Firepower (1979)

          A bad movie that occasionally manages to hold the viewer’s attention through a combination of familiar faces and spectacle, Firepower tells a convoluted story about mercenaries trying to kidnap a reclusive billionaire whom the U.S. government hopes to prosecute for criminal acts. Helmed by British action specialist Michael Winner, best known for Death Wish (1974), the picture showcases a truly odd collection of actors: James Coburn, Sophia Loren, and O.J. Simpson are the big names, while the supporting cast includes Billy Barty, Anthony Franciosa, Vincent Gardenia, Victor Mature, Jake LaMotta (!), and Eli Wallach.

          The plot is as overstuffed as the cast. In the opening sequence, Adele (Sophia Loren) watches in horror as her husband, a pharmaceutical researcher, dies in a lab explosion. Convinced her husband was murdered by operatives of a mysterious industrialist named Karl Stegner, who owns a drug company that’s under government investigation, Adele provides incriminating evidence to federal agent Frank Hull (Gardenia). Frank wants to arrest Stegner, but Stegner lives on a remote estate in the Caribbean, protected by anti-extradition laws. And that’s when things get really confusing.

          Frank seeks help from mobster Sal Hyman (Wallach), who offers to kidnap Stegner in exchange for a blanket pardon. Sal then calls in a favor from retired assassin Jerry Fanon (Coburn), who agrees to do the Stegner job for $1 million. Yet Jerry’s got a secret of his own. Jerry enlists his twin brother, Eddie, to . . . seriously, it’s not even worth explaining. Firepower is bewildering from a narrative perspective, but one gets the sense Winner realized he was building a giant heap of nothing, because he cuts the movie at an absurdly fast pace, rushing from chose scenes to double-crosses to explosions to gunfights to nighttime invasions. At any given moment, lots of colorful stuff is happening, even if it’s virtually impossible to know who’s doing what to whom, or why.

          Coburn somehow manages to emerge unscathed, his coolness seeing him through the movie’s muddiest sections, though others don’t fare as well. Loren seems perplexed by her constantly changing characterization, so she spends most of her time posing for Winner’s myriad ogling shots of her cleavage. Simpson delivers his usual perfunctory work, while stone-cold pros ranging from Gardenia to Wallach try to ensure that individual scenes make as much sense as possible. For all his shortcomings on this project as a storyteller, Winner compensates somewhat by shooting violence well, so it’s possible to absorb the most vivacious scenes of Firepower as straight shots of adrenalized nonsense.

Firepower: FUNKY

The Big Sleep (1978)

          Three years after playing Raymond Chandler’s famous detective Phillip Marlowe in Farewell, My Lovely (1975), which was set in the 1940s, Robert Mitchum reprised the role in this film, which is set in the 1970s. Making the time-shift between movies even more awkward, The Big Sleep writer-director Michael Winner employs hokey devices straight out of Chandler’s Depression-era fiction, such as femme-fatale types and hardboiled interior monologue presented as voiceover. Yet in other respects, The Big Sleep is quite modern, thanks to ample amounts of gore and nudity. Therefore, it’s an old-fashioned movie filled with things that turn off most fans of old-fashioned movies.

          Moreover, Winner risked walking on hallowed cinematic ground with this project, since the first movie version of The Big Sleep—starring Humphrey Bogart and released in 1946—is considered a classic of the original film-noir cycle. Given this tricky context, it almost doesn’t even matter that Winner’s version of The Big Sleep is an adequate little mystery/thriller. In order to satisfy all concerned parties, the movie needed to be superlative, which it is not. Furthermore, Winner inexplicably changed the location from Los Angeles (as in the original Chandler novel) to London, and then populated the cast with a random mixture of Brits and Yanks. Since nothing inherently English happens, the jump across the pond is a head-scratcher from a conceptual standpoint.

          In any event, the convoluted story begins when Marlowe is invited to the home of a rich American, retired General Sternwood (James Stewart). Sternwood hires Marlowe to scare off a would-be blackmailer. Meanwhile, Marlowe receives seductive advances from Sternwood’s adult daughters, the cynical Charlotte (Sarah Miles) and the provocative Camilla (Candy Clark). As per the Chandler story, the seemingly simple job opens a Pandora’s box of secrets, eventually placing Marlowe in the midst of betrayals, double-crosses, and murders.

