Georgia, Georgia (1973)

          The celebrated writer Maya Angelou only penned two original screen stories in her lifetime, the script for this obscure theatrical feature and the teleplay for a 1982 TV movie called Sister, Sister. (Make what you will of the similar titles.) Georgia, Georgia is thoroughly discombobulated. In some scenes it’s an interracial romantic melodrama bordering on camp, complete with a subplot about a queeny manager romancing a hotel clerk who looks like a Swedish version of Dracula. In other scenes, Georgia, Georgia is a dead-serious meditation on issues related to the Vietnam War. And every so often, the picture leaves reality behind for impressionistic passages linking pretentious images with odd sonic counterpoints. Notwithstanding the presence of the same actors and characters from beginning to end, Georgia, Georgia seems like a collection of clips from several different movies.

          Georgia Martin (Diana Sands) is an American pop singer traveling through Sweden with her manager, Herbert (Roger Furman), and her caretaker, Mrs. Anderson (Minnie Gentry). News of Georgia’s arrival sparks interest among a community of American deserters, all of whom are black, because they hope to involve her in their cause, with the ultimate goal of persuading the Swedish government to grant political asylum. Meanwhile, Georgia participates in a photo shoot with Michael Winters (Dirk Benedict), an American living in Sweden. He’s white, so when Georgia begins to demonstrate romantic attraction to Michael, Mrs. Anderson becomes concerned. No interracial hanky-panky on her watch.

          It’s possible that some gifted director could have guided Angelou through revisions and thereby pulled the disparate elements of Georgia, Georgia together. Stig Björkman wasn’t the guy for the job. (In his defense, Björkman rarely makes films in English—which, of course, raises the question of why he was hired in the first place.) For long stretches, Georgia, Georgia is painfully dull because the character motivations are nonsensical and the onscreen actions are repetitive. Furthermore, many supporting actors give amateurish performances—and to note that Benedict is not in the same league as Sands is to greatly understate the situation. Then there’s the dialogue. Periodically, Angelou gets incisive, as when Mrs. Anderson says that Georgia “kinda kicked the habit” of embracing blackness. Yet for every line that works, a dozen don’t. For instance, Georgia exclaims, “I’m not gonna do anything but stay black and die!” That’s a good line for a character who hasn’t already been established as denying her African-American identity.

          It gets worse. During a love scene, Michael says to Georgia: “You taste like mystery.”

          At its most ridiculous, Georgia, Georgia gives both leading characters Bergman-esque contemplation scenes. In Georgia’s vignette, she wears a cape and walks by a lake at dusk while Sands recites poetry on the soundtrack. In Michael’s vignette, he stares into the mirror while raunchy burlesque music plays. However, these scenes aren’t nearly as bizarre as the ending, which won’t be spoiled here. Suffice to say that the finale elevates Georgia, Georgia from muddled to outrageous. For seekers into the cinematic unknown, this picture’s out-0f-nowhere ending makes the whole viewing experience worthwhile. Georgia, Georgia might be a mess, but when it matters, the movie isn’t timid.

Georgia, Georgia: FREAKY

W (1974)

To appreciate Hitchcock’s mastery, one need only watch a few movies that try and fail to emulate his Swiss-watch style. W is a silly mystery/thriller about Katie (Twiggy), a young woman tormented by someone who may or may not be her first husband, who may or may not actually be in jail, and who may or may not have committed a murder, because Katie may or may not have framed him as a means of escaping a troubled marriage. Not only does the plot hinge on so many red herrings that it’s tiresome to sort out which things are cinematic misdirection, but the affronts to logic are countless. Even worse, W is boring, despite a few serviceable suspense scenes and solid production values. (Bing Crosby Productions, the folks behind W, fared better with 1971’s killer-rat epic Ben and 1973’s redneck-vigilante opus Walking Tall.) Penned by a cabal of writers including Ronald Shusett, who later co-created the Alien franchise, W follows Katie and her second husband, Ben (Michael Witney), through several episodes of bedevilment—cars rigged to crash, pets brutally murdered, and so on. Eventually, the couple hires a shifty PI, Charles (Eugene Roche), only to discover he’s more of a problem than a solution. As the movie reaches its dippy climax, Katie’s twisted ex shows up in the form of William (Dirk Benedict), a bug-eyed psychopath personifying every cliché associated with bug-eyed psychopaths. It’s all quite leaden, despite sly supporting turns by Roche, Michael Conrad, and John Vernon. Oh, and if you’ve ever wondered why British model-turned-actress Twiggy never did more with the goodwill she earned by starring in Ken Russell’s The Boy Friend (1971), look no further than this flick for an explanation.

