Russian Roulette (1975)

          The only unique aspect of this Cold War espionage thriller is that it takes place in Vancouver and features an officer of the RCMP as its protagonist. In every other respect, it’s the usual murky stuff about conspiracies and double-crosses and last-minute efforts to prevent a politically charged assassination. Adapted by a cabal of screenwriters from a novel by Tom Ardies and directed in a perfunctory style by Lou Lombardo, previously an acclaimed film editor known for his work on pictures by Robert Altman and Sam Peckinpah, Russian Roulette stars the appealing George Segal as the aforementioned RCMP officer. At the beginning of the movie, he’s on suspension, so a representative of the RCMP’s intelligence arm, Commander Petapiece (Denholm Elliot), offers a way back to active duty: Corporal Timothy Shaver (Segal) is to find and illegally detain an Eastern European named Henke (Val Avery), now living in exile in Vancouver. Only it turns out Russian operatives also want the man, so intrigue unfolds as various parties converge on Henke’s last known whereabouts. Before long, dead bodies accumulate and the intrepid Shaver discovers that Henke plans to kill a Soviet leader during an official visit to Canada. Also pulled into the escapade is Shaver’s on-again/off-again lover, Bogna (Cristina Raines).

          The first half of Russian Roulette is quite terrible, all confusing stakeout scenes and mystifying confrontations, because even though the setting of a gloomy winter in Western Canada lends visual interest, it’s virtually impossible to understand (or care) what the hell’s going on. Segal’s character is little more than a stereotype, the smartass cop who resents authority and wantonly breaks rules. The second half of the picture is markedly better, because once Russian Roulette resolves into a straightforward race-against-time thriller, Lombardo the skilled editor picks up the slack for Lombardo the inexperienced director. (Although Richard Marden is credited with cutting the picture, it’s likely Lombardo was never far away from the post-production process.) Almost by happenstance, Russian Roulette contains a couple of fairly good scenes, including the final action climax and the enjoyable throwaway bit during which the hero patiently explains to an old woman the complicated message he needs for her to convey by phone to authorities. Supporting actors including Avery, Elliot, and Richard Romanus do respectable work in nothing roles, but Raines flatlines as the female lead, and Segal’s innate charm can’t make up for the lack of an interesting story. At best, Russian Roulette is passable action/suspense slop. No wonder Lombardo returned to the editing room, directing only once more seven years later.

Russian Roulette: FUNKY

Stacey (1973)

Stacey occupies a (very) minor place in film history, because it’s the first example of low-budget director Andy Sidaris’ signature style. During the ’80s and ’90s, Sidaris made a slew of ridiculous action movies starring Penthouse and Playboy models, correctly assuming that the combination of guns and gazongas would score with the home-video crowd. All the elements of Sidaris’ exploitative formula can be found in his debut feature, Stacey. Presented as a hard-boiled detective story, complete with cynical past-tense narration, Stacey concerns Stacey Hanson (Anne Randall), a private eye who happens to be a buxom blonde. Hired by a rich old woman, Stacey is charged with investigating the woman’s potential heirs to see if any of them deserves an inheritance. Naturally, each of these folks is up to something. John (John Alderman) is gay but closeted, so his horny wife, Tish (Anitra Ford), finds pleasure in bed with a handyman, who takes pictures of their trysts for purposes of blackmail. Meanwhile, Pamela (Cristina Raines) is involved with a Manson-style sex cult. This being a Sidaris film, most scenes require Stacey to wear skimpy clothes—or nothing at all—in order to track down clues. Somewhat improbably, Stacey is also a racecar driver, which leads to the silly finale during which she steers a racecar down a rural road while being chased with a helicopter. Even more typical of the film (and of Sidaris’ juvenile aesthetic) is the scene in which a killer stalks Stacy while she showers—only to discover that she’s waiting for him behind the curtain with a gun. The ladies in Stacey are attractive, and the film contains a fair measure of action, so it’s no surprise to learn that Roger Corman’s New World Pictures released Stacey—Sidaris delivers the trashy goods. Nonetheless, Stacey is boring, episodic, and stupid, ideal only for the most lascivious of viewers.

