Maxie (1973)

Whatever happened behind the scenes of this oddity must be more interesting than what happens onscreen. Writer-director Paulmichel Mielche, who never made another fiction film, attracted some of the folks from Francis Ford Coppola’s filmmaking collective to work on his crew, and three respectable actors—Talia Shire, Vic Tayback, and Robert Walden—appear in the picture. Perhaps Mielche talked a good game about the picture he intended to make. Or perhaps some in the American Zoetrope crowd dug the idea of playing with exploitation-film elements. Whatever the case, Maxie—later sensationally but not inaccurately renamed The Butchers—is interminable. The story revolves around Maxie (K.T. Baumann), a young girl who cannot speak but helps make money for her small family by delivering newspapers. One day, she spots neighborhood butcher Smedke (Tayback) and his simple assistant, Finn (Walden), taking delivery of human corpses. Finn and Smedke spend the rest of the movie debating whether they should be worried about what Maxie saw. In a subplot, Shire plays a social worker eager to get Maxie into a speech-therapy program. Riddled with confusing transitions and pointless scenes, Maxie trudges along so slowly that it’s incorrect to describe the film as badly paced—it has no pace whatsoever. Shire and Walden play a few moments sincerely, and Tayback incarnates a stereotype loudly. But by the zillionth time Mielche cuts to weird shots of chickens and meat grinders, you’ll be more than ready for Maxie to end—that is, if you haven’t taken the wiser course of avoiding the movie entirely.

Maxie: SQUARE

The Sidelong Glances of a Pigeon Kicker (1970)

          How close does this flick get to navel-gazing? It’s a matter of inches. In one scene, excruciatingly self-absorbed protagonist Jonathan (Jordan Christopher) lays in bed with his girlfriend, toying with his chest hairs and lamenting how difficult it is to style them. Upset that his girlfriend doesn’t appreciate the importance of this problem, he suggests she take male hormones. “That way,” he says, “you could share my experience.” Surely both Jonathan and the filmmakers are being playful here, but the presence of such a trivial scene indicates the picture’s myopic perspective. This is yet another hip youth-culture story tracking the misadventures of an entitled dude who resents that life demands he consider other people’s feelings. Like the same year’s The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart, this is a character study of a capricious jerk, so the drama stems from situations in which the “hero” discovers that others don’t value his feelings as highly as he does. In modern parlance, these supposedly with-it guys are snowflakes, delicate and prone to melting.

          Jonathan makes his living as a cab driver, and he spends his evenings at cool New York parties, bouncing from one sex partner to the next while finding amusement by helping his nebbish pal, Winslow (Robert Walden), meet women. Alas, self-interest always wins. During a party scene, Jonathan introduces Winslow to a nymphet, but when Winslow botches casual conversation, Jonathan accepts the nymphet’s offer of a tryst. At least until her prattling bores him. Then he abandons her. Nice guy. Eventually, Jonathan begins a proper relationship with a nice girl, only to betray her the first time a more attractive woman offers sex. You get the idea. Complications ensue, but they all run along the same line—how many people will Jonathan injure with his thoughtlessness, and how hypocritical will he become when demanding forgiveness and loyalty despite his transgressions?

          The grotesquerie of male ego notwithstanding, The Sidelong Glances of a Pigeon Kicker has some appealing aspects. Though unexceptional, the acting and filmmaking are competent. Some scenes are quirky in that special oh-so-’70s way, as when Jonathan demands that his girlfriend prove her altruism by handing out salt-shakers to strangers. A weird motif depicts Jonathan’s ongoing battle with the ants infesting a cabinet beneath his kitchen sink; at various times he declares open combat and temporary amnesty while addressing the insects. Better still, glimmers of truth emerge through the muck of the storyline, which is alternately arch, pretentious, and vapid, though sometimes interesting. The best moment features Jonathan’s declaration of independence, culminating in a sad revelation: “I’m not rebelling,” he says. “That takes strength, initiative, courage, foresight, determination. I’m just earning an easy living. I drive a taxi because I’m basically very lazy. . . . I found myself already, and I was very disappointed.”

The Sidelong Glances of a Pigeon Kicker: FUNKY

Bloody Mama (1970)

          Among the better films in the seemingly endless cycle of Depression-era crime flicks that Roger Corman produced while capitalizing on the success of Bonnie and Clyde (1967), this ramshackle drama is a grim piece of work with occasional flashes of real insight and sensitivity. As a whole, the movie is quite rickety, thanks to erratic storytelling and the unsuccessful use of montages that blend newsreel footage with voiceover to place the activities of the main characters into a historical context. Yet for periodic stretches of screen time, the picture feels substantial.
          Directed as well as produced by Corman, Bloody Mama purports to tell the story of real-life 1930s criminal “Ma” Kate Barker, who led a gang comprising her adult sons and various hangers-on during a violent string of armed robberies. Right from the beginning of the film, Corman tries to present a psychological reading of the title character—viewers meet Kate as a young girl, when her brothers hold her down on the ground while her father rapes her. Once the picture introduces Shelley Winters as the middle-aged Kate, mother to four redneck kids, the idea is that viewers should understand what made Kate so tough. As with similar imagery appearing throughout the film (e.g., Kate holding one of her sons in his arms while he cries himself to sleep after murdering a young woman), the psychological stuff only goes so far. Beyond the dissonance of juxtaposing high-minded material with such tacky signifiers as gory murders and gratuitous nudity, the movie simply isn’t deep or literate enough. The script, credited to Don Peters and Robert Thorn, rushes through episodes covering several years, which has the effect of reducing characterizations to snapshots, and the slavish devotion to generating commercial elements means the narrative periodically stops dead while something lurid happens.