           Winner hits the sleazy elements of the narrative hard, as in scenes of Camilla posing nude for a pornographer and various incidents of people getting shot through the skull. The material is so grim and the story is so bewildering that The Big Sleep isn’t fun to watch, per se, even though it boasts abundant sex appeal thanks to Clark, Miles, and costars Joan Collins and Diana Quick. Concurrently, the men in the supporting cast provide gradations of menace, with Colin Blakely, Richard Boone, Edward Fox, and Oliver Reed playing villainous types. (Offering glimmers of gallantry are the characters portrayed by Harry Andrews and John Mills.) However, none of the film’s performances or technical contributions is extraordinary, so Mitchum dominates in the absence of anything more interesting. As in Farewell, My Lovely, Mitchum’s seen-it-all demeanor suits the Marlowe character perfectly.

The Big Sleep: FUNKY

The Stone Killer (1973)

          Actor Charles Bronson and director Michael Winner cranked out so many movies together in the ’70s that it’s inevitable some of their projects were less satisfying than others. In between the high points of The Mechanic (1972) and Death Wish (1974), for instance, the duo collaborated in this convoluted crime thriller, which can’t decide if it’s about a hard-driving cop or a mastermind criminal. The setting awkwardly shuttles back and forth between New York and Los Angeles, and the movie includes about five different scenes that feel like endings. As a result, even though Winner was among the best directors of gritty action in the ’70s (ensuring that The Stone Killer has a handful of exciting scenes), the flick is a washout in terms of narrative.

          The gist of the piece is that after NYPD detective Lou Torrey (Bronson) gets run out of Manhattan for using excessive force, he lands a job with the LAPD and almost immediately discovers a scheme by mobster Al Vescari (Martin Balsam) to wipe out enemies as revenge for a decades-old gangland massacre. All of this feels very unfocused, not least because of the way Torrey somehow instantaneously becomes the most trusted plainclothes cop in the City of Angels; furthermore, most of the screen time is devoted to Torrey’s investigation of intermediaries, which has the effect of diluting Vescari’s prominence as the main villain. In fact, probably a good third of the picture involves the activities of low-level bagmen Jumper (Jack Colvin) and Langley (Paul Koslo), so it periodically seems as if Winner forgot which movie he was making. Exacerbating all of this is the fact that Bronson’s casting as a smooth-talking policeman somewhat marginalizes his strong suit of tight-lipped physical action.

          Nearly the only thing that keeps The Stone Killer watchable is the presence of vibrant supporting actors. In addition to Colvin and Koslo, who portray weasels effectively, the grab-bag cast includes Norman Fell, Stuart Margolin, and Ralph Waite. (This is a guy movie from top to bottom, so women don’t figure prominently in the mix.) Winner generates good atmosphere in both Los Angeles and New York, and the movie’s big shootout—which takes place inside the elevator shafts, parking garage, and stairwell of an office building—has a few thrills. Yet by the umpteenth time Winner cuts to a scene of Bronson and his colleagues discussing the plot for the purposes of helping the audience understand what the hell’s going on, it becomes painfully clear that Winner (who also produced) crammed way too much plot into the mix. As a final note, The Stone Killer loses points for a poster that’s a blatant rip-off of the famous one-sheet for The French Connection (1971).

The Stone Killer: FUNKY

The Nightcomers (1971)

          The last movie Marlon Brando made before his twin 1972 triumphs of The Godfather and Last Tango in Paris, which briefly returned him to prominence as one of the world’s most revered actors, The Nightcomers is a strange film on many levels. Not only is The Nightcomers a prequel—which in 1971 was still a rarity in cinema—but it’s a prequel to a book, rather than a previous movie. Written by Michael Hastings and produced and directed by Michael Winner, the film imagines what events might have preceded the narrative of Henry James’ 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw. Additionally, while Brando has top billing and a colorful role, the real leads of the picture are juvenile players Christopher Ellis and Verna Harvey, portraying children who fall under the spell of Brando’s character. (After all, these children will eventually become the protagonists of The Turn of the Screw.) The final major aspect of The Nightcomers’ strangeness is its brazen juxtaposition of eroticism and youth—The Nightcomers features bondage, nudity, and psychosexual abuse in the context of a story about children navigating adolescence.

