Only now does it occur to me... MURDER BY DECREE (1979)

Only now does it occur to me... that if we were staging a March Madness-style tournament of Donald Sutherland mustaches, I do believe we've found our number one seed.

 

To quote Kurt Russell, who wore a similar Franz Joseph-sweeper in TOMBSTONE and THE HATEFUL EIGHT, "It's a mustache wearing a man."

(Also, if we're comparing late 1970s revisionist Jack the Ripper movies, I prefer TIME AFTER TIME––but Bob Clark's MURDER BY DECREE is still an enjoyable, horror-adjacent Sherlock Holmes flick with the inspired casting of Christoper Plummer as Holmes and James Mason as Watson.)

Film Review: TIGHTROPE (1984, Richard Tuggle)

Stars: 3.75 of 5.

Running Time: 114 minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew:  Clint Eastwood, Genevieve Bujold (DEAD RINGERS, OBSESSION), Dan Hedaya (COMMANDO, CHEERS, BLOOD SIMPLE), Allison Eastwood (BRONCO BILLY, MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL), Marco St. John (FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING, MONSTER).  Written and directed by Richard Tuggle (writer of ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ, the Schwarzenegger-directed episode of TALES FROM THE CRYPT).

Tag-line: "A cop on the edge..."

Best one-liner:  "You want some honey?"  –"I don't eat sweets..."

Alrighty, folks– so we've taken THE BIG EASY and we've had a visit from THE PAPERBOY– so let's close out Crawdad-Lickin' Southern Fried Sleaze-O-Rama and walk the TIGHTROPE– whaddya say?

How about some production background?  TIGHTROPE is one of those rare Eastwood films from the last twenty-three years in which he acts, but doesn't direct.  It's in the illustrious company of CITY HEAT (1984, Richard Benjamin), THE DEAD POOL (1988, Buddy Van Horn),  PINK CADILLAC (1989, Buddy Van Horn), IN THE LINE OF FIRE (1993, Wolfgang Peterson), and TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE (2012, Robert Lorenz).  Tuggle apparently snagged this rare gig (his directorial debut) after impressing Clint with his screenplay for ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ, but rumors from the set persisted that Tuggle wasn't working at Clint's regular breakneck pace, so Clint himself supposedly directed large chunks of the film.

As to the movie itself, it's a post-CRUISING "kinky-detective" flick, starring Clint as Detective Wes Block, a crusty cop who's investigating Jack the Ripper-style murders across New Orleans' red-light district.  He's sort of kinky himself, though, and there's plenty of soul-searching and Hitchcockian parallels between the hunter and the hunted.

 Clint gets into some gentle tie strangle-bondage-play.

 It's a serious film, and it does succeed as a solid crime drama and character study.  Supposedly, Clint was getting a lot of Oscar buzz for his role (though ultimately, no nominations), even though he's basically playing a slightly more morally conflicted version of Dirty Harry.

Clint contemplates his daughter's Grover toy.  Note how he's got the same ole' elbow patches as DIRTY HARRY.

 Also, the film gets a lot of bonus points from me for having its main title in the font from BLADE RUNNER:

 and its cast listed in the font from THE TERMINATOR:

 Uh, what?  (There's no science-fiction element to this film, whatsoever.)

Also, extra bonus points for hand-animated lightning strikes!

 It's like something out of the BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN!

Anyway, let's get into the nitty-gritty:  how does this all figure into Southern-Fried Sleaze-O-Rama?  Well, to be honest, even though it's set in New Orleans, it's not all that Southern.  Clint makes absolutely no attempt at an accent, and neither does most of the cast.  It does feature a lot of iconic NOLA architecture, and there's an obligatory scene in a Mardi Gras "giant head" warehouse (just like in everything else, from HARD TARGET to THE BIG EASY), so I'm still covered.  As to the Sleaze-O-Rama, I'm not even sure to begin.  So here's a bunch of stuff out of context!


Hey, look– drinks are only a buck seventy-five!

 
Clint tries his best to ignore the gyrating man in a thong.



Clint gets tender with man's best friend.



