Icarus File No. 23: The Last Tycoon (dir by Elia Kazan)

Posted on April 22, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Based on the final (and unfinished) novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1976’s The Last Tycoon tells the story of Monroe Stahr (Robert De Niro).

Monroe Stahr is the head of production at a film studio during the early days of Hollywood. Stahr is an unemotional and seemingly repressed man who only shows enthusiasm when he’s talking about movies. He may not be able to deal with real people but he instinctively knows what they want to see on the big screen. Stahr is a genius but he’s working himself to death, ignoring his health concerns while trying to create the perfect world through film. He’s haunted by a lost love and when he meets Kathleen Moore (Ingrid Boulting, giving a remarkably dull performance), he tries to find love with her but, naturally, he doesn’t succeed. Meanwhile, he has to deal with his boss (Robert Mitchum), his boss’s daughter (Theresa Russell), a neurotic screenwriter (Donald Pleasence), an impotent actor (Tony Curtis), and a lowdown dirty communist labor organizer (Jack Nicholson)! Sadly, for Stahr, McCarthyism is still a few decades away.

There’s a lot of talented people in The Last Tycoon and it’s undeniably interesting to see old school stars — like Mitchum, Curtis, Dana Andrews, Ray Milland — acting opposite a Method-driven, 30-something Robert De Niro. This is one of those films where even the minor roles are filled with name actors. John Carradine plays a tour guide. Jeff Corey plays a doctor. This is a film about Golden Age Hollywood that is full of Golden Age survivors. It’s a shame that most of them don’t get much to do. The Last Tycoon is a very episodic film as Stahr goes from one crisis to another. Characters show up and then just kind of disappear and we’re never quite sure how Stahr feels about any of them or how their existence really shapes Stahr’s worldview. Robert De Niro may be a great actor but, as portrayed in this film, Monroe Stahr is a boring character and De Niro’s trademark tight-lipped intensity just makes Stahr seem like someone who doesn’t have much to offer beyond employment. This is one of De Niro’s least interesting performances, mostly because he’s playing a not-particularly interesting person. Mitchum, Pleasence, and the old guard all make an impression because they’re willing to coast by on their bigger-than-life personalities. De Niro is trapped by the Method and a total lack of chemistry with co-star Ingrid Boulting.

Still, this is the only film to feature both De Niro and Jack Nicholson. (The Departed was originally conceived as a chance to bring De Niro and Nicholson together, with De Niro being the original choice for the role eventually played by Martin Sheen.) Nicholson’s role is small and he doesn’t show up until the film is nearly over. He and De Niro have an intense table tennis match. Nicholson doesn’t really dig deep into Brimmer’s character. Instead, he flashes his grin and let’s the natural sarcasm of his voice carry the scene. It’s nowhere close to being as emotionally satisfying as the De Niro/Pacino meeting in Heat. That said, Jack Nicholson at least appears to be enjoying himself. His natural charisma makes his role seem bigger than it actually is.

Why was The Last Tycoon such a disappointment? Though unfinished, the book still featured some of Fitzgerald’s best work and there’s a huge amount of talent involved in this film. The blame mostly falls on Elia Kazan, who came out of retirement to direct the film after original director Mike Nichols left the project. (Nichols reportedly objected to casting De Niro as Stahr. While it’s tempting to think that Nichols realized that De Niro’s intense style wouldn’t be right for the role, it actually appears that Nichols and De Niro sincerely disliked each other as Nichols also abandoned the next film he was hired to direct when he was told that De Niro wanted the lead role. Nichols choice for Monroe Stahr was Dustin Hoffman, which actually would have worked. If nothing else, it would have provided a Graduate reunion.) Kazan later said that he did the film solely for the money and it’s obvious that he didn’t really care much about the film’s story. The film has some good scenes but, overall, it feels disjointed and uneven. Kazan doesn’t really seem to care about Monroe Stahr and, as a result, the entire film falls flat.

Previous Icarus Files:

The Unnominated #10: The Long Goodbye (dir by Robert Altman)

Posted on February 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences claim that the Oscars honor the best of the year, we all know that there are always worthy films and performances that end up getting overlooked. Sometimes, it’s because the competition too fierce. Sometimes, it’s because the film itself was too controversial. Often, it’s just a case of a film’s quality not being fully recognized until years after its initial released. This series of reviews takes a look at the films and performances that should have been nominated but were, for whatever reason, overlooked. These are the Unnominated.

Elliott Gould is Phillip Marlowe!

If I had to pick one sentence to describe the plot of 1973’s The Long Goodbye, that would be it. Robert Altman’s adaptation of the Raymond Chandler detective novel loosely follows Chandler’s original plot, though Altman did definitely make a few important changes. Altman moved the story from the 50s to the then-modern 70s, replacing Chandler’s hard-boiled Los Angeles with a satirical portrait of a self-obsessed California, populated by gurus and hippies. And Altman did change the ending of the book, taking what one could argue is a firmer stand than Chandler did in the novel. In the end, though, the film really is about the idea of Chandler’s tough detective being reimagined as Elliott Gould.

