Category: 1970

Airport (1970, George Seaton)

While it did start the seventies disaster genre, Airport barely qualifies. The first hour of the film is excruciating soap opera melodrama—airport chief Burt Lancaster is stuck in a loveless marriage with harpy Dana Wynter, so he’s got a flirtation going with widowed Jean Seberg. His sister, played by Barbara Hale, is stuck in a loveless marriage with pilot Dean Martin, who’s carrying on with stewardess Jacqueline Bisset.

Lancaster is only stepping out on Wynter because she’s awful to him… Hale’s great to Martin, but she’s barren, so it’s tacitly agreed he’s expected to step out. Seaton’s script is really direct about that point—it’s Hale’s fault.

Casting Martin as a megalomaniac pilot is an interesting choice. His performance is awful, but it’s appropriate. Once the disaster kicks in, however, he gets a little better.

Lancaster looks disinterested and bored with the film; Seberg is okay, though her role is seriously underwritten. The first half of the film belongs to Helen Hayes, playing a stowaway. She’s the best thing in the film.

Maureen Stapleton’s good (though the script fails her); Whit Bissell probably gives film’s second best performance.

The second half, the disaster part… is actually somewhat worse. It moves faster, but it’s less competent as Seaton make Martin into an angel.

Seaton’s direction is awful. Though the film clearly has a budget, he shoots the interiors like he doesn’t. His Panavision composition is shockingly inept.

Combined with Alfred Newman’s truly atrocious score, Airport is a miserable viewing experience.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by George Seaton; screenplay by Seaton, based on the novel by Arthur Hailey; director of photography, Ernest Laszlo; edited by Stuart Gilmore; music by Alfred Newman; produced by Ross Hunter; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Burt Lancaster (Mel Bakersfeld), Dean Martin (Capt. Vernon Demerest), Jean Seberg (Tanya Livingston), Jacqueline Bisset (Gwen Meighen), George Kennedy (Joe Patroni), Helen Hayes (Ada Quonsett), Van Heflin (D.O. Guerrero), Maureen Stapleton (Inez Guerrero), Barry Nelson (Capt. Anson Harris), Dana Wynter (Cindy Bakersfeld), Lloyd Nolan (Harry Standish), Barbara Hale (Sarah Bakersfeld Demerest), Gary Collins (Cy Jordan), John Findlater (Peter Coakley), Jessie Royce Landis (Mrs. Harriet DuBarry Mossman), Larry Gates (Commissioner Ackerman), Peter Turgeon (Marcus Rathbone), Whit Bissell (Mr. Davidson), Virginia Grey (Mrs. Schultz), Eileen Wesson (Judy Barton) and Paul Picerni (Dr. Compagno).

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Conan the Barbarian (1970) #2

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It’s another issue where Thomas has a short present action (here a couple days) and makes it a full read. Well, actually, a couple days is only a short present action in the seventies and eighties.

Anyway… this issue Conan gets taken into bondage by some giants. Windsor-Smith draws them sort of as abominable snowmen. Their origin is in here too, but not the location of the story, an underground city. That element—feeling like one is in a world with an unknown history—is rather important. Because Thomas spends so much of the story on the action and unpleasantness (Conan eventually leads the human slaves to uprise), that implied history is what gets the reader’s imagination going.

Again, Windsor-Smith has some issues. It’s the ties. His eyes here are strange—the lines are all sharp, not round. But, also again, he has mostly wonderful panels.

Good stuff.

Conan the Barbarian (1970) #1

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Thomas and Windsor-Smith are off to a great start. Windsor-Smith’s art is, of course, not as finished as he’s become, but he does have some amazing panels. Oddly, when he’s at his lesser, he resembles an unintentional Mike Ploog (especially in the faces—but sharp compared to Ploog’s roundedness). It’s very strange.

The story introduces Conan but also gives the reader some sense of the world he’s in. Thomas has this sort of time machine device, which might not make any sense, but it does the job of placing the events.

It’s an action issue—the present action takes place over less than a day—and Thomas works in a number of scenes. It’s a full read, ending with Conan alone. It sort of starts with him alone, moves him into having companions and leaves him worse than he started.

There’s an energy and excitement to the book.

Five Easy Pieces (1970, Bob Rafelson)

About half way into Five Easy Pieces, the film really hasn’t given any clue as to what it’s going to be. It’s an incredibly complex character study, both in its approach to the narrative and in terms of Jack Nicholson’s protagonist. The beginning of the film, set in the oil fields of Southern California, ends up having to do very little with the story. It serves an easy purpose–to introduce Nicholson and establish his relationship with girlfriend Karen Black–but Five Easy Pieces hardly follows an epical course. The film could have just as easily started with Nicholson driving to Los Angeles to see sister Lois Smith.

The second half of the film, set on an island off the Washington coast, resembles the opening in terms of scene construction–Five Easy Pieces has short, concise scenes. For example, Nicholson’s devastating monologue–explaining himself to his stroke-impaired father–is not particularly long. I think there are maybe six edits in all. But it–along with the scene immediately preceding it–make Five Easy Pieces. After seventy-some minutes of hints at Nicholson, the scene finally reveals enough about the character for the film to be stoppable.

Five Easy Pieces moves on a momentum–it moves on long fades between scenes, whether it’s Nicholson hopping off a moving truck while the highway where he got on the back of the truck is still visible on the bottom half of the screen or it’s John P. Ryan’s nurse grinning wide for Smith (we don’t get to hear what Ryan says to her, because it’s just for her–the film frequently reserves things for the characters). I suppose it has three acts–I suppose I could even identify where they come in the running time–but it isn’t beholden to them. The film, from the first or second scene, moves where Nicholson takes it.

Nicholson’s Bobby Dupea is not a likable character. He’s a jerk, but a complex one. His relationship with Black is probably the film’s most complicated; it involves class differences, expectations and protectiveness. His relationship with Susan Anspach is similarly intricate. It’s the angle of entry to the character–even though the character’s emotions are never verbalized–it’s where the viewer can finally begin to understand something about Nicholson. It offers the first illumination of the character, a long time after first encountering him.

The film’s momentum and gradual pace do present one significant problem. The sequence with Helena Kallaniotes’s lengthy monologue, played for humorous effect–Nicholson’s famous chicken salad sandwich scene is in the middle–is a disaster. It’s long and goofy, ending with Kallaniotes looking the viewer straight in the eye. It doesn’t belong in this film or any other. It’s a transition between the two halves of the film. For a long time, it seems like the film can’t really recover from the spill. But then it does.

Nicholson’s great. Black’s great. Anspach is great. Smith’s great. Ralph Waite’s awesome as Nicholson’s brother, implying a character of enough depth to deserve his own examination.

Five Easy Pieces is a depressing piece of work, so depressing it’s almost hostile.

I can’t forget Rafelson. I haven’t seen Five Easy Pieces in a long time and, for whatever reason, I didn’t expect Rafelson to be a visual director. His composition is fantastic, the way he moves the camera, the way people move in his shots. But I think my favorite shot has to be the one where the viewer gets to see how much Smith misses Nicholson. It’s lovely.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Bob Rafelson; screenplay by Carole Eastman, based on a story by Rafelson and Eastman; director of photography, László Kovács; edited by Christopher Holmes and Gerald Shepard; produced by Rafelson and Richard Wechsler; released by Columbia Pictures.

Starring Jack Nicholson (Robert Eroica Dupea), Karen Black (Rayette Dipesto), Billy Green Bush (Elton), Fannie Flagg (Stoney), Sally Struthers (Betty), Marlena MacGuire (Twinky), Richard Stahl (Recording Engineer), Lois Smith (Partita Dupea), Helena Kallianiotes (Palm Apodaca), Toni Basil (Terry Grouse), Lorna Thayer (Waitress), Susan Anspach (Catherine Van Oost), Ralph Waite (Carl Fidelio Dupea), William Challee (Nicholas Dupea), John P. Ryan (Spicer) and Irene Dailey (Samia Glavia).

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Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970, Joseph Sargent)

Colossus is a pre-disaster movie, in the Irwin Allen sense. It has a lot in common with films like The Andromeda Strain and The Satan Bug. The problem is established and then the film’s story is an attempt to resolve it. It’s a little less character-oriented than the Allen disaster formula–Colosuss doesn’t have much lead-in, it sort of just gets started after the opening sequence–but that lack of character development makes the cast all the more important. The viewer’s never going to have a chance to get to know these people; the casting has to be superb.

And Colossus is perfectly cast. Eric Braeden–who I just discovered ended up on a soap (and I even recognize him)–turns in a likable, funny leading man performance. He’s always believable as the world’s foremost computer designer, but he still can get away with being a traditional (and excellent) leading man. Susan Clark’s second-billed and sort of around for half the movie in the background before she gets to take a more central role and she’s got some fantastic moments. I figured–based on that Planet of the Apes movie he was in–Braeden would be good. So the real surprise is Gordon Pinsent as the President. Too often, movie presidents aren’t convincing–or they’re played by big name actors who assume their recognizable name will make them a good president-in-crisis. Pinsent does have a lot of good material–he’s second lead for the first half–but his performance is rather impressive.

Colossus is a from-the-top crisis story. We don’t really get to see how regular people are reacting, which has become the norm today. Everyone in the film has been on the phone with the President of the United States. What director Sargent and screenwriter James Bridges have to do is make a film without special effects–we don’t see any of the disasters–work from a couple rooms. There’s the White House and there’s Braeden’s computer lab. The film could practically work as a play.

Sargent’s widescreen composition is peculiar and effective. He started on TV and he tends to use the Panavision frame to horizontally expand what would otherwise be television composition. The result is unexpected. It’s like Sargent’s composition ends up looking like deliberate, thoughtful art, when it appears to just be a pragmatic approach to widescreen filmmaking.

Bridges’s script is competent and unambitious. Colossus is from a novel–which probably followed most of the same story beats–so all Bridges has to do is make it play right. And, given how the beats develop, it’d be impossible not to. There’s some character development, left nicely with Braeden and Clark, but a lot of the script is just perfunctory. That mechanical approach ends up hurting Colossus, because there’s no sense of anything escalating. Eventually, the movie just stops. I figured there were another fifteen minutes, but no, it was end credit time.

Perceiving the passage of time in the story is partially Bridges’s fault–three days pass without acknowledgment, a problem in a story set over a specific period–but a lot of it lies on Michel Colombier’s score. It’s anti-climatic and rote. Colombier tries for melodrama and ends up wasting a lot of time.

Colossus is a boring and intriguing film. Even with the narrative distance, the characters’ dilemmas are compelling. And, at just after the halfway point, when the computer taking over the world starts talking, it gets real funny. Not dumb funny, smart funny. But still real funny. It sort of suggests the film could have cut fifteen minutes and run another thirty and it would have turned out better.

Count Yorga, Vampire (1970, Bob Kelljan)

Count Yorga, Vampire is a retelling of Dracula, modernizing it to the then-contemporary 1970 and changing the locale to Los Angeles. It’s also incredibly low budget–not so low budget it has bad acting (its acting is actually the strong-point)–but it has blacked out windows on houses and cars (so night scenes can be shot at day), obviously day-lighted shots in cars standing in for shots at night, really boring and unbelievable sets (the final showdown takes place in what appears to be an under-decorated hotel hallway). The best is when two of the characters go for a walk and talk and talk. It’s two guys touring L.A., having a five minute conversation, in about fifteen locations with the camera never getting close enough to “reveal” their dialogue’s been dubbed over. Oddly, besides that conversation, it’s never poorly done. The sets are lame, but reasonably excusable.

I didn’t know Yorga was intended to be a straight Dracula retelling until after I’d started watching it. The opening scene is actually the worst, with only the vampire, played by Robert Quarry, turning in a good performance initially. Michael Murphy’s in it, which is why I watched it, and he’s fine–likable and everything, but his role’s obviously light since it’s a low budget vampire movie. It isn’t until Roger Perry, as the doctor who knows the truth about vampires, shows up the film really gets going. Perry and Quarry have a couple fantastic scenes together and those alone might make it worth watching. Quarry’s a great vampire, certainly the best vampire performance I can think of. He’s thrilled to be a vampire and the performance is playful and entertaining, even though he’s obviously, you know, a bad guy.

The rest of the cast is fine, but totally uninspired. According to IMDb, one of the actors used to star in commercials, which makes sense. She delivers lines and exhibits some emotion, but she’s flat, just like a commercial. The director, Bob Kelljan, occasionally makes some good directorial decisions–though it’s obvious he didn’t do them intentionally. Low budget film making can encourage some really innovative work. Kelljan isn’t innovative at all, but the effect of doing this shot or doing that shot does sometimes work itself into something nice, especially during conversation scenes. Mostly, though, the film’s all about Quarry and Perry. It’s just too bad there’s so little (comparatively) Quarry, not to mention it taking forever for Perry to show up.

Oh, and I should say something about the narration, I suppose. It’s really stupid.

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Written and directed by Bob Kelljan; director of photography, Arch Archambault; edited by Tony de Zarraga; music by Bill Marx; produced by Kelljan and Michael Macready; released by American International Pictures.

Starring Robert Quarry (Count Yorga), Roger Perry (Jim), Michael Murphy (Paul), Michael Macready (Mike), D.J. Anderson (Donna), Judy Lang (Erica) and Edward Walsh (Brudah).

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Tristana (1970, Luis Buñuel)

Deliberate, somehow endless–it clocks in at ninety-five–Tristana is something of an anti-Buñuel or, at least, I was expecting something a little more uncanny. Tristana is so normal, it’s something of a surprise (the film occasionally seems ready to leap into the surreal, but it remains grounded throughout). But it’s very boring, in that good way films can be boring. I can’t tell if Buñuel was doing something fantastic with the sound design or if the DVD was just a poor transfer. I think he was doing something with it though, just because some of the metallic echoes didn’t seem right for a bad transfer.

Tristana is the story of a young woman, Deneuve, whose mother dies and she ends up as the ward of Fernando Rey… and, as it turns out, Rey is a dirty old man. He doesn’t quite force himself on her and he doesn’t quite seduce her, something in between, and that development (after he endears himself to the viewer by not being a dirty old man toward her) sets the film’s present “action” (quotation marks for absurdity’s sake) in motion. Buñuel skips through time a few times in the film, so it’s hard to know how much time passes before the end, but less than ten years seems reasonable (it’s from a novel, so I suppose I could check but I don’t really want to know).

It’s rare–and I suppose it’s appropriate Buñuel does it one of the handful of times I’ve seen it done–a film can cover so much time, so much change to a character (I never really understood Deneuve’s reputation as an actress, but she’s astounding in Tristana), with so little deliberate action and be so affecting in the end. Tristana works because of its end… but it wouldn’t make any sense without what came before. Even though, for the first bit and sometimes again throughout the film, Rey is the central character, it’s all about Deneuve and seeing what terrible effect Rey has on her. It’s a tragedy, but one so quite and common seeming… especially when one is waiting for a sword fight for most of the first half.

The setting of a small Spanish town and the sound design–along with the maid (Rey’s, also Deneuve’s only friend for most of the film) having a deaf son–create an odd atmosphere for the film… if it weren’t for the setting, I’d say it were practically Gothic, feminist revisionist, if such a genre exists. Buñuel has an interesting way of shooting the empty streets too–he has ornate camera setups he never allows to complete, big crane shots only get a few feet off the ground before he cuts away, creating a sense of incompleteness. The whole film–no spoilers, though one could just go to IMDb–but the whole film is about incompleteness and the terrible, selfish things people do to each other.

The only real indicator of the uncanny–besides being suspicious of Buñuel–is a dream sequence, which lays the groundwork, early on, to be suspicious of everything. But it could be me.

Deneuve’s character’s arc in this film is one of those singular filmic tragedies. Buñuel’s handling of it makes it all the more effective, but her performance makes everything possible. It’s an odd thing–a choice role, one anyone could succeed in, filled with a performance proving no one else could succeed in it.

3.5/4★★★½

CREDITS

Directed by Luis Buñuel; screenplay by Buñuel and Julio Alejandro, based on the novel by Benito Pérez Galdós; director of photography, José F. Aguayo; edited by Pedro del Rey; produced by Buñuel and Robert Dorfmann; released by Maron Films.

Starring Catherine Deneuve (Tristana), Fernando Rey (Don Lope), Franco Nero (Horacio), Lola Gaos (Saturna), Jesús Fernández (Saturno) and Antonio Casas (Don Cosme).

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Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970, Elio Petri)

I can’t remember–if I ever have–seeing a film where the main character goes through more changes than in Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion. Actually, he doesn’t change, but the truth keeps getting more and more revealed to the viewer, making him more and more different. First he’s a smart bad guy, then he’s a dumb bad guy, then he’s a sad guy, then he’s a scared guy, then he’s a bad guy. Or something along those lines. Gian Maria Volontè handles the role well (except the scared guy parts) because he’s playing it for laughs.

The movie opens with him and Ennio Morricone music and the music’s goofy and immediately sets up Investigation as something not to be taken too seriously. As something not to be taken seriously, it’d work too, but that approach doesn’t last long. Pretty soon, it becomes clear this bad guy–he’s a tyrannical, fascist police captain going after political demonstrators (sort of)–is supposed to be representative of that sort of mindset. He’s got a great speech in the movie, railing against freedom, but it’s also the scene where I realized he’s a cartoon. Except… then he becomes sad guy, emotionally stunted and hurt by a unfeeling woman.

Stylistically, the movie’s all over the place. There are constant flashbacks and fantasies and some of these scenes don’t have the most graceful transitions (or sensical). The director’s got an annoying abridging of scenes method, which occasionally makes it hard to discern what’s going on–like when the woman, who kicks off the titular investigation, dies. It’s never clear what happened because the director really liked that goofy Morricone music.

Movielens gave Investigation an incredibly high prediction so I went into it expecting something really good. Instead, it was a goofy, forgettable film. But never boring, which was nice.

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Directed by Elio Petri; written by Ugo Pirro and Petri; director of photography, Luigi Kuveiller; edited by Ruggero Mastroianni; music by Ennio Morricone; production designer, Romano Cardarelli; produced by Daniele Senatore and Marina Cicogna; released by Vera Films.

Starring Gian Maria Volonte (The Police Inspector), Florinda Bolkan (Augusta Terzi), Salvo Randone (The Plumber), Gianni Santuccio (The Police Commissioner), Arturo Dominici (Mangani), Orazio Oriando (Biglia), Sergio Tramonti (Antonio Pace), Massimo Foschi (Augusta’s Husband) and Aldo Rendine (Homicide Functionary).

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Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970, Ted Post)

On rare occasion, I watch (and on even rarer occasion, finish watching) an utter dreg of a film. A film so bad I misuse the word dregs, which apparently–since it refers to a liquid form–must be used as a plural. Beneath the Planet of the Apes is just such a film. Immediately, with its use of footage from the first film’s conclusion (with a few added shots and different dialogue and music) and terrible opening credits, I knew Beneath was going to be bad. When “star” James Franciscus (it’s his real name too) shows up, I noticed he was better than Heston. Even though I just watched the first film, there was that lovely reminder of Heston’s craft tacked on to the beginning on this film. Since he has a lot of the same dialogue as Heston does in that film, one gets to see how nice a measured performance can be. Still, I put star in quotation marks because he’s not really the star of the film. In fact, the film’s such a failure of a narrative, such a waste of celluloid, I could put that last ‘film’ in quotation marks too.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes loses any hint of competence, adequacy, concern, once Linda Harrison shows up. Linda Harrison doesn’t talk. But she does flashback and we get to see her flashbacks, which are filled with Heston acting and bad special effects and stupid ideas. While Planet of the Apes was dumb, the filmmakers there at least were bipedal. Whoever concocted the story to this film must have had trouble chewing gum. So, once the Harrison shows up, the viewer is left with little to do but marvel at the film. I couldn’t believe audiences back in 1970 actually went to go see this film and go they did… the film made enough money warrant a sequel, which is funny, considering how it ends. And a viewer has to finish watching this film, I’m very adamant on that point. Its ending is so unbelievable, it has to be seen. I couldn’t believe it.

As far as the technical side of things, there are some great matte paintings. I’ve seen a documentary on the Planet of the Apes franchise and remembered the discussion of the paintings and when their scenes showed up, I hoped it’d go on for a while. Instead, the film pushed on through them and got to the dumbest religious cult in the history of cinema. Beneath tries to be a metaphor (which Planet of the Apes did not), featuring anti-Vietnam protesters–rather amusing since the apes aren’t really at war–and comparisons of the war-hungry gorilla (a new invention in this film, which has no reasonable continuity to the first) to American soldiers. I’m not sure if the cult is supposed to be the Russians. Probably (it doesn’t work though).

But still, one has to see it for that ending. Oh, and James Gregory is quite good.