Sunburn (1979, Richard C. Sarafian)

Sunburn is a Farrah Fawcett star vehicle. It’s really Charles Grodin’s movie for the most part, but it’s Farrah Fawcett’s vehicle. She can be down home, she can be glamorous, she can be faithful when playing Grodin’s fake wife (which Grodin can’t), she can be adventurous, she can be dumb, she can be smart, she can be scantily clad, she can be topless in bed but with her back turned. Because sometimes Sunburn is all about the male gaze. Sometimes it’s all about gentle comedy. Sometimes it’s bad car chases. Sometimes it’s about puppies.

In addition to Grodin and Fawcett, Art Carney rounds out the lead characters. Grodin’s an insurance investigator, Fawcett is his presumable local model fake wife (he calls an agency to hire her and it’s made clear it isn’t an escort agency), Carney is the local P.I. buddy of Grodin. Carney’s got some cred, but Sunburn is boiling over with credibility cameos. There’s Keenan Wynn, Eleanor Parker, John Hillerman. Wynn is in one scene and has like two lines. Parker doesn’t even get a close-up. She’s the widow of the case and Grodin never gets around to interviewing her. Hillerman has a couple scenes and no character. William Daniels at least has some personality.

But then there’s Joan Collins. And she’s awesome. She’s got the promiscuous, unhappy older rich married lady part. “She must be forty!” Fawcett tells Grodin at one point, hoping to dissuade his interest without appearing jealous. Because Sunburn is nothing if not a product of its time. Three screenwriters–James Booth, Stephen Oliver, producer John Daly–and the best acted moments in the film are when Grodin and Carney are mugging it for the camera. Seriously. Carney sort of assumes the space in the film Collins does in the first act or so. It’s unfortunate. Collins is a lot more fun. Carney is cute, but it’s a nothing part. Collins has a nothing part and goes wild with it.

Shame Sarafian can’t direct it. He can’t direct any of it. He goes from mediocre to bad to worse. Geoffrey Foot’s editing is awful, but it’s obviously a lack of available footage. Sarafian can’t figure out how to direct any of it. Not interiors, especially not exteriors, not his actors, not action, nothing. In the second half, once the investigation is going full steam, there’s almost some attempts at style, but Foot’s editing ruins it.

Álex Phillips Jr.’s photography is solid. Acapulco looks nice. John Cameron’s poppy score is preferable to the top 40’s soundtrack, which actually is part of the story–Fawcett is always playing cassettes on her portable player.

Grodin’s occasionally got moments. Not many, not great ones, but some. He’s able to survive Sunburn. He’s doing his thing, he’s doing it turned up to eleven, and he’s able to get through.

As for Fawcett, after a slightly promising start, she gets a terrible arc for a star vehicle and there’s only so much her likability can get through. The film lays on a lot of backstory to get sympathy, along with a clumsiness subplot it immediately drops, but it’s all show. There aren’t any real scenes between her and Grodin, just exposition–which is initially fine because of their awkward bantering–and when she makes her second act transition to intrepid, scantily clad adventurer, there’s just no support for it. Sunburn stops pretending it’s going to give Fawcett anything to do.

The cast of Sunburn is strong enough to do this thing. It’s a noir spoof, or should be. Sarafian can’t do it, the script can’t do it. The actors could. Collins sort of does.

Oh, and the non-credibility cameo stars. Robin Clarke, Joan Goodfellow, Jack Kruschen, Alejandro Rey. Alejandro Rey is awesome. Robin Clarke tries really, really, really, really, really hard. And he sucks. Goodfellow’s bad but likable. Kruschen needed to be the best credibility cameo. Sunburn’s Mr. Big needs to be someone formidable, because there is actual danger.

So, an interesting film to dissect given its motives, but it’s dramatically inert due to technical incompetence.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Lady in the Lake (1988, Ron Satlof)

There are many things wrong with Perry Mason: The Case of the Lady in the Lake, starting with the title being a little long followed by the first red herring in the movie, which is in its first scene. Then the next red herring is in the second scene and so on and so on. Actually, I don’t think I really noticed it as the movie was playing out because so much else is bad about it, but the way screenwriter Shel Willens perturbs the plot is something awful. It’s too functional and too dismissive. Lady’s script is impatient, which is simultaneously good and bad.