Rumpled, mumbling, and with a permanent five o’clock shadow, Gould plays Marlowe as being an outsider. He lives in a shabby apartment. His only companion is a cat who randomly abandons him (as cats tend to do). With his wardrobe that seems to consist of only one dark suit, Marlowe seems out-of-place in the California of the 70s. When Marlowe’s friend, Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton), asks Marlowe to drive him to Mexico, one gets the feeling that Lennox isn’t just asking because Marlowe’s a friend. He’s asking because he suspects Marlowe would never be a good enough detective to figure out what he’s actually doing.

After Terry’s wife is murdered, Marlowe is informed that 1) Terry has committed suicide and 2) Marlowe is now a suspect. Convinced that Terry would have never killed himself, Marlowe investigates on his own. He meets Marty Augustine (Mark Rydell), a gangster who demands that Marlowe recover some money that he claims Terry stole. Marty seems like an almost reasonable criminal until he smashes a coke bottle across his girlfriend’s face. (One of Marty’s bodyguards is played by a silent Arnold Schwarzenegger.) Meanwhile, Terry’s neighbors include an alcoholic writer named Roger Wade (Sterling Hayden) and his wife, Eileen (Nina van Pallandt). Like Marlowe, Roger is a man out-of-time, a Hemingwayesque writer who has found himself in a world that he is not capable of understanding. Henry Gibson, who would later memorably play Haven Hamilton in Altman’s Nashville, appears as Wade’s “doctor.”

Marlowe, with his shabby suits and a cigarette perpetually dangling from his mouth, gets next to no respect throughout the film. No one takes him seriously but Marlowe proves himself to be far more clever than anyone realizes. Elliott Gould gives one of his best performances as Marlowe, playing him as a man whose befuddled exterior hides a clear sense of right and wrong. Gould convinces us that Marlowe is a man who can solve the most complex of mysteries, even if he can’t figure out where his cat goes to in the middle of the night. His code makes him a hero but it also makes him an outsider in what was then the modern world. The film asks if there’s still a place for a man like Phillip Marlowe in a changing world and it leaves it to us to determine the answer.

Frequently funny but ultimately very serious, The Long Goodbye is one of the best detective films ever made. Just as Altman did with McCabe & Mrs. Miller, he uses the past to comment on what was then the present. And, just as with McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Long Goodbye is a film that was initially released to mixed reviews, though it would later be acclaimed by future viewers and critics. Whereas McCabe & Mrs. Miller received an Oscar nomination for Julie Christie’s performance as Mrs. Miller, The Long Goodbye was thoroughly snubbed by the Academy. Altman, Gould, Hayden, and the film itself were all worthy of consideration but none received a nomination. Instead, that year, the Oscar for Best Picture went to The Sting, a far less cynical homage to the crime films of the past.

The Long Goodbye (1973, directed by Robert Altman)

Previous entries in The Unnominated:

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Winner: The Deer Hunter (dir by Michael Cimino)

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Deer Hunter, which won the 1978 Oscar for Best Picture Of The Year, opens in a Pennsylvania steel mill.

Mike (Robert De Niro), Steve (John Savage), Nick (Chistopher Walken), Stan (John Cazale), and Axel (Chuck Aspegren, a real-life steel worker who was cast in this film after De Niro met him while doing research for his role) leave work and head straight to the local bar, where they are greeted by the bartender, John (George Dzundza). It’s obvious that these men have been friends for their entire lives. They’re like family. Everyone gives Stan a hard time but deep down, they love him. Axel is the prankster who keeps everyone in a good mood. Nick is the sensitive one who settles disputes. Steve is perhaps the most innocent, henpecked by his mother (Shirley Stoler) and engaged to marry the pregnant Angela (Rutanya Alda), even though Steve knows that he’s not actually the father. And Mike is their leader, a charismatic if sometimes overbearing father figure who lives his life by his own code of honor. The men are held together by their traditions. They hunt nearly every weekend. Mike says that it’s important to only use one shot to kill a deer. Nick, at one point, confesses that he doesn’t really understand why that’s important to Mike.

Steve and Angela get married at a raucous ceremony that is attended by the entire population of their small town. The community is proud that Nick, Steve, and Mike will all soon be shipping out to Vietnam. Nick asks his girlfriend, Linda (Meryl Streep), to marry him when he “gets back.” At the reception, Mike gets into a fight with a recently returned soldier who refuses to speak about his experiences overseas. Mike ends up running naked down a street while Nick chases him.

The Deer Hunter is a three-hour film, with the entirety of the first hour taken up with introducing us to the men and the tight-knit community that produced them. At times, that first hour can seem almost plotless. As much time is spent with those who aren’t going to Vietnam as with those who are. But, as the film progresses, we start to understand why the film’s director, Michael Cimino, spent so much time immersing the viewer in that community of steel workers. To understand who Nick, Mike, and Steve are going to become, it’s important to know where they came from. Only by spending time with that community can we understand what it’s like to lose the security of knowing where you belong.