Stacey: LAME

Hex (1973)

          On paper, this one sounds like a sure winner—a supernatural thriller set on the American prairie in the early 20th century, with motorcyclists and witches fighting against each other. Oh, and the cast includes Gary Busey, Keith Carradine, Scott Glenn, Dan Haggerty, and stunning model/actress Cristina Raines. On film, however, Hex is a perplexing misfire, neither pedestrian enough to work as a run-of-the-mill genre piece nor weird enough to qualify as so-bad-it’s-good cult fare. The movie is amateurish and muddled and slow, with an offbeat premise and a few somewhat exciting scenes. At its worst, Hex becomes utterly silly (especially when cornpone music kicks into gear on the soundtrack) and that’s not exactly the vibe one looks for in a supernatural thriller.

          The picture opens at a remote farm occupied by beautiful sisters Acacia (Hilarie Thompson) and Oriole (Raines), who seem like Old West eccentrics. They drift into a nearby frontier town, where they see a traveling motorcycle gang led by Whizzer (Keith Carradine), who claims to be an ex-World War I flyer, interacting with the locals. After the sisters leave town, Whizzer and his pals get into a hassle with a redneck named Brother Billy (Haggerty), so the bikers flee the town and discover the farm, taking the sisters hostage at gunpoint. Soon Whizzer falls into a romantic triangle, because even though he’s involved with fellow biker China (Doria Cook), he finds Oriole irresistible. Meanwhile, Acacia takes a liking to soft-spoken mechanic Golly (Mike Combs). But when biker Giblets (Busey) tries to rape Acacia, Oriole uses magic that she learned from her Native American father to get revenge. The movie them spirals into the hippy-dippy-’70s equivalent of a slasher flick, with members of the biker gang esuffering gruesome deaths until the final showdown between Oriole and Whizzer.

          Very little of this stuff makes sense, either in terms of basic logic or recognizable human behavior, and choppy editing exacerbates the myriad script problems. (For instance, what’s with all the material featuring the very white Robert Walker Jr. as some sort of ethnic/spiritual martial artist?) The actors playing bikers give spirited performances, but Raines’ lifeless work drains the picture of vitality, and it’s odd whenever the movie drifts into comic terrain. (Someone insults a woman by yelling, “Up yer skeeter with a red-hot mosqueeter!”) On the plus side, Raines gets to wear a creepy bear costume during the climax, and that’s something one doesn’t get to see every day. FYI, Hex is sometimes marketed on video under the titles Charms and The Shrieking.

Hex: LAME

The Sentinel (1977)

          A decent supernatural-horror flick released, alongside myriad others, in the wake of The Exorcist (1973) and The Omen (1976), this spookfest benefits from a lean running time and an onslaught of gruesome imagery, but the plot withers on close inspection. Worse, lead actress Cristina Raines lacks anything resembling the dramatic power required to make this silly story credible. Based on a novel by Jeffrey Konvitz and directed and co-written by Michael Winner, who generally thrived in action films (such as the Death Wish series), The Sentinel revolves around Alison Parker (Raines), a New York fashion model who relocates from Manhattan to a Brooklyn brownstone because she needs space from her boyfriend, Michael (Chris Sarandon). Immediately upon arriving in her new home, Alison discovers, Rosemary’s Baby-style, that her neighbors are aging weirdos with an inappropriate level of interest in her private affairs. Leading the gaggle of crazies is Charles Chazen (Burgess Meredith), who seems to have special plans for his lovely new neighbor.

          Hewing to the nonsensical paradigm of undercooked horror movies, Alison decides to investigate her bizarre new home instead of simply moving to someplace safer, and, of course, digging for questions seals her gruesome fate. It’s hard to discuss the plot without giving away the big secret, although most viewers will figure out what’s happening very early in the film’s running time, but in lieu of spoiling surprises, it’s sufficient to say that The Sentinel drags largely because of Raines’ limitations. An alluring brunette with spectacular cheekbones, Raines looks amazing throughout the picture, but she hovers somewhere between baseline competent and truly vapid, so it’s hard to get invested in her character’s plight—particularly since her character makes countless stupid decisions.

