1980 Week: A Change of Seasons & The Last Married Couple in America & Loving Couples

          Turns out Blake Edwards’ hit sex comedy 10 (1979) presaged a string of Hollywood movies exploring the angst of middle-aged white men who consider marriage and success so inhibiting they must reaffirm their identities with extramarital sex, all under the guise of “finding themselves.” Yes, this is Me Decade entitlement taken to an absurd extreme—adultery as personal growth. Films about midlife crises were nothing new, of course, but something about this group of pictures reflects a collective reaction to body blows inflicted upon the institution of marriage during the Sexual Revolution. In fact, many of these flicks directly question the relevance of lifelong monogamous relationships. Yet despite all their with-it posturing, these pictures are also moralistic and old-fashioned. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

          Cowritten by Love Story’s Erich Segal, A Change of Seasons begins on a lurid note—nubile coed Lindsey Rutledge (Bo Derek) repeatedly emerges from the bubbling water of a hot tub, her long hair flailing and her pert breasts glistening in slow motion. What better illustration of the fantasy element coursing through this subgenre’s veins? The fellow in the hot tub with Bo is graying college professor Adam Evans (Anthony Hopkins). Later, Adam’s wife, Karyn (Shirley MacLaine), correctly guesses that he’s having an affair. He seems perplexed that she’s upset, offering idiotic remarks such as the following: “Men are different—our needs are more baroque.” Karyn responds by taking a lover of her own, freespirited handyman Pete Lachapelle (Michael Brandon). The two couples take a vacation together, and the trip is staged like a watered-down version of French farce, complete with the surprise appearances of new characters at awkward moments. Notwithstanding the spicy opening sequence, A Change of Seasons is all talk, with the cast spewing endless psychobabble about Oedipal issues and such, and the quasi-feminist ending is but one of many false notes. Costar Mary Beth Hurt lands a few jokes as the flummoxed daughter of philandering parents, and Brandon has a nice moment of pathos revealing his character’s overwrought backstory, but A Change of Seasons is ultimately just a lot of navel-gazing superficiality set to sickly-sweet music by Henry Mancini and a slew of awful songs. A baroque-en record, if you will.

          The Last Married Couple in America proceeds from a stronger comic premise and mostly avoids melodrama, but it’s not much better as a cinematic experience. George Segal and Natalie Wood play Jeff and Mari Thompson, an affluent Los Angeles couple who, as the title suggests, become exceptions to the rule as all of their friends divorce. Predictably, Jeff and Mari stray from each other, although the reasons why are neither clear nor convincing. After all, they’re still so hot for each other that at one point, they get hassled by police for making out in their car. Apparently the issue has to do with boredom, peer pressure, and the fact that Jeff has become a fuddy-duddy—somewhat hard to believe seeing as how he married an artist. (Mari is a sculptor.) In a sign of the movie’s desperation to generate hard-punchline jokes, the filmmakers include a pointless subplot about Walter (Dom DeLuise), a friend of the Thompsons who becomes a porn star. This leads to a “wild” party featuring adult-film actors and hookers, but rarely will you witness a tamer depiction of debauchery. Only the bits with Bob Dishy as a sleazy lawyer who seduces divorcées are amusing, simply because Dishy commits so wholeheartedly to his role.

          Loving Couples has echoes of A Change of Seasons, and not just because Shirley MacLaine costars—it’s another story about spouses attempting to accommodate each other’s infidelities. This time, the wife is the first to wander. In the opening scene, Dr. Evelyn Kirby (MacLaine) rides a horse and catches the eye of young stud Greg Plunkett (Stephen Collins) as he drives alongside a horse trail. He crashes his car but suffers only minor injuries, so his recovery provides an opportunity for wooing Evelyn. After these two begin sleeping together, Greg’s hot girlfriend, Stephanie Beck (Susan Sarandon), breaks the news to Evelyn’s husband, self-absorbed Dr. Walter Kirby (James Coburn). Naturally, Walter responds by commencing a fling with Stephanie. Once the truth outs, the Kirbys separate and move in with their young lovers. Complications ensue. Featuring a threadbare storyline and noxious montages, Loving Couples is perhaps the most cynical of these films, playing the destruction of relationships for lighthearted humor.

          Quite frankly, however, there’s a bit of nihilism in all of these pictures. By abandoning their principles for cheap thrills, the spouses in these films embrace a sort of spiritual nothingness. In that sense, perhaps even more disquieting than asking what these films say about their era is asking whether the filmmakers recognized the obligation—or even the opportunity—to make any sort of statement whatsoever. One more sign, perhaps, that it was just as well the ’70s were over. As a footnote, while it’s tempting to lump the 1980 Canada/U.S. coproduction Middle Age Crazy into the same category as these pictures, Middle Age Crazy casts a wider thematic net, treating adultery as a symptom of rampant consumerism. Even though it’s a weak film, Middle Age Crazy is a damn sight more thoughtful than any of these vapid flicks.

A Change of Seasons: FUNKY

The Last Married Couple in America: FUNKY

Loving Couples: FUNKY

Something Short of Paradise (1979)

          Full disclosure: I hate romantic comedies. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but the rigid structure of the genre drives me batty. Boy meets girl, or vice versa. Contrived complications ensue. Subplots involving best friends chew up screen time, masking the absence of legitimate narrative tension. And then, after the usual interrupted wedding or mad rush across town (rainstorm optional), boy apologizes for past misdeeds and declares undying love for girl, or vice versa. Yawn. One can argue that action movies and horror flicks and thrillers are just as predictable, but at least exciting things happen in those genres. Too often, rom-coms are mealy-mouthed nonentities on the order of Something Short of Paradise.

          An inoffensive picture manufactured by skilled people, it’s not a total dud, and leading lady Susan Sarandon makes a few scenes watchable thanks to her unique combination of beauty, charm, intelligence, and strength. But, man, is the storyline mundane. Furthermore, rom-coms only work if both the boy and he girl are interesting to watch. With all due respect to his impressive career in stand-up comedy and TV directing, leading man David Steinberg is no match for Sarandon. Whereas she comes across as believable and complicated, he comes across as forgettable and whiny. If you care whether his character gets together with Sarandon’s, then you have a higher degree of tolerance for this type of crap than I do. Steinberg plays Harris, the manager of a New York City arthouse cinema. Sarandon plays Madeline, a wannabe novelist slumming as a reporter. Introduced by friends, they date briefly and then separate because Madeline is afraid of commitment. Later, they reconnect when Harris’ theater hosts a retrospective for a French actor (played by Jean-Pierre Aumont) whom Madeline is assigned to interview.

          Per the genre formula, the picture also includes tepid subplots about the main characters’ best friends (played by Joe Grifasi and Marilyn Sokol), as well as the protagonists’ futile attempts at dating other people. The dialogue is jokey but not actually funny, the situations are lightweight without achieving effervescence, and Steinberg’s bland screen persona dampens Sarandon’s powerful sex appeal. In the end, it’s all just mush, a lot of talky scenes in search of a unique narrative hook. As the risk of using a phrase as trite as this movie, Something Short of Paradise is for Sarandon fans only.

Something Short of Paradise: FUNKY

Lady Liberty (1971)

A comedy that’s almost completely bereft of laughs, Lady Liberty stars the venerable Sophia Loren as an Italian factory worker who travels to New York for a reunion with her fiancé, a fellow Italian who moved to America after stirring up trouble with political activism in Europe. Sophia’s character brings along a large sausage as a gift, but when U.S. Customs officials say she’s not allowed to bring the packaged meat into the country, she takes a principled stand. Then, when her fiancé proves to be a coward and a heel by bowing to American law without a fight and by telling Sophia’s character what to do, Our Heroine finds herself adrift—and at the mercy of various predatory men. Suffice to say the sausage benefits from more character development than any of the people in the movie. Lady Liberty is filled with annoying stereotypes, from the leading character (a hot-blooded signora who seems incapable of rationality) to the supporting characters (a conniving journalist, a mama’s-boy policeman, an opportunistic politician, etc.). Much of the film’s comedy comprises scenes of Loren yelling at people or throwing food at them, and the film’s would-be romantic lead, William Devane, plays such a creep that watching him talk Loren into bed is enough to make the skin crawl. Worse, Lady Liberty is so dissonant that there’s even a joke about the Devane character’s kids holding razors to their wrists and threatening to commit suicide. From start to finish, director Mario Monicelli and his collaborators seem unsure about what sort of film they’re trying to make. At various times, Lady Liberty traffics in feminist propaganda, political satire, romantic musicality, and slapstick. Yet not one of these elements is executed well. Further, the movie needlessly portrays early-’70s New York as being populated solely by narcissistic scumbags. Even the character whom a young Susan Sarandon portrays in one scene is nasty and shrill. Had Loren managed to rise above the fray with effortless charm, Lady Liberty would have been moderately watchable. Alas, that’s not the case—she makes her character seem so impulsive, judgmental, and unhinged that one strains to imagine how any of this looked good on paper.

Lady Liberty: LAME

King of the Gypsies (1978)

          Clearly imagined as a Godfather-style epic set in the colorful subculture of modern-day gypsies, this Dino De Laurentiis production features an impressive cast, splashy production values, and a vivid storyline filled with betrayal and violence. Yet as with many of De Laurentiis’ pulpier offerings, a general atmosphere of tackiness pervades King of the Gypsies—instead of treating its characters with respect, as Francis Ford Coppola did with the Corleone family in the Godfather movies, writer-director Frank Pierson presents gypsies as one-dimensional primitives. King of the Gypsies is filled with arranged marriages, incessant shouting, quasi-Biblical domestic strife, physical abuse, and willful ignorance. Very much like Pierson’s directorial debut, the much-maligned A Star Is Born (1976), King of the Gypsies occupies a queasy middle ground between legitimate cinema and outright exploitation—both movies are too campy to take seriously, and yet both are made with meticulous craftsmanship. (Oddly, most other highlights in Pierson’s career feature greater nuance, from 1975’s Dog Day Afternoon, for which he wrote the Oscar-winning script, to various telefilms Pierson directed, including 1992’s Citizen Cohn.)

          Adapted from a book by Peter Maas, King of the Gypsies tells the life story of Dave Stepanowicz, a young man who inherits a position of power in the gypsy community but rebels against inhumane gypsy traditions. The narrative begins with an elaborate prologue that explains how Dave’s parents became involved with each other. Dave’s grandfather, Zharko (Sterling Hayden), is the king of an East Coast gypsy empire circa the 1950s. He arranges to buy a gypsy teenager, Rose, as a bride for his ne’er-do-well son, Groffo. When Rose’s family tries to back out of the deal, Zharko abducts Rose at gunpoint. Years later, Rose (played as an adult by Susan Sarandon) and Groffo (played as an adult by Judd Hirsch), give birth to children including Dave (played as an adult by Eric Roberts, in his cinematic debut). During episodes that depict Dave’s childhood and adolescence, friction grows between Dave and his abusive father, so once he’s in his 20s, Dave leaves home—thereby shunning his role as a prince in Zharko’s monarchy. Dave tries to make it on his own, even dating a non-gypsy (Annette O’Toole), but when Zharko’s health declines, Zharko summons Dave back into the family fold. A struggle for control then emerges between Dave, Zharko’s choice as the next king, and Groffo, who resents being pushed aside.

          Because the story covers so much tawdry narrative terrain, King of the Gypsies is never boring. The movie also looks great, with crisp images by master cinematographer Sven Nykvist, and the soundtrack features vibrant acoustic music by David Grisman. In fact, much of the movie works. Roberts is strong, delivering a James Dean-style performance as an angry young man, while Hirsch and Sarandon complement him well (despite playing underwritten characters). Hayden is a joy to watch, as always, even though he’s hilariously miscast, and Pierson wisely keeps the screen time of scenery-chewing Shelley Winters (playing Zharko’s wife) to a minimum. (Rounding out the flashy cast, Annie Potts plays a gypsy woman who gets a crush on Dave, and Brooke Shields plays Dave’s little sister—a poignant role that far exceeds her dramatic powers.) The intensity of King of the Gypsies rises steadily from start to finish, especially since the story concludes with a suite of violent scenes. Furthermore, the research Maas did for his book provides Pierson with abundant colorful details, such as the rituals of gypsy life. King of the Gypsies is overwrought and silly, but within its lowbrow limitations, the movie is also an entertaining ride.

King of the Gypsies: FUNKY

Pretty Baby (1978)

          A peculiar film that attracted a fair measure of controversy during its original release, Pretty Baby is somewhat difficult to appraise, because even though it’s beautifully crafted and thoughtfully written, it’s also inherently sleazy. After all, the storyline is about a teenaged prostitute in 1917 New Orleans, complete with nude scenes by leading lady Brooke Shields, who was 12 years old when she made the picture. It’s impossible to fully justify the eroticizing of a child by saying that it’s germane to the story, because director/co-writer Louis Malle could have exercised more restraint and conveyed the same narrative. Therefore, one must ask whether Malle photographed Shields so lasciviously in service of a high purpose (challenging the audience to regard erotic images without experiencing an erotic reaction) or in service of a low purpose (pandering to the worst kind of male gaze). It’s not as if Pretty Baby approaches pornography in any way, but the film’s content is troubling.

          Anyway, the story is primarily set in a high-end brothel run by the aging but formidable Madame Nell (Frances Fay), who treats her working girls and support staff like family members. Because every woman in the house is expected to earn her keep, however, the prostitutes’ daughters are groomed to become working girls themselves. One such mother-daughter duo is Hattie (Susan Sarandon), an experienced whore anxious to quit the game, and Violet (Shields), who has just come of age. As the story progresses, Hattie becomes engaged to a client and agrees to move with him to St. Louis, while Violet is “sold” to her first client, a middle-aged man who pays $400 for the privilege of deflowering her. Meanwhile, a lanky photographer named Bellocq (Keith Carradines) starts hanging around the brothel to take pictures of the women, and he becomes infatuated with the beguiling but petulant Violet. Thus, after Hattie leaves for St. Louis with a promise to return for Violet someday, Bellocq takes Violet into his home as a live-in lover. All of this is set against a backdrop of social turmoil, because the New Orleans of this movie is rattled by protests that lead to prostitution becoming illegal.

          Demonstrating his signatures of a curious mind and an eye for detail, Malle tells the story clinically, as if it’s a re-creation of a historical event. (In fact, the story is wholly fictional, although the milieu it depicts certainly existed.) Pretty Baby is on some levels a survival story about young women in an era when people born into shameful circumstances had few social options, so it has some resonance as a feminist parable. The movie also has copious amounts of atmosphere, thanks to glorious costuming and production design, to say nothing of subtly textured cinematography by Sven Nykvist. (His images capture everything from the deceptively elegant interiors of the brothel to the sweltering humidity of New Orleans’ tree-choked suburbs.)

          As for the acting, it’s a bit uneven. Carradine and Sarandon are strong, as always, and supporting players including Antonio Fargas and Diana Scarwid add saucy flavors to the mix. Faye’s performance is stiff, but her physical presentation is so perfect for the role that her weak acting is easily overlooked. And then there’s Shields. It’s hard to say whether she’s genuinely performing or merely affecting a precocious attitude, but the combination of her delicate features and Violet’s gritty persona is potent. Ultimately, Pretty Baby is far too serious an endeavor to dismiss, though it’s a mystery why the film was made.

