Conrack (1974)

          Southern novelist Pat Conroy has enjoyed a productive relationship with Hollywood; of the four theatrical features adapted from Conroy’s books, one is a glossy, Oscar-nominated melodrama (1991’s The Prince of Tides), one is a respected character study that also received Oscar-nomination love (1979’s The Great Santini), and only one is middling (1983’s The Lords of Discipline). The other Conroy adaptation (which was, chronologically, the first cinematic translation of his work) is a small-scale charmer drawn from a vivid episode in the author’s early life. Before embarking on his literary career, Conroy worked as a teacher in an impoverished and mostly African-American community located on a tiny island in South Carolina. Adopting a hip, humanistic approach that rubbed conservative administrators the wrong way, Conroy made friends among students and their families but was fired for refusing to treat his charges with the cynicism that was previously the norm. Translating his struggles into art, Conroy wrote an autobiographical book called The Water Is Wide, which formed the basis of this film.

          Adapted by the reliable team of Martin Ritt (director) and Harriet Frank Jr. and Irving Ravetch (screenwriters), Conrack stars Jon Voight as Pat Conroy, who is portrayed as the quintessential rebel with a cause. Pat drifts into his new job filled with bold educational aspirations and a deep desire to treat the people he encounters as human beings, rather than statistics or stereotypes. Continuing the long tradition of heroic-teacher movies that stretches all the way from Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) to Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995) and beyond, Conrack focuses equally on the noble sacrifices of a dedicated educator and the way students’ lives are elevated by the nurturing qualities of a supportive classroom environment. In lesser hands, this material could have been saccharine, especially given the way racial divisions in the story create opportunities for cheap moralizing. Yet because Ritt and his collaborators approach the story with such realism and taste, shooting the film on real locations and eschewing cheap sentiment, Conrack feels like a believable sketch of a difficult challenge faced by a principled man. (Make what you will of the self-aggrandizement inherent to autobiographical material that positions the author as a saintly figure.)

          Ritt’s conscientious approach is supported beautifully by Voight’s warm and funny performance in the leading role. Whereas Voight sometimes slid into show-boating tearfulness in later dramas, he’s spot-on here, channeling the indignation of a decent man faced with a stubborn system—and the genuine joy of a born leader who finds just the right followers. Marching behind Voight is an eclectic supporting cast (including Hume Cronyn, Antonio Fargas, Paul Winfield, and Madge Sinclair) all of whom hit their respective notes of guilelessness and inflexibility in credible ways. FYI, Conroy’s source material was revisited for a 2006 TV movie, which bore the book’s original title, The Water Is Wide. And, in case you’re wondering, the title Conrack comes from a persistent mispronunciation of his Conroy’s surname that he encountered on the job in South Carolina.

Conrack: GROOVY

Norma Rae (1979)

          Gritty, heartfelt, and passionately political, Norma Rae is an old-fashioned message movie that could easily have slipped into the one-dimensional mediocrity one associates with generic TV movies. After all, it’s the fictionalized story of a real-life factory worker who risked her employment in order to unionize the workers in an oppressively conservative Deep South community. What elevates Norma Rae above the norm is the conviction of Martin Ritt’s filmmaking, the intelligence of the script by frequent Ritt collaborators Harriet Frank Jr. and Irving Ravetch, and, most importantly, the inspirational performance in the title role by Sally Field. After becoming famous on such dippy ’60s TV series as The Flying Nun and Gidget, Field demonstrated serious dramatic chops with the acclaimed telefilm Sybil (1976), but it took a few years for her to win a substantial role in a theatrical feature. She seized the opportunity with the same fervor that her character assumes her destiny as a labor leader. Downplaying her fresh-scrubbed prettiness (while still rocking an amazing figure in skimpy T-shirts and tight jeans), Field slips convincingly into the skin of a blue-collar working mom exhausted from trying to balance a job and a family.

          When we meet Norma Rae Webster (Field), she’s one of many put-upon drones in a cotton mill, though Norma Rae gives her thuggish superiors more lip than anyone else on the factory floor. One day, labor organizer Ruben Warshowsky (Ron Leibman) shows up to recruit workers interested in unionizing, and thus begins a sort of ideological courtship with Norma Rae. Although the two never become lovers—Norma Rae’s devoted to her decent but simple husband, Sonny (Beau Bridges)—Ruben opens Norma Rae’s eyes to the possibilities of the outside world. As a fast-talking Jew from New York, he seems like an exotic creature to Southern-bred Norma Rae, and the way he respects Norma Rae’s mind instills a newfound sense of intellectual pride. Empowered by Ruben’s friendship and driven by the desire to make the world better for her people, Norma Rae organizes a factory strike that has dangerous repercussions in her private and professional lives.

          Given its nature as an unlikely-hero parable, the ending of Norma Rae is a foregone conclusion, so one could easily complain that the dramatic stakes of the picture never feel terribly high. Then again, the purpose of a movie like this one is paying tribute to the sacrifices virtuous people are willing to make for worthwhile causes, and Norma Rae does indeed go through rough patches. It helps, tremendously, that Ritt and cinematographer John A. Alonzo shot the picture in a real factory and other genuine locations, so the texture of the piece feels real even when the dramaturgy gets schematic. The supporting cast is solid, featuring such reliable character players as Morgan Paull and Noble Willingham, and both Bridges and Leibman play their key roles with humanity and humor. Ultimately, of course, this one’s all about Field, who won an Oscar for her rousing work; Norma Rae also collected an Oscar for Best Original Song, the Jennifer Warnes-sung “It Goes Like It Goes.”

