Tag Archives: Priscilla Pointer

October True Crime: Looking for Mr. Goodbar (dir by Richard Brooks)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1977’s Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Diane Keaton plays Theresa Dunn.

A neurotic and single woman who has never emotionally recovered from her childhood struggle with scoliosis, Theresa is trying to find herself in the wild and promiscuous world of the 1970s.  After losing her virginity to a condescending college professor (Alan Feinstein), Diane goes on to have relationships with a needy social worker (William Atherton) and an hyperactive petty criminal (Richard Gere).  During the day, she teaches deaf children and she’s good at her job.  She even manages to win over the distrustful brother (Levar Burton) of one of her students.  At night, she hits the bars.  She buys drugs from the neighborhood dealer (Julius Harris).  She tries to read the book that she always carries with her.  (Some nights, it’s The Godfather and other nights, it’s something else.)  She picks up strange men and takes them to her roach-infested apartment.  One of those men, Gary (Tom Berenger), turns out to both be a bit insecure about his masculinity and also totally insane….

Looking for Mr. Goodbar is an adaptation of a novel that was inspired by the real-life murder of a New York school teacher named Roseann Quinn.  The book was best seller and, just as he had with a previous best-selling true crime novel, director Richard Brooks bought the rights and both wrote and directed the film.  Diane Keaton, who at that point was best-known for playing Kay Adams in The Godfather and for appearing in Woody Allen’s comedies, took on the demanding role of Theresa and, whatever one may think of the film itself, it can’t be denied that Keaton gives a brave performance as the self-destructive Theresa.  In fact, I would say it’s one of Keaton’s best performances, outside of her work with Woody Allen and The Godfather Part II.  If she had been played by a lesser actress, Roseann could have been unbearable.  As played by Diane Keaton, though, she’s everyone’s best friend who just need some time to find herself.  The viewer worries about her and wants to protect her as soon as they see her, making her ultimate fate all the more tragic.

As for film itself, I’ve watched Looking For Mr. Goodbar a few times and I’m always a little bit surprised by how bad the movie actually is.  The film actually gets off to a strong start.  The scenes between Theresa and the professor make for a sensitive portrait of a repressed young woman finally getting in touch with her sexuality and, in the process, discovering that she deserves better than the man she’s with.  But once Theresa moves into her apartment and starts hitting the bars at night, the film takes on a hectoring and moralistic tone that leaves the viewer feeling as if the film is blaming Theresa for the tragedy that’s waiting for her at the end of the story.  Diane Keaton and Tuesday Weld (who plays her sister) both give excellent performances but everyone else in the film either does too much or too little.  This is especially true of Richard Gere, who is very hyperactive but still strangely insubstantial in his role.  (Whenever Richard Gere appears on screen, one gets the feeling that they could just walk right through him.)  A scene where Gere jumps around the apartment is meant to be disturbing but it’s more likely to inspire laughter than chills.

It’s an overly long film and the moments in which Theresa has dark, sexually-charged fantasies are never quite as powerful as the film obviously meant for them to be.  (Brian Dennehy makes his film debut as a doctor who kisses Theresa’s breast during one of her fantasies.)  As opposed to the empathy that he brought to In Cold Blood, one gets the feeling that director Richard Brooks didn’t like anyone in this movie and that he was more interested in Theresa as a cautionary tale than as a human being.  With this film, Brooks seemed to be standing athwart the Sexual Revolution and shouting, “Stop!”  That said, the film’s final moments are genuinely disturbing and difficult to watch.  It’s the one moment where Brooks’s lack of subtlety pays off.  Those last minutes are about as horrific as anything you could expect to see.

As for Roseann Quinn, her killer was eventually arrested.  John Wayne Wilson hung himself in prison, 5 months after murdering her.

October True Crime: The Onion Field (dir by Harold Becker)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This 1979 true crime drama opens in Los Angeles in 1963.

Rookie Detective Karl Hettinger (John Savage) has just joined the Felony Squad and met his new partner, Ian Campbell (Ted Danson, making his film debut).  Ian is a tall, somewhat eccentric detective, the type who practices playing the bagpipes in the basement and who takes Hettinger under his wing.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Smith (Franklyn Seales) has just been released from prison.  The nervous and easily-led Jimmy almost immediately runs into Gregory Powell (James Woods), a small-time hood with delusions of grandeur.  Powell is the type who talks a big game but who really isn’t even that good of a thief.  Smith and Powell form an uneasy criminal partnership.  They are easily annoyed with each other but they also share an instant bond.  Though the film doesn’t actually come out and say what most viewers will be thinking, there’s a lot of subtext to a brief scene where Powell appears to caress Smith’s shoulder.

One night, Hettinger and Campbell are kidnapped by Smith and Powell.  Smith and Powell drive them out to an onion field.  Because he’s misinterpreted the Federal Kidnapping Act and incorrectly believes that he and Smith are already eligible for the death penalty because they kidnapped two police officers, Powell shoots and kills Campbell.  (The close-up image of Campbell falling dead is a disturbing one, not the least because he’s played by the instantly likable Ted Danson.)  Hettinger runs and manages to escape.  He saves his life but he’s now haunted by the feeling that he abandoned his partner.

The rest of the film deals with the years that follow that one terrible moment in the onion field.  Treated as a pariah by his fellow cops, Hettinger sinks into alcoholism and eventually becomes a compulsive shoplifter.  Smith and Powell, meanwhile, use a variety of tricks to continually escape the death penalty and to keep their case moving through the California justice system.  Powell, for instance, defends himself and then later complains that he had incompetent counsel.  Smith, meanwhile, is defended by the infamous Irving Karanek, a legendary California attorney who specialized in filing nuisances motions.  (Later Karanek found a measure of fame as Charles Manson’s attorney.  Eventually, he had a nervous breakdown in 1989, lived in his car, and was briefly suspended by practicing law.)  While Smith and especially Powell quickly adjust to being imprisoned, Hettinger spends the next decade trapped in a mental prison of guilty and bitterness.

Based on a non-fiction book by Joseph Wambaugh, The Onion Field is a compelling look at a true crime case that continue to resonate today.  The film can be a bit heavy-handed in its comparisons between the two partnerships that define the story.  Both Hettinger and Smith are young and neurotic men who find themselves working with a more confident mentor.  The difference is that Hettinger’s mentor is the cool, composed, and compassionate Ian Campbell while Smith’s sad fate is to be forever linked to the erratic Gregory Powell.  While the film may have the flat look of something that was made for television, it’s elevated by the performances of its lead actors.  James Woods give an especially strong performance as the cocky Powell, a loser in the streets who becomes a winner behind bars.  Over the course of the film, he goes from being a joke to being the prisoner that others come to for legal advice.  John Savage, meanwhile, poignantly captures Hettinger’s descent as the trauma from that night leaves him as shell of the man that he once was.

The film’s supporting cast is full of familiar faces.  Christopher Lloyd and William Sanderson show up as prisoners.  Ronny Cox plays the detective in charge of the onion field investigation.  David Huffman plays a district attorney who is pushed to his breaking point by the obstructive tactics of Smith’s attorney.  Priscilla Pointer play Ian Campbell’s haunted mother.  All of them do their part to bring this sad story to life.

The Onion Field is a chillingly effective true crime drama and a look at a murder that was inspired by one man’s inability to understand federal law.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 2.13 “In Sickness and In Health”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988.  The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!

This week, Victor gets married!

Episode 2.13 “In Sickness and In Health”

(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on February 8th, 1984)

This week’s episode features three storylines.

The least interesting one features Joan Halloran’s father, Charlie Halloran (William Windom), being admitted to and eventually dying at St. Eligius.  The entire Halloran family comes out to visit Charlie and this is one of the storylines that would have worked better if I had the slightest bit of interest in Joan or her family.  For the most part, though, Joan is a boring character and her wealthy family is not that interesting.  I got the feeling this storyline was mostly included to remind us that Joan is a character on the show.  We really have seen much of her over the past few episodes.

