Something Big (1971)

          Jammed with entertaining actors and powered by plot elements that worked better in other movies, the comedic Western Something Big is a slog to watch because it’s episodic, phony, and unimaginative. It says a lot about the picture that the protagonist repeatedly proclaims that he wants to achieve “something big” during his lifetime, but the exact nature of that something is withheld from the audience until the final act. Turns out it’s merely an armed heist. Myriad other films have been predicated on the very same threadbare premise, so why all the obfuscation? The solution to this mystery is as elusive as answers to other questions, like why this would-be comedy contains so few actual jokes. If nothing else, Something Big explains why director Andrew V. McLaglan spent most of his career making manly-man action flicks, because a comic genius he is not.

          Dean Martin, looking quite bored, stars as Joe Baker, an Easterner who fled to the West in search of adventure. After years pursuing an outlaw lifestyle, he’s fallen far short of achieving legendary status, so when he learns that his long-estranged fiancée is on her way to collect him, he decides it’s time for a grand scheme. Baker learns that a local thug named Cobb (Albert Salmi) can get his hands on a Gatling gun, so Baker makes a deal. In exchange for the gun, Baker will furnish Cobb with a woman. Baker then attacks passenger wagons until he finds a suitable candidate, Mary Anna Morgan (Honor Blackman). He kidnaps Mary Anna but doesn’t believe her when she says she has powerful allies. She ain’t lyin’. Her husband, Colonel Morgan (Brian Keith), is the commandant of the local U.S. Army fort. And so the contrived plot goes—Baker contemplates trading Mary Anna for the gun even as he falls for her, and Mary Anna grows to respect Baker even though she knows Baker’s fiancée is en route. Lost amid this romantic silliness is Baker’s grand scheme, which should have been the focus of the movie. Worse, Something Big wastes time servicing goofy subplots, notably the one about two horny frontier dames.

          Set to obnoxiously bouncy music by Marvin Hamlisch, Something Big lurches from one disconnected vignette to the next, the appeal of each scene dependent upon the actors present in the scene. By far, the bits featuring Keith as a blustery military officer and Ben Johnson as a gruff scout are the most rewarding. Conversely, the movie squanders the presence of Robert Donner and David Huddleston, who have tiny roles, and the filmmakers give too much screen time to Blackman, Martin, and Joyce Van Patten, all of whom give pedestrian performances. Despite its title, Something Big offers only small pleasures, at best.

Something Big: FUNKY

Flap (1970)

It’s hard to imagine how or why the venerable British director Carol Reed became involved with this tone-deaf project, which on the one hand espouses a progressive political platform regarding the mistreatment of Native Americans, but on the other hand insults the very people it’s about by casting most of the principal roles with non-Indians. Reed was a versatile talent whose filmography spans the film-noir classic The Third Man (1949) to the Oscar-winning Dickensian musical Oliver! (1968), so it’s a gross understatement to say this picture exists outside his comfort zone. Similarly, the three main actors (Anthony Quinn, Tony Bill, and Claude Akins) are wildly, even offensively, miscast. The serviceable story concerns modern-day reservation Indians living in the American southwest and protesting the endless encroachment of the U.S. government onto tribal lands. Quinn stars as Flapping Eagle (“Flap” for short), de facto leader of a group of drunken misfits that also includes Eleven Snowflake (Bill) and Lobo Jackson (Akins). After being hassled by a local sheriff, the latest in a long series of racially charged incidents, Flap gets pissed (in both the American and British senses of the word) and starts a fight with construction workers that climaxes with an industrial vehicle getting driven off a cliff. Whereas Flap’s peers are inclined to take the heat for the demolished vehicle, even straining tribal funds to pay for damages, Flap transforms the event into the first spark of a revolution. He leads his borderline-inept accomplices through a series of crimes including the theft of an entire train. Had the picture stuck to the main storyline of Flap’s political activism, it might have been tolerable, even with the ridiculous casting. Alas, the filmmakers fumble with a subplot about Flap’s romance with a blowsy prostitute (Shelley Winters); the screechiness of the Quinn-Winters scenes, some of which include goofy hallucinations, is painful to endure. Adding to the film’s dissonance is a grating score by Marvin Hamlisch, which tries to be comical and folksy but also integrates pointless electronic beeps and whoops. Worst of all, the makers of Flap strive for a Big Statement with the tragic finale, thereby adding undeserved grandiosity to the list of the picture’s unseemly attributes.

Flap: LAME

Ice Castles (1978)

          Even though its leading performance is terrible and its storyline is laughably contrived, Ice Castles holds a special place in the hearts of many women who came of age in the late ’70s, because it delivers a fresh spin on that most beloved of fables—the princess who finds her true love. In this case, the princess is innocent, 16-year-old Midwesterner Alexis Winston (Lynn-Holly Johnson), a promising figure skater who’s considered too old for serious competition. She lives a sheltered life with her overprotective father, widower Marcus Winston (Tom Skerritt), and she worries what will happen when she’s separated from her directionless boyfriend, Nick Peterson (Robby Benson), who loves her but resents her potential. Predictably, however, when Alexis performs well at a local competition and catches the eye of a top-level trainer, things change dramatically. Leaving her father and Nick behind, Alexis enters the high-stakes world of Olympic-level skating. Dazzled by the lights of the big city, Alexis even succumbs to the romantic advances of an ambitious TV reporter who’s about 15 years her senior. And then, just when it seems Alexis is doomed to lose her identity, she loses her sight in a skating accident. Retreating into self-pity, Alexis sulks until Nick proves his worth by forcing her to see life anew—“through the eyes of love,” in the words of the film’s maudlin theme song.
          Ice Castles is schmaltzy in the extreme, complete with a saccharine Marvin Hamlisch score, but the movie goes down smoother than you might expect. Skerritt and Colleen Dewhurst (who plays Alexis’ hometown trainer) eschew sentimentality with their grown-up performances, while Benson leavens his moony adoration with tough-love dialogue. It also helps, a lot, that cinematographer Bill Butler (of Jaws fame) shoots the movie like a slick sports documentary instead of a glossy tearjerker. Alas, Johnson’s leading performance is the film’s weakest element. While her skating is fine (she was an Ice Capades performer before becoming an actress), Johnson seems utterly lost when called upon to express complex emotions. As a result, Ice Castles has a major vacuum at its center, neutralizing many of the good efforts by costars and behind-the-scenes talents; the movie works, but just barely. FYI, Ice Castles writer-director Donald Wrye, whose career mostly comprises made-for-TV projects, remade this movie in 2010, though the second version failed to generate much excitement.

Ice Castles: FUNKY