Song of Norway (1970)

          A lavish widescreen musical romance set in the mountains of Europe, Song of Norway was plainly envisioned as a successor to The Sound of Music (1965), but Song of Norway contains exactly none of the charm and wit that made The Sound of Music one of the most beloved Hollywood films of all time. Like the earlier picture, Song of Norway was adapted from a successful Broadway musical. Unlike the earlier picture, Song of Norway was adapted badly—from material that was probably questionable in the first place. Norwegian star Torlav Maursted, a capable singer and dancer but merely a serviceable actor, stars as Edvard Grieg, the real-life Norwegian composer who overcame early struggles to become an important voice on the international music scene during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Awful songs interrupt the narrative at regular intervals, thereby pushing the film to undeserved epic length. (The stage show added insipid lyrics to Grieg’s melodies.)

          To understand how cloying and milquetoast this movie gets during its worst moments, one need only note that the picture’s female lead is Mrs. Brady herself, Florence Henderson. Soullessly directed by Andrew L. Stone, Song of Norway bludgeons viewers with suffocating optimism during the first hour and a half, then returns after an intermission for a final act containing weak attempts at heavy drama. The gist is that young Edvard Grieg finds himself torn between his first love, Therese (Christina Schollin), and his first cousin, Nina (Henderson). Even after he marries his cousin, Edvard accepts patronage from the wealthy Therese. Meanwhile, Edvard makes grand plans with his best friend, Richard (Frank Porretta), the composer of Norway’s national anthem, only to disappoint Richard at a crucial moment. If Song of Norway is any indication, Edvard was a bit of a jerk.

          Costars Robert Morley and Edward G. Robinson—each of whom seems as believably Norwegian as Henderson—try to enliven their scenes, but the sheer weight of the movie’s happy-shiny bloat defeats them. Everything in Song of Norway is so false and sickly-sweet, right down to the partially animated scene with evil giants (!), that the high point is probably the moment when Edvard hits a petulant young piano student. For a few seconds, believable human behavior breaks the tra-la-la tedium.

Song of Norway: LAME

1980 Week: Oh! Heavenly Dog

          Slick but wrongheaded, this unlikely collaboration between family-friendly filmmaker Joe Camp and sarcastic Saturday Night Live alum Chevy Chase derailed the popular Benji franchise. Turns out moviegoers weren’t eager to see scruffy little mutt Benji associated with sex jokes and swearing. Shamelessly lifting concepts from Heaven Can Wait (1978), which was itself a remake of a remake, Oh! Heavenly Dog takes place in London, where American B.J. Browning (Chase) works as a private investigator. One day, shortly after a meet-cute with pretty Englishwoman Jackie (Jane Seymour), B.J. is hired by a mystery man (Omar Sharif) to protect a wealthy woman. When he reaches the lady’s flat, B.J. discovers that she’s dead—and then B.J. gets killed with a butcher knife. Upon arriving in the afterlife, B.J. learns that this admission to heaven is conditional on doing one more good deed: solving his own murder. Since no human vessels are available, B.J.’s soul is put inside a cute little dog, also named B.J. (Benji).

          That’s when Oh! Heavenly Dog starts to lose what little appeal it possessed beforehand. As in prior Benji movies, producer-director Camp and his animal trainers lead their four-legged star through elaborate tricks, simulating a “performance.” The twist this time is that Chase, in voiceover, provides the dog’s inner thoughts—or, more accurately, B.J. the human’s inner thoughts. As if to tell the audience right away that their beloved canine star has left G-rated territory, the first line Chase speaks in dog mode is, “Oh, shit, that was close!” Later, once Seymour’s character reenters the story, the movie features a pair of scenes in which Benji and Seymour bathe together, complete with bedroom eyes across the suds. These scenes are exactly as icky as they sound.