Dr. Chandler trained for the Boston Marathon by running the route in the rain.  A car ran him off the road.  A dog chased him.  An attractive woman flirted with him.  (He is Denzel Washington, after all!)   And he finally reached the finish line and nearly collapsed while imagining everyone cheering for him.

Finally, Ehrlich married Roberta.  The wedding took place at Dr. Craig’s house.  Dogger (Kevin Scannell) was the best man and turned out to be just as crude as you might expect someone named Dogger to be.  Dr. Craig was disgusted by the whole thing.  Roberta got cold feet after her mother confessed to having never loved her father.  However, Dr. Craig’s abrasive mother-in-law (Lurene Tuttle) was there to order Roberta to take a chance and marry the man who she might eventually come to love.  This marriage is so obviously doomed.  I’m predicting Ehrlich will be divorced before the season ends.

This episode really didn’t work.  Dr. Chandler training for the Boston Marathon finally gave Denzel Washington something to do but the storyline excuse was mostly just an excuse to do some Boston location shooting.  The Halloran storyline didn’t work because the Hallorans themselves aren’t that interesting.  And, after all the build-up, the wedding was a bit anti-climatic.

They can’t all be winners.

April Noir: Blue Velvet (dir by David Lynch)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1986 and still regularly watched and imitated, Blue Velvet is one of the most straight forward films that David Lynch ever made.

For all the talk about it being a strange and surreal vision of small town America, the plot of Blue Velvet is not difficult to follow.  After his father has a stroke that leaves him confined to a hospital bed, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home from college.  Lumberton appears to be a quiet and friendly little town, with pretty houses and manicured lawns and friendly people.  Jeffrey, with his dark jacket and his expression of concern, appears a little out-of-step with the rest of the town.  He’s been away, after all.  One day, while walking through a field, Jeffrey discovers a rotting, severed ear.  Jeffrey picks up the ear and takes it Detective Williams (George Dickerson).  Detective Williams, who looks like he could have stepped straight out of an episode of Dragnet, is such a man of the innocent 1950s that his wife is even played by Hope Lange.

“Yes, that’s a human ear, alright,” Williams says, deadpan.

Blue Velvet (1986, dir by David Lynch, DP: Frederick Elmes)

With the help of Detective Williams’s blonde and seemingly innocent daughter, Sandy (Laura Dern), Jeffrey launches his own investigation into why the ear was in the field.  He discovers that Lumberton has a teeming criminal underworld, one that is full of men who are as savage as the ants that we saw, in close-up, fighting over that ear in the field.  Jeffrey discovers that a singer named Dorothy (Isabella Rossellini) is being sexually blackmailed by a madman named Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).  When Dorothy discovers Jeffrey hiding in her closet (where he had been voyeuristically watching her and Frank), it leads to Jeffrey and Dorothy having a sadomasochistic relationship.  “Hit me!” Dorothy demands and both the viewer and Jeffrey discover that he’s got his own darkness inside of him.  “You’re like me,” Frank hisses at Jeffrey at one point and, if we’re to be honest, it almost feels like too obvious a line for an artist like David Lynch.  Lynch once described the film as being “The Hardy Boys in Hell,” and the plot really is as straightforward as one of those teenage mystery books.

That said, Blue Velvet also features some of Lynch’s most memorable visuals, from the brilliant slow motion opening to the moment that the camera itself seems to descend into the ear, forcing us to consider just how fragile the human body actually is. The film goes from showcasing the green lawns and blue skies to Lumberton to tossing Jeffrey into the shadowy world of Dorothy’s apartment building and suddenly, the entire atmosphere changes and the town becomes very threatening.  We find ourselves wondering if even Detective Williams can be trusted.  That said, my favorite visual in the film is a simple one.  Sandy and Jeffrey walk along a suburban street at night and the camera shows us the dark trees that rise above them, contrasting their eerie stillness to Sandy and Jeffrey’s youthful flirtation.