Pretty Baby: GROOVY

Joe (1970)

          Capturing the anger and confusion of a historical moment when the “generation gap” was at its widest—the dawn of the 1970s—Joe is an unquestionably powerful film. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good film. The narrative is awkward and contrived, the title character doesn’t make his entrance until the 27-minute mark, and the infamous ending is predicated on a silly plot twist. So to characterize Joe as an incendiary statement would be to overreach considerably. Nonetheless, there are good reasons why the picture enjoyed substantial box-office success during its original release, and why it has retained some degree of notoriety since then. Written by Norman Wexler, Joe is about a middle-aged New York ad executive named Bill Compton (Dennis Patrick), who has become estranged from his twentysomething daughter, Melissa (played by Susan Sarandon in her debut film appearance).

          Living with a drug dealer in a grimy Greenwich Village flat, Melissa is a counterculture idealist who’s gotten dragged into her boyfriend’s dangerous world. When Melissa ends up hospitalized after an overdose, Bill tracks down and kills the boyfriend. Rattled after the crime, Bill stumbles into a dive bar where Joe Curran (Peter Boyle) is giving a drunken monologue blaming all of society’s problems on hippies and minorities (“Forty-two percent of all liberals are queer, that’s a fact!”). In one of the film’s least believable moments, Bill confesses his crime to Joe. Thus begins an unlikely odyssey during which Joe leverages the dirt he’s got on his new “friend” to force his way into Bill’s rarified world. Later, when Melissa flees from the hospital, Bill and Joe search for her in the drug underworld, a quest that culminates in an orgy where compliant hippie chicks service Bill and Joe while the ladies’ longhair boyfriends steal personal items from the “straights.” Revenge follows, as does tragic irony.

          As directed by the capable John G. Avildsen, who found tremendous success a few years later with Rocky (1976), Joe is probably a better-made film than the sketchy storyline deserves. The acting is uniformly good, with Boyle the obvious standout as a lout given license by circumstance to manifest his latent psychosis, and Avildsen does a fine job of defining spaces, from the crisp perfection of Bill’s Central Park apartment to the dirty chaos of hippie flophouses. But the story simply doesn’t work as anything except cheap provocation. It’s never totally clear what Joe wants from Bill, or why Bill tolerates Joe’s threatening proximity, and the idea that these two men eventually form true friendship stretches credibility to the breaking point. Worse, the Melissa character exists merely as a set-up for the ending, which doesn’t resonate anywhere near as strongly as the filmmakers presumably hoped it might have.

Joe: FUNKY

Checkered Flag or Crash (1977)

This car-race picture comes awfully close to qualifying as entertainment, but dodgy editing and vapid storytelling eventually become so distracting that it’s hard to classify Checkered Flag or Crash as anything other than a dud. Set in the Philippines, the movie depicts a 1,000-mile road race that attracts sportsmen driving cars, dune buggies, and motorcycles. Part demolition derby, part endurance test, and part speed trial, the race scenario offers great potential for action, comedy, and drama. Alas, writer Michael Allin and director Alan Gibson mostly substitute shots of cars driving through dirt patches and thick jungles for actual cinematic content. Joe Don Baker stars as champion driver “Walkaway” Madden, a bearish American, and Susan Sarandon costars as C.C. Wainwright, a car-magazine reporter who rides shotgun in Madden’s rig during the race. The other significant characters are Bo Cochran (Larry Hagman), the race’s good-ol’-boy organizer, and “Doc” Pyle (Alan Vint), Madden’s ex-partner and a rival driver. The movie largely comprises so-so racing footage, interspersed with cutesy romantic-banter scenes involving Baker and Sarandon. While both actors display their considerable innate charm, there’s no chemistry between them, and the characters are underdeveloped to the point of barely existing. Furthermore, there’s no tension in the movie, since Madden’s first-place finish is never in doubt. (After all, most of the other drivers are portrayed as losers and/or nincompoops.) The picture has decent production values, but these don’t count for much because the shooting and cutting of racing scenes is sloppy—camera angles are so close that it’s hard to distinguish details, and the editing relies on blur shots for connective tissue. Considering that Checkered Flag or Crash is a race movie, the presence of substandard racing footage pretty much scotches the whole deal. Yet the movie’s most galling element, by far, is the atrocious music score, which has a cornpone Nashville-meets-Vegas quality. Some of the cues seem pulled from old Hee-Haw sketches, and the title song is the worst kind of truckstop earworm.

Checkered Flag or Crash: LAME

The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)

          Director George Roy Hill was such a fervent airplane enthusiast that he persuaded two of his most acclaimed collaborators, screenwriter William Goldman and star Robert Redford, to join him in making this passion project celebrating the daredevils who flew biplanes at exhibitions across the country during the barnstorming era. (The trio’s previous joint venture, released in 1969, was a little something called Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.) Set in the 1920s, the picture focuses on Waldo Pepper (Redford), a World War I veteran whose military service was unspectacular. Driven to prove he’s a world-class flyer, Pepper becomes a barnstormer, performing wild stunts for spectacle-hungry crowds that are equally thrilled by crashes and triumphs.

          During this early stretch of the film, when Pepper builds a friendship with fellow flyer Axel Olsson (Bo Svenson) and struggles through a fraught romance with Maude (Margot Kidder)—who hates the risks Waldo takes—Hill achieves two impressive storytelling feats. First and most obviously, he captures the joy of flight with terrific aerial photography. Secondly and more subtly, he captures the lonely quality of men who follow an inner call toward personal achievement. Redford is the perfect actor for communicating this notion; an iconoclast who has spent decades cultivating personal mystique, Redford understands self-definition.

          Considering that Hill could easily have translated his fascination with barnstorming into a lightweight adventure film—in addition to Butch Cassidy, he and Redford made the endearing 1973 romp The Sting (which was not written by Goldman), so frothy entertainment is undoubtedly what audiences expected from this particular paring of actor and star—it’s impressive that Hill elected to go so dark. In fact, some might argue he went too dark. Goldman has often told the story of how a preview audience turned on the movie during a shocking scene involving Pepper and a terrified, wing-walking stuntwoman (Susan Sarandon). Yet viewed beyond the context of its initial release, when audiences wanted Redford to play only golden gods, The Great Waldo Pepper is a nuanced and thoughtful film that unflinchingly depicts the costs of individualism.

          As the story progresses, for instance, Pepper endures a string of accidents that cost him his pilot’s license and force him to pursue work as a movie stuntman under an alias. Goldman’s writing excels in this last movement of the picture, since Goldman has often said the theme that touches him most is “stupid courage”—boldness in the face of certain doom. The Great Waldo Pepper isn’t a perfect picture, with some of its episodes connecting more strongly than others, but it’s a unique celebration of one filmmaker’s romantic visions, seen through the prism of a star and a writer who were eager to help their friend realize his dreams of soaring through the sky, cinematically speaking.

The Great Waldo Pepper: RIGHT ON

One Summer Love (1976)

         Originally released under the title Dragonfly, this offbeat story depicts the unexpected circumstance by which romance helps a troubled individual recover from psychological trauma—and though the film obviously means well, major problems with character development undercut the intended impact. Beau Bridges plays Jesse, a tightly wound young man who has spent most of his life in a mental hospital. When the picture begins, he receives permission to exit the facility, though his doctor (James Noble) wonders whether Jesse will be able to handle the harshness of the outside world. Intent on finding the family that abandoned him after a mysterious childhood incident, Jesse treks to his hometown of Danbury, Connecticut, and, eventually, enters a movie theater. The theater’s pretty candy-counter clerk, Chloe (Susan Sarandon), discovers that Jesse has no place to stay, so she invites him home even though he’s clearly unwell.

          This single moment virtually undoes the entire movie, because it makes no sense that Chloe would take in a man whom she has already seen manifest symptoms of instability and volatility. Even the tender/tough dynamism of Sarandon’s performance isn’t enough to sell the story’s central contrivance, and producer-director Gilbert Cates—who often thrived telling stories about people with emotional problems—makes several tonal missteps, not least of which is scoring the movie with music so dark that One Summer Love occasionally feels like a horror picture. Unfortunately, Bridges’ performance hurts credibility, too; while he approaches individual scenes with appropriate levels of intensity and/or warmth, he’s unable to overcome the falseness of a character who lashes out in rage whenever it’s narratively convenient for such a thing to happen.

          The weakest section of the picture, however, involves Jesse seeking lodging with a hotel owner (Ann Wedgeworth) who all but rapes the younger man. If One Summer Love was, in part, meant to be a coming-of-age story, then a physical encounter between Chloe and Jesse would have added more soul to the film. Yet the picture recovers, somewhat, once Jesse finally tracks down family members, even though the movie’s final scene is a puzzler. One Summer Love isn’t a satisfying movie, by any stretch, but it is worth watching largely for Sarandon’s performance and for the gauzy atmospherics Cates uses to evoke the sleepy rhythms of small-town life. If logic is one of your cinematic priorities, though, take a pass on this one. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

One Summer Love: FUNKY

The Great Smokey Roadblock (1976)

          From the title and packaging, you’d think this was a brainless boobs-and-beer action flick, but buried amid the usual scenes of amiable prostitutes and crooked redneck cops is a poignant story about a dying man struggling for dignity. However, if you think 18-wheelers, hookers, and mortality seem like incompatible story elements, you’re absolutely right, based on the evidence of this incredibly erratic movie. Working from a novel titled The Last of the Cowboys (which was also this film’s original title), writer-director John Leone unsuccessfully attempts to cushion the melancholy main storyline with outrageous high jinks, and both elements suffer: The drama feels diminished by the sleazy context, and the comedy feels superfluous.

          At the center of the narrative is “Elegant” John (Henry Fonda), a trucker whose rig was repossessed while he was hospitalized and unable to pay his bills. John busts out of the hospital and steals his rig, heading down the highway to hook up with his paramour, a salty madam named Penelope (Eileen Brennan). Along the way, John picks up a Bible-quoting hitchhiker (Robert Englund) and tries to steer clear of an unscrupulous hustler (Gary Sandy) who wants to sell the stolen truck for illicit cash. For reasons that aren’t exactly clear, Penelope and her girls move into John’s trailer, turning the fugitive’s semi into a brothel on wheels–and for reasons that are even less clear, one of the prostitutes (Susan Sarandon) falls in love with the pious hitchhiker.

          Suffice it to say that the main storyline of John seeking one last adventure before death gets lost in the shuffle, despite Fonda’s valiant attempts to sell crying scenes and testy dialogue exchanges. At one low point, a redneck sheriff (Dub Taylor, of course) arrests John and the women, so the prostitutes claim their cell is too hot and strip, angling to “barter” with the corrupt lawman and his deputy. Taylor cheerfully accepts their proposal, and trust me when I say that you’ll have trouble erasing the image of grizzled old coot Taylor wearing just boxer shorts while he hops up and down and yells, “Where’s that thermostat?!!” Yet a moment later, Taylor delivers genuinely tasty dialogue: When his deputy expresses guilt over having availed himself of the women’s services, Taylor crows, “If that’s the worst thing that ever happens to you in your life, junior, then I’m gonna follow you to the ends of the world, because you’re gonna have remarkable passage.”

          It’s hard to completely dislike any movie containing chatter that colorful, to say nothing of such a robust cast, but there’s a reason this mess of a flick sat on a shelf for two years prior to its release.

The Great Smokey Roadblock: FUNKY

The Other Side of Midnight (1977)

          Adapted from a bestselling novel by shlockmeister Sidney Sheldon, The Other Side of Midnight provides a snapshot of Hollywood at a cultural crossroads. With its epic running time, international locations, and opulent production design, the romantic tragedy is a glossy example of old-school Hollywood escapism—yet the film’s abundant smut represents a concession to modern tastes. As a result, Midnight isn’t suited for either of its intended audiences: It’s way too sleazy for fans of classic Hollywood melodrama, and it’s way too ponderous for moviegoers craving exploitation. Although the picture runs a preposterous 165 minutes, the story is very simple. Poor French girl Noelle (Marie-France Pisier) learns to use sex to her advantage in the years leading up to World War II. During the war, she falls in love with a caddish American pilot, Larry (John Beck), who abandons her and later marries an American publicist, Catherine (Susan Sarandon). Hungry for revenge, Noelle seduces a super-rich Greek tycoon, Costantin (Raf Vallone), then uses his money to cause problems for Larry, eventually hiring him as the pilot for her private jet. Once the ex-lovers reunite, things get predictably ugly until the movie reaches its ridiculous conclusion.
          Why the film needs almost three hours to communicate this information is a mystery, but the strange thing is that Midnight isn’t exactly boring. There’s just enough bitchery, scheming, and sex in every sequence to keep things moving along. The problem is that it’s all so inconsequential. Noelle doesn’t engender much sympathy, and though very pretty, Pisier is cold and vapid. Larry is a one-dimensional asshole, a narrative shortcoming not overcome by Beck’s shallow performance. It’s even difficult to root for Catherine, despite the fact that Sarandon easily outclasses the rest of the cast with her earnest work; her character is written so poorly that Catherine is alternately mousy, shrewish, and stupid. To cut the unfortunate actors some slack, the fault is really in the underlying material, a storyline so contrived that viewers get hit with one scene after another like the following exchange between Noelle and her father. After Noelle refuses the sexual advances of an employer, dear old dad scolds her thusly: “War is coming. Beauty is your only weapon. Use it. Let the hand under your dress wear gold, and you will be that much ahead of the game.” Classy!
          FYI, The Other Side of Midnight earned footnote status in film history because of an unusual aspect of its release. Twentieth Century-Fox execs were so confident the picture would be a hit, they demanded that every exhibitor showing the film also book a picture for which the studio had much lower expectations, a sci-fi adventure titled Star Wars. Suffice it to say that The Other Side of Midnight was as much of a box-office bust as Star Wars was a box-office bonanza. (Available as part of the Universal Vault Series on Amazon.com)

The Other Side of Midnight: LAME

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Its status as the ultimate midnight movie unassailable, Rocky Horror has become critic-proof by this point, because people who love this campy musical and its accompanying audience-participation circus couldn’t care less whether the film meets anyone’s standard of “quality cinema.” Seen with the right crowd, Rocky Horror is a blast, because exuberant fans in fishnets cavort onstage while toast flies through the theater and everyone interacts with the movie’s dialogue. Seen without a crowd at all, the movie loses much of its appeal, if not its debauched singularity. The insipid story, which writer-costar Richard O’Brien and director-cowriter Jim Sharman transposed from O’Brien’s stage musical, is a pervy mash-up of horror-flick clichés, replacing the usual mad scientist with Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a “sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania.” (That’s the planet Transylvania, of course.) The songs are fun, especially the irresistible “Time Warp,” but the jokes are groaners and the wink-wink “we know we’re in a bad movie” vibe gets tiresome. Still, enthusiastic performances abound. Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon play Brad and Janet, white-bread paramours who fall into Frank-N-Furter’s lascivious clutches, and both actors vigorously sell the movie’s gimmicks. Sarandon also looks amazing, spending much of the picture in various states of undress. Meat Loaf sings the hell out of his small role as Eddie, an unlucky biker, and Charles Gray is droll as the movie’s caustic narrator. But it’s really Tim Curry’s movie, because he’s outrageous as Frank-N-Furter. A drag queen with bulging eyes and an overripe libido, Frank-N-Furter might be cinema’s most cheerfully obscene character. So while Rocky Horror may not be “quality cinema,” it delivers enough demented pleasure that it’s worth seeing at least once—especially with diehard fans who know the movie’s raunchy routines by heart.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show: FREAKY