It’s good because so much of the acting in the movie is terrible. David Hasselhoff, John Beck, Doran Clark, John Ireland, and Liane Langland are all bad. I even wanted to cut Beck some slack and it’s just not possible. He’s just bad. Hasselhoff’s terrible and he’s trying, which makes it even worse. Doran Clark’s weak. John Ireland’s weak but it doesn’t matter because he disappears. He’s just there to bring Raymond Burr into the story.

As for Burr, he’s great. It’s a terrible courtroom sequence in this one but Burr plays the hell out of it. Even David Ogden Stiers gets going as the district attorney. For some reason, even though the script is bad, it gave its capable actors opportunities. Of course, poor Barbara Hale gets jack to do in this one. Except to solve the case for Burr and set William Katt up on a blind date. And Katt’s pretty good. He’s better than he’s been in the last few Mason movies anyway.

So what else is wrong with it? The direction. Satlof does a bad job. He never establishes a tone–it’s even comical when Katt finds himself in trouble, if only because of Dick DeBenedictis’s weird score–and he’s crap with the actors. Really bad photography from Arch Bryant this time out; he’s shot the entire series and I’ve never mentioned him before because he’s fine. Only not here. It’s like Lady is cursed.

There’s some decent location shooting and some of the action sequences might work if it weren’t for Satlof’s quirky tone.

Oh, and George DelHoyo is fine. He plays Hasselhoff’s scumbag brother. Terrence Evans is good as the sheriff, but only because he’s clearly not taking it too seriously.

The only standout (who knew Lake could have one) is Audra Lindley. She’s excellent. She’s so much better than almost everyone else in the Lake; she understands this bad of a script requires an actor to bring their own dignity to the part, because it’s not coming from the script, it’s not coming from the director.

Anyway, Lady in the Lake is quite bad, but the regulars are professional enough to muddle through it.

Seems Like Old Times (1980, Jay Sandrich)

Seems Like Old Times is an enthusiastic homage to the screwball comedy. Most of the action takes place at Goldie Hawn’s house, where she’s trying to hide fugitive ex-husband Chevy Chase from current husband–and district attorney–Charles Grodin. She’s a public defender who takes in all of her clients, giving them jobs so they can provide comic relief in their interactions with Grodin and his straight-laced pals.

It’s not a successful homage to the screwball comedy, unfortunately. Neil Simon’s script doesn’t have the rapid fire dialogue. He lets Chase sleepwalk through the film. Chase has some charm and he’s got some decent moments, but he’s barely in the film. Old Times goes more on Hawn not having chemistry with Grodin than it does on rebuilding chemistry between Chase and Hawn. Maybe because the problem isn’t her marriage, but him being on the lamb. And barely in the movie.

But even if Simon’s script were full of rapid fire dialogue to give it that screwball comedy feel–outside the absurd yet domestic antics–director Sandrich wouldn’t know what to do with it. Because Simon occasionally goes have a phenomenal scene, usually involving Harold Gould’s judge. Gould’s doing a mild Groucho and it works beautifully. But Sandrich doesn’t direct his cast towards energy, quite the opposite. Grodin walks away with the middle half of the film just because he’s actually being active. Hawn’s reduced to sitting around and waiting for something to happen to her.

And even if Sandrich directed it all perfectly, Michael A. Stevenson wouldn’t cut it together well. He holds takes too long, holds reactions shots too long. Seems Like Old Times is too slow. Having a fast moving Marvin Hamlisch score only does so much, especially since it’s not a particularly good score. It’s got good moments, but overall, it leaves a lot to be desired.

The acting is all solid, some better than others. Hawn’s best when she’s not with Chase as Simon reduces her to the straight man while tranquilizing Chase to the point no one’s running the scene. She’s still Goldie Hawn, after all; she’s adorable. Chase’s funny. Grodin’s funny. Robert Guillaume’s funny. George Grizzard’s pretty good in a small part. Gould’s great. T.K. Carter’s kind of great; he’d be better if Simon gave him all strong material instead of occasionally falling back on young black kid with white folks humor.