Dean Stockwell in Blue Velvet

Dean Stockwell shows up as Ben, an associate of Frank’s who lip-synchs to Roy Orbison’s In Dreams while Frank himself seems to have a fit of some sort beside him.  In retrospect, Blue Velvet played a huge role in Dennis Hopper getting stereotyped as an out-of-control villain but that doesn’t make him any less terrifying as Frank Booth.  Hopper, recently sober after decades of drug abuse and self-destructive behavior, summoned up his own demons to play Booth and he turns Frank into a true nightmare creature.  Isabella Rossellini is heart-breaking as the fragile Dorothy.  That said, the heart of the film belongs to Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern and both of them do a wonderful job of suggesting not only the darkness lurking in their characters but also their kindness as well.  For all the talk about Lynch as a subversive artist, he was also someone who had a remarkable faith in humanity and that faith is found in both Jeffrey and Sandy.  MacLachlan and Dern manage to sell moments that should have been awkward, like Sandy’s monologue about the returning birds or Jeffrey’s emotional lament questioning why people like Frank have to exist.  Both Jeffrey and Sandy lose their innocence but not their hope for a better world.

Blue Velvet is a straight-forward mystery and a surreal dream but mostly it’s an ultimately hopeful portrait of humanity.  The world is dark and full of secrets, the film says.  But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be a beautiful place.

 

Blue Velvet (1986, dir by David Lynch, DP: Frederick Elmes)

Retro Television Review: Death Takes A Holiday (dir by Robert Butler)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1971’s Death Takes A Holiday!  It  can be viewed on YouTube.

For a few days in 1971, no one dies.

The Vietnam War continues but there are no casualties.  There are natural disasters but no one loses their life.  Doctors are stunned.  World leaders start to panic.  An emergency session of the UN is called to debate what to do about living in a world where no one is dying.  One gets the feeling that the world’s leaders prefer it when people are dying in wars and disasters.

Death has taken a holiday.

Death (Monte Markham) has become confused as to why humans so desperately want to live despite the fact that the world in which they exist is not always a happy one.  He is particularly confused by the elderly Judge Earl Chapman (Melvyn Douglas), who has suffered multiple strokes and other ailments and yet has always resisted whenever Death has come for him.  Death decides to take his holiday on the isolated beach where the Judge and his family are spending their weekend.  Though Death introduces himself as being David Smith, the Judge recognizes him.  It turns out that the Judge was always aware of death lingering around him and his family.

Death, for his part, has fallen in love with the Judge’s headstrong and rebellious daughter, Peggy (Yvette Mimieux).  In fact, Peggy was meant to die on the beach but, as soon as Death saw her drowning, he decided not to take her and instead allowed her to wash up back on the beach.  Death explains to the Judge that he can only spend so much time on vacation and that soon, people will start dying again.  Death says that he’ll be taking Peggy to the afterlife after the weekend ends.  The Judge tries to change his mind but Death is in love and he wants Peggy to be with him.

An adaptation of a play that inspired both 1934’s Death Takes A Holiday and 1998’s Meet Joe Black, the 1971 version of Death Takes A Holiday is a well-acted and intelligent made-for-television movie, one that eschews heavy-handed drama in favor of being a rather low-key meditation on what it means to both live and to die.  Melvyn Douglas and, as his wife, Myrna Loy both give poignant performances and Douglas even manages to sell the potentially maudlin moment where he explains why he has always clinged to life.  Monte Markham may not be the first actor who comes to mind when you think of someone to cast as the human form of Death but he does a good job in the role and he and Yvette Mimieux have a wonderful chemistry together.  The beach scenery is lovely and the story is an interesting one.  Clocking in at just 73 minutes, this version of Death Takes A Holiday is the best of all of them.

Retro Television Review: Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night (dir by Allen Reisner)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1977’s Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night!  It  can be viewed on YouTube.

Damn.

I mean, seriously!  I have seen some depressing films before but nothing could have quite prepared me for Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night.