          The voiceover gimmick works for a while, and Chase lands a number of lines well, but eventually viewer fatigue takes hold in a big way. The last 40 minutes or so, during which Benji and the lovely but vapid Seymour conduct the murder investigation together, are utterly lifeless. The presence of dynamic costar Robert Morley only helps so much, and Sharif’s disdain for the movie is plainly evident. While not an outright stinker (though it comes close), Oh! Heavenly Dog is too crude for children and too insipid for adults, but it’s interesting to see how hard Camp tries to make the whole contrived enterprise take flight. Someone even wrangled songs by Elton John and Paul McCartney for the soundtrack.

Oh! Heavenly Dog: FUNKY

The Human Factor (1979)

          Like many iconic directors who began their careers in the studio era, Otto Preminger fared poorly in the ’70s—with each successive picture, his old-fashioned style seemed more and more disconnected from current trends. Adding to the problem was the filmmaker’s apparent creative fatigue, because Preminger’s final films are even more static and talky than the ones he made in his heyday, which is saying a lot. This doesn’t mean, however, that Preminger had lost his ability find interesting material. Quite to the contrary, the director’s last feature film, The Human Factor, is an intelligent and restrained spy thriller adapted from a book by one of the genre’s grand masters, Graham Greene. Had a filmmaker with more passion tackled the project, The Human Factor could have achieved a much greater impact. As is, it’s respectable but unimpressive.

          Set in England, the story concerns two MI6 analysts, Marcus Castle (Nicol Williamson) and Arthur Davis (Derek Jacobi). Castle has settled into a quiet existence with his wife, Sarah (Iman), a former spy whom he met while working for the UK in South Africa, and her son. Conversely, Davis hates the dull routine of a desk job, preferring the high life of nightclubs and women. When clues from within the USSR alert ambitious security officer Colonel Daintry (Richard Attenborough) to a leak in MI6’s African division, Daintry collaborates with a ruthless superior officer, Dr. Percival (Robert Morley), on an investigation into the activities of Castle and Davis. Describing any more of the story would reveal key plot twists, but suffice to say that Greene’s narrative plays provocative games with duplicity, personal agendas, and political affiliations, as well as the X factors of bloodlust and careerism.

          In fact, nearly everything about The Human Factor works except for Preminger’s direction. Tom Stoppard’s script is intelligent, if a bit mechanical, and the cast is excellent, with the exception of model-turned-actress Iman, who’s quite weak in this, her debut performance. Williamson defines a believable sort of middle-class discomfort, which is surprising to encounter in this context; Jacobi essays a would-be swinger whose style outpaces his substance; and Attenborough is terrific as a company man who maintains rigid control until he realizes the dangerous repercussion of his brazen maneuvers. Morley’s performance is a bit odd, for while he delivers lines with his usual panache, he often seems as if he’s reading dialogue from cue cards, and the lengthy sequence of Morley making exaggerated facial expressions while reacting to a topless dancer is unpleasant to watch. The stripper scene is one of many that Preminger both films unimaginatively and lets run to excessive length; these shapeless stretches dilute the story’s potential impact.

          The Human Factor eventually comes together in a credibly unresolved sort of way, since everyone involved in the story becomes affected by revelations and suspicions. Nonetheless, the movie isn’t nearly the elegant descent into darkness it should have been.

The Human Factor: FUNKY

When Eight Bells Toll (1971)

          Thoroughly enjoyable but also thoroughly silly, the spy thriller When Eight Bells Toll sprang from the pen of adventure-story specialist Alistair MacLean, who never allowed logic get in the way of a good yarn. (Previous MacLean adaptations include 1961’s The Guns of Navarone and 1968’s Where Eagles Dare.) Anthony Hopkins stars as Philip Calvert, an operative of the British Treasury who specializes in underwater work. After several ships carrying gold shipments are hijacked, Calvert receives orders from government muckety-muck Sir Arthur Arnford-Jones (Robert Morley) to investigate. Calvert places a tracking device on the next ship carrying gold, and then he slips aboard the vessel once it’s hijacked. The criminals are more heavily armed than expected, so even though Calvert kills a couple of them, he barely escapes. Nonetheless, he identifies the rough geographic region where the hijackers are most likely based—the rugged coast off the Scottish highlands—so Calvert travels to the area incognito, accompanied by intelligence specialist Hunslett (Corin Redgrave). Then Calvert makes like James Bond while investigating suspects. Naturally, one of those suspects is a beautiful young woman, Charlotte (Nathalie Delon), who makes passes at Calvert even though he’s sure she’s an enemy agent. There’s also a subplot about a group of Scottish shark fishermen who may or may not be on the wrong side of the law. Along the way, the picture includes a brawl in a graveyard, a knife fight, an underwater duel involving a blowtorch, a mountain-climbing sequence, and a massive shootout in a cave.

