Stand Up and Be Counted (1972)

          In what should be a standout moment during the feminism-themed comedy Stand Up and Be Counted, ladies meet for a rap session about their encounters with sexism. Participants include Dr. Joyce Brothers (as herself), future Jeffersons star Isabel Sanford, and a nun. Alas, comedic sparks never fly, because like the rest of this flat-footed studio picture written and directed by men, the scene devolves into oversimplifications and slogans. Progressive-minded producer Mike Frankovich and his collaborators, director Jackie Cooper and screenwriter Bernard Slade, seem as if they perceived the women’s-lib movement as a whimsical fad. To a one, the feminists in this movie are portrayed as shrill whiners whose only real accomplishment is alienating the men in their lives. The picture ends on a fairly hip note, so it’s not quite as dunderheaded an affair as the preceding remarks might suggest. Nonetheless, there’s a reason Stand Up and Be Counted is not remembered as a milestone in Equal Rights Amendment-era propaganda.

          Jacqueline Bisset stars as Sheila, a fashion reporter assigned to do a magazine story on the burgeoning women’s movement. To do so, she flies to her hometown of Denver. (The script pathetically explains Bisset’s English accent by saying she spent time in London.) During the flight, Sheila rekindles her romance with an ex, Elliot (Gary Lockwood). In Denver, Sheila discovers that her mother is part of a “Senior Women’s Liberation” organization, and that her ultra-feminist younger sister, Karen (Lee Purcell), wants to hire a man to impregnate her. Torn between new and old ideas about gender roles, Sheila moves in with Elliot, only to discover he’s a patronizing chauvinist. Other threads involve a housewife rebelling against her domineering husband, and a trophy wife demanding respect for the work she does at her husband’s bra factory.

          Stand Up and Be Counted is one of those bad movies that isn’t really a bad movie. In its clumsy way, the film means well, but problems compound problems. Sheila is a hopelessly passive character, thus draining the movie of momentum, and supporting players deliver livelier work than Bisset, causing her presence to seem ornamental. (She’s simultaneously breathtaking and uninteresting.) Lockwood’s performance is lifeless, Purcell is feisty but underused, and minor turns by comic pros including Hector Elizondo, Steve Lawrence, Loretta Swit, and Nancy Walker offer only fleeting relief from the overall mediocrity. FYI, although Helen Reddy’s anthem “I Am Woman” plays during the closing credits, it was not composed for the picture. After releasing the tune a year before, Reddy re-recorded “I Am Woman” for Stand Up and Be Counted, and the second version became a hit.

Stand Up and Be Counted: FUNKY

Thieves (1977)

          During one of the best scenes in Thieves, the film adaptation of Herb Gardner’s seriocomic play about a couple whose marriage is disintegrating, Sally Cramer (Marlo Thomas) attempts small talk with a would-be lover, quickly realizing how challenging it is to be cute and superficial after reaching adulthood. “I think men like young girls because their stories are shorter,” she quips. Moments later, Sally discovers that the man’s bedroom is located at the top of a ladder leading to a loft. “Jesus,” she exclaims, “it’s hard to make this look like an accident.” These snippets capture the sharp wit that makes Thieves worthwhile, despite the project’s muddy approach to storytelling, theme, and tone. Although Thieves effectively depicts the thousand slights that drive spouses apart, Gardner also burdens the piece with lyricism, metaphor, and whimsy, trying to parallel domestic issues with larger societal problems. For instance, the title has multiple meanings, referring not only to the actual robbers who prey upon the New York City apartment building where Sally lives her husband, but also to time, which steals people’s lives though the passage of hours, minutes, and seconds. The heady stuff feels artificial and pretentious, whereas the intimate material is crisp and humane.

          When the story begins, Sally and Martin (Charles Grodin) have reached a marital impasse. She’s an effervescent delight with a deep social conscience and a wild imagination, but he’s become a dull conformist preoccupied with money and propriety. More than a decade into their union, they’ve managed to argue themselves into the early stages of a divorce. During the brief separation that ensues, Sally trysts with a swinger (John McMartin) whom she met in Central Park, and Larry makes time with a sexy neighbor (Ann Wedgworth). Also woven into the story are vignettes featuring Sally’s loudmouthed father (Irwin Corey), the Cramers’ eavesdropping neighbor (Hector Elizondo), and a teenaged criminal (Larry Scott).