Susan Dey stars as Rowena, a young single mother whose 3 year-old daughter, Mary Jane Harper (Natasha Ryan), is taken to the hospital with a broken arm.  Dr. Angela Buccieri (Tricia O’Neil) doesn’t believe Rowena’s claim that Mary Jane is just accident prone and when she discovers what appears to be cigarette burns on the little girl, Dr. Buccieri goes to the head of pediatrics (played by veteran screen villain John Vernon) and requests a full set of X-rays to see if there are any previously healed injuries.  Buccieri’s request is denied.  It turns out that Rowena comes from a wealthy family and her father (Kevin McCarthy) is a trustee of the hospital.  Even after Dr. Buccieri opens up about her own experiences as an abused child, she is told to drop the matter.

She doesn’t drop it.  Instead, she goes to a social worker named Dave Williams (Bernie Casey).  Dave does his own investigation but none of Rowena’s neighbors want to talk about all of the crying and the screaming that they hear coming from Rowena’s apartment.  Rowena presents herself as being a stressed but loving mother.  Dave suggests a support group that she can attend.  When Rowena goes to the group, she opens up a little about how overwhelmed she feels.  Unfortunately, she leaves Mary Jane in the apartment alone and, when a fire breaks out, Mary Jane is lucky to survive.

As intense as all of that is, it’s also only the first half of the movie.  The second half is even more intense and emotionally draining and it all leads up to one of the most devastating final lines ever uttered in a movie.  Throughout the film, the system fails both Rowena and Mary Jane.  Mary Jane is failed when all of the evidence of the abuse that she has suffered is either ignored or shrugged away by the same people who are supposed to be looking out for her.  Rowena is failed when no one pays attention to her obvious emotional instability.  When she finally does have a breakthrough during a therapy session, her psychiatrist (played by James Karen) curtly tells her that they’ll have to talk about it next week because their hour is up.

Rowena is a character who I both hated and pitied.  Like many abusers, she herself was a victim of abuse.  Even when Rowena tries to get support, no one wants to admit that a mother is capable of abusing their own child.  That said, Mary Jane Harper is at the center of the film. She’s a little girl who is desperate to be loved by a woman who often terrifies her.  She is continually failed by the people who should be looking after her and it’s just devastating to watch.  I’m sure I’m not the only person who was moved to tears by this film.

What a sad film.  At the same time, it’s also an important one.  If the film takes place at a time when no one wanted to admit to the abuse happening before their eyes, we now live in a time when people toss around allegations of abuse so casually that it’s led to a certain cynicism about the whole thing.  Even when seen today, Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night works as a powerful plea to watch out and care for one another.

Retro Television Reviews: The Failing of Raymond (dir by Boris Sagal)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1971’s The Failing of Raymond!  It  can be viewed on YouTube!

Poor Raymond!

Played by a young Dean Stockwell, Raymond is patient at a mental hospital who blames everything that has gone wrong on his life on one failed test.  During his senior year of high school, he got a 61 on an English test and, as a result, he not only only failed the class but he also wasn’t allowed to graduate.  The test was administered by a substitute teacher named Mary Bloomquist (Jane Wyman), one who did not know that Raymond had a reputation for being a bit eccentric.  When Raymond tried to ask her whether or not the final two questions were for extra credit, Mary refused to call on him because she was more preoccupied with her failed affair with another teacher (Dana Andrews).  Raymond didn’t answer the final two questions, even though he believed that he had the correct answers.  Now, locked away in a hospital, Raymond comes across an article announcing that beloved teacher Mary Bloomquist will soon be retiring and moving to England.

Seeking revenge, Raymond escapes from the hospital.  While police Sgt. Manzek (Murray Hamilton) search for Raymond, Raymond returns to his old school.  When he finds Mary in her classroom, Mary mistakes Raymond for a mover responding to a classified ad asking for help in getting all of her things packed up.  Raymond may be a homicidal but he also craves direction and praise so he helps Mary with her packing.  As he packs, Mary talks about her decision to retire and it turns out that she’s not quite the monster that Raymond imagined her to be.  Mary is retiring because she feels that she has never made a difference as a teacher.