Seems Like Old Times should be a lot better. But it’s still got some solid laughs, a lot of smiles and a reasonable amount of charm.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Murdered Madam (1987, Ron Satlof)

I’m going to say something I never expected to say. Ron Satlof does a good job directing Perry Mason: The Case of the Murdered Madam. He’s a regular director on the series and he’s never directed one as well as this one. The showdown between Raymond Burr and guilty party is fantastic. Satlof does well, editors Carter DeHaven and David Solomon do well, composer Dick DeBenedictis does well. Satlof’s got some awkward moments throughout, but between the finale and some of the thriller sequences, Murdered Madam is perfectly acceptable. Often effective.

Occasionally the cast helps with the effective, occasionally not. Ann Jillian’s okay; she does great in the thriller stuff, so Satlof basically just has to showcase her and he does. Barbara Hale gets a little more to do this time. She’s good. James Noble’s a good suspect. Richard Portnow’s a good vile criminal. Jason Bernard’s all right. Doesn’t get enough to do, but he keeps things together as the police detective. And Daphne Ashbrook’s a fine female sidekick for William Katt.

I just said all the nice things because now it’s time for the not nice things. Vincent Baggetta gives a really strange and bad performance as Burr’s client. There’s a real disconnect between how he portrays the character and how the character’s supposed to connect with the viewer. It’s Perry Mason, we’re supposed to like the defendant because they’re innocent. Baggetta’s clearly innocent but it doesn’t matter. He’s kind of a tool. And Bill Macy’s weak as another suspect. He’s annoying in such a way it breaks the flow of the movie as much as the commercial breaks.

Finally, at least as the acting goes, David Ogden Stiers is getting way real bored. He doesn’t even seem to be trying anymore. He’s opposing council and just comes off as a stooge. It’s because he doesn’t get enough material.

Other than not evening out material correctly, Patricia Green’s script is okay. It’s a little too cute at times, but the actors often can pull it off–especially when it’s Hale and Burr–and there’s a strange lack of tension throughout. Maybe because Baggetta’s such a tool; he’s got nothing to do with his own case. Burr and company aren’t so much defending him as uncovering multiple conspiracies.

What Murdered Madam lacks in specific amusements, it makes up for with its adequateness. I’m sort of more impressed now than when I finished watching it; even if his direction isn’t great, I’m impressed with what Satlof did here. It’s kind of messy and he does succeed in giving it flow.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Lost Love (1987, Ron Satlof)

The Case of the Lost Love is a rather charmless Perry Mason outing. Jean Simmons is an old flame of Raymond Burr’s and he ends up defending her ungrateful husband (Gene Barry). Simmons and Burr have some chemistry as Lost Love establishes their history, but the movie’s so technically inept, it never quite comes across right. Simmons doesn’t get a reasonable character to play so Burr can’t react to her reasonably. And Barry’s just lame, both in terms of script characterization and performance.

There’s a lot of lame acting in the movie. Most of it is because it’d be impossible to be anything but lame given the technical problems. Director Satlof doesn’t give editor David Solomon enough coverage, but Solomon doesn’t even cut the stuff he does get well. And Arch Bryant’s photography is weak, so the shots rarely distinguish themselves visually. And Satlof’s really bad with the actors here. Not even Gordon Jump can survive Lost Love.

Performance wise, Barry, Stephen Elliott, Robert F. Lyons and Leslie Wing are the worst. Wing is the female cop who gets to get chatted up by William Katt. Katt’s got a far less interesting wardrobe than usual this time. He and Wing have negative chemistry. There’s really nothing going for Lost Love, not after Simmons starts getting strange and Burr spends all his time doing the investigating. Writer Anne Collins hints to doing something with Burr and Barry, but it doesn’t come across. It’s way too forced. And the less said about Simmons and Barbara Hale’s interactions the better.