W: LAME

1980 Week: Ruckus

          Essentially a dunderheaded precursor to First Blood (1982), this silly action picture falls midway through the cycle of ’70s and ’80s movies about PTSD-addled Vietnam veterans, both in terms of chronological release and quality. Written and directed by onetime stuntman Max Kleven, Ruckus avoids the sleazy extremes of some PTSD flicks, because it doesn’t edge into kinky sex stuff or linger on violence. Unfortunately, by taking the genteel approach, Ruckus ends up seeming cartoonish, a problem exacerbated by Kleven’s genuinely terrible screenplay. Characters in Kleven’s world do things simply because they’re convenient for the story, or because some similar character took a similar action in another movie. Nothing here rings true. Kleven’s direction isn’t much better than his writing, and he regularly slips into unintentional goofiness, as during the spectacularly dumb dirt-bike scene (more on that later). In the first-time filmmaker’s defense, he did not land top-shelf actors for the leading roles. He got Dirk Benedict and Linda Blair.

          The story starts the usual way, with a drifter ambling into a small town. Locals hassle him simply because he’s different. The drifter is Kyle Hanson (Benedict), who for reasons that are never explained has thick mud caked onto his face. While eating lunch at a roadside stand, Kyle encounters Sam Bellows (Ben Johnson), a rich guy whose son is an MIA soldier. This explains why Kyle finds a receptive audience when, later, he breaks into Sam’s home and meets Sam’s voluptuous daughter-in-law, Jenny (Blair). She helps Kyle hide from the locals who are chasing him. Eventually, Ruckus becomes a weird survival story because Kyle occupies a small island and uses guerilla tactics, martial arts, and stolen explosives to rebel invaders.

          None of this makes sense, but Kleven bombards viewers with colorful images. At his worst, he loses his grip on what should be a serious tone—witness the bizarre spectacle of Jenny and Kyle doing coordinated dirt-bike jumps in slow-motion as if they’re Mr. and Mrs. Evel Knievel. Benedict is quite bad, too big in unhinged scenes and too small in quiet scenes, while Blair is blandly sweet and Johnson phones in a non-performance. Only Richard Farnsworth, playing a seen-it-all sheriff, hits the right notes. Incidentally, it’s fun to survey the film’s various posters, seeing as how this picture was marketed as everything from a laugh-a-minute lark to an ultraviolent shoot-’em-up. Alternate titles include Big Ruckus in a Small Town, Eat My Smoke, The Loner, and Ruckus in Madoc County.

Ruckus: FUNKY

Scavenger Hunt (1979)

          Producers have spent years trying to mimic It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), the all-star comedy epic about an international treasure hunt. Lesser attempts, such as Scavenger Hunt, succumb to predictable problems including bloated running times and underwritten characters. Trying to adequately service roles for a dozen or more principal actors seems to vex even the most well-meaning filmmakers. Additionally, trying to maintain the desired level of hellzapoppin excitement for an entire feature film usually drives the people behind pictures like Scavenger Hunt to rely on chases, screaming, and slapstick—all of which get tiresome. Inevitably, the initial sugar rush leads to a crash. Although Scavenger Hunt is largely a disappointment, especially considering the incredible array of gifted comic actors appearing in the film, it has some meritorious elements. Cowriter/producer Steven Vail and his team (mostly) avoid taking cheap shots at ethnic stereotypes, and they play a clean game by opting for family-friendly jokes instead of lurid ones. It’s not difficult to see the frothy confection the filmmakers had in mind.

          The premise, naturally, is simple. When multimillionaire board-game titan Milton Parker (Vincent Price) dies, his would-be heirs are forced to compete in a scavenger hunt that will determine who inherits the Parker fortune. On one team is Parker’s greedy sister (Cloris Leachman), along with her idiot son (Richard Masur) and her slimy lawyer (Richard Benjamin). Another team includes Parker’s son-in-law (Tony Randall) and the son-in-law’s kids. Next up is a duo comprising two of Parker’s nephews (played by Willie Aames and Dirk Benedict). Still another team features Parker’s household help—the butler (Roddy McDowall), the chauffeur (Cleavon Little), the chef (James Coco), and the maid (Stephanie Faracy). The wild-card contender is a dimwitted taxi driver (Richard Mulligan), whom Parker included because the cab driver accidentally killed Parker’s business partner, making Parker rich.

          You can figure out where this goes—as the teams pursue items on their lists, the evil people bicker and steal while the virtuous people help each other. Some scenes that presumably were meant to be comic highlights fall flat, including a lengthy bit of McDowall supervising his team’s theft of a toilet from a hotel bathroom. Cameos from random actors (Ruth Gordon, Meat Loaf, Arnold Schwarzenegger) add little, and the gags are uninspired. Nonetheless, director Michael Schultz keeps everyone upbeat and moving fast, so several sequences generate mild amusement, especially the anything-goes finale. Additionally, while none of the performances truly stand out (excepting perhaps Benjamin’s vigorous turn as a long-suffering schmuck), the vibe is consistently and pleasantly silly.