          Deciphering the plot of When Eight Bells Toll isn’t worth the trouble—as is true for most pictures derived from MacLean’s loopy narratives—but the movie is fun to watch. In addition to employing his superlative dramatic skills, the icy Hopkins is cast well because his character is a derisive prick—it’s easy to believe that Calvert could survive in a line of work fraught with danger. Better still, director Étienne Périer and cinematographer Arthur Ibbertson make fine use of the film’s Scottish locations. The sky is heavily overcast in nearly every scene, and the ground looks dirty and wet throughout, so it feels like Calvert’s facing opposition from the climate as well as from criminals. A foreboding castle is a principal location, and the movie’s most exciting sequence features a helicopter crash on a high cliff, followed by a harrowing bit of Calvert trying to survive underwater in the wrecked chopper while killers prowl the ocean surface. Reprising a trope common to the spy genre, the behavior of the villains in When Eight Bells Toll makes no sense whatsoever, and the hero’s resourcefulness reaches godlike proportions. This is pure male fantasy, complete with a rousing, 007-influenced music score by Walter Scott—who, incidentally, later had a sex change and continued her career under the name Angela Morley.

When Eight Bells Toll: FUNKY

Theatre of Blood (1973)

          The enjoyably nasty Theatre of Blood is one of Vincent Price’s best shockers, not only because of the droll storyline—an actor murders his critics—but because Price gets to demonstrate so many colors in his dramatic spectrum. Although once again consigned to incarnating a homicidal madman, the horror-cinema legend also “plays” several key characters from the Shakespearean canon, because each of his crimes is themed to a particular work by the Bard. Thus, rather than merely speechifying about how he’s been wronged by the world—the usual mode for Price’s villains—the character of Edward Lionheart performs snippets from Hamlet (“To be or not to be”), Julius Caesar (“Friends, Romans, Countrymen”), and so on. It’s apparent that Price is having a blast, and his good cheer makes up for the overall gruesomeness of the movie.

         Plus, while director Douglas Hickock can’t match the high style of other ’70s filmmakers who worked with Price (notably Robert Fuest, who made the gonzo Dr. Phibes movies, to which the storyline of Theatre of Blood owes a considerable debt), Hickock benefits from an exemplary supporting cast. Diana Rigg plays Lionheart’s daughter/accomplice, and actors portraying Lionheart’s “guest victims” (as they’re billed in the trailer) include such venerable Brits as Harry Andrews, Jack Hawkins, Michael Hordern, and Robert Morley.

          The story begins with Lionheart suffering the final humiliation of an unsatisfying career: Critics deny him the award he longed to win for his farewell season. Lionheart tries to kill himself but survives, then finds a hiding place and schemes, along with various murderous helpers, to kill each of his detractors in spectacular fashion. The bloody deaths involve cannibalism, decapitation, dismemberment, and other such horrors; as a result, Theatre of Blood lives up to its title with a fair amount of stomach-churning gore. Thankfully, the grimy stuff is complemented with a measure of wit. However, the storyline is quite episodic, so depending on one’s taste for bloodshed or Shakespeare (or both), the pattern of outlandish murders might seem repetitious after a while.

          What keeps the movie watchable, therefore, is Price’s giddy flamboyance. Masterfully employing his singular voice and rearranging his elastic features into masks of artistic anguish or sadistic glee, as the scene demands, Price plays for the cheap seats in every scene, somehow managing to simultaneously deliver a credible performance and spoof his reputation for hammy showboating. Although Theatre of Blood never quite rises above its fright-cinema constraints, the way the Dr. Phibes movies did with their perverse campiness, the movie is a treat for fans of offbeat horror films and, of course, for devotees of Price’s unique screen persona.