          Nonetheless, some of the characters and performances resonate. Don Stroud is menacing as the psychotic Herman Barker, while a young Robert De Niro gives an alternately frightening and goofy turn as the drug-addled Lloyd Barker. Playing the other two brothers, Clint Kimbrough and Robert Walden don’t have much to do, and in fact they’re overshadowed by the sterling work of costar Bruce Dern, who plays latter-day gang member Kevin Dirkman with his signature idiosyncratic edge. Pat Hingle’s vulnerable performance as a kidnapping victim and Diane Varsi’s bitter portrayal of a cynical prostitute-turned-moll make distinct impressions, as well. Alas, leading lady Winters is the movie’s weak link, since her cartoonish and shrill performance exists in an unpleasant dimension all its own. Oddly enough, Winters played a comical (and pseudonymous) version of the same role a few years earlier, portraying “Ma Parker” in two 1966 episodes of the camp-classic TV series Batman. Her work suited that milieu more closely.

Bloody Mama: FUNKY

Blue Sunshine (1978)

          There’s a great story to be told about the lingering aftereffects of ’60s experiments with LSD, but Blue Sunshine is not that story. Instead, it’s a so-so horror picture in which an interesting concept gets bludgeoned by uninspired execution. The movie begins at a party, where several young adults listen to their friend Frannie (Richard Crystal) sing tunes and tell jokes. Then someone playfully yanks Frannie’s hair, revealing that he’s wearing a wig and that his scalp is bald except for a few patches of stringy hair. Frannie flees the party, only to return later in a crazed state and kill two women who are lingering at the location after the party has nearly ended. Discovered by Jerry (Zalman King), another late-to-leave party guest, Frannie runs from the party house to a nearby highway and gets run over by a truck. Through unfortunate circumstance, Jerry ends up under suspicion not only for the maniac’s death but also for the murders of the two women.

          Thus, in the mode of a conspiracy thriller, Jerry becomes a fugitive determined to explain why his friend went crazy—a quest that gains urgency when he realizes that others have experienced similar homicidal breakdowns. Eventually, with the covert help of his pal David (Robert Walden), a physician with knowledge of illegal drugs, Jerry realizes the psychotic episodes involve users of a form of LSD called “Blue Sunshine,” which was sold years ago by Edward (Mark Goddard), who is now a respectable citizen running for Congress. Predictably, Jerry has a hard time proving his wild theory that a fast-rising politician is responsible for the spread of a mind-altering substance that destroys its users.

          Although writer-director Jeff Lieberman’s filmmaking is relatively slick—his camerawork is calm and sensible, his storytelling lucid—he can’t really overcome confused intentions. On one level, the picture is a dark drama about the dangers of amateurs creating their own brands of LSD. But on every other level, Blue Sunshine is a tacky horror flick, complete with scenes of housewives freaking out and attacking their children with butcher knives. Plus, the acting runs the gamut from terrible to workmanlike—nobody in the cast of Blue Sunshine is particularly credible except for Walden, a fine character player known for All the President’s Men (1976) and the TV series Lou Grant (1977-1982). King, who later produced and/or directed myriad  ’80s and ’90s softcore movies, is an especially weak link, offering bug-eyed intensity instead of real acting. And while the murder scenes are undeniably creepy, they’re also a bit goofy, with each murderer suddenly revealing a bald scalp before shifting into pyschosis.

Blue Sunshine: FUNKY

Our Time (1974)

          Before establishing a reliable brand with a run of moody conspiracy thrillers and wiseass action pictures, director Peter Hyams took journeyman gigs like helming Our Time, a sensitive-ish youth drama that’s only incrementally better than the average afterschool special of its era. Shot with a photographer’s eye for atmospheric detail (always a Hyams signature), the picture has adequate period texture but nowhere near enough originality or substance. Set in 1955, the exceedingly slight story concerns the romantic travails of private-school students Abby (Pamela Sue Martin), a pretty youth generally found courting trouble through insubordination and tardiness, and Muffy (Betsy Slade), her ugly-duckling best friend/roommate.

          Over the course of several months, Abby takes her romance with prep-school student Michael (Parker Stevenson) to the physical realm, while Muffy endures all sorts of misery as she pursues a stuck-up boy who doesn’t want her and reluctantly accepts the affections of a bespectacled dork who does. The first hour of the movie is quite tedious, since there’s no real dramatic tension—the characters aren’t interesting enough for viewers to get concerned about their romantic entanglements. Worse, Abby’s storyline, which is ostensibly the main thread of the story, is eclipsed by Muffy’s sordid melodrama. It’s not as if the filmmakers failed to select a focus; rather, it’s as if the filmmakers grossly overestimated the dramatic value of Abby’s romantic misadventures.

          This problem is exacerbated by a charisma inequity among the leading players: Martin and Stevenson, who later reunited as costars of the TV series The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, are not well matched, for while Martin offers naturalism and pouty sexiness, Stevenson is so blandly professional that he seems more like a stand-in than an actual performer. Therefore, Slade easily steals the movie from both romantic leads, since she gets to perform nearly every interesting action in the story. (It’s hard to discuss the specifics of her big moments without giving away the only substantial turn in the story, so suffice to say she’s affecting when the time comes.)

          As for Hyams, he delivers characteristically confident camerawork, slinging long lenses low to the ground in order to create scope, and sliding dollies through large spaces in order to accentuate scenes with motion. It seems clear he also created a comfortