RIP, George Wendt: Guilty By Suspicion (1991, directed by Irwin Winkler)

Posted on May 20, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

George Wendt passed away in his sleep earlier today. He was 76 years old.

If you’re old enough to have watched Cheers when it originally aired or to have caught it in reruns, George Wendt will always be Norm Peterson, the beer-drinking accountant who spent all of his time at the show’s titular bar. One of the show’s trademarks was that, whenever he entered the bar, everyone greeted him by shouting, “Norm!” “How’s the world treating you?” a bartender would ask. “It’s a dog eat world and I’m wearing milkbone underwear,” Norm once replied.

(One of my favorite joke from the series was when Norm went into a steakhouse and everyone inside was heard to yell, “Norm!” as the door closed behind him.)

If we’re going to be really honest, Norm was probably a high-functioning alcoholic and terrible husband. (Wife Vera was often-mentioned but never seen.) Wendt was so likable in the role and was so good at delivering those one-liners that it didn’t matter. Watching the show, you never wondered why Norm was in the bar. You were just glad he was.

George Wendt was also an accomplished stage actor. (I saw him on stage when he was co-starring with Richard Thomas in 12 Angry Men.) He appeared in several movies, usually playing the comedic sidekick or the hero’s best friend. His film roles often didn’t ask him to do much other than be likable but one exception was his performance in 1991’s Guilty By Suspicion.

Guilty By Suspicion is a film about the McCarthy era, starring Robert De Niro as film director David Merrill, who is threatened with being blacklisted unless he names four of his colleagues as being communists. George Wendt plays screenwriter Bunny Baxter, a childhood friend of David’s who attended a few communist rallies when he was younger, failed to mention it to the FBI, and who is now being investigated as a subversive. The studio argues that David should name Baxter because his name is already out there. When David refuses, he finds himself blacklisted and unable to make a living. Bunny Baxter, meanwhile, is offered a similar deal. Baxter can save his own career but only if he names David as a communist. Unlike David, Baxter considers betraying his friend because it’s the only way that he can ever hope to work again. “Your dead anyway,” Baxter says to David.

Guilty By Suspicion suffers from Irwin Winkler’s plodding direction but De Niro gives a good performance, as does Martin Scorsese who is cast as a director based on Joseph Losey. The film is full of actors who would later become better-known, like Chris Cooper, Tom Sizemore, and Annette Bening. Wendt, however, gives the film’s best performance as the screenwriter who is torn between protecting his career and maintaining his integrity. The scene where he asks permission to name Merrill as a communist is powerful and it shows how good an actor George Wendt could be. Bunny Baxter is asking his best friend to allow himself to be stabbed in the back. Baxter is that desperate. That he’s played by George Wendt, an actor who was everyone’s favorite likable barfly in the 80s, makes the scene all the more powerful.

George Wendt, RIP. Thanks for the memories.

Film Review: Voyage of the Damned (dir by Stuart Rosenberg)

Posted on January 4, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1939, an ocean liner named the MS St. Louis set sail from Hamburg. Along with the crew, the ship carried 937 passengers, all of whom were Jewish and leaving Germany to escape Nazi persecution. The ship was meant to go to Havana, where the passengers had been told that they would be given asylum. Many were hoping to reunite with family members who had already taken the voyage.

What neither the passengers nor Captain Gustav Schroeder knew was that the entire voyage was merely a propaganda operation. No sooner had the St. Louis left Hamburg than German agents and Nazi sympathizers started to rile up anti-Semitic feelings in Cuba. The plan was to prevent the passengers from disembarking in Cuba and to force the St. Louis to then return to Germany. The Nazis would be able to claim that they had given the Jews a chance to leave but that the rest of the world would not take them in. Not only would the Jews be cast as pariahs but the Germans would be able to use the world’s actions as a way to defend their own crimes.

Captain Schroeder, however, refused to play along. After he was refused permission to dock in Cuba, he then attempted to take the ship to both America and Canada. When both of those countries refused to allow him to dock, Schroeder turned the St. Louis toward England, where he planned to stage a shipwreck so that the passengers could be rescued at sea. Before that happened, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom jointly announced that they would accept the refugees.

Tragically, just a few days after the passengers disembarked, World War II officially began and Belgium, France, and the Netherlands all fell to the Nazi war machine. It is estimated that, of the 937 passengers on the St. Louis, more than 600 of them subsequently died in the Nazi concentration camps.

The journey of the St. Louis was recreated in the 1976 film, Voyage of the Damned, with Max von Sydow as Captain Schroeder and a collection of familiar faces playing not only the ship’s passengers and crew but also the men and women in Cuba who all played a role in the fate of the ship. In fact, one could argue that there’s a few too many familiar faces in Voyage of the Damned. One cannot fault the performances of Max von Sydow, Malcolm McDowell, and Helmut Griem as members of the crew. And, amongst the passengers, Lee Grant, Jonathan Pryce, Paul Koslo, Sam Wanamaker, and Julie Harris all make a good impression. Even the glamorous Faye Dunaway doesn’t seem to be too out-of-place on the ship. But then, in Havana, actors like Orson Welles and James Mason are awkwardly cast as Cubans and the fact that they are very obviously not Cuban serves to take the viewer out of the story. It reminds the viewer that, as heart-breaking as the story of the St. Louis may be, they’re still just watching a movie.

That said, Voyage of the Damned still tells an important true story, one that deserves to be better-known. In its best moments, the film captures the helplessness of having nowhere to go. With Cuba corrupt and the rest of the world more interested in maintaining the illusion of peace than seriously confronting what was happening in Germany, the Jewish passengers of the St. Louis truly find themselves as a people without a home. They also discover that they cannot depend on leaders the other nations of the world to defend them.

Defending the passengers falls to a few people who are willing to defy the leaders of their own country. At the start of the film, Nazi Intelligence Chief Wilhelm Canaris (Denholm Elliott) explains that Captain Schroeder was selected specifically because he wasn’t a member of the Nazi Party and could not be accused of having ulterior motives for ultimately returning the passengers to Germany. Canaris and his fellow Nazis assume that anti-Semitism is so natural that even a non-Nazi will not care what happens to the Jewish passengers. Instead, Schroeder and his crew take it upon themselves to save the lives of the passengers. It is not Franklin Roosevelt who tries to save the passengers of St. Louis. Instead, it’s just a handful of people who, despite unrelenting pressure to do otherwise, step up to do the right thing. Max von Sydow, who was so often cast in villainous roles, gives a strong performance as the captain who is willing to sacrifice his ship to save his passengers.

Flaws and all, Voyage of the Damned is a powerful film about a moment in history that must never be forgotten.

30 More Days of Noir #5: The Criminal (dir by Joseph Losey)

Posted on November 5, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dggj09TY_pY

From 1960, it’s British noir!

Johnny Bannion (Stanley Baker) is a career criminal, one who divides his time between long stretches in prison and short visits to the real world. He’s handsome, he’s charming, he’s clever, and he’s totally trapped. Baker moves through the film like a natural-born predator, waiting for the moment to strike. When he’s in prison, he’s as defiant as a caged tiger. When he’s out of prison, he’s always stalking the next prize.

Johnny has a hard time staying out of prison. When we first meet him, he’s in prison and it quickly becomes clear that he’s quite a respected figure behind bars. When he gets out, the first thing that he does is team up with his old associate, Mike Carter (Sam Wanamaker), and make plans to rob a racetrack. Mike and Johnny have an interesting relationship. On the one hand, Mike kept Johnny’s apartment for him while he was locked away and Johnny obviously has enough faith in Mike to work him. On the other hand, neither man seems to truly trust the other. That’s the world of criminals, I suppose. Never trust anyone.

Of course, it quickly turns out that there’s actually a good reason to never trust anyone when you’re living a life of crime. As soon as Johnny, Mike, and the gang pull of the racetrack robbery, Johnny’s betrayed. Johnny ends up locked away once again, all thanks to Mike. However, it turns out that Mike may have acted too soon because Johnny hid all the money before he was sent back to prison. Now, Mike has to figure out a way to pressure Johnny into revealing where the money’s buried while Johnny has to try to survive in a world of ruthless prisoners and guards who are ineffectual at best and crooked at worst. Mike’s not the only one who is interested in where Johnny put all that cash….

I have to admit that I’m probably a bit biased when it come to The Criminal because it’s a British crime film that I actually saw while in the UK. It’s one thing to watch a tough British crime film from the safety of Texas. It’s another thing to watch it at 2 in the morning while in a hotel room with a nice view of the Thames. As opposed to the watered down British-American co-productions that we tend to get used to here in the United States, The Criminal was British through-and-through, from the tough working class accents to the harsh urban landscape to the stylish suits that were worn even inside the prison.

It’s a dense movie. Though Stanley Baker is undoubtedly the star, director Joseph Losey is just as interested in the other people who come within Johnny’s orbit and, as a result, we get to know not just Mike but also the guards and the other prisoners. Partrick Magee, who was a favorite of Kubrick’s, makes a strong impression as Barrows, the prison guard who may be a manipulative sadist or who may just be a man who is doing what he has to do to maintain some sort of order in the prison. The film’s portrayal of Barrows is ambiguous but the same can be said for almost everyone in the movie. In classic noir fashion, there are no traditional heroes. Johnny’s bad but he’s a little bit less bad than the men who betrayed him and who are willing to go to extreme lengths to discover where Johnny hid that money.

Directed by Joseph Losey, The Criminal alternates between scenes of hard-edged reality and scenes that feel as if they could have been lifted from some sort of Boschian nightmare. The scenes outside the prison are harshly realistic while the inside of the prison feels almost like some sort of surrealistic dreamscape where demons take human form. The Criminal is an effective and violent British noir, one that will encourage you to keep your eyes on the shadows.

Strange Bedfellows: BILLY JACK GOES TO WASHINGTON (Taylor-Laughlin Distributing 1977)

Posted on December 1, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Billy Jack, hero of the oppressed, goes up against an enemy he can’t wrap his head around – the politicians of Washington, D.C. in BILLY JACK GOES TO WASHINGTON, the final chapter in the Billy Jack saga. I know I harped on the fact that the last film, THE TRIAL OF BILLY JACK , didn’t contain enough action, and this one has even less, but I liked this film better. It’s a remake of Frank Capra’s 1939 classic MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (Capra’s son is the producer), retooled for the modern era and casting Tom Laughlin’s Billy Jack character in the Jimmy Stewart role. You’d think a forty-plus year old political film would be dated, but truth to tell, not a lot has changed since then… if anything, it’s gotten worse.

When Senator Foley has a heart attack and croaks, the powers-that-be look for a patsy to replace him…

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Cleaning Out The DVR: The Day This Fish Came Out (dir by Michael Cocoyannis)

Posted on June 24, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I recorded the 1967 film, The Day The Fish Came Out, off of FXM on May 11th, 2017! It took me a while to get around to watching this one.

Ugh, what a mess.

The Day The Fish Came Out is kind of a comedy and kinda of a drama and it really doesn’t succeed as either. It takes place on a Greek island that is populated by four goat herders and one village full of disgruntled people. The biggest news of their lives comes when it’s announced that Greeks will now be allowed to immigrate to Greenland. All of the people of the village stand up and run through the streets but — and this is typical of the film — we never actually see anyone go to Greenland. A potentially funny joke is set up and then promptly abandoned.