Everything about Lost Love is either forced or contrived, which makes it exhausting. The weak supporting performances mean there’s no joy in seeing them get to act. Except Jonathan Banks, of course. He’s trying really hard and not getting any support from Satlof. There’s almost a good performance there. Almost, but not really.

And the mystery itself is lame. Collins tries doing something different with it–having Burr doing the important investigating, trying to present necessary information to the viewer to keep them interested, but it doesn’t work. Not just because of Satlof’s direction, but because the script’s poorly paced. And Hale gets nothing to do, which seems to be a trend.

Case of the Lost Love needed to percolate some more before getting released on an unsuspecting public.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Shooting Star (1986, Ron Satlof)

There’s a lot of camp value to The Case of the Shooting Star. During William Katt’s investigation scenes, his clothes get more and more absurd. At one point he’s wearing a jacket with a tiger on it. Then he gets sidekick and flirtation partner Wendy Crewson, who wears really loud eighties pants, and it becomes more about their banter.

But the camp factor is more than just Katt, it’s the plot–Joe Penny’s a hotheaded action movie actor-director (Joe Penny playing Clint Eastwood)–and it’s how they keep making a big deal out of shooting in New York when the movie was obviously filmed somewhere else (Toronto). Only it must have shot somewhere else too because the tough neighborhood set has palm trees in the background.

And Alan Thicke plays a talk show host. What’s not campy about Alan Thicke playing a talk show host.

Even without the camp value though, Shooting Star’s a pretty solid diversion. Katt’s likable, especially with Crewson. Thicke’s good, Penny’s good enough. There are a lot of decent supporting turns–Ron Glass, Ross Petty, Mary Kane, J. Kenneth Campbell. Opposing counsel David Ogden Stiers seems a little better this time out. He pretends to take it a little more seriously. And Jennifer O’Neill is great as an old friend of Perry Mason. She gets a lot to do in the first act and she’s fantastic. The script doesn’t give her as much to do later, which is too bad, but she’s solid to the melodramatic finish.

Speaking of the script, Anne Collins does an excellent job juggling all the characters and all the expository dialogue. It’s not a great murder mystery, but it’s smooth and digestible writing.

Technically, the movie’s a bit of a disaster because of different film stocks. It’s even worse because camera setups figure into the story and so Shooting Star invites the viewer to think about how poorly the setups are working in this movie. Satlof’s direction isn’t as bad as I was expecting. He’s still weak on coverage, but he is giving his actors more space to move around here.

Oh. Yeah. Speaking of the lead actors. Burr’s good. He’s got some character stuff, not always successful but usually, he’s got the lawyer stuff, not always successful but usually, and he’s got a decent enough teleplay to get him through. Unfortunately, Barbara Hale gets nothing to do in this entry. Otherwise, it delivers on all promise a Perry Mason TV movie can offer.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Notorious Nun (1986, Ron Satlof)

So Perry Mason: The Case of the Notorious Nun. It’s not good. It is not a good TV movie. Even if the writing were better, Satlof is a lousy director. And Héctor R. Figueroa’s photography is quite bad. The lighting in the courtroom finale changes between shots. The editing is already graceless–more because of Satlof’s weak composition and blocking than the editors–and the lighting just kills it.

But the real problem is something else entirely–Joel Steiger’s teleplay is bad. It’s kind of ambitious, but it’s bad at it. The design of this Perry Mason is as follows, there’s Raymond Burr doing stuff, there’s William Katt doing stuff, there’s Barbara Hale sometimes doing stuff with Burr but not really anything consequential except provide emotional support to Michele Greene (the titular Notorious Nun), and Green’s crisis about taking her final vows. Steiger gives all the character development to Greene and it’s awful. Greene tries with it too. She really does try to make this material work and maybe if Satlof weren’t terrible, it’d go better.

Then there’s the guest stars. Timothy Bottoms as an honest, priest stud. Jon Cyphers as an arrogant doctor. Tom Bosley as a sweet priest. Arthur Hill as a prick lawyer. Not much inventive casting, but sturdy acting. Of those caricatures, Cyphers does the best. He has the most to do. Decent villain in Hagan Beggs. He gets a lot of Dick DeBenedictis’s craziest thriller music. Can’t forget to talk about the music.