If the first hour of the film plays out in an almost cinema verité manner, the next two hours feel like an increasingly surreal nightmare. (Indeed, there was a part of me that suspected that everything that happened after the wedding was just Michael’s drunken dream as he lay passed out in the middle of the street.) The film abruptly cuts from the beautiful mountains of Pennsylvania to the violent horror of Vietnam. A Viet Cong soldier blows up a group of hiding women and children. Michael appears out of nowhere to set the man on fire with a flame thrower. An army helicopter lands and, in a coincidence that strains credibility, Nick and Steve just happen to get out. Somehow, the three friends randomly meet each other again in Vietnam. Unfortunately, they are soon captured by the VC.

They are held prisoner in submerged bamboo cages. Occasionally, they are released and forced to play Russian Roulette. Mike once again becomes the leader, telling Steve and Nick to stay strong. Eventually, the three men do manage to escape but Steve loses his leg in the process and a traumatized Nick disappears in Saigon. Only Mike returns home.

The community seems to have changed in Mike’s absence. The once boisterous town is now quiet and cold. The banner reading “Welcome Home, Mike” almost seems to be mocking the fact that Mike no longer feels at home in his old world. Stan, Axel, and John try to pretend like nothing has changed. Mike falls in love with Linda while continuing to feel guilty for having abandoned Nick in Saigon. Steve, meanwhile, struggles to come to terms with being in a wheelchair and Nick is still playing Russian Roulette in seedy nightclubs. Crowds love to watch the blank-faced Nick risk his life.

Eventually, Mike realizes that Nick is still alive. Somehow, Mike ends up back in Saigon, just as the government is falling. Oddly, we don’t learn how Mike was able to return to Saigon. He’s just suddenly there. It’s the type of dream logic that dominates The Deer Hunter but somehow, it works. Mike searches for Nick but will he be able to save his friend?

The Deer Hunter was one of the first major films to take place in Vietnam. Among the pictures that The Deer Hunter defeated for Bet Picture was Coming Home, which was also about Vietnam but which took a far more conventional approach to its story than The Deer Hunter. Indeed, while Coming Home is rather predictable in its anti-war posture, The Deer Hunter largely ignores the politics of Vietnam. Mike, Nick, and Steve are all traumatized by what they see in Vietnam. Mike is destroyed emotionally, Steve is destroyed physically, and Nick is destroyed mentally. At the same time, the VC are portrayed as being so cruel and sadistic that it’s hard not to feel that the film is suggesting that, even if we did ultimately lose the war, the Americans were on the correct side and trying to do the right thing. (Many critics of The Deer Hunter have pointed out that there are no records of American POWs being forced to play Russian Roulette. That’s true. There are however records of American POWs being forced to undergo savage torture that was just as potentially life-threatening. Regardless of what one thinks of America’s involvement in Vietnam, there’s no need to idealize the VC.) Released just a few years after the Fall of Saigon, The Deer Hunter was a controversial film and winner. (Of course, in retrospect, the film is actually quite brilliant in the way it appeals to both anti-war and pro-war viewers without actually taking a firm position itself.)

In the end, though, The Deer Hunter isn’t really about the reality of the war or the politics behind it. Instead, it’s a film about discovering that the world is far more complicated that you originally believed it to be. De Niro is a bit too old to be playing such a naive character but still, he does a good job of portraying Mike’s newfound sense of alienation from his former home. In Vietnam, everything he believed in was challenged and he returns home unsure of where he stands. While John, Axel, and Stan can continue to hunt as if nothing happened, Mike finds that he can no longer buy into his own philosophical BS about the importance of only using one shot. Everything that he once believed no longer seems important.

It’s a good film and a worthy winner, even if it does sometimes feel more like a happy accident than an actual cohesive work of art. The plot is often implausible but then again, the film takes place in a world gone mad so even the plot holes feel appropriate to the story being told. Christopher Walken won an Oscar for his haunting performance as Nick and John Savage should have been nominated alongside of him. This was Meryl Streep’s first major role and she gives a surprisingly naturalistic performance. During filming, Streep was living with John Cazale and she largely did the film to be near him. Cazale was dying of lung cancer and he is noticeably frail in this film. (I cringed whenever Mike hit Stan because Cazale was obviously not well in those scenes.) Cazale, one of the great character actors of the 70s, died shortly after filming wrapped. Cazale only appeared in five films and all of them were nominated for Best Picture. Three of them — The first two Godfathers and The Deer Hunter — won.

The Deer Hunter is a long, exhausting, overwhelming, and ultimately very moving film. Whatever flaws it may have, it earns its emotional finale. Though one can argue that some of the best films of 1978 were not even nominated (Days of Heaven comes to mind, as do more populist-minded films like Superman and Animal House), The Deer Hunter deserved its Oscar.

Icarus File No. 14: Last Exit To Brooklyn (dir by Uli Edel)

Posted on February 19, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Brooklyn!

The year is 1952 and one neighborhood in Brooklyn is on the verge of exploding.

