MASH (1970, Robert Altman)

MASH is timelessly white liberal. There’s even a lovable Southerner (Tom Skerritt) who knows in that science way Black folks are just folks, but he still wants to be a dick about it. And his white male Northeastern elitist friends, Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould, are totally fine with that bigotry because, you know, it’s not hurting anything, really.

But then there is something going on actually hurting people, and it’s evangelical Christian Robert Duvall. In what initially seems like a pronounced case of bullying, it turns out director Altman, actor Duvall, and screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. (whose actual dialogue infamously got edited out for the final product) do a great story arc about Duvall’s Christian Nationalism hurting tangibly hurting and maybe even killing people. When it’s not about Sutherland, Gould, Skerritt, and every other guy in the movie sexual harassing their female colleagues, it’s an exceptionally subtle look at life in this Army M*A*S*H unit.

Altman is doing an anti-Vietnam picture from a pro-war Korean War novel, and the studio is interfering; MASH is a film made in the editing room to some degree. The chaos of the film and the chaos of the content are in perfect sync. When you get to the saddest moment in the picture, you don’t even know why it’s sad; the actors knew why it was sad, but it’s out of sequence and haunts differently. MASH has these occasionally bewitching moments, sometimes even the problematic romance arcs, so Altman and editor Danford B. Greene have sort of set the tone for it to continue. MASH intentionally overloads the audience with information—conversations over one another, basic transition scenes ignored, actual voiceover contrasting a different scene—they work at it from the opening. MASH’s story begins when Sutherland walks into frame, and some quotes roll. But the opening titles are scenes of the unit bringing in the wounded from the helicopters. The film starts with a kick in the gut, one Altman never really brings up again—the gory death surrounding the characters. There are a scant handful of medical cases—MASH is anti-procedural—but their drama’s never tied to them. It’s incredible the film Altman made with the performers not knowing where the film was going. It’s organized chaos.

Just like the war.

Okay, so there’s the white colonial savior shit, which I’ll group with the permissive white liberal racism, and then the classism. Though the classism is more about the misogyny, which is a sort of post-sexual revolutionist excuse for predatory and grooming and gaslighting behavior. Then there’s Duvall’s puritanical shit, which is actually very harmful, and Duvall’s playing a gross, evangelical shit. It’s depressing how secular MASH was allowed to play in 1970.

And then Sally Kellerman’s regular army, but professionally skilled, but performatively puritanical. She’s actually the film’s most realized character, and her purpose is to suffer sexist assaults and hijinks from Sutherland, Gould, and Skerritt. MASH goes out of its way to expertly convince Duvall is actually bad enough of a guy to deserve it, but with Kellerman… the film batters her, and she preservers through it. It’s an excellent performance from Kellerman. Especially since she’s playing a generic harpy in most of her foreground scenes for the first half of the picture. The character development’s in the background.

And when there isn’t character development, it’s about why there isn’t character development. Sutherland, Gould, and Skerritt are the Marx Brothers as drafted, drunken, horny, disaffected brilliant narcissist surgeons. Skerritt’s simultaneously the most and least sympathetic since he’s the unapologetic bigot. Oh, the homophobia. I forgot about the homophobic story arc. MASH is a series of interrelated story arcs; they’re not really vignettes just because they’re all sort of happening at once. At least until the third act and the zany football finale.

Yeah, there are a lot of things going on in MASH. The homophobia arc basically then turns into a patriarchal, classist toxic masculinity objectifying thing for the resolution. Like it’s fucked up. And it does say a lot about the characters creating manipulating those situations. Altman’s got a peculiar narrative distance with the protagonists. Skerritt’s going to get demoted in the third act because he’s gone soft for a girl—everyone’s got a wife back home, but it’s okay because maybe the nurses have husbands. There’s an ever-present but never directly explored romance between base commander Roger Bowen and nurse Indus Arthur. In addition to being married, Bowen’s helplessly aloof; his corporal, Gary Burghoff, basically runs the base. So Arthur’s always doting on Bowen, and it’s kind of icky, but also maybe it’s sweet. But then there’s this added layer where Arthur’s aware Bowen’s a doofus and laughs at it with her friends, including Burghoff. MASH is basically able to get through all of its… well, from Sutherland calling a Black guy a “racist” for giving him shit, MASH is white liberal edge-lord. While also being great.

It’s able to get away with it by never going too far in any one direction—the homophobia is literally genially presented, the racism levels are fine with Fred Williamson, so it’s got to be okay, something something something with the sexually predatory behavior (the nurses are all enthusiastically consenting because the men Altman cast to be normal-looking are all love stallions). It’s a movie, after all, a Hollywood movie, and it’s a comedy. And a war movie. So a Hollywood war comedy. MASH requires a very delicate touch, and Altman’s got it.

Acting: Kellerman’s the winner, then Duvall. Then it starts getting difficult to list it out. Not Skerritt. Kind of not Gould. Kind of not Sutherland either. In terms of irreplaceability, it’s Burghoff. He’s not in the movie as much as he’s in the TV show; he’s definitely a D-tier character (he’s got no subplots to himself). But he’s holding it all together. But also, everyone’s great. Williamson’s great—he ends up commanding the majority of the third act—Rene Auberjonois is great, David Arkin is great, Bud Cort is great; no one’s not standout. Even the objectified nurses. Actually, the treatment of the nurses is kind of where the Marx Brothers comparison comes in.

MASH is awesome. It’s also very privileged, elitist, sexist, and generally misanthropic. But, again, white liberal edge-lord and still gets away with it. When Altman’s great, Altman is great.

King Kong (1976, John Guillermin), the television version

You know, a three-hour King Kong movie may just be a bad idea. Though the television version of Kong is intended to be a two-night experience, turning the original two hour and fifteen minute movie into two two-hour network blocks. An almost mini-series event, only not because the only way to get it so long is to add in a lot of excess. There’s so much pointless footage. Some of it you can tell editor Ralph E. Winters cut intentionally because it’s redundant exposition, some of it is bad special effects, some of it is just more establishing shots.

There are a handful of fine additions. I can’t remember a single one, however, so not a full handful. Just little moments where it wasn’t a bad addition instead of being an obviously taped in piece messing up the flow of the editing. Like the new introduction to Jeff Bridges, which makes him more capable than Jessica Lange will give him credit for later on, at least as far as his ruthlessness. Arguably, it’s probably worse than anything bad guy Charles Grodin does (intentionally).

The worst addition are the extended Skull Island natives sequences. Unless you count the score, which doesn’t seem like the original John Barry score, rather some junior editor’s attempt to reuse the original John Barry score for another forty-five minutes or so. But it’s not just adding more music, it’s taking it away, so the television version actually breaks sequences. Often.

The stretched out Kong still spends most of its time on the island, but with a lot more material at the beginning. There’s a semi-good moment—when first mate stand-in Ed Lauter rolls his eyes at Grodin being extra and having to pretend it’s legit. Kong’s got a very interesting approach to camp; director Guillermin refuses to do it and the cast refuses to emote it, but the script’s still got it. The contrasts give the film a lot of personality (for a while).

But there’s also a lot more stuff with the natives preparing their sacrifice to Kong. There’s enough shots of the dancing natives, with a focus on the uncredited girl going to be sacrificed. See, you can’t stretch exceptionally problematic sequences too long because it just invites reflection; not only the characterization of the tribe, but the entire racist, colonizer nature of King Kong, which the film ends up playing with a tiny bit but also the logic to it. There’s absolutely no reason to think the fifty foot tall ape likes Jessica Lange more because she’s a blonde white lady and there’s also no reason to think he ate the regular native brides. It seems far more likely he takes them, plays with them like living dolls, then gets them killed through carelessness, month after month (timed to the full moon). You can even rationalize the natives’ elaborate dance sequence as amusing to Kong in the distant past so he wouldn’t eat the funny little hairless micro-apes.

There is so much empty time in Kong’s three hours. So much time to reflect.

Like how there’s an added scene with a couple guys perving on Lange onboard the ship—the only time she’s seriously objectified even though she dresses like it’s a skimpy casual photo shoot—and they end up dying first on the log sequence.

So are we supposed to feel a little less bad about them going?

The extra footage also implies more character development for the crew—namely Jack O’Halloran and Julius Harris—which doesn’t go anywhere but it’s an almost interesting idea, the perspectives of the crew on this wild goose chase.

Grodin gets another scene or two but ends up suffering the most in the extension. He’s barely in the second half of the film, which is really too bad since he’s initially the one who can sell the muted camp the best. He’s a profoundly good middle manager jackass.

The extra scenes literalize the ending with Lange and Bridges, which is too bad but I guess it’s cool to know it’s the film’s original intent. Also the more literalize, the more obvious Bridges is one weak dude. Despite his solid abs, which get at least one more scene this version, maybe two. He can’t cut it with Lange, who despite being initially characterized as ditzy is never ditzy once she gets going because her performance is too good. It’s even more clear with the excess footage—Guillermin just sets the camera on Lange and lets her vamp. It’s an incredibly bold, incredibly good, incredibly unappreciated move.

Kong’s all about the interiority of Lange’s experience. Well, when she’s in the movie. She also disappears in this version, thanks to more Kong in New York, which runs hot and cold, but then subzero when the finale—because TV version—cuts out most of the blood and gore in the showdown. Sadly the uncredited TV version editor doesn’t take advantage of the constraint to emphasis Lange and Bridges’s experience of it but what can you do.

Bridges is okay. The character doesn’t age well, what with him willing to ignore Kong in plight to finally score with Lange, even though their delayed romance seems entirely due to his classism and lack of confidence in her. There’s potential for a weird love quartet between Kong, Bridges, Lange, and Grodin, with only Grodin understanding Lange’s superego.

But it’s not in this television cut. It’s also not in the theatrical cut. But the theatrical cut doesn’t so definitely decide against it. The television cut adds a bunch of minutes, reduces a bunch of character and, consequently, performances. And the John Barry score. And it does a disservice to Ralph E. Winters’s editing.

And probably Richard H. Kline’s because it screws up the pace of the special effects accomplishments.

I’ve probably been wanting to see King Kong: the Television Version since my first Leonard Maltin movie guide, thirty plus years ago now; it’s all right. It could be worse. But it’s definitely not one of those cases of the expanded version bettering the film. Quite the opposite.

Though, for while he’s in the movie, Rene Auberjonois is a lot better with more to do, even when it’s mugging through transition montage material.

And Lange is excellent as ever.

King Kong (1976, John Guillermin)

In 2001, the Academy awarded Dino De Laurentiis the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial award. The clips ran from the beginning of his career to the present–I can’t remember if Body of Evidence got a clip–and I kept waiting to see how they’d deal with Kong. The De Laurentiis produced remake is either forgotten or derided, probably most well-known as the background clips at the Universal Studios attraction. When they got to Kong, they used the scene where Kong attacks the elevated train. They used a pan and scan clip. I was mortified, but only because it was stunning the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was going to not only use a pan and scan clip… but pick a mediocre scene to showcase. It was, I suppose, a clip on loan from the Universal Studios attraction.

John Guillermin’s King Kong has one bad sequence. When the island natives kidnap Jessica Lange off the ship, it doesn’t work. It’s not the writing, it’s the visual. Guillermin shoots it wrong (which seems impossible, given the rest of his direction in the film). It just doesn’t work. It seems too hackneyed. Otherwise, Kong‘s filmmaking is impeccable. There’s some iffy composite shots, but also some amazing ones. The editing for the scenes with miniatures is fantastic–whenever it’s a little doll standing in for Lange, the shot cuts about a frame before it’s too much.

The film’s a little strange in its uselessness. It’s not a remake intending to improve on the original or even retell it. This Kong is just a modernization–the whole oil company angle all of a sudden relevant again–and Lorenzo Semple Jr.’s script is deceptively good. There’s some great dialogue in the film, particularly from Jeff Bridges, particularly during his scenes with Lange. The film’s approach to their pseudo-romance is fantastic.

There’s also a bunch of jokes in the script–apparently written to be of the “wink-wink” variety (Semple did script the Adam West Batman movie after all). Except every one of those lines goes to Charles Grodin and Grodin’s playing a jackass oil executive; in other words, all the lines work coming from Grodin, especially given how well he plays the jackass. The character is never likable, but he’s never entirely unlikable either–though he’s always despicable.

The supporting cast is solid–Rene Auberjonois, John Randolph and Ed Lauter especially. Bridges’s assured leading man performance is almost an anomaly in his career. Not many actors can make the giant monkey movie seem real, but Bridges does.

As for Lange, she’s real good. She got a lot of flack for the role–I remember reading somewhere All that Jazz saved her career and she only got that part because she was dating Fosse–but she’s good. She’s playing a narcissistic twit who turns out to have some emotional depth (but not enough to overpower the egoism). Lange’s even got one of the film’s great monologues and she delivers it well.

It’s strange to think of this Kong as having great monologues, but it does have a few. Semple’s a good screenwriter.

Kong‘s a prototype genre event picture, but it’s not a genre picture. It’s pre-genre. Guillermin doesn’t make a single reference to the original and the script only makes a couple, both early on. The sweeping, lush John Barry score frequently saves the picture. It makes scenes work.

But King Kong is sort of lost. It’s a Panavision event picture made before event pictures were released–pan and scan–on VHS to buy. It’d be another twelve years (Batman and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade kicking it off) before event pictures became home video attractions too. Kong is meant to be a theatrical, uncontrolled by remote control, viewing experience. It’s peculiarly paced, deliberate and assured and visually stunning. Even when the composites are bad–it’s inexplicable why they didn’t shoot the final scene, with Kong versus the helicopters, with miniatures–the film still works.

King Kong will never get its due. For whatever reason, derogatory remakes get better notices than respectful ones. But it’s a fine night at the movies (about ten minutes in, I had to kill all the lights to get the experience going fully–with an overseas HD-DVD no less) and it’s great looking.

The Big Bus (1976, James Frawley)

Maybe I just don’t like absurdist comedies. I can’t remember why I wanted to see The Big Bus originally–it just came up again last week–maybe because of director James Frawley (who directed The Muppet Movie), but I doubt it. I’ve seen a couple IMDb comments comparing the film to Airplane!, which came out four years after The Big Bus and aped its style. A lot about the two films are the same… except The Big Bus has better acting.

It has a great 1970s cast–Sally Kellerman, Richard Mulligan, Ruth Gordon and Ned Beatty. Linking through the filmographies, one could find many great–but relatively (if Harold and Maude still qualifies) obscure 1970s films. The lead, Joseph Bologna, I have seen in other films, but I don’t remember him. He’s good in Bus, giving an appealing performance while understanding the absurd humor. Stockard Channing plays the love interest and is weak. She gets it, but the part isn’t right for her.

The best performances are the small ones. Besides Mulligan and Kellerman as an arguing married couple, Rene Auberjonois is great as an atheist, sex-starved priest. He’s probably the best in the film, but there’s also Beatty and Howard Hesseman, who play bickering co-workers. Stuart Margolin’s got a really small part, but he’s really funny… basically playing Angel (from “The Rockford Files”) again.

The writers, Lawrence J. Cohen and Fred Freeman, make amusing observations about film stereotypes (the graveyard full of people talking to their deceased relatives), but they let the film get too long. Of eighty-eight minutes, only the last twenty didn’t drag, since there’s a half-hour before the bus even appears. That idea, of a nuclear-powered Greyhound, is a funny idea… but, like The Big Bus, it’s not laugh-out-loud funny. It’s a pun. There are a lot of puns in The Big Bus.

Still, the cast makes it interesting (and entertaining), if not worth seeing.