          The tone is erratic, with serious topics including abortion treated lightly while comparatively trite subjects including nostalgia are presented with operatic scope. Moreover, Gardner’s flights of fancy—both in terms of dialogue and plotting—add an element of stylized satire, which clashes with the realism of the scenes involving the Cramers’ spats. Music is another weak spot, because scenes are connected via chirpy flute compositions and nonsense ragtime songs. (VIPs Shel Silverstein and Jule Style penned the tunes.) All of these incompatible elements produces a lack of focus that detracts from the charm of the best dialogue, and from the skill of the performances. Grodin’s mixture of deadpan moments and emotional outbursts is modulated nicely, Thomas adds grown-up world-weariness to the sexy/spunky vibe she perfected on That Girl, and the supporting players lend diverse flavors. Incidentally, famed choreographer/director Bob Fosse plays a small part as a junkie who tries to rob Grodin’s character.

Thieves: FUNKY

Born to Win (1971)

It’s impossible to completely dismiss Born to Win, a would-be comedy about heroin addiction, even though the film is a disaster from a tonal perspective and not especially satisfying from a narrative perspective, because the film’s saving graces include gritty performances by several actors and a great sense of place. So, while Born to Win is laughable compared to the same year’s The Panic in Needle Park, a truly harrowing take on the same subject matter, Born to Win isn’t an outright dud. George Segal stars as J, a former hairdresser who has fallen into petty crime as a means of supporting his habit. Over the course of the story, J embarks on a new romance with Parm (Karen Black), a rich girl with a taste for dangerous adventure, and he gets into a complicated hassle with his dealer, Vivian (Hector Elizondo). The romantic stuff with Parm defies logic right from the beginning—Parm discovers J trying to steal her car, but instead of calling the police, she takes him to bed. Huh? The drug-culture material is more believable, especially when two cops (one of whom is played by a young Robert De Niro) coerce J into helping them entrap Vivian. In general, the seedier the scene in question, the more watchable Born to Win becomes. For instance, one of the best sequences involves J sweet-talking a mobster’s wife by pretending he wants sex, when in fact he’s simply trying to enter the mobster’s apartment for purposes of robbery. Segal’s not the right actor for this story—he’s too charming and urbane—but it’s interesting to imagine the circumstances by which a character fitting Segal’s persona might have fallen into such desperation. Had Born to Win focused on J’s descent (and had the filmmakers not opted for such a glib treatment of addiction), the picture could have had impact. Alas, director/co-writer Ivan Passer fumbles, badly, by attempting to merge black comedy with inner-city tragedy, and his undisciplined storytelling is exacerbated by a truly horrible music score. Predictably, De Niro (whose role is inconsequential) and Elizondo fare best in this milieu, while Black and costar Paula Prentiss barely register. Yet the real star of the movie, if only by default, is New York City, with the dirty streets of Manhattan amplifying the film’s implied theme of lost souls getting chewed up by an unforgiving universe.

Born to Win: FUNKY

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

          A clever and funny hostage picture with an offbeat setting and an even more offbeat protagonist, the 1974 version of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is vastly superior to the 2009 remake starring John Travolta and Denzel Washington. Whereas the latter picture is frenetic and slick, Joseph Sargent’s ’70s version mixes expertly orchestrated suspense with amusingly grumpy Noo Yawk character flourishes. In fact, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three achieves that most difficult of balancing acts by intermingling danger and humor so that scenes are often jittery and droll at the same time. The title relates to the hijacking of an NYC subway train by a group of middle-aged terrorists whom we get to know by code names: Ice-blooded mastermind “Mr. Blue” (Robert Shaw), trigger-happy gunman “Mr. Grey” (Hector Elizondo), avuncular driver “Mr. Green” (Martin Balsam), and accomplice “Mr. Brown” (Earl Hindman). These four take over a train and communicate their demand for $1 million via radio to the New York Transit Authority, threatening to kill hostages on a regular basis if the city fails to meet a ransom deadline. This puts the crooks at odds with Lt. Zachary Garber (Walter Matthau), a sarcastic, seen-it-all cop with the Transit Authority’s police force.

          Many of the beats in this story, which was adapted from a novel by John Godey, are standard stuff for hostage pictures: The political machinations of the mayor as he contemplates paying the ransom; the revelation that one of the hostages is an undercover cop; the tricky games Garber plays to buy time; and so on. It’s the execution, however, that makes all the difference. The great playwright/screenwriter Peter Stone delivers Godey’s pulpy narrative with what can only be described as effervescence. While Stone ensures that violent scenes have genuine tension, he threads the script with dry one-liners and pithy dialogue exchanges. In particular, Stone does wonders with the radio conversations between Garber and “Mr. Blue”—the adversaries pick at each other like bickering spouses, a vibe underlined by the contrast between Matthau’s put-upon petulance and Shaw’s tightly contained rage. (Another of the film’s many effective running jokes involves Garber giving a tour of the Transit Authority’s facilities to visiting Japanese dignitaries on the day the hijacking happens; wait for the terrific punchline after watching Garber make a series of offensive remarks to his seemingly oblivious guests.)

          Sargent keeps his camerawork nimble, exploiting the atmosphere of gritty locations, and he benefits from the hard-edged imagery of master New York cinematographer Owen Roizman (The French Connection). Adding to the entertaining verisimilitude is a cavalcade of salty New York character actors: In addition to Balsam, Elizondo, and Matthau, the picture features Kenneth McMillan, Dick O’Neill, Doris Roberts, and Tony Roberts. Balsam and Elizondo are memorable as, respectively, a schmuck who gets involved in something he can’t handle and a psycho who gets off on carrying a gun. Best of all, of course, is the movie’s exciting final act, which features a series of unexpected climaxes stacked upon each other—the conclusion of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three manages to pay off every subplot meticulously and satisfyingly.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three: GROOVY

Report to the Commissioner (1975)

          Back in my college days, when I lived in Manhattan, I was friendly with an NYPD homicide detective who was also a movie buff, and he hipped me to this little-seen drama, praising it as one of the most accurate depictions he’d ever seen about how ugly the gamesmanship within a police force can get. And, indeed, even though Report to the Commissioner is fictional—it’s based on a novel by James Mills—the picture radiates authenticity. Extensive location photography captures the dirty heat of summertime New York City; intense performances burst with streetwise attitude; and the vicious storyline is driven by cynicism, duplicity, and politics. Told in flashback following some sort of terrible clusterfuck of a shootout at Saks Fifth Avenue, the picture reveals how an ambitious undercover detective and a rookie investigator cross paths, with tragic results.

          Michael Moriarty, appearing near the beginning of his long career, stars as hapless Detective Bo Lockley, a newcomer to the NYPD investigative squad who gets paired with a seen-it-all partner, African-American Richard “Crunch” Blackstone (Yaphet Kott0). In a telling early sequence, Lockley watches Blackstone lean on black suspects, even going so far as to spew racial epithets, which clues Lockley into the level of moral compromise required of NYPD lifers. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Lockley, undercover narcotics cop Patty Butler (Susan Blakley), a pretty blonde WASP who uses her looks to undercut suspicions that she’s a police officer, gets a lead on a well-connected dealer named Thomas “Stick” Henderson (Tony King). Smelling an opportunity for a high-profile bust that will help his career, Butler’s commanding officer, Captain D’Angelo (Hector Elizondo), approves a dangerous plan for spying on Stick. Soon afterward, Lockley gets pulled into the situation—without being given crucial information—and things go to hell. The movie climaxes with a tense hostage situation inside Saks, during which high-ranking cops put more energy into covering their asses than saving innocent victims.