That said, Raymond is still determined to get his revenge.  He wants Mary to give him the test a second time and to give him a passing grade.  And if she doesn’t, he’s prepared to kill her.  Unfortunately, despite claiming to have spent years studying the material, Raymond still thinks that Robert Browning wrote the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.…

As the old saying goes, you never know how much your actions might effect someone else’s life.  Mary is a dedicated and well-meaning teacher who cares about her students but her decision to fail Raymond, made on a day when she was distracted by her own personal problems, is something that Raymond has never forgotten or forgiven.  Mary can barely remember it happening but Raymond has based his entire life around that moment and, as the film progresses, it becomes clear that he’s incapable of understanding that the entire world doesn’t revolve around what happened to him during his senior year.  On the one hand, Mary definitely should have answered Raymond’s question about whether or not the final two questions were multiple choice.  On the other hand, Raymond has clearly been using the incident as an excuse to justify every mistake that he’s made sense.  Ironically, Raymond’s quest for revenge gives Mary the chance to finally be the teacher that she truly wants to be.

It’s an intriguing premise.  Unfortunately, like so many made-for-TV movies from the early 70s, The Failing of Raymond is occasionally a bit too stagey for its own good.  Despite only being 73 minutes long, it never really develops any sort of narrative momentum.  That said, Dean Stockwell gives a performance that makes clear why Alfred Hitchcock was planning on casting him as Norman Bates if Anthony Perkins somehow fell through.  As played by Stockwell, Raymond is unfailingly polite and so obviously wounded that it’s impossible not to feel sympathy for him, even when he’s threatening to kill his former teacher.  Jane Wyman, as well, gives a sympathetic performance as Mary, who, despite that one bad day with Raymond, really is the type of teacher we all wish we could have had.

This film was directed by Boris Sagal, who did several made-for-TV movies and also directed Charlton Heston in The Omega Man.  His daughter, Katey Sagal, makes her film debut in a small role as one of Raymond’s fellow patients.

Horror Film Review: Twilight Zone: The Movie (dir by John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, and George Miller)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1983’s Twilight Zone: The Movie is meant to be a tribute to the classic original anthology series.  It features four “episodes” and two wrap-around segments, with Burgess Meredith providing opening and closing narration.  Each segment is directed by a different director, which probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

Unfortunately, Twilight Zone: The Movie is a bit of a mess.  One of the episodes is brilliant.  Another one is good up until the final few minutes.  Another one is forgettable.  And then finally, one of them is next too impossible to objectively watch because of a real-life tragedy.

With a film that varies as wildly in tone and quality as Twilight Zone: The Movie, the only way to really review it is to take a segment at a time:

Something Scary (dir by John Landis)

Albert Brooks and Dan Aykroyd drive through the desert and discuss the old Twilight Zone TV series.  Brooks claims that the show was scary.  Aykoyd asks if Brooks wants to see something really scary.  This is short but fun.  It’s tone doesn’t really go along with the rest of the movie but …. oh well.  It made me jump.

Time Out (dir by John Landis)

Vic Morrow plays a racist named Bill Connor who, upon leaving his local bar, finds himself transported to Nazi-occupied France, the deep South, and eventually Vietnam.

How you react to this story will probably depend on how much you know about its backstory.  If you don’t know anything about the filming of this sequence, you’ll probably just think it’s a bit heavy-handed and, at times, unintentionally offensive.  Twilight Zone often explored themes of prejudice but Time Out just seems to be using racism as a gimmick.

If you do know the story of what happened while this segment was being filmed, it’s difficult to watch.  Actor Vic Morrow was killed during filming.  His death was the result of a preventable accident that occurred during a scene that was to involve Morrow saving two Vietnamese children from a helicopter attack.  The helicopter crashed, killing not only Morrow but the children as well.  It was later determined that not only were safety protocols ignored but that Landis had hired the children illegally and was paying them under the table so that he could get around the regulations governing how many hours child actors could work.  It’s a tragic story and one that will not leave you as a fan of John Landis’s, regardless of how much you like An American Werewolf in London and Animal House.

Nothing about the segment feels as if it was worth anyone dying for and, to be honest, I’m kind of amazed that it was even included in the finished film.