          Set in late 19th century England, the picture begins when a wealthy aristocrat (Harry Andrews) leaves two orphaned children—of whom he is the nominal guardian—in the care of a housekeeper, Mrs. Grose (Thora Bird), and a nanny/teacher, Miss Jessel (Stephanie Beacham). The master of the house wants nothing to do with the raising of Flora (Harvey) and Miles (Ellis). Thus, the children have the run of a country estate with only the two women and a handyman, Peter Quint (Brando), for company. Peter is a crass Irishman more interested in play than work, so he fascinates the kids with his imaginative games, tall tales, and wild lectures about the nature of life and death. (“If you really love someone,” he says, “sometimes you really want to kill them.”) Much to the chagrin of the stern Mrs. Grose, the children spend most of their time with Quint, often engaging in dangerous shenanigans at his urging.

          The estate takes on a darker color when night falls, because Peter regularly visits Miss Jessel’s bedroom for rough sexual encounters—and since the children are so enthralled by Peter, Miles watches one such encounter through a peephole and attempts to re-create the bondage-filled tryst with Flora. Eventually, the children’s obsession with Peter has tragic consequences

          The Nightcomers has many peculiarities that could be described as flaws, such as the absence of a clearly defined leading character and the lack of satisfying psychological explanations for the extreme behavior of Peter, Miss Jessel, and the children. Yet as a hypothesis for what led to events in The Turn of the Screw, the film is highly imaginative. It is also effective as thriller. The sex scenes between Beacham and Brando are bracing, and the climax is horrific. As for Brando, while his lilting brogue may strike some viewers as overdone, the actor smoothly incarnates a multidimensional character. Ellis and Harvey blend innocence and wickedness effectively, while Bird strikes the correct uptight posture. Beacham, alas, is the picture’s weak link thanks to her superficial performance. That said, her eye-popping curves make the lust that drives the story highly believable.

The Nightcomers: GROOVY

Lawman (1971)

          Provocative and savage, Lawman offers an unflinching take on the iconography of the Western vigilante, positing that a killer with a badge can be as destructive to society as the criminals he’s charged with bringing to justice. Arriving around the same time as a slew of movies about modern-day vigilantism, Lawman didn’t capture the public imagination like Dirty Harry or Straw Dogs, both of which were released the same year—or even Death Wish (1974), which was made by Lawman’s director, Michael Winner—but Lawman is an interesting companion to those enduring pictures.

          An ethical rumination set in such a minor key that many viewers will find the storyline unpalatably depressing, Lawman bravely defines its hero as the worst monster in his bloody environment. If violence begets violence, the movie seems to argue, then rampant violence can easily conjure that most grisly of oxymorons, “justifiable homicide.” And yet the most interesting aspect of Lawman is that the murders committed by the story’s antihero are only nominally sanctioned by society; supporting characters spend the entire narrative trying, in vain, to persuade the titular peacekeeper from using lethal force.

          Burt Lancaster, who was always game for playing brutal sons of bitches, puts his florid acting style to good use essaying Jered Maddox, a U.S. Marshal without an iota of mercy. When the story begins, several cowboys from a ranch situated outside of a tiny town called Sabbath—make what you will of the symbolism—accidentally kill a bystander during a drunken binge. Maddox hears of the crime and kills one of the cowboys, then rides into Sabbath and proclaims his intention to eradicate all of the men responsible. This puts him in conflict not only with overbearing rancher Vincent Bronson (Lee J. Cobb), who employs the cowboys, but also with Sabbath’s comparatively weak-willed sheriff, Cotton Ryan (Robert Ryan). As the movie progresses, Maddox resists entreaties to his conscience and to his bank account, even endangering his renewed love affair with an old flame (Sheree J. North), all because of his single-minded devotion to eye-for-an-eye absolutism.