But real quick on the cast–David Ogden Stiers as the D.A., James McEachin as the cop. These character slots aren’t really important–McEachin does get to show some personality opposite Katt, but none in the expository-only scenes. And Stiers is competent but the material’s bad. You watch him and wonder if he knows his legal reasoning lines are stupid.

Burr’s fine, of course. Katt’s a little bit too much of a jackass this time out. And Hale really doesn’t have enough to do.

Oh, right, the music. Dick DeBenedictis does some crazy music for this thing. Slasher movie, gothic horror synthesizer music for the main cast’s theme, melodramatic tripe. It’s all over the place and occasionally awesome.

There’s not a good reveal at the end, which is all a Perry Mason needs to be a success. Steiger backloads the thrills and it ruins to momentum. It’s a TV movie, it’s got to keep you occupied through commercials, only Steiger and Stalof haven’t got any momentum. Only DeBenedictis does. And the cast could be charming with better material. But it’s still not successful, not at all.

Perry Mason Returns (1985, Ron Satlof)

The most impressive technical contribution to Perry Mason Returns has to be Dick DeBenedictis’s music. He lifts thriller style music, some horror, some whatever, then applies it to this somewhat bland TV movie. Albert J. Dunk’s photography is too muted and director Satlof, though very capable of setting up sequences, is mediocre (at best) at the talking heads and he doesn’t do the courtroom scene.

It’s Perry Mason Returns. Raymond Burr barely does anything for the first hour of the movie except be a jerk to William Katt for being not being miserable and consoles Barbara Hale. Hale’s on trial for murder. Hence the importance of a well-directed courtroom sequence. But Satlof tanks it. Dean Hargrove’s teleplay isn’t exactly outstanding, but the reveal is fairly solid. Satlof tanks it. The entire finale is a disaster. While Burr stalls in court, Katt has to reason with evil rednecks.

There’s some solid acting–Kerrie Keane, Holland Taylor, James Kidnie. There’s some not so solid acting. It’s a TV movie. Burr and Hale are likable. Katt’s sort of a dork, but Hale seems to like him so why not give him a chance, wasn’t he in Carrie? But Burr and Hale have undeniable chemistry and Burr’s best scenes are his moments with her. He’s the title character and he barely figures into the narrative. It’s the last scene before he finally shows some personality. Satlof’s inept direction of Burr’s scenes hurt Burr’s performance.

It’s a really lazy script though. Katt doesn’t even do the private investigator bit, he just inexplicably annoys cop Paul Hubbard into doing all the work. Katt’s probably got the most screen time in the movie too; it’s boring Glen A. Larson TV show p.i. action. Katt’s maybe likable as a sidekick to patient and older Burr and Hale, not as a lead. He’s not unlikable, but he’s clearly out of his depth. Because dumb writing and bad direction.

Still, it’s a good reveal, the principals are likable, Keane’s good, Taylor’s good. It’s just a poorly directed Perry Mason TV movie, it doesn’t have to do much but divert.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987, Joseph Sargent), the international version

If only there were something remarkable about Jaws: The Revenge. Just one thing terrible enough about it to make it somehow interesting. Jaws: The Revenge is unremarkably bad in its unremarkable badness. As the opening titles rolled, with shark POV of a New England harbor, I wanted it to be some kind of strange close to director Sargent’s theatrical output. But it isn’t. It’s not even interesting to think about as a film Sargent also produced. Lorraine Gary isn’t secretly great in the ostensible lead role. Lance Guest isn’t good at all as her son who sort of takes over protagonist when he hides the knowledge of a thirty-foot great white shark from the Coast Guard and it eventually attacks his daughter, setting his mother out to sea to sacrifice herself to the shark.

It’s a movie about a shark hunting a family and there’s no joy to it. Michael De Guzman’s script is painfully unaware, but Sargent’s direction shouldn’t be. Even though they have the same bland result, Sargent’s dumbing down and failing at it. He’s got actual ambitions during the first fifteen or twenty minutes; sure, he’s trying to avoid responsible narrative progression through some really cheap TV movie devices, but he’s trying something. It’s activity. By the second half, when Guest and his scientist sidekick, Mario Van Peebles doing an extremely bad Jamaican accent in a lousy performance, Sargent’s totally checked out. Gary has mostly disappeared and it’s just poorly shot shark hunting sequences.