Kick The Can (dir by Steven Spielberg)

An old man named Mr. Bloom (Scatman Crothers) shows up at Sunnyvale Retirement Home and encourages the residents to play a game of kick the can.  Everyone except for Mr. Conroy (Bill Quinn) eventually agrees to take part and, just as in the episode of the Twilight Zone that this segment is based on, everyone becomes young.

However, while the television show ended with the newly young residents all running off and leaving behind the one person who refused to play the game, the movie ends with everyone, with the exception of one man who apparently became a teenager istead of a kid, deciding that they would rather be old and just think young.  That really doesn’t make any damn sense but okay.

This segment is unabashedly sentimental and clearly calculated to brings tears to the eyes to the viewers.  The problem is that it’s so calculated that you end up resenting both Mr. Bloom and all the old people.  One gets the feeling that this segment is more about how we wish old people than how they actually are.  It’s very earnest and very Spielbergian but it doesn’t feel much like an episode of The Twilight Zone.

It’s A Good Life (dir by Joe Dante)

A teacher (Kathleen Quinlan) meets a young boy (Jeremy Licht) who has tremendous and frightening powers.

This is a remake of the classic Twilight Zone episode, It’s A Good Life, with the difference being that young Anthony is not holding an entire town hostage but instead just his family.  This segment was directed by Joe Dante, who turns the segment into a cartoon, both figuratively and, at one point, literally.  That’s not necessarily a complaint.  It’s certainly improvement over Spielberg’s sentimental approach to the material.  Dante also finds roles for genre vets like Kevin McCarthy, William Schallert, and Dick Miller and he provides some memorably over-the-top visuals.

The main problem with this segment is the ending, in which Anthony suddenly reveals that he’s not really that bad and just wants to be treated normally, which doesn’t make much sense.  I mean, if you want to be treated normally, maybe don’t zap your sister in a cartoon.  The teacher agrees to teach Anthony how to be a normal boy and again, what the Hell?  The original It’s A Good Life worked because, like any child, Anthony had no conception of how adults felt about him.  In the movie version, he’s suddenly wracked with guilt and it’s far less effective.  It feels like a cop out.

Still, up until that ending, It’s A Good Life worked well as a satire of the perfect American family.

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (dir by George Miller)

In this remake of Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, John Lithgow steps into the role that was originally played by William Shatner.  He plays a man who, while attempting to conquer his fear of flying, sees a gremlin on the wing of his airplane.  Unfortunately, he can’t get anyone else on the plane to believe him.

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet is the best of the four main segments.  It’s also the one that sticks closest to its source material.  Director George Miller (yes, of Mad Max fame) doesn’t try to improve on the material because he seems to understand that it works perfectly the way it is.  John Lithgow is also perfectly cast in the lead role, perfectly capturing his increasing desperation.  The one change that Miller does make is that, as opposed in the TV show, the gremlin actually seems to be taunting John Lithgow at time and it works wonderfully.  Not only is Lithgow trying to save the plane, he’s also trying to defeat a bully.

Something Scarier (dir by John Landis)

Dan Aykroyd’s back as an ambulance driver, still asking his passenger if he wants to see something really scary.  It’s an okay ending but it does kind of lessen the impact of Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.

 

18 Days of Paranoia #4: The Falcon and the Snowman (dir by John Schlesinger)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8HE_mHphZk

The 1985 film, The Falcon and the Snowman, tells the story of two friends.  They’re both wealthy.  They’re both a little bit lost, with one of them dropping out the seminary and the other becoming a drug dealer who is successful enough to have a lot of money but inept enough to still be treated like a joke by all of other dealers.

Chris Boyce (Timothy Hutton) is the son of a former FBI agent (Pat Hingle).  He has a tense relationship with his father.  It’s obvious that the two have never really been sure how to talk to each other.  While his father is sure of both himself and his country, Chris is far more sensitive and quick to question.  While his father plays golf and attends outdoor barbecues, Chris becomes an expert in the sport of falconry and spends a lot of time obsessing about the state of the the world.  While his father defends Richard Nixon during the Watergate investigation, Chris sees it as evidence that America is a sick and corrupt country.  Because his father doesn’t want Chris sitting around the house all day, he pulls some strings to get Chris a job working at the “Black Vault,” where Chris will basically have the ability to learn about all sorts of classified stuff.

