Film Review: Stay Hungry (dir by Bob Rafelson)

Posted on July 30, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the 1976 film Stay Hungry, Jeff Bridges plays Craig Blake.

When we first meet Craig, he doesn’t have much of a personality, though we still like him because he’s played by Jeff Bridges. Living in Alabama, he’s a young rich kid who, after the death of his parents, divides his time between his nearly empty mansion and his country club. Craig suffers from a good deal of ennui and seems to spend a lot of time writing letters to his uncle in which he promises that he’s going to eventually get his life together. Craig eventually gets a job at a real estate firm that is managed by Jabo (Joe Spinell). We know that the real estate firm is shady because Joe Spinell works there.

Craig is assigned to handle the purchase of a small gym so that he can eventually close the place and allow it to be torn down to make room for an office building. However, Craig soon falls for the gang of colorful eccentrics whose lives revolve around the gym and bodybuilder Joe Santo (Arnold Schwarzenegger, who gets an “introducing” credit, even though this was his fourth film). The friendly Franklin (Robert Englund) is Santo’s “grease” man. Anita (Helena Kallianiotes) is tough and can kick anyone’s ass. The receptionist, Mary Tate (Sally Field), is a free spirit with whom Craig soon falls in love. In fact, the only less than likable person at the gym is the former owner, Thor Erickson (R.G. Armstrong), a heavy-drinking perv who has a hole in the floor of his office that he uses to peek down at the women’s locker room.

There’s not much of a plot here. Instead, the film plays out in a rather laid back manner, with Santo befriending Craig and showing him the joy of embracing life. Arnold Schwarzenegger actually won an award (well, a Golden Globe) for his performance here and it must be said that he’s very good as the gentle and easy-going Santo. Because he’s huge and he’s Schwarzenegger, we expect him to be intimidating. Instead, he’s a soft-spoken guy who is quick to smile and who doesn’t even get upset when he finds out that Mary Tate and Craig are now involved. There’s even a surprising scene where Joe Santo picks up a fiddle and starts playing with a bluegrass band. Schwarzenegger is so likable here that it’s easy to wonder where his career might have gone if he hadn’t become an action star. Even early in his career (and when he was still speaking with a very thick accent), Schwarzenegger shows off a natural comic timing. He’s fun to watch.

In fact, he’s so much fun that the rest of the film suffers whenever he’s not onscreen. The cast is full of talented people but the film’s loose, plotless structure keeps us from truly getting too invested in any of them. (Santo is training for Mr. Universe so at least he gets an actual storyline.) Sally Field and Jeff Bridges are cute together but their romance is never quite as enchanting as it seems like it should be. The main problem with the film is that, when it ends, one still feels like Craig will eventually get bored with the gym and return back to his mansion and his country club. One doesn’t get the feeling that Craig has been changed so much as Craig just seems to be slumming for the heck of it.

There are charming moments in Stay Hungry. I’m a Southern girl so I can attest that the film captured the feel of the South better than most films. If you’re a Schwarzenegger fan, you have to see this film because it really does feature Arnie at his most charming and natural. Unfortunately, despite all that, the film itself never really comes together.

Made For TV Movie Review: The Jericho Mile (dir by Michael Mann)

Posted on April 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1979’s The Jericho Mile tells the story of Larry Murphy (Peter Strauss).

Larry is serving a life sentence at Folsom Prison, convicted a crime that he admits to having committed. Larry murdered his father, specifically to protect his stepsister from being raped. Larry feels no guilt for his crime and, at the same time, he’s willing to quietly serve his sentence. He’s a loner, avoiding the rival racial factions in the prison. (Brian Dennehy leads the Aryans while Roger E. Moseley leads the black prisoners and Miguel Pinero is the head of the Mexican Mafia.) Larry just wants to spend his time running around the prison yard.

When Dr. Bill Janowski (Geoffrey Lewis) sees how fast Larry can run, he arranges for a local track coach, Jerry Beloit (Ed Lauter), to come up to the prison with a few potential Olympians so that they can race Larry. Larry manages to outrun all of them. Jerry becomes convinced that Larry could qualify for the Olympics, if only he had a regulation track to run on. The Warden, knowing good publicity when he sees it, assigns the inmates to build the track but doing so means dealing with Folsom’s highly charged racial politics. No matter how fast Larry can run and no matter how inspiring it would be for Larry to go from serving a life sentence to competing in the Olympics, Folsom is still a prison and Larry is still a prisoner. And while the guards may have the guns and may be the only ones who are allowed to go home at the end of the game, it’s the prison gangs who have all the power. When the Aryans go on strike and refuse to work on the track, it puts Larry’s chances in jeopardy.

Of course, Larry’s chances are already in jeopardy just because of who he is. Larry is a prisoner who refuses to show remorse. While other prisoners embrace religion or politics and try to convince outsiders that they’ve either reformed or been wrongly convicted, Larry just wants to run. Running is when he’s free. (The film’s title refers to the Walls of Jericho coming down.) And, for the other inmates, watching Larry run is a reminder that there are many ways once can escape from the drudgery of being locked away.

The Jericho Mile is a tough and rather cynical prison film, one that manages to combine downbeat social drama with a uplifting sports story. You’ll want to cheer Larry while he’s running, even if you secretly suspect that he’s ultimately chasing something that will never happen. Making his directorial debut, Michael Mann shot the film on location at Folsom and the cast is full of actual prisoners, all of whom bring some much need authenticity to the film’s story. Mann never lets us forget that this is a film about people in a very dangerous situation and, even at its most inspiring, the film leaves you feeling as if violence could break out at any moment. Peter Strauss, who usually played somewhat more refined characters, is totally believable as the taciturn Larry and character actors like Dennehy and Mosely skillfully blend in with the actual prisoners in the cast. The Jericho Mile is a portrait of crime, punishment, and dreams. It’s a movie that will stay with you.