Because the island is so remote, it seems like the perfect place for a damaged NATO plane to dump its nuclear payload. Two nuclear missiles end up in the ocean. Meanwhile, a radioactive crate known as Container Q ends up landing near a goatherd (Nicolas Alexios), who promptly takes it home and starts trying to pry it open. Meanwhile, the plane’s pilot (Colin Wakely) and its navigator (Tom Courtenay) end up wandering around the island in their underwear, trying to retrieve the crate without letting anyone know that they’re there. And while it may not sound like a bad thing that, for once, it’s the guys who spend the entire movie in their underwear, let’s just say that Wakely and Courtenay spend a lot of time rolling around in the dirt and it doesn’t take long for those tighty whities to get disgustingly grimy. Bleh!

Meanwhile, a group of American secret agents have been sent to the island to look for the crate and the missiles and hopefully retrieve them without causing an international crisis. The problem is that the Americans are pretending to be real estate developers and they think the pilot and the navigator are dead. And the pilot and the navigator don’t know that the brash Americans are actually secret agents so they keep hiding from them. In other news, everyone in this movie is really stupid.

The townspeople — or at least the ones who didn’t go to Greenland — assume that their island is now a hot tourist location because of all the interest from the “developers.” Through an annoyingly complicated series of events, this leads to the discovery of an ancient statue. Electra Brown (Candice Bergen) comes to the island to investigate the statue and pose in the latest 60s fashions. She then gets on a boat and leaves the movie.

Meanwhile, the ocean starts to glow and fish start to show up dead on the beach, proof that the radiation is spreading. However, the townspeople and the tourists who have recently arrived assume that it’s just a part of the island’s newfound charm…

The poster for The Day The Fish Came Out announces, “Dr. Strangelove, move over!” and that pretty much defines the approach this movie takes to its material. It wants to be even more outrageous and satirical than Stanley Kubrick’s anti-bomb classic. However, The Day The Fish Came Out lacks both Dr. Strangelove‘s focus and it’s chillingly detached world view. (One reason why Dr. Strangelove works is because Kubrick isn’t scared to suggest that maybe the world would be better off if humanity did just blow itself up.) The Day The Fish Came Out also lacks the right type of cast for this material. There’s no equivalent to be found to the performances that Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Slim Pickens, Sterling Hayden, and even Peter Bull gave in Kubrick’s film. Among the members of The Day The Fish Came Out‘s ensemble, Sam Wanamaker, as the delusionally positive leader of the American agents, comes the closest to capturing the satirical feel that the film was obviously going for but the rest of the cast flails about in apparent confusion.

When the townspeople and the tourists blithely dance in the radioactive water and ignore the NATO man frantically yelling, “Attention!,” the film briefly achieves the satirical grandeur that it was going for. But otherwise, The Day The Fish Came Out is almost as messy as the doctrine of mutually assured destruction.

Shattered Politics #41: Billy Jack Goes To Washington (dir by Tom Laughlin)

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Happy Hooker wasn’t the only person to go to Washington in 1977! Billy Jack may have started out killing bikers and then moved on to killing Bernard Posner and then finally ended up killing yet another Mr. Posner but, in 1977, Billy Jack was appointed to the U.S. Senate.

Now, it may seem strange to think of someone like Billy Jack being appointed to the U.S. Senate. Over the course of the previous three films in the franchise, Billy had been shot in the back, shot in the leg, arrested for murder, convicted of manslaughter, and then shot by the National Guard. In Billy Jack and The Trial of Billy Jack, Billy goes as far as to state that he does not feel the laws of the United States apply to him.

And then, when you consider that the three previous films all featured old, rich, white guys plotting to kill Billy, you would be justified in wondering how he would ever find himself appointed to serve in the senate.

But it happened!

And we’ve got a movie to prove it.