Norma Rae: GROOVY

The Cowboys (1972)

          Although John Wayne’s actual cinematic swan song was The Shootist (1976), which depicts an aging gunfighter’s quest for death with dignity, the Duke’s earlier film The Cowboys is in many ways a richer closing statement about the themes Wayne spent decades exploring in Western movies. Instead of merely pondering the question of whether a man who lives by the gun must die by the gun—the poignant central theme of The Shootist—The Cowboys explores all the qualities, bad and good, that defined the Duke’s screen persona. His character, Wil Andersen, combines frontier values, heroic self-sacrifice, macho stoicism, and, of course, that most American of qualities: rugged individualism. The fact that Andersen’s journey inadvertently inspires a group of boys to become young men molded in Andersen’s honorable image perfectly echoes the manner in which Wayne’s characters inspired generations of moviegoers. So, whether you love or hate Wayne’s on- and off-screen politics, it’s easy to appreciate the elegance of this picture’s symbiosis between star and story.

          Based on a novel by William Dale Jennings and adapted for the screen by Jennings and the husband-and-wife duo Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr., The Cowboys tells a simple story about noble characters clashing with craven ones. In the beginning of the movie, rancher Andersen preps for a cattle drive until his crew abruptly quits to join the Gold Rush. In short order, Andersen finds himself interviewing an unlikely set of replacements—several schoolboys, some teens and some even younger. When the kids display unexpected determination, he agrees to hire them. However, word of available work also attracts a gaggle of varmints led by Asa Watts (Bruce Dern), whom Andersen quickly identifies as a dangerous type. Andersen refuses to hire Asa’s gang, and then sets off on the drive with the kids as his crew. A series of frontier adventures ensues, during which Andersen gruffly mentors the boys on what it takes to succeed in the cattle biz. Meanwhile, Asa’s nefarious gang trails the cowboys, eventually leading to an infamous showdown between Dern and Wayne—the climax of the duel won’t be spoiled here, but suffice to say one single moment helped cement Dern’s typecasting as a crazed villain.

          Although the storyline of The Cowboys is so schematic as to seem a bit like a fable, the piece works—mightily—because of immaculate craftsmanship and vivacious performances. Director Mark Rydell, himself a thespian, does a gorgeous job of blending different types of acting, so everything from Wayne’s stylization to Dern’s improvisation feels unified; Rydell also draws fine work from young performers including Robert Carradine, who made his screen debut in The Cowboys. (Grown-ups in the fine supporting cast include Roscoe Lee Browne, Colleen Dewhurst, and Slim Pickens.) Cinematographer Robert Surtees captures the rugged beauty of untarnished landscapes, while composer John Williams’ music strikes just the right balance of excitement and wistfulness. And if the movie’s a bit bloated at 131 minutes, so what? Thanks to its careful treatment of resonant themes, The Cowboys is arguably Wayne’s best film of the ’70s.

The Cowboys: RIGHT ON

The Spikes Gang (1974)

          Taking themes from the John Wayne hit The Cowboys (1972) to an even darker extreme, The Spikes Gang is a terrific Western drama about a group of young farm boys who emulate an outlaw, with deadly results. Gary Grimes, still fresh off the coming-of-age charmer Summer of ’42 (1971), teams with Ron Howard and Charles Martin Smith, who previously costarred in American Graffiti (1973), to play a trio of young, unsophisticated men who discover a wounded outlaw in a forest near their families’ farms. The gunslinger, Harry Spikes (Lee Marvin), asks for their help, so Will (Grimes), Les (Ron Howard), and Tod (Smith) transport Harry to a barn, feed him, and tend to his gunshot wounds. Once Harry recovers, he promises to help the boys if they ever need anything, and then rides off on a horse Will provides. Will’s stern, ultra-religious father discovers his son’s activities and beats Will, which prompts the young man to run away from home.

          Eager for adventure and seduced by Harry’s grandiose stories about his exciting life as a criminal, Les and Tod join Will. They rob a bank, incompetently, and kill a bystander in the process, so they’re quickly indoctrinated into the dark side of the rebel lifestyle. Eventually, the lads get arrested and land in a Mexican jail, but Harry passes through the Mexican town and honors his debt by arranging their release. Flattered by the boys’ idolization, Harry hires the young men as his new gang and attempts a brazen robbery, during which things start going terribly wrong.

          Even with solid production values and uniformly good acting, the movie’s best virtue is a sensitive screenplay by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr., the Western-cinema veterans who, not coincidentally, wrote the script for The Cowboys. Equally adept at crafting sparse dialogue and indicating characterization through behavior, Ravetch and Frank create a grown-up style of melodrama, so the storyline feels fresh and surprising as it winds toward a sad climax that’s infused with a powerful sense of inevitability.

          Director Richard Fleisher, a journeyman who worked in nearly every imaginable genre, serves the screenplay well by shooting scenes simply; his economical frames allow the actors to express the script’s relatable emotions in an unfussy manner. Playing the film’s leading role, Grimes does fine work, building on the frontier existentialism he explored in The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972). Concurrently, Marvin’s gruff poeticism perfectly suits the role of a self-serving career criminal. Howard and Smith balance the leading players with their complementary shadings of adolescent angst and affable naïveté. It’s true The Spikes Gang traffics in familiar themes, but graceful execution and heartfelt performances help the movie connect on a deeper level than expected. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

The Spikes Gang: GROOVY