          The story stirs up thorny questions about whether a society that kills killers is worth preserving; about how deeply the meting out of deadly justice corrupts the executioner; and about what role compassion plays in the whole mix. Gerry Wilson’s script is probably a bit too literary for its own good, and the pervasive darkness of the story will be a turnoff for those who like their morality plays leavened with escapism. But especially thanks to the presence of a great supporting cast—including Robert Duvall, Richard Jordan, and Ralph Waite—this one goes down smoothly for those with a taste for bitter parables. Best of all, the final scene, in which Cobb’s thunderous performance reaches an ironically pathetic crescendo, resonates on myriad levels.

Lawman: GROOVY

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

The Mechanic (1972)

          Taken solely for its surface pleasures, The Mechanic is a handsomely made thriller with an unusual amount of detail given to the preparations hitmen take before doing bad things—at certain points, it almost seems like a documentary. Combined with enigmatically tight-lipped performances by star Charles Bronson and supporting player Jan-Michael Vincent, director Michael Winner’s clinical approach makes for a unique (and uniquely nihilistic) viewing experience. Yet learning about the film’s origins adds interesting dimensions. Writer Lewis John Carlino, who based the script on his own unfinished novel, apparently envisioned the story with a gay angle, exploring the dynamic between an avaricious apprentice and a world-weary mentor. Alas, overt references to this approach were excised, and in fact the apprentice and mentor characters are portrayed as being aggressively heterosexual. Given these behind-the-scenes negotiations about thematic content, however, it’s possible to watch The Mechanic simply as a he-man story—or to look deeper for something kinky beneath the surface.

          In any event, Bronson stars as Arthur Bishop, a methodical killer who makes his murders-for-hire look like accidents. Around the time he accepts an important contract from a group of organized criminals, Bishop inherits an unlikely trainee, Steve McKenna (Vincent). Among the most interesting elements of the film is a pair of mirrored scenes featuring these men with the women in their lives; Bishop’s girl is a prostitute (Jill Ireland) whom he pays to simulate a personal bond, and McKenna’s is a troubled hippie (Linda Ridgeway), with whom McKenna plays insidious mind games during the movie’s darkest scene. (Revealing exactly how Bishop and McKenna become allies would require giving away too much of the plot.) About half the picture takes place in Europe, where Bishop and McKenna fulfill a challenging contract, only to realize they’ve been set up for a double-cross. The betrayals pile up until an unusually hard-hitting ending.

          Winner, a frequent Bronson collaborator, shoots the film with precision, accentuating physical environments that convey more about characters than the characters themselves are willing to say; he also stages action expertly, creating tension against a grim backdrop of pervasive hopelessness. His careful treatment of brutal material gives The Mechanic a strange kind of macho integrity—and because Bronson and Vincent give such contained performances, it’s possible to project interesting psychological implications onto their blank faces. So while The Mechanic isn’t high art by any measure, it’s not a mindless thrill ride, either.

The Mechanic: GROOVY

Death Wish (1974)

          Among the most controversial movies released by a major studio in the ’70s, Death Wish turned vigilantism into a hot topic around America’s water coolers and a perennial theme for action movies. Whereas the Clint Eastwood vehicle Dirty Harry (1971) manifested late-’60s frustration with the expansion of accused criminals’ rights, Death Wish works on an even more visceral level: It dramatizes the anguish felt by crime victims. Although novelist Brian Garfield, upon whose novel the film is based, reportedly disliked the movie because of the way it seemingly condoned vigilantism, the picture has a measure of nuance—while star Charles Bronson, producer Dino De Laurentiis, and director Michael Winner focus on no-nonsense action, the underlying premise is so provocative that thematic heft unavoidably permeates the bang-bang thrills.