          This is dark stuff, making Report to the Commissioner a fine companion piece to Sidney Lumet’s various ’70s pictures about cops and criminals in New York City. And while Report to the Commissioner is far from perfect—the script meanders into subplots and some of the characters could have been consolidated for the purpose of clarity—the movie has myriad virtues. The atmosphere sizzles, with cinematographer Mario Tosi using haze filters and wide lenses to depict grungy exteriors and sweaty interiors. Director Milton Katselas, best known as an acting teacher, demonstrates a real gift for integrating actors into spaces and thereby creating verisimilitude. Best of all, though, are the film’s potent performances. Blakely’s sharp in a smallish role, King is physically and verbally impressive, and Moriarty’s weirdly twitchy energy is compelling. Furthermore, it’s hard to beat the roster of eclectic supporting players—beyond Elizondo and Kotto, the picture features Bob Balaban, William Devane, Dana Elcar, Richard Gere (in his first film role), and Vic Tayback. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Report to the Commissioner: RIGHT ON

Mrs. Sundance (1974) & Wanted: The Sundance Woman (1976)

          Since the Sundance Kid’s girlfriend, Etta Place, was the only major character left standing after the ending of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), it’s not surprising she became the focus of two attempts by 20th Century-Fox to capitalize on the film’s success. In 1974, Bewitched star Elizabeth Montgomery headlined Mrs. Sundance, the feature-length pilot for a potential series about Place’s adventures following the events of the 1969 movie. Mrs. Sundance begins with Place working as a small-town teacher under an assumed name. (There’s a price on her head because of her association with criminals.) Worried that relentless lawman Charles Siringo (L.Q. Jones) is close to finding her, Place hops a freight train and meets small-time crook Jack Maddox (Robert Foxworth), who recognizes her and claims to have known Sundance. Then, when Place hears a rumor that Sundance is still alive, she tracks down old accomplices for directions to the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang’s hideout. Unfortunately, it turns out Maddox has been pressured into working for Siringo, so Place doesn’t realize she’s heading into a trap.

          Mrs. Sundance is actually rather dark, since the specter of death runs through the whole storyline, and the movie features a potent musical score by Pat Williams. Jones makes an effective villain, all crisp diction and merciless efficiency, while Foxworth exudes a squirrelly sort of appeal as a small man ashamed of his own cravenness. Montgomery ends up being the weak link, her breathy line readings and vapid expressions making slow scenes feel even slower. Still, Montgomery’s beauty and spunk command attention; had Mrs. Sundance gone to series, she might have grown into the role. Alas, when Mrs. Sundance failed to excite the public, Fox decided to reboot the concept by hiring Katharine Ross, who originated the Place character in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, for a second TV movie.

          Wanted: The Sundance Woman is less grounded than Mrs. Sundance, although the picture offers stronger production values. In Wanted, Place asks Mexican outlaw Pancho Villa (Hector Elizondo) for protection, in exchange for helping with his revolutionary endeavors. Siringo is still on Place’s trail, but this time he’s played by Steve Forrest in an unmemorable performance. Whereas Mrs. Sundance rightly portrays Place as a woman still in love with a man who has recently died, Wanted hints at romantic tension between Place and Villa, a plot development that feels forced and tacky. Worse, Elizondo is too lightweight a presence to seem credible as an iconic revolutionary. Ross is as beautiful as ever, though the cheap lighting of a TV movie cannot match the spellbinding glamour with which cinematographer Conrad Hall surrounded Ross in Butch Cassidy.

          So, while both of these telefilms are mediocre, Mrs. Sundance is incrementally more satisfying. Ironically, had Ross agreed to star in the first picture, which has a better storyline, Etta Place might have become an interesting presence on ’70s episodic TV, instead of merely a footnote to the era’s small-screen fare.