Directed by and starring Tom Laughlin, Billy Jack Goes To Washington is actually a remake of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. (To the film’s credit, it’s honest enough to actually give credit to Mr. Smith‘s screenwriters in the opening credits.) What’s remarkable is just how faithful a remake Billy Jack Goes To Washington actually is. All the scenes made famous by Jimmy Stewart — the scene where the newest member of the Senate attempts to introduce his first bill, the scene where he’s shocked to discover that Sen. Paine (played here by E.G. Marshall) takes orders from Boss Bailey (Sam Wanamaker), the scene where cynical Saunders (Lucie Arnaz) tells the senator that he should leave Washington, and, of course, that famous filibuster — are all faithfully recreated here. The only difference, of course, is that it’s no longer idealistic Jimmy Stewart proving himself to be incredibly naive about politics. Instead, it’s a former Green Beret, half-Indian, judo master named Billy Jack.

Tom Laughlin was a good actor, which is something that’s often overlooked by reviewers writing about the Billy Jack films. As flawed as The Trial of Billy Jack may have been, Tom Laughlin was a compelling enough presence that the film itself remains a compulsively watchable 3-hour mess. Laughlin had a very authoritative presence. You looked at him and you knew that he knew what he was doing. He was someone who you automatically wanted on your side, a natural born leader who knew how to get things done. However, in Billy Jack Goes To Washington, Laughlin attempts to play Billy Jack as the type of naive neophyte who would be shocked to discover that politicians are corrupt. But surely, after spending three films being harassed by every authority figure in America, Billy would have already realized that. There’s nothing about Laughlin’s screen presence that suggests he could ever be that innocent.

And that’s the main problem with Billy Jack Goes To Washington. For the film to have any chance of working, you have to forget everything that you’ve learned about Billy Jack over the previous three films. However, if you haven’t seen any of the other Billy Jack films, then you probably wouldn’t be watching Billy Jack Goes To Washington in the first place.

Of course, since this is a Billy Jack film, there are a few scenes that were nowhere to be found in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. For instance, Saunders’s husband is murdered when he threatens to reveal the truth about Bailey’s operation. Later, Billy, Jean (Delores Taylor), and Carol (Teresa Laughlin) are confronted by a gang of Bailey’s assassins and, for the only time in the entire movie, Billy goes through that whole routine where he takes off his boots while slowly speaking and then kicks everyone’s ass. (Jean and Carol get to join in the ass-kicking as well and good for them!)

And, of course, there’s the scene where Billy, Jean, and the kids from the Freedom School (who are apparently now known as Billy’s Raiders) have a meeting with two liberal social activists. It’s an interesting scene because it was clearly unscripted and it has a naturalistic feel to it that’s lacking from the rest of the film. However, that does not mean that it’s a particularly good scene. If I learned anything from Billy Jack Goes To Washington, it’s that self-righteous activists in 1977 were just as boring as self-righteous activists in 2015.

And yet, as I’ve said about all of the other Billy Jack films, I can’t bring myself to be too hard on Billy Jack Goes To Washington. Again, it all comes down to sincerity. It’s clear that Laughlin and Taylor felt they were making a difference with their films and that sincerity comes through in a way that makes Billy Jack Goes To Washington a likable, if rather inept, film.

Billy Jack Goes To Washington ran for a week in one theater in 1977 and was reportedly such a box office disaster that it couldn’t get a wider release. (In a commentary track that he recorded for the film’s DVD release, Laughlin suggests the film was the victim of shadowy government forces.)* While Laughlin and Taylor would later try to make The Return of Billy Jack, that film was left uncompleted at the time of Laughlin’s death. So, the last time that filmgoers would see Billy Jack, he would still be U.S. Sen. Billy Jack.

And really, that’s the perfect ending for the saga of Billy Jack. Starting out as a loner who protected a small California town from a biker gang to eventually becoming the protector of the Freedom School to finally embracing both non-violence and his love for Jean, Billy Jack earned himself a happy ending.

Having now watched and reviewed all four of the Billy Jack films, all I can do is say thank you to Delores Taylor and the spirit of Tom Laughlin. It was great ride.

—-

* To be honest, the commentaries that Laughlin and Taylor recorded for the Billy Jack films are actually very informative and interesting. Laughlin actually had a far better sense of humor than you might guess from some of the movies he directed.