Theatre of Blood: GROOVY

Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978)

          In culinary parlance appropriate to the subject, Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? is a tasty trifle. The witty comedy offers neither great insights into the human condition nor even any real challenge to the audience (except the usual fun of a clever whodunit), but it’s thoroughly rewarding nonetheless. Featuring charming dialogue, an offbeat storyline, and playfully satirical characterizations, the film is the sort of cultured piffle that Audrey Hepburn made in her prime—which is not entirely coincidental, since the film’s screenwriter, Peter Stone, penned one of Hepburn’s most effervescent classics, Charade (1963).

          The plot is, appropriately, as light as a soufflé. Overbearing gourmand Maximillian Vanderveer (Robert Morley) writes an article for his influential culinary magazine, identifying the best chefs in Europe. One by one, the chefs are murdered, their bodies gruesomely cooked in the manner of their signature dishes. The only woman on the hit list, confectioner Natasha O’Brien (Jacqueline Bisset), understandably worries for her life, so she leans on her ex-husband, American fast-food entrepreneur Robby Ross (George Segal). He’s traveled to Europe to recruit a top chef as the spokesperson for his planned chain of omelet restaurants. Robby is also eager to rekindle things with Natasha, so investigating the murders becomes a grand romantic adventure. Based on a novel by Ivan and Nan Lyons, and directed by reliable journeyman Ted Kotcheff, the movie makes tremendous use of picturesque European locations (London, Paris, Venice), all photographed in a luminous classical style by John Alcott.

          Segal is at the height of his rascally charm, projecting harmless bravado and sly innuendoes; given the highbrow epicurean milieu, it’s effective and funny that his character is a vulgarian who made his fortune feeding slop to the masses. Bisset, for once, gets to offer more to a role than just her considerable physical beauty, and what she lacks in crisp comic timing she makes up for in enthusiasm; she also has a great facility for withering put-downs, usually directed toward the incorrigible Robby. It’s Morley, however, who steals the show, spewing droll barrages of pompous windbaggery. So, while it’s true that the movie gets a bit fleshy in the middle as it churns through necessary plot machinations, the main course is a delight: The film’s elaborate climax, set in and around the taping of a food show, is simultaneously silly and sophisticated. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? GROOVY

The Blue Bird (1976)

          Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlink’s fantasy about peasant children drifting through a magical dreamworld, originally titled L’Oiseau blue, provided the source material for two silent films and an Oscar-nominated Shirley Temple movie in 1940, all bearing the English-language title The Blue Bird, before venerable director George Cukor helmed this full-color musical version in 1976. Whatever charms the piece has in its previous incarnations are absent from Cukor’s picture, however, which is awkward, dull, and vapid. The whimsical story has two kids whisked away to a trippy fantasyland by a fairy named Light (Elizabeth Taylor) in order to recover the Blue Bird of Happiness, which will enrich the life of a sick child living near the peasants.

          Accompanying the children on their adventure are personified versions of household items like bread and sugar and water, plus walking-and-talking incarnations of their pet cat (Cicely Tyson) and dog (George Cole). During their journey, the kids meet an obnoxious oak tree (Harry Andrews), a demonic creature called Night (Jane Fonda), a seductive woman representing all things luxurious (Ava Gardner), and even cranky old Father Time (Robert Morley). The sheer amount of hokum crammed into one story is numbing, as are the muddled aesthetics of Cukor’s version.

          The costumes are self-consciously artificial (Tyson wears a leotard, a scarf, and half-hearted cat makeup), the settings fluctuate indiscriminately between tacky sets and lush European forests (the picture was shot in Russia), and the songs are so cloying and insubstantial that they barely register as anything more than background noise. The young actors playing the leads (including Patsy Kensit, who years later costarred in Lethal Weapon 2) are weak, and the adults fail to impress—Cukor, who seems to think he’s making a glossy MGM musical in the ’30s, steers his cast toward florid line readings instead of performances, with only Cole offering a glimmer of characterization as a loyal puppy who digs being able to chat with his master.

The Blue Bird: LAME