Mrs. Sundance: FUNKY

Wanted: The Sundance Woman: FUNKY

Cuba (1979)

          It’s hard to decide if Cuba is a great idea executed poorly, or simply a case of terrific execution masking the absence of any central idea whatsoever. In either case, the Richard Lester-directed romantic/political thriller is frustrating, because despite incredible production values and a strong cast, the film is rudderless. When Cuba begins, it seems as if the main story will involve British mercenary Robert Dapes (Sean Connery) getting drawn into the drama of 1959 Cuba, just before rebel forces led by Fidel Castro staged a successful coup. Dapes was hired by the endangered Batista government to train soldiers for their battles against the rebels, and Dapes quickly realizes he’s on the wrong side of history. His situation gets even more complicated when he encounters Alexandra (Brooke Adams), a young woman with whom he once had an intense love affair, and who is now the wife of a playboy Cuban aristocrat (Chris Sarandon).

          The lovers-in-wartime premise is vaguely reminiscent of Casablanca, but unlike that classic film, Cuba can’t decide whether it’s an examination of geopolitics or simply a torrid love triangle. As a result, the movie bounces from one tonal extreme to another, creating a disjointed narrative and neutralizing any real emotional involvement on the part of the audience. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that the acting and filmmaking are so consistently good. Lester employs clever grace notes, such as tossed-off dialogue by peripheral characters and fussy background action, in order to generate a palpable sense of place and texture. He also works in his trademark sight gags, usually at the expense of pudgy character actor Jack Weston, who plays a crass American developer trying to score a big deal before Cuba implodes.

          Supporting player Hector Elizondo is terrific in a more serious role, as Dapes’ military handler; Elizondo’s knowing glances and sly asides communicate volumes of worldly cynicism. Denholm Elliot, Lonette McKee, and Chris Sarandon are equally effective in less nuanced roles. As for the leads, Adams looks spectacular throughout the picture, even if her character is written in such a confusing way that Adams is precluded from portraying consistent behavior. Connery pours on the manly-man charm, and he’s actually quite effective in his scenes with Adams, displaying more sensitivity than he usually integrates into his performances, but the story weirdly sidelines his character until the climax.

          Still, even with these catastrophic flaws, Cuba has indisputable virtues. The location photography by David Watkin is vivid, and the script by frequent Lester collaborator Charles Wood is witty. One typically tart dialogue exchange occurs between Weston and a prostitute. Weston: “Don’t you Cubans know that time is money?” Prostitute: “I do.”

Cuba: FUNKY

Deadhead Miles (1971)

More a series of vignettes than a story, the first original feature written by enigmatic filmmaker Terrence Malick follows an eccentric crook named Cooper as he drives a stolen big rig across the heartland, with a sardonic hitchhiker his sole companion during several peculiar misadventures. Alan Arkin, indulging his most flamboyant impulses, plays Cooper, while gangly Jeffersons costar Paul Benedict plays the hitchhiker, so the picture is infused with strange behavior, even by the permissive standards of ’70s cinema. Malick’s dialogue is equally bizarre. Consider this exchange between Cooper, popping Benzedrine to stay awake, and the hitchhiker. Cooper: “Sometimes I sit back, roll down the windows, and let Benny do the driving.” Hitchhiker: “Don’t they affect your brain?” Cooper: “I wish they would.” None of the individual episodes is especially memorable, except perhaps the random bit of Cooper trying to make time with a redneck woman until he realizes she’s chained to the furnace of her dilapidated shack, but the dialogue is flavorful throughout. “I got a good look at that feller—I see him again, I’m gonna stick ’im in the head with a fork.” Or, “I listen to the radio, and that’s how I learn about current events, most of which aren’t in the almanac.” Cooper is an inept sort of maniac, sparking loopy conversations with strangers and committing petty larceny everywhere he goes, but never accomplishing much of anything. The hitchhiker is a willing accomplice during most of the aimless journey, even though he never really gets the hang of tossing soda bottles at street signs the truck passes; Cooper’s a stone-cold pro at that. Interesting people float through the movie (watch for Charles Durning, Hector Elizondo, Loretta Swit, and cameo players Ida Lupino and George Raft), and director Vernon Zimmerman is an interesting Hollywood footnote because he made the amiable cult flick Fade to Black (1980). But the strongest appeal of this cheerfully pointless movie—which has never been released theatrically or on video—is spending 90 minutes inside a funhouse-mirror world of Malick’s creation.

Deadhead Miles: FUNKY