          Bronson plays New York City architect Paul Kersey, whose wife (Hope Lange) and daughter (Kathleen Tolan) are attacked by criminals. The thugs beat Joanna, causing injuries that lead to her death, and rape Carol, sending her into a catatonic state. Shattered, Paul takes a working holiday to Tuscon, where he befriends a gun-enthusiast client (Stuart Margolin), who gives Paul a revolver as a gift. Returning to New York and learning that his family’s assailants will probably never be caught, Paul becomes so preoccupied with street crime that he starts packing heat and looking for trouble. Before long, he’s wiping out every lowlife who crosses his path, thus becoming a folk hero to crime-fatigued New Yorkers. Once the plot gets cooking, the movie depicts the dicey relationship between Manhattan’s mysterious new avenger and the police, notably Detective Frank Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia); while city officials condemn the vigilante’s lawlessness, they relish the downtick in street crime attributed to fear of the gunman.

          While Death Wish is unquestionably lurid and sensationalistic, the harshest criticism of the movie—that it glamorizes vigilantism—is not entirely justified. The first time Paul kills a crook, he rushes home and vomits. Furthermore, the crisp screenplay by Wendell Mayes tightens the noose around Paul from the moment he begins his crusade. On a deeper level, the vengeance mission alienates Paul from society, even though he gets a perverse new spring in his step once he takes matters into his own hands.

          That said, the depiction of criminals as interchangeable ciphers makes it impossible to take the movie completely seriously. In this movie’s vision of New York, the streets are crawling with subhuman monsters, mostly African-American, and only a gun-toting cowboy can make the city safe. Even more troubling is the implication that every petty criminal deserves to die. But that’s what’s interesting about Death Wish, above and beyond the fact that it’s an exciting thriller—the movie tackles big themes, albeit clumsily. (Added novelty stems from the presence of future stars Christopher Guest and Jeff Goldblum in small roles, plus the kinetic funk/jazz score created by Herbie Hancock.)

          Death Wish was a major hit with lasting repercussions, vaulting Bronson to the A-list and triggering endless copycat movies. No official sequel appeared until 1982, but Death Wish II is putrid and the subsequent three pictures in the series are even worse, so everything worthwhile about Death Wish resides in the first movie.

Death Wish: GROOVY

Chato’s Land (1972)

          British filmmaker Michael Winner made a slew of gruesome movies in the ’70s and ’80s, often starring Charles Bronson as tight-lipped avengers who let their bloody actions speak for them. At their best, the duo created provocative work like Death Wish (1974). At their worst, they made ugly trash like Chato’s Land, which can best be described as a two-hour murder symphony. It’s hard to tell which element of the picture is most confusing and distasteful: The casting of Lithuanian-descended Bronson as a half-breed Apache, or the weird plot that presents Bronson’s character, Chato, as a vigilante seeking revenge even though he’s the perpetrator of a crime instead of the victim.

          At the beginning of the story, Chato struts into a white town, lets a racist marshal talk him into an argument, and kills the lawman instead of walking away. After Chato heads for the Indian country outside town, he’s pursued by ex-Confederate solider Capt. Whitmore (Jack Palance) and a posse of bloodthirsty townies. Once the pursuers slip into “Chato’s land,” the half-breed uses clever guerilla tactics to demoralize the posse. Then, when the pursuers rape and murder Chato’s relatives, he declares war. The problem is one of motivation: The attack that justifies Chato’s vigilantism doesn’t happen until after he’s already started picking off his enemies. Since Chato’s Land is merely a quick-and-dirty action picture, it’s unlikely the filmmakers were trying to make a nuanced statement about violence begetting violence—therefore, the storytelling just seems sloppy. It doesn’t help that most of the posse members are depicted as cartoonish rednecks, notably vile Elias (Ralph Waite) and his sex-crazed little brother, Earl (Richard Jordan). There’s some lip service given to the subject of morality, with characters including grizzled frontiersman Joshua (James Whitmore) questioning the virtue of violence, but the talk rings hollow as Winner stages one elaborate kill scene after another.

          Beyond its dubious content, Chato’s Land also suffers from erratic acting: Whereas Jordan, Waite, and Whitmore chew up the scenery, Palance wanders around in a daze, whispering elegiac monologues that don’t make much sense, and Bronson just glares a lot. Furthermore, since Bronson spends most of the movie flitting about in a loincloth, his taut musculature ends up giving a more expressive performance than his famously squinty face.