Did You See The Sun Rise? (1982, directed by Ray Austin)

Posted on April 12, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Ivan (Bo Svenson) is a KGB colonel who, working under the guise of being a diplomat, has set up operations on Hawaii. During the Vietnam War, Ivan tortured and brainwashed an American POW named TC (Roger E. Mosely), placing a hypnotic suggestion in his brain on just the off-chance that Ivan would need a Manchurian candidate to do some dirty work at some point in the future. With the help of another former POW, Sebastian Nuzo (James Whitmore, Jr.), Ivan plans to activate TC and then use him to assassinate the visiting prime minister of Japan. What Ivan hasn’t counted on is that TC has two friends looking out for him, a club owner named Rick (Larry Manetti) and a laid-back, Hawaiian-shirt loving private investigator named Magnum (Tom Selleck).

Did You See The Sun Rise? Is it a movie or is it just a two-hour episode of the original Magnum P.I.? I think it’s both because, while it’s definitely an episode of TV series (it was, in fact, the premiere episode of Magnum‘s third season and the fact that it was a special, extra-long episode shows how popular Magnum was back in the 80s), it’s also good enough that it can stand on its own and be viewed and appreciated even by those who have never seen any other episodes of the show. For the most part, Magnum P.I. was a breezy detective show that mixed comedy and mystery-solving. Occasionally, though, the show would do a more serious episode and, more of than not, that episode would deal with Magnum, T.C., and Rick’s time in Vietnam. (At the time it premiered, Magnum was unique in that it was one of the only shows to feature characters who had served in Vietnam without portraying them as being unhinged, unemployable, or potential threats to society. Magnum and his friends had been effected by their experiences in Vietnam but, unlike someone like Rambo, they were not solely defined by their status as being veterans of what was then America’s least popular war.) Of those serious shows, Did You See The Sun Rise? is the best example.

There’s a lot to recommend Did You See The Sun Rise? It’s well-acted by series regulars Selleck, Manetti, Mosely, and John Hillerman. Bo Svenson plays a great villain and even his Russian accent is more credible than you’d probably expect it to be. The Vietnam flashbacks are handled well. The episode has an unexpected twist, one that daringly kills off one of the show’s semi-regular supporting characters. Even the entire Manchurian candidate plot, even if it is a little more out there than Magnum usually got, is handled well.

And then there’s that final scene. Did You See The Sun Rise? ends with a freeze frame of Magnum doing something that TV show heroes didn’t normally do in 1982. You can’t blame him, of course. It’s a satisfying ending but it still leaves you knowing that nothing is ever going to be same for any of these characters ever again. In that final scene, Did You See The Sun Rise? takes things further than most shows would have the guts to do. The ending may not seem as shocking today but you have to remember that this episode aired long before networks like HBO regularly challenged the assumptions of what a show’s main character could or could not do on television.

The original Magnum P.I., including Did You See The Sun Rise?, is available for free on Amazon Prime.

Film Review: The Greatest (1977, dir by Tom Gries and Monte Hellman)

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Jedadiah Leland

The Greatest opens with 18 year-old Cassius Clay (played by Chip McAllister as a teenager and, as an adult, by Muhammad Ali himself) winning the light heavyweight gold medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics. Returning home to Kentucky, Clay discovers that not even a gold medal can protect him from racism. Angered after a restaurant refuses to serve him and his friend, Clay throws his gold medal into the Ohio River. Under the training of Angelo Dundee (Ernest Borgnine), Clay turns pro and defeats Sonny Liston (Roger E. Mosley) for the heavyweight championship. Inspired by Malcolm X (James Earl Jones), Clay also joins the Nation of Islam and changes his name to Muhammad Ali. As heavyweight champion, Ali battles not only his opponents in the ring but racism outside of it. The Greatest follows Ali as he loses his title for refusing to be drafted and concludes with the famous Rumble in the Jungle, where Ali won the title back from George Foreman.

Sadly, Muhammad Ali has never been the subject of a truly great feature film. Even Michael Mann’s Ali failed to really capture the mystique that made Ali into such an iconic figure. The Greatest is interesting because Ali plays himself. Unfortunately, The Greatest proves that Ali may have been a great showman but he was not a natural actor. You only have to watch the scene where Ali tries to hold his own with Robert Duvall to see just how stiff an actor Muhammad Ali really was. Ali’s best scenes are the ones where he is trash talking his opponents or training. The film opens with Ali jogging while George Benson sings The Greatest Love Of All, a scene that is made all the more poignant when you compare the athletic and confident Muhammad Ali of 1977 with the frail, Parkinson’s stricken Ali of today.

Instead of recreating any of Ali’s legendary fights, The Greatest instead uses actual footage of the matches. The real life footage is the best part of the film. After all these years, Ali’s fights against Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, and George Foreman remain exciting to watch. Otherwise, The Greatest is too episodic and low budget to do justice to Muhammad Ali’s story.

If you want to see a truly great film about Ali and his legacy, watch the 1996 documentary When We Were Kings, 2009’s Facing Ali or 2013’s The Trials of Muhammad Ali. Ali is such an iconic figure that it may be impossible for any feature film to properly do justice to his life and legacy. These three documentaries come close.

(Director Tom Gries died during the filming of The Greatest. The movie was completed by Monte Hellman.)