT (1968) and THE FRENCH CONNECTION. D’Antoni clearly values a good car chase sequence. THE SEVEN-UPS contains a thrilling car chase, which really isn’t that big of a surprise when you learn that stunt coordinator Bill Hickman, who plays the bad guy Bo in this film, coordinated the car chase sequences in BULLITT and THE FRENCH CONNECTION. This film features my personal favorite car chase sequence from any film that I’ve seen to date. Don Ellis composed the memorable musical score, a service that he also provided in THE FRENCH CONNECTION. I point out all of these ties to THE FRENCH CONNECTION because, in my humble opinion, the talent behind that film created another classic in THE SEVEN-UPS.
Complimenting Roy Scheider’s lead performance, THE SEVEN-UPS has a strong supporting cast. Tony Lo Bianco, Ken Kercheval (of DALLAS fame), Bill Hickman, and Richard Lynch are all quite memorable in their respective roles. I also like the 1973 New York City setting for the film. In movies like this and the following year’s DEATH WISH, we get to see a New York that no longer exists. To me, this only adds to the gritty realism of the film.
Overall, THE SEVEN-UPS is a movie I recommend without any reservations. If you’re a fan of 70’s cop thrillers, you simply can’t go wrong with this one.
When it comes to conspiracy theories involving presidential assassinations, the theories surrounding JFK may get all the attention but it’s the theories surrounding the death of Abraham Lincoln are usually far more plausible.
Unless, of course, it’s the theories that are pushed in the 1977 docudrama, The Lincoln Conspiracy.
A mix of documentary-style narration and really cheap-looking historical reenactments, The Lincoln Conspiracy essentially indicts almost everyone who was alive in 1865 as being a part of either the conspiracy or the subsequent cover-up. Really, it’s remarkable how many historical figures are implicated in this film.
With the Civil War coming to a close, President Lincoln (John Anderson) hopes to pursue a generous reconstruction policy for the former Confederate States. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Robert Middleton), Senator Ben Wade (Dick Callinan), and a host of other are all opposed to this plan, both because they want vengeance and they also want to make as much money as possible off of the Southern cotton fields. They come up with a plan to impeach Lincoln but, in order to draw up the articles, they have to make sure that Lincoln is not seen for a few days. When Col. Lafayette Baker (John Dehner) discovers that an actor named John Wilkes Booth (Bradford Dillman) is planning on kidnapping Lincoln, Stanton and his conspirators decide to give Booth their unofficial support. However, when the plan changes at the last minute and Stanton decides that it would actually be a bad idea to kidnap Lincoln, an angry Booth decides to just kill Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, and William Seward.
Booth succeeds in shooting Lincoln and making his escape. The other members of Booth’s group all fail in their assignments. Andrew Johnson becomes president. Though grievously wounded, William Seward survives. Booth flees to Canada and …. oh, you thought Booth died? No, that was just a look alike who was shot by a bizarre soldier named Boston Corbett. By allowing everyone to believe that Booth was killed, Stanton is able to cover up any role he and his allies played in inspiring the assassination. Unfortunately, Col. Baker keeps a diary and it seems like he might be planning on revealing the truth but he dies mysteriously before he can.
(And, to give the film some credit, Col. Baker’s sudden death at 41 was an odd one. And, though it’s not really explored in the film, Boston Corbett, the man who shoot Booth, really was a weirdo who was described by contemporaries as being a religious fanatic who castrated himself and claimed to hear the voice of God.)
It’s a big conspiracy theory that is presented in The Lincoln Conspiracy. In fact, it’s a bit too big to really be taken seriously. The film pretty much accuses everyone in Washington of having a part in the assassination. The film itself has the cheap look of a community theater production and the use of Dr. Samuel Mudd as a narrator only adds to the film’s silliness. If you’re a fan of gigantic and thoroughly implausible conspiracy theories, as I am, the film is entertaining in its way. If nothing else, Bradford Dillman certainly looks like how most people probably imagine John Wilkes Booth to have looked. Otherwise, The Lincoln Conspiracy is far-fetched and not at all realistic, which is why I assume that a lot of people in 1977 probably believed every word of it.
Through the Shattered Lens 