          Nonetheless, The Sentinel is slick and suspenseful, with several unsettling moments, and the supporting cast is impressive: The main stars beyond Meredith, Raines, and Sarandon are Hollywood veterans Martin Balsam, John Carradine, José Ferrer, Ava Gardner, and Arthur Kennedy, while minor roles are played by then-emerging talents including Tom Berenger, Beverly D’Angelo, Jeff Goldblum, Sylvia Miles, Jerry Orbach, Deborah Raffin, and Christopher Walken. The sheer amount of talent on display is almost reason enough to explore the dark recesses of The Sentinel.

The Sentinel: FUNKY

Nashville (1975)

          At the risk of losing my bona fides as an aficionado of ’70s cinema, I’m going to commit an act of heresy by saying that Nashville leaves me cold. I’ve sat through all 159 endless minutes of Robert Altman’s most celebrated movie twice, and both times Nashville has struck me as an overstuffed misfire that unsuccessfully tries to blend gentle observations about the country-music industry with bluntly satirical political content. Altman has said he was originally approached to make a straightforward film about country music, and that he said yes only on the condition he could spice up the storyline, but I can’t help feeling like the movie would have been better served by someone with a deeper interest in the principal subject matter.

          Obviously, the fact that Nashville is one of the most acclaimed films of its era indicates that I hold a minority opinion, and it must be said that even the film’s greatest champions single out its idiosyncrasy as a virtue. Furthermore, there’s no question that the way that Altman takes his previous experiments with roaming cameras and thickly layered soundtracks into a new realm by presenting Nashville as a mosaic of loosely connected narratives represents a cinematic breakthrough of sorts. Taken solely as a filmic experiment, the picture is bold and memorable. But for me, Nashville simply doesn’t work as a viewing experience, and I have to believe that Altman wanted his film to captivate as well as fascinate.

          I have no problem with the fact that many of Altman’s principal characters are freaks whom he presents somewhat condescendingly, including disturbed country singer Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakely); egotistical Grand Ole Opry star Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson); heartless womanizer Tom Frank (Keith Carradine); irritating British journalist Opal (Geraldine Chaplin); pathetic would-be songstress Sueleen Gay (Gwen Welles); and so on. Altman and screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury balance the extreme characters with rational ones, such as cynical singer/adulteress Mary (Cristina Raines); long-suffering senior Mr. Green (Keenan Wynn); and sensitive singer/mom Linnea Reese (Lily Tomlin). Furthermore, Nashville is mostly a story about showbiz, a milieu to which odd people gravitate and in which odd people thrive.

          I also freely acknowledge that Nashville has many vivid scenes: the humiliating sequence in which Sueleen is forced to strip before a room of cat-calling men whom she thought wanted to hear her sing; the incisive vignette of Carradine performing his Oscar-nominated song “I’m Easy” to an audience including several of his lovers, each of whom believes the tune is about her; and so on. Plus, the acting is almost across-the-board great, with nearly every performer thriving in Altman’s liberating, naturalistic workflow. And, of course, the sheer ambition of Nashville is impressive, because it features nearly 30 major roles and a complicated, patchwork storytelling style held together by recurring tropes like a political-campaign van that rolls through Nasvhille broadcasting straight-talk stump speeches.

          My issue with the movie has less to do with the execution, which is skillful, than the intention, which seems willful. It’s as if Altman dares viewers to follow him down the rabbit hole of meandering narrative, and then flips off those same viewers by confounding them with elements that don’t belong. The ending, in particular, has always struck me as contrived and unsatisfying. Anyway, I’m just a lone voice in the wilderness, and I’m happy to accept the possibility that Nashville is simply one of those interesting films I’m doomed never to appreciate. Because, believe me, watching it a third time in order to penetrate its mysteries is not on my agenda. (Readers, feel free to tell me why you dig Nasvhille, if indeed you do, since I’d love to know what I’m apparently missing.)

Nashville: FUNKY