And the shark sequences are another unremarkable, but should be somehow wonderfully cheesy element of the film. Sargent has a couple intense underwater sequences, including the shark hunting Guest through a sunken ship–which is idiotic but at least it’s something in a film where Gary and Michael Caine dancing in a street fair constitutes an action set piece. There’s no thrill to Jaws: The Revenge, there’s no spectacle. Thankfully, there’s no attempt at either of them–Revenge is rather poorly produced after all. Michael Small’s music is bad, Michael Brown’s editing is bad, John McPherson’s cinematography is pretty lame (though better than the editing or the music). It’s just a lame movie.

Maybe if there were some diamond in the rough, like if Karen Young actually gave a really good performance as Guest’s suffering wife, but she doesn’t. She does better than most everyone else but she’s not good. Lynn Whitfield might give the closet thing to the best performance and some of it is because she’s not it in a lot. The more you have to do in Jaws: The Revenge, the worse off you are.

Baby It’s You (1983, John Sayles)

Baby It’s You is a John Sayles film I never expected to see… it’s John Sayles for hire. Sayles has had a lucrative career as a ghostwriter of blockbusters (Apollo 13 famously had his name on one poster… but not after the WGA got done). But Baby It’s You is the first of his films as a director I’ve encountered where Sayles struggled to find something to amuse himself. This film’s producer and credited story writer, Amy Robinson, shares a lot with the protagonist played by Rosanna Arquette and the film feels an awfully lot like an “inspired by a true story.” Sayles does well with that genre, except Baby It’s You isn’t just subpar for Sayles… it’s a thoughtfully produced television movie.

With Sayles’s direction–he doesn’t really get going until the third act in a lot of ways, his earlier moments of accomplishment are just his knowledge of making a film work on a small budget. How do you show you’re in a busy schoolyard without a big budget? Sound. The first three-quarters of the film is Sayles using his filmmaking skills to make the 1967 setting work flawlessly. In the end, he finally gets some moments of actual human interaction, instead of superficial movie ones, and–even with Arquette–it works.

Baby It’s You starts with Sayles’s name and some anachronistic use of Bruce Springsteen (for Vincent Spano’s big scenes, which is an artistically interesting move but distracting and unsuccessful). It feels like it might be Sayles, but then it gradually becomes clear it is not. Sayles knows what to do with Arquette’s character and the moments with her group of friends in high school reveal where the film could have gone… but with Spano, Sayles is lost.

The film concerns Arquette’s relationship with high school oddball (not quite thug, not quite not) Spano as she leaves working class New Jersey for Sarah Lawrence. The acting is a big problem, but not the film’s biggest. Sayles really doesn’t know what to do with Spano… maybe because the character remains opaque to the viewer until the third act, but maybe because the story just isn’t interesting. I lost count of how many times I wondered why these characters’ experiences were worth my hundred minutes. Not a concern I tend to have with Sayles, who can take it from one end of the spectrum to the other. Baby It’s You doesn’t really participate in that spectrum. It’s in a whole different one–the one where Rosanna Arquette shows up in a movie.

Matthew Modine has a small role in Baby It’s You. At this point in Modine’s career, he was a young Hollywood actor on his way up (he got washed away by the Brat Pack). It’s a John Sayles movie with Hollywood politicking. Sayles doesn’t do well with it.

Actually, Modine’s good, probably giving the second best performance–Tracy Pollan’s quite good as one of Arquette’s college classmates. Bill Raymond’s also good in a small role.

Spano isn’t terrible, but he’s visibly out of his depth. Sayles’s script asks him for the impossible–the character’s just too vague. Arquette either gets a little better at the end or she’d just killed enough of my brain cells I didn’t care anymore.

I’ve been wanting to see Baby It’s You for about twelve years.

I could have waited.