Scavenger Hunt: FUNKY

Sssssss (1973)

The storied producing team of David Brown and Richard Zanuck (Jaws) got off to an inauspicious start with their first release, the underwhelming mad-scientist flick Sssssss. The storyline, which takes quite a while to get moving, depicts the efforts of Dr. Carl Stoner (Strother Martin) to perfect a serum that turns people into snakes, because he considers snakes a superior life form to human beings. Stoner recruits an eager lab assistant, David (Dirk Benedict), and administers a series of mysterious injections under the ruse of “inoculating” David against bites from venomous serpents. Meanwhile, Stoner’s daughter, Kristina (Heather Menzies), falls for David and spurns the advances of mean-spirited jock Steve (Reb Brown); her involvement with David gets complicated when he starts growing scales, and let’s just say that Steve and snakes don’t get along. The cheaply made Sssssss isn’t out-and-out awful, because the storyline makes sense and there are commendable elements, including some intense music from composer Patrick Williams. However, the deadly serious storytelling keeps raising expectations that the movie is about to go someplace really creepy, but instead viewers get drab dialogue scenes and vignettes of Benedict smothered in ridiculous half-man/half-snake prosthetics. The producers wisely included lots of footage of real cobras and pythons and such, guaranteeing a reaction from the vast swath of the viewing public afflicted with some measure of ophidiophobia. Yet aside from seeing future Battlestar Galactica star Benedict before his roguish charm was fully cultivated, the main novelty is watching Martin play outside his wheelhouse. A world-class character actor usually cast as unsophisticated Southern creeps, Martin gets to play an academic in Sssssss, so it’s fun to see him depict admirable and even amiable qualities before he goes bonkers and starts siccing black mambas on people who get in his way. If you give this one a look, make sure to slog through to the ending, which includes one of the most poorly executed special-effects sequences you’ll ever see in a theatrical feature, plus one of the oddest downbeat endings in the annals of ’70s cinema.

Sssssss: LAME

Battlestar Galactica (1979) & Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979)

          Writer-producer Glen A. Larson started developing the TV series that became Battlestar Galactica in the late ’60s, but didn’t get a green light until the success of Star Wars (1977) made space opera fashionable. To help recoup costs (reportedly $1 million per episode), Universal assembled chunks of early episodes into a theatrical feature, which was exhibited internationally beginning a few months prior to the series’ small-screen debut, then released in the U.S. less than a month after the series was cancelled. The feature is more than enough vintage Galactica for anyone but a hardcore fan, and devotees of the 2003-2009 Galactica reboot will find none of that series’ provocative psychodrama or topicality in the straightforward original. A pleasant overdose of goofy genre tropes, the 125-minute Galactica feature is filled with wooden actors playing stock characters amidst gaudy production design and Star Wars-lite battle scenes. 
          The story follows military commander Adama (Lorne Greene) as he leads a group of spaceships in flight from their devastated home worlds after a sneak attack by nasty aliens called Cylons. (The term “Cylon” refers to both robotic soldiers and their lizard-like overlords.) Various human characters struggle with food shortages, wartime trauma, and a host of other melodramatic crises, all while wearing action-figure-ready costumes. Enlivened by a fairly imaginative plot and the presence of polished guest stars including Ray Milland and Jane Seymour, Galactica moves along briskly, and some of the outer-space imagery is quite memorable, such as energetic scenes in which heroes launch their “Viper” spaceships out of tubes housed inside the titular warship. As for the stars, Greene and leading man Richard Hatch are painfully earnest, so Dirk Benedict fares much better as a swaggering pilot in the Han Solo mode, while John Colicos, who plays the main human baddie, chews scenery like a termite let loose in a lumberyard, making his performance a guilty pleasure. Although most of the scripting is clumsy and predictable, Battlestar Galactica never wants for spectacle.
          After Galactica was cancelled, Larson took another stab at televised sci-fi with Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, a retread of the old pulp/serial character. This time, Universal released a feature version of the pilot episode in the U.S. several months before the series debuted, generating a minor box-office hit in the process. Alas, the Buck Rogers movie is as tiresome as the Galactica movie is diverting. Gil Gerard plays the title character, a modern-day spaceman who falls into suspended animation until the 25th century, when he joins futuristic earth denizens in a galactic battle against a psychotic space princess and her various minions. As the princess, Pamela Hensley is all kinds of sexy, but the movie gets derailed by dopey flourishes including a campy dance sequence, horrible jokes, pervy costumes (must everything be skin-tight?), and a cutesy robot voiced by Mel Blanc. Whereas Battlestar aimed for the all-ages appeal of Star Wars by balancing cartoonish aliens and laser fights with grown-up sociopolitical themes (even if they were handled simplistically), Buck Rogers targets infantile viewers with incessant silliness. More than a few scenes make the viewer feel embarrassed for those responsible.

Battlestar Galactica: FUNKY
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: LAME