A prostitute with amazing eyeglasses uses a vibrator (no joke) on a disaffected Clint.  This truly is 50 SHADES OF EASTWOOD!


Is that the implied silhouette of Mason-Licksin'?  If it is, I'm three for three!



"What am I looking at, here?," you're probably wondering.  Well, somewhere in that pile of lubricated flesh there might be a Clint Eastwood buttcheek or two.  It's hard to tell, but the camera definitely pans up to reveal Clint and a prostitute, so he's there, somewhere. 


How many trashy things are happening in this picture?  I lost track at four, I think.


I can't even begin tell you what unspeakable acts are performed with this gigondous Mardi Gras Ronald Reagan head.


The less said about this, the better.



Gals in bikinis oil-wrestle as a little person referees the event for purposes of proper sportsmanship.  Clint watches, spellbound.


OH, COME ON!  Clowns weren't scary enough already?  You're giving me nightmares, TIGHTROPE.


OH MY GOD IT'S GOT A MEAT CLEAVER


 This is the kind of workplace context that Clarence Thomas could have only dreamed of.  And the guy on the right should totally be Ron Silver.

 
Hell, this movie is so sleazy, that Dan Hedaya plays a good guy!

 Anyway, all of this gives Clint ample opportunity to raise a judgmental eyebrow and scowl in disdain, which is pretty much why we watched the movie in the first place.
And that's just a sampling– this film is oozing with that kind of stuff.  The music is that seedy, burlesque hall blues with wailing saxophones and fluttering flutes as the wallpaper sweats glue and the men breathe heavy.  The atmosphere succeeds in painting a picture of New Orleans as a series of smoky, deserted streets where long legs in high heels are stalked by cajun-spicin' Jack-the-Rippers!  (Or is that Jacks-the-Ripper?)

 

The co-star and love interest in Genevieve Bujold, a tremendous actress with a healthy sleaze pedigree herself (De Palma's OBSESSION, Cronenberg's DEAD RINGERS).  She plays a rape counselor who Clint meets and begins to romance in the midst of his investigation  Here, she's pictured teaching a class on how to kick rapists in the nuts:

It's difficult to tell if this is being played for laughs, or if it's meant as a genuine public service announcement.  The scene only becomes more spectacular when she introduces a ball-swat-training ROBOT into the regimen.  (Inappropriate, comic appearances of robots were truly a hallmark of the 1980s.  I'm looking at you, ROCKY IV.)
 
Bujold lands a spirited blast to its (tennis) balls:
 
Prompting it's eyes to light up and it's cardboard tongue to emerge:

 Which causes Clint, standing in the back of the classroom, to wince in empathy:

Then, one of the balls rolls over to him, and he catches it:
 
 Prompting a goofy, schoolboy smile:
 
Well played, Clint.  (And I must say, it's hard work being the web's leading authority on brutal ball-squeezing.  What began as a bit of snark has resulted in hundreds of google-search-hits a month, and presumably a lot of disappointed fetishists!)

There's also a wonderful double-spit-take scene that demands to be addressed.  First, Clint takes a hearty sip of his soda (the necessary set-up for any great spit-take):

Then, his youngest daughter drops a bomb:

 

Which prompts a fountain of soda and astonishment:

  
Clint's eldest daughter (played by real-life daughter, Allison Eastwood) gets in on the fun, as well:

 And finally, Clint marvels that he succeeded in pulling off a bona-fide father/daughter double-spit-take:
 
 Personally, I'm impressed, too.

So the film continues as an elaborate cat-and-mouse between Clint and the killer that gets increasingly personal– first, the murderer begins targeting prostitutes whom Clint had previously frequented, and finally he starts going after Clint's family.  This leads Clint deeper and deeper into the seedy underbelly of the Crescent City.
Clint is propositioned by a gay prostitute who offers some "honey"– Clint squints, and growls that he doesn't eat sweets:

Later, a random leather daddy offers:


"Looking for something... Alice?"


So then, Clint meets with a person of interest in the nerd section:

seriously, though– the guy on the right has a DOCTOR WHO t-shirt, and in the background appears to be Q*BERT'S QUEST, a rare and spectacular pinball adaptation of the video game!