Daulton Lee (Sean Penn) was Chris’s best friend in school.  Daulton’s entire life revolves around cocaine.  He both sells and uses it.  He’s managed to make a lot of money but his addiction has also left him an erratic mess.  Daulton’s father wants to kick him out of the house.  Daulton’s mother continually babies him.  Chris and Daulton may seem like an odd pair of friends but they’re both wealthy, directionless, and have a difficult time relating to their fathers.  It somehow seems inevitable that these two would end up as partners.

Chris Boyce and Daulton Lee, together …. THEY SOLVE CRIMES!

No, actually, they don’t.  Instead, they end up betraying their country.  (Boooo!  Hiss!  This guy’s a commie, traitor to our nation!)  After Chris discovers that the CIA has been interfering in the elections of America’s allies (in this case, Australia), he decides to give information to the Russians.  Since Daulton already has experience smuggling drugs over the southern border, Boyce asks Lee to contact the KGB the next time that he’s in Mexico.  Despite being a neurotic and paranoid mess, Lee manages to do just that.

Of course, as Chris soon comes to discover, betraying your country while working with a greedy drug addict is not as easy as it seems.  While Chris wants to eventually get out of the treason game, marry his girlfriend (Lori Singer), and finish up college, Daulton wants to be James Bond.  The Russians, meanwhile, soon grow tired of having to deal with Lee and start pressuring Chris to deal with them directly….

And it all goes even further downhill from there.

Based on a true story, The Falcon and the Snowman tells the story of how two seemingly very different young men managed to basically ruin their lives.  Boyce’s naive idealism and Lee’s drug-fueled greed briefly makes them a powerful duo but they both quickly discover that betraying your country isn’t as a simple as they assumed.  For one thing, once you’ve done it once, it’s impossible to go back to your normal life.  As played by Hutton and Penn, Chris and Daulton are two very interesting characters.  Boyce is full of righteous indignation and sees himself as being a hero but the film hints that he’s mostly just pissed off at his Dad for never understanding him or caring that much about falconry.  Daulton, meanwhile, is a lunatic but he seems to be aware that he’s a lunatic and that makes his oddly likable.  At times, it seems like even he can’t believe that Chris was stupid enough to depend on him.  The film provides a convincing portrait of two men who, because of several impulsive decisions, find themselves in over their heads with no possibility of escape.

The Falcon and the Snowman is an entertaining and occasionally thought-provoking time capsule of a different age.  If the film took place in 2020, Daulton would be hanging out with the Kardashians and Chris would probably be too busy working for the Warren campaign to spy for America’s enemies.  If only the two of them had been born a few decades later, all of this could have been of avoided.

Previous Entries In The 18 Days of Paranoia:

  1. The Flight That Disappeared
  2. The Humanity Bureau
  3. The Privates Files Of J. Edgar Hoover

Horror on the Lens: The Failing of Raymond (dir by Boris Sagal)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Raymond (Dean Stockwell) has just escaped from a mental hospital and he has only one thing on his mind.  Raymond wants revenge.  Having looked over the past events of his life, Raymond has figured out that things started to go downhill for him when he failed a test in high school.  He blames his failure on his old teacher, Mary Bloomquist (Jane Wyman).

At the same time that Raymond is escaping, Mary is planning her retirement.  She’s decided that she no longer wants to teach.  The job just doesn’t seem worth it anymore.  But Raymond has other ideas.  Raymond wants her to give him the same test that he failed ten years before.  And this time, Raymond wants her to pass him or else.

The Failing of Raymond is a made-for-TV movie from 1971 and it features a good performance from Jane Wyman and a great one from Dean Stockwell.  The film ultimately hinges on one question.  Did Raymond really fail that test or did Mary fail Raymond?

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egFBvsOaLnY