Chato’s Land: LAME

Scorpio (1973)

          The overcooked but diverting Cold War-era espionage thriller Scorpio stars Burt Lancaster as Cross, a CIA agent marked for extermination because his superior believes he’s turned double agent for the Soviets. The “Scorpio” of the title is Cross’ onetime apprentice, Frenchman Jean Laurier (Alain Delon), a suave killer the CIA uses to ice foreign enemies the company can’t “officially” eliminate. Cross’ nefarious boss, McLeod (John Colicos), hires Laurier to kill his former mentor, but Cross realizes he’s been targeted and escapes from his home base in Washington, D.C., to Europe. This sets the stage for cat-and-mouse intrigue set in Paris and Vienna, some of which is quite zippy, like a lengthy shootout at a construction site.

          However, more interesting that the action stuff is the camaraderie Cross shares with his longtime KGB counterpart, Zharkov (Paul Scofield). Both men have outgrown ideological differences, and they recognize that their ambitious young superiors are more interested in political advancement than actual counterintelligence. Zharkov finds his old friend a hiding place in Vienna, clues him in to the movements of CIA operatives assisting Laurier, and talks shop over long drunken evenings. Watching these old lions debate the broad strokes of the Cold War is fascinating, even though their exchanges are muddied by occasionally pretentious dialogue.

          Scorpio is generally smart and tense, but it’s a difficult movie to follow—not because the story is overly sophisticated, but because the filmmakers often forget to give viewers key information. The biggest flaw in this regard is that we’re never told why McLeod believes Cross went rogue, which is pretty much the whole show. However, as directed by thriller veteran Michael Winner (who never let script problems get in the way of a violent action scene), the film zooms past narrative hiccups like a getaway car blasting over speed bumps. Lancaster works a world-weary groove that keeps his tendency toward macho preening in check (though he demonstrates still-impressive athleticism in action scenes), and Delon is perfectly cast as a cool professional with a soft spot for stray cats. Scorpio is far too long at 114 minutes, and there are so many plot twists that the movie eventually exhausts itself, but there’s a lot of interesting stuff along the way.

Scorpio: FUNKY

Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976)

The real-life inspiration for this tiresome comedy is an interesting footnote in Hollywood history: Early in his career, legendary studio mogul Darryl F. Zanuck guided the career of silent-movie star Rin Tin Tin, who happened to be a particularly noble-looking German Shepherd. While the absurdity of transforming a canine into a matinee idol would seem to present possibilities for sly spoofery, Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood instead opts for broad buffoonery. Set in the anything-goes world of 1920s Hollywood, the flick smothers its slight storyline with clunky plotting, inane slapstick, overwrought production values, and pointless cameos by faded stars of stage and screen. A badly miscast Bruce Dern stars as the Zanuck-inspired lead character, a Hollywood tour guide who dreams of moguldum and seizes his opportunity when a desperate studio owner (Art Carney) mistakes Dern’s character for the trainer of a photogenic dog. The animal actually belongs to a would-be starlet (Madeline Kahn), so Dern’s character and the starlet decide to hitch a ride to stardom on Won Ton Ton’s tail. Predictably, things go awry, so much of the movie concerns Won Ton Ton’s wilderness years after he’s separated from his owners, plus their attempts to replace him and, eventually, get him back; this plot twist changes the movie from silly to sappy, and Won Ton Ton is no better at eliciting tears than it is at eliciting laughter. Although Carney and Kahn are comedy pros accustomed to playing broad material, Dern is an edgy, naturalistic actor completely out of his element. Even more out of his element is the film’s director, Michael Winner, best known for brutal action pictures like Death Wish (1974); to say that the film’s painful aspirations to effervescence feel forced is an understatement. Some viewers may enjoy Won Ton Ton’s parade of Old Hollywood cameo players (everyone from Ethel Merman to the Ritz Brothers to Stepin Fetchit to Henny Youngman), but for anyone but obsessive devotees of movies about movies, Won Ton Ton is, well, a dog.

Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood: LAME