Anywho, Clint meets with the hustler and tries to glean some information, but the guy doesn't know much, and keeps flirtin' away, wondering how Clint knows he's not gay if he hasn't tried it:
 
Clint retorts with the incredibly unexpected: "Maybe I have."

That's sort of subversive for a Clint film, and it may be, I daresay, the 51st shade of Eastwood?

Finally, Clint gets to show off some of his acting chops in a dramatic scene of self-reflection which I have entitled, "Clint Gets Mad at a Bed and His Dog Disapproves":

In closing, TIGHTROPE is not quite a hidden "gem" in the Eastwood catalog, but it's an unusually perverse mainstream police procedural with some solid melodrama and a few taut suspense sequences.   If we follow the whole "Eastwood vs. Bronson" rivalry to its logical conclusion, perhaps this is the reason Bronson made a sleazy-underbelly cop-on-the-edge movie of his own a few years later, with KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS?  Who knows.

This draws the "Crawdad-Lickin' Southern-Fried Sleaze-O-Rama" series to a close (though I certainly wouldn't rule out future installments).  I hope you've enjoyed the trip– so it's time to cork up the Southern Comfort, stick the leftover jambalaya in a tupperware, and start moppin' up the sweat (and everything else)!

–Sean Gill

Film Review: OBSESSION (1976, Brian De Palma)

Stars: 3.8 of 5.
Running Time: 98 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Cliff Robertson (THE TWILIGHT ZONE's "The Dummy"), Genevieve Bujold (DEAD RINGERS), John Lithgow. Music by Bernard Herrmann. Screenplay by Paul Schrader. Cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond
Tag-line: "The love story that will scare the life out of you!"
Best one-liner: Not really that kind of movie.

I guess I'll just go ahead and make this 'Hitchcock pastiche (and rip-off)' week. We'll continue with De Palma's OBSESSION.

You can call De Palma a second-rate Hitchcock who hits his mark maybe 50% of the time. Touché. A little harsh...but, touché. You can call this a masturbatory VERTIGO rip-off. Okay. Thats your prerogative, I guess. But it's a VERTIGO rip-off scripted by Paul Schrader (TAXI DRIVER, MISHIMA), shot by Vilmos Zsigmond (THE DEER HUNTER, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS), featuring a smarmy Southern Fried John Lithgow, and scored by Bernard Herrmann himself, so it's gonna be pretty watchable. And it is. And before I concede that it's a VERTIGO rip-off, there is plenty of DONT LOOK NOW rumbling around in here too, and that's a good thing.

The visuals are immaculate. OBSESSION has that lovingly creepy fetishization of ancient, drearily beautiful European architecture.

The ever-present tracking shots are disorientingly classy- a 450-degree or so pan around a dead woman's bedroom is a standout, as is the final, ridiculous perversion of the classic 'entwined lovers' wraparound shot. The music is perfect. Herrmann's had a long time (10 years since his cancelled TORN CURTAIN score and the Hitchcock falling-out) to reflect on his collaborations with Hitch, and he hammers out a score that pays homage to his older ones, yet develops some of his familiar themes in an even grander context. It's spellbinding, dizzying, and vintage Herrmann.

The script is full of that patented, wild-eyed Schrader intensity: after the 1959 deaths of his wife and daughter, a New Orleans businessman (Cliff Robertson of STAR 80 and CHARLY) just might get the chance to do things over again when, in 1976, he spots a woman  (Genevieve Bujold of DEAD RINGERS and ANNE OF THE 1,000 DAYS) who's the spitting image of his dearly departed missus.

Robertson's eponymous 'obsession,' which at times borders on Travis Bickle-style madness (see also: HARDCORE and MISHIMA), is really the centerpiece here, and it's so forcefully matter-of-fact that it lends itself to extremely uncomfortable comedy- occasionally the look on Robertson's face is so ludicrously psychotic that you laugh––but you laugh not because it's funny, you laugh because you know he's for real (almost in a Lon Chaney, silent film sense).

We ultimately get to a point where everything depends on the payoff being 'worth it' or not, and I'm happy to report that it's bold, bizarre, and... unexpectedly powerful? Nearly four stars.