A thug named Vinnie (Peter Dobson) holds court at a local bar. (His associates include the moronic Sal, who is played by a very young Stephen Baldwin.) Some nights, Vinnie and his associates mug people for money. Sometimes, they just attack people for fun.

A strike at the local factory has entered its sixth month, with management showing no sign of compromising and Boyce (Jerry Orbach), the head of the union, showing little concern for the men who are now struggling to feed their families. The local shop steward, Harry Black (Stephen Lang), is a self-important braggart who never stops talking about how he’s the one leading the strike. At home, Harry ignores his wife, with the exception of a violent quickie. On the streets, Harry embezzles money from the union and uses it to try to impress the men that he would rather be spending his time with. But even the men who Harry considers to be friends quickly turn on him when he is at his most pathetic.

Big Joe (Burt Young) is a proud union member who is shocked to discover that his teenage daughter (Ricki Lake) is 8-months pregnant. Despite being out-of-work and not caring much for Tommy (John Costelloe), Joe puts together the wedding that appears to be the social event of a shabby season. But even at the reception, violence lurks below the surface.

Georgette (Alexis Arquette) is a transgender prostitute who loves Vinnie, even after he and his idiot friends stab her in the leg while playing with a knife. Beaten at home by her homophobic brother (Christopher Murney), Georgette sinks into drug addiction.

Tralala (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is an amoral prostitute, one who specializes in picking up military men and then arranging from them to be mugged by Vinnie and his gang. Sick of being exploited by Vinnie, Tralala heads to Manhattan and meets Steve (Frank Military), an earnest soldier from Idaho. For the first time, Tralala is treated decently by a man but Steve is set to ship out to Korea in a few days and, as he continually points out, there’s a chance that he might not return. For all of the happiness she finds in Manhattan, Tralala is continually drawn back to her self-destructive life in Brooklyn.

First released in 1989 and directed by Uli Edel (who directed another film about desperation, Christiane F.), Last Exit To Brooklyn is based on a controversial novel by Hubert Selby, Jr. In fact, it was so controversial that the novel was banned in several countries and, for a while, was listed as being obscene by the U.S. Post Office. I read the novel in the college and it is indeed a dark and depressing piece of work, one that offers up very little hope for the future. It’s also brilliantly written, one that sucks you into its hopeless world and holds your interest no matter how bleak the stories may be. Due to its reputation, it took over 20 years for Last Exit to Brooklyn to be adapted into a film.

The film is actually a bit more positive than the book. One character who appears to die in the book manages to survive in the film. The wedding subplot was a minor moment in the book but, in the film, it’s made into a major event and provides some mild comedic relief. That said, the film is definitely dark. Almost every character is greedy and angry and those who aren’t are victimized by everyone else. Unfortunately, the film lacks the power of Selby’s pungent prose. As a writer, Selby held your attention even when you want to put the book away. When it comes to the film, the lack of Selby’s voice makes it very easy to stop caring about the characters or their stories. Even with the attempts to lighten up the story, the film is still so dark that it’s easy to stop caring. The non-stop bleakness starts to feel like a bit of an affectation.

And that’s a shame because there are some brilliant moments and some brilliant performances to be found in Last Exit To Brooklyn. An extended sequence where the police fight the striking workers is wonderfully directed, with the police becoming an invading army and the men on strike being transformed from just factory workers to rebels. The scene where Boyce informs Harry that he’s not as important as he thinks is wonderfully acted by both Jerry Orbach and Stephen Lang. As Tralala, Jennifer Jason Leigh gives a raw and powerful performance, whether she’s shyly accepting Steve’s kindness or drunkenly exposing herself to a bar full of lowlifes. In many ways, Tralala is the most tragic of all the characters to be found in Last Exit to Brooklyn. She’s tough. She’s angry. But, in the end, she’s ultimately the victim of men who are too stupid to understand anything other than aggression. The neighborhood applauds her when she confidently walks past a line of cops and strikebreakers but the same people who cheered for her later try to destroy her.

The film ends on an ambiguous note, with a peace that feels very temporary. The message seems to be that men are at their worst when they’re bored so perhaps it’s best to keep them busy, whether with a job or perhaps a wedding. It’s a flawed film but it sticks with you.

Previous Icarus Files:

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Gun 1.5 “The Hole”

Posted on October 31, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Gun, an anthology series that ran on ABC for six week in 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, the gun ends up at the bottom of a swimmin’ hole!

Episode 1.5 “The Hole”

(Dir by Ted Demme, originally aired on May 24th, 1997)

Yep, this episode of Gun centers around an old country swimming hole. Every day, teenage Sondra (Kirsten Dunst) and her younger brothers, Brendan (Drake Bell) and Tad (Joe Pichler), head down to the Hole. For Sondra, swimming in the Hole is a chance to escape from her life of living in a trailer park with her trashy mother (Carrie Fisher) and her pervy stepfather (Cliff Bemis). For Brendan and Tad, going to the Hole is a chance to look for the treasure that they are convinced is at the bottom of the water. It is true that there is something shiny in the Hole. Sondra thinks that it might be the diamonds that she could use to finance an escape from the trailer park and a one-way trip down to Florida. Actually, it’s the pearl-handled gun that’s been at the center of every episode of Gun.

(In this episode, it’s suggested that the gun has been at the bottom of the hole for over a year. So, how did it end up in that town in the first place? Is this episode taking place before or after the previous episodes? I guess the simple solution is that it’s not the same gun as the gun seen in the previous episodes but the part of me that loves continuity is having a hard time accepting that.)

The gun belonged to James Munday (Johnny Whitworth), who has only recently been released from prison. He was convicted of murdering his girlfriend and only the fact that he was a minor at the time kept him from being given a life sentence. James claims that his girlfriend died as a part of a failed suicide pact and he’s convinced that the gun in the Hole can prove his innocence.

When James and Sondra meet, it doesn’t take long for them to fall for each other. Sondra remains James of his dead girlfriend and Sondra, like of all of us, is attracted to brooding rebels. However, when the rest of the town hears that James has been going to the Hole, a lynch mob is formed. Dick Sproule (Max Gail), the father of the girl that James was convicted of killing, is soon at the Hole with a rifle in his hands. Can James prove his innocence and will the town even care?

This episode was extremely overwrought and it featured every flaw that tends to turn me off of anthology shows in general. All of the characters were broadly drawn. The dialogue was way overwritten. Director Ted Demme told the story with a heavy-hand and used slow motion as if he was under the impression that he was the first director to ever consider heightening the drama by slowing things down. The whole thing just felt like a bad creative writing assignment. Out of the cast, only Kirsten Dunst was able to really create a character who felt as if she had a life outside of the demands of the story. Everyone else seemed to be a caricature. In the end, James may have been a hot, brooding rebel but he was also kind of whiny. That got old pretty quickly.

*Sigh* Well, that’s another disappointing episode of Gun for you! Next week, I’ll be reviewing the series finale. Hopefully, this show will at least end on a worthwhile note.

Retro Television Reviews: Can Ellen Be Saved (dir by Harvey Hart)

Posted on July 16, 2023 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 1974’s Can Ellen Be Saved! It can be viewed on YouTube!

Ellen Lindsey (Katharine Cannon) is an intelligent but depressed teenager who feels that she just doesn’t belong anywhere in the world. She’s not interested in the money and class-obsessed lifestyle of her parents, Arnold (Leslie Nielsen, back in his serious actor days) and Bea (Louise Fletcher). At the same time, she’s also not interested in the silly lives of her friends, who spend all of their time chasing boys and talking about celebrities. Ellen is looking for something deeper and she thinks that she may have found it when she attends a religious retreat led by a charismatic man named Joseph (Michaele Parks).

Everyone at the retreat is very friendly and very dedicated and very concerned with finding more to life than just surface pleasures. They spend hours listening to sermons. They spend even longer singing hymns. The leaders of the retreat emphasize that anyone can leave whenever they want but, if they do, they’ll still be making the biggest mistake of their life. Ellen is happy because she’s finally found a group of friends who seem to feel the same way that she does about society and materialism. Joseph is happy because he’s brainwashed another member of his cult who he can now send out to panhandle for him and the compound.

Arnold and Bea are not happy when Ellen runs away to join Joseph’s commune. When Arnold visits the commune, he discovers a secretive world where outsiders are not welcome. He also discover that Ellen no longer seems to be capable of thinking for herself. With the police unwilling to help, Arnold and Bea turn to an enigmatic deprogrammer named James Hallbeck (John Saxon). Hallbeck specializes in grabbing kids that have joined cults and bringing them back to their parents. Of course, it’s hard not to notice that neither Joseph nor Arnold seems to be giving much thought to what Ellen actually wants from her life.

Can Ellen Be Saved? is a well-made TV movie that has a lot in common with later films like Split Image and Ticket To Heaven. As in both those movies, the first half of the film details how cults initially brainwash their members while the second half deals with the sometimes harsh process of reversing that brainwashing. And, just as in those two later films, Can Ellen Be Saved? features parents who mistakenly assume that their child can be returned to them exactly as she was before. Though all three of the films feature cults that are definitely sinister, they also feature main characters who were lost before they joined the cult and all three of them end on an ambiguous note, leaving us to wonder if the characters have regained their free will or if they’ve just traded one brainwashing for another.

Along with being a well-written and well-acted film, Can Ellen Be Saved features one of those once-in-a-lifetime casts. Popping up in small roles are familiar faces like William Katt, Rutanya Alda, and Kathleen Quinlan. Michael Parks and John Saxon are both convincing as two morally ambiguous characters whose own motives are left enigmatic. Katherine Cannon is sympathetic as Ellen, whose need to be a part of something leaves her vulnerable to manipulation. Finally, it must be said that Leslie Nielsen — despite his reputation for having been a dull dramatic actor — is actually very effective as Ellen’s confused but well-meaning father. Usually, when I watch Neilsen in a dramatic film, I find myself expecting him to wink at the camera or deliver a silly line in a deliberately flat and unemotional tone. But, in this film, I actually forgot I was watching Leslie Nielsen. Instead, he just become a suburban dad, trying to understand why his daughter was so dissatisfied with the life that he had worked so hard to give her.

I wasn’t expecting much from Can Ellen Be Saved? but it turned out to be surprisingly effective.

Vigilante (1982, directed by William Lustig)

Posted on September 26, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

The year is 1982 and New York City has gone to Hell. While honest, hard-working people try to make a living and take care of their families, the streets are ruled by gangs and drug dealers. The police and the legal system impotent in the face of intimidation and corruption. Maybe it’s time for the citizens to take the streets back, by force if necessary.

That’s what Nick (Fred Williamson) and most of his friends believe. Eddie Marino (Robert Forster) disagrees. He says that people taking the law into their own hands will just lead to more violence and death. The vigilantes will become just a bloodthirsty as the criminals. While Eddie is debating policy with Nick, Eddie’s wife (Rutanya Alda) is threatening to call the police on a Che Guevara look-alike who she spots trying to set a gas station attendant on fire. Eddie’s wife is stabbed. His son is killed. And when the man responsible is allowed to walk by a crooked judge, Eddie’s courtroom outburst leads to him being sent to jail.

Eddie spends 30 days in jail, fighting off predators and befriending a mysterious inmate named Rake (Woody Strode). When Eddie is finally released, his traumatized wife no longer wants to be married to him but Eddie has found a new purpose in life. Working with Nick, Eddie tracks down and murders the men who have destroyed his family.

One of the many films to be inspired by the success and enduring popularity of the original Death Wish, Vigilante is a classic of its kind. Director William Lustig wastes no time in establishing New York City as being a graffiti-decorated war zone where good is fighting a losing war against evil and most of the victims are just innocent bystanders. The New York of Vigilante looks even worse than it did in Lustig’s previous film, Maniac. (Maniac’s Joe Spinell plays one a crooked lawyer in Vigilante.) The action is brutal and bloody. While Forster fights for his life in prison, the people who killed his son are allowed to run free. It’s not subtle but, by the time Forster finally walks out of jail, you’ll be more than on his side and ready to see him get his revenge. With his trademark intensity, Robert Forster is believable as someone who goes from aborhing to violence to being a stone cold killer who doesn’t even flinch when he shoots a defenseless man. As Nick, Fred Williamson is his usual confident self. Williamson may not have much range as an actor but he has such a forceful screen presence that he dominates any scene in which he appears.

Vigilante is a grim film, with Eddie ultimately going further than almost any other screen vigilante before him. It’s also a deeply satisfying film because it appeals to everyone’s desire for revenge. In the real world, vigilantes are often as dangerous as the people they’re trying to keep off the streets. In the movies, though, they’re easy to root for. They present easy and direct solutions to complex problems. Even a film as dark as Vigilante works as a sort of wish fulfillment. With crime on the rise and the constant news reports about innocent victims who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, it’s easy to root for Nick and Eddie as it once was for Paul Kersey.

Horror Film Review: The Dark Half (dir by George Romero)

Posted on October 12, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It will always fascinate me that Stephen King, one of the most popular writers in the world and one of the legitimate masters of horror, also has one of the least inspiring accounts on twitter.

Seriously, he may be the most popular author in the world but he tweets like a retiree who has just discovered the internet. Go over to his twitter account and you won’t find memorable descriptions of small town hypocrisy. You won’t find scenes of shocking psychological insight. You won’t find moments of unexpected but laugh-out-loud dark humor. Instead, you’ll find a combination of dad jokes, boomer nostalgia, and an unseemly obsession with wishing death on any public figure who is to the right of Bernie Sanders. It’s odd because no one can deny that King’s a good storyteller. At his best, Stephen King is responsible for some of the best horror novels ever written. Everyone who is a horror fan owes him a debt of gratitude for the work that he’s done promoting the genre. At his worst, he’s your uncle who retweets the article without reading it first.

Of course, someone can be great at one thing an terrible at something else. I can dance but I certainly can’t sing. Stephen King can write a best seller but a good tweet is beyond him. That’s the dual nature of existence, I suppose. That’s certainly one of the themes at the heart of both Stephen King’s The Dark Half and the subsequent film adaptation from George Romero.

Filmed in 1990 but not released for three years due to the bankruptcy of the studio that produced it, The Dark Half tells the story of Thad Beaumont and George Stark (both played by Timothy Hutton). Thad is a professor who writes “serious” literature under his real name and violent, pulpy fiction under the name of George Stark. No one reads Thad’s books but they love George Stark and his stories about the master criminal and assassin, Alexis Machine. (Alexis Machine? George Stark may be a good writer but he sucks at coming up with names.) After a demented fan (played, with creepy intensity, by Robert Joy) attempts to blackmail him by threatening to reveal that he’s George Stark, Thad decides to go public on his own. His agent even arranges for a fake funeral so that Thad can bury George once and for all.

Soon, however, Thad’s associates are turning up dead. It seems as if everyone associated with the funeral is now being targeted. Sheriff Alan Pangborn (Michael Rooker) suspects that Thad is the murderer. However, the murderer is actually George Stark, who has come to life and is seeking revenge. Of course, George has more problems than just being buried. His body is decaying and he’s got a bunch of angry sparrows after him. The Sparrows Are Flying Again, we’re told over and over. Seeking to cure his affliction and to get those birds to leave him alone, Stark targets Thad’s wife (Amy Madigan) and their children.

The Dark Half has its moments, as I think we would expect of any film based on a Stephen King novel and directed by George Stark. Some of the deaths are memorably nasty. Hutton is believably neurotic as Thad and cartoonishly evil as Stark and, in both cases, it works well. Rooker may be an unconventional pick for the role but he does a good job as Pangborn and Amy Madigan brings some unexpected energy to the thankless role of being the threatened wife.

But, in the end, The Dark Half never really seems to live up to its potential. In the book, Thad was a recovering alcoholic and it was obvious that George Stark was a metaphor for Thad’s addiction. That element is largely abandoned in the movie and, as a result, George goes from being the literal representation of Thad’s demons to just being another overly loquacious movie serial killer. Despite having a few creepy scenes, the film itself is never as disturbing as it should be. For all the blood, the horror still feels a bit watered down. Take away the sparrows and this could just as easily be a straight-forward action film where the hero has to rescue his family from a smug kidnapper. Comparing this film to Romero’s Martin is all the proof you need that Romero was best-served by working outside the mainstream than by trying to be a part of it.

Add to that, I got sick of the sparrows. Yes, both the film and the book explain why the sparrows are important but “The Sparrows Are Flying Again” almost sounds like something you’d find in something written in a deliberate attempt to parody King’s style. It’s a phrase that’s intriguingly enigmatic the first time that you hear it, annoying the third time, and boring the fifth time.

The Dark Half was a bit of a disappointment but that’s okay. For King fans, there will always be Carrie. (I would probably watch The Shining but apparently, King still hasn’t forgiven Stanley Kubrick for improving on the novel.) And, for us Romero fans, we’ll always have Night of the Living Dead, Martin, Dawn of the Dead, and the original Crazies. And, for fans of George Stark, I’m sure someone else will pick up the story of Alexis Machine. It’s hard to keep a good character down.

Horror Film Review: When A Stranger Calls (dir by Fred Walton)

Posted on October 6, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Have you checked the children?” the stranger on the phone asks the terrified babysitter, who is unaware that the children are already dead and that the call is …. COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!

That’s the premise behind both an oft-repeated urban legend and the opening of the 1979 film, When A Stranger Calls. I’ve often seen the original When A Stranger Calls described as being one of the scariest films ever made. That’s not quite true, of course. The first 20 minutes or so are effective. The final scene has a few intense moments. The majority of what lies in-between feels like filler, albeit well-acted filler.

When A Stranger Calls opens with Carol Kane as Jill, a teenage babysitter who is terrified one night by a caller who keeps asking her if she’s checked on the children. This sequence — really, a mini-movie all of its own — is so well-executed and suspenseful that many people assume that the entire film is just Jill dealing with the mystery caller. Actually, that’s just the first few minutes and, once the location of the killer has been revealed, Kane disappears from the film for an extended period. That’s a shame since Kane’s empathetic performance is perhaps the best thing that When A Stranger Calls has going for it. She’s so convincing as the emotionally shattered babysitter that it doesn’t matter that, at the start of the film, she’s obviously not a teenager.

Instead, the middle part of the film focuses on John Clifford (Charles Durning). Clifford is a former policeman-turned-private investigator. He is obsessed with Duncan (Tony Beckley), the man who called Jill at the start of the film. Duncan has just escaped from a mental institution and Clifford has been hired to track him down. Clifford is convinced that Duncan will try to find Jill. Duncan, meanwhile, wanders through the sleaziest sections of downtown Los Angeles, briefly living with a pathetic alcoholic named Tracy (Colleen Dewhurst). Clifford, of course, is right about Duncan wanting to find Jill. And Clifford is so determined to kill Duncan that he might even be willing to use Jill as bait….

After the brilliantly horrific opening sequence, it’s impossible not to be disappointed with the drawn-out middle section of When A Stranger Calls. Durning, Dewhurst, and especially Beckley all give good performances and downtown Los Angeles is so repellent that you’ll want to take a shower afterwards but, narratively, there’s really not much happening. Clifford finds Duncan. Duncan runs away. Duncan acts like a jerk and gets in a fight. Tracy drinks. The old school cop Clifford scowls at the sleaziness of the world while Duncan continues to lose what little sanity he has left. Give the film some credit for not portraying Duncan as being some sort of charming, loquacious master criminal. He’s a total loser, as all serial killers are despite the later popularity of fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. Duncan hates both himself and the world with equal fury. But, that said, the narrative stalls during the middle part of the film. There’s only so many time you can watch two men chase each other down a trash-strewn street before it gets dull.

Fortunately, Jill does eventually show up again and, after an hour of relentless sleaziness, you’re happy to see Carol Kane, again. Jill is now married and has children of her own. And soon, she’s again getting a phone call asking if she’s checked on the children….

And, again, the closing sequence is scary, even if it’s not quite as intense as the opening. (The opening was scary because we didn’t know what the killer looked like. By the time Duncan finds Jill a second time, we now know that Duncan is a sickly-looking alcoholic who can’t handle himself in a fair fight.) The film does have one great jump scare left in its arsenal of tricks. And yet, it’s impossible to watch When A Stranger Calls without wishing that the whole thing had just focused on Jill instead of getting sidetracked with Clifford searching Los Angeles.

When A Stranger Calls will always have a place in horror history. “Have you checked the children?” will always produce chills. It’s just unfortunate that the film spends a good deal of its running time ignoring what makes it scary in the first place.

Lisa Reviews a Palme d’Or Winner: Scarecrow (dir by Jerry Schatzberg)

Posted on July 6, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

With the 2021 Cannes Film Festival underway in France, I thought this would be a good opportunity to spend the next few days looking at some of the films that have won the Palme d’Or in the past. As of this writing, 100 films have won either the Palme d’Or or an earlier version of the award like the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film. Some of those films — like Parasite, The Tree of Life, The Piano, Pulp Fiction — went on to huge box office success and Oscar renown. Others, like 1973’s Scarecrow, did not.

Scarecrow is an example of a type of film that was very popular in the 70s. It’s a road film, one in which two or more people take a journey across the country and discover something about themselves and, depending upon how ambitious the film was, perhaps something about America as well. Scarecrow centers on two drifters, who just happen to meet on a dusty road while they’re trying to hitch a ride. Max (Gene Hackman, fresh off of winning an Oscar for The French Connection) is an ex-convict with a bad temper and a huge chip on his shoulder. Lion (a young Al Pacino, fresh off of The Godfather) is an ex-sailor who views the world with optimism and who appears to be sweet-natured but simple-minded. To be honest, it’s a little bit hard to believe that the perpetually resentful Max and the always hopeful Lion would ever become friends but they do. They travel around the country, talking about their dreams of opening a car wash together. They meet up with ex-girlfriends and ex-wives. Eventually, they even end up in a prison farm together, where Lion, temporarily estranged from Max, is taken advantage of by a sadistic prisoner named Riley (Richard Lynch).

Scarecrow is an episodic film, one that moves at its own deliberate pace. (If that sounds like a polite way of saying that the film is slow-moving …. well, it is.) Director Jerry Schatzberg was a photographer-turned-director and, as a result, there’s several striking shots of Max and Lion standing against the countryside, waiting for someone to pick them up and give them a ride. Whenever Max and Lion end up in a bar, the scene is always lit perfectly. At the same time, Schatzberg also attempts to give the film a spontaneous, naturalistic feel by letting scenes run longer than one would normally expect. There’s several scenes of Hackman and Pacino just talking while walking down a country road or a city street. On the one hand, you have to appreciate Schatzberg’s attempt to convince us that Max and Lion are just two guys with big dreams, as opposed to two Oscar-nominated actors pretending to be societal drop-outs. On the other hand, Schatzberg’s approach also leads to an interminably long scene of Gene Hackman eating a piece of chicken and if you think that Gene Hackman was the type of actor who wasn’t going to act the Hell out of gnawing on and gesturing with a chicken bone, you obviously haven’t seen many Gene Hackman films.

The main appeal of the film, for most people, will probably be to see Gene Hackman and Al Pacino, two of the top actors of the 70s, acting opposite of each other. Reportedly, both Hackman and Pacino went full method for the film and spent their prep time on the streets of San Francisco, begging for spare change. The end result is a mixed bag. There are a few scenes — like when they first meet or when they’re in prison — in which Hackman and Pacino are believable in their roles and you buy them as two lost souls who were lucky enough to find each other. There are other scenes where they both seem to be competing to see who can chew up the most scenery. Sometimes, Pacino and Hackman are compelling acting opposite each other. Other times, it feels like we’re just watching an Actors’ Studio improv class that someone happened to film. Too often, Hackman and Pacino seem to be so occupied with showing off their technique that the film’s reality seems to get lost under all of the method showiness. In the end, neither one of the film’s stars makes as much of an impression as Richard Lynch, who is genuinely frightening in his small but key role.

Scarecrow is an uneven film, one that is occasionally effective but also a bit too studied for its own good. It wears it influences — Of Mice and Men, Midnight Cowboy, Five Easy Pieces — on its sleeve but it also fails to exceed or match any of those previous works. That said, the film does have its fans. (Schatzberg has been working on a sequel for a while.) Certainly, the 1973 Cannes Jury (headed by none other than Ingrid Bergman) liked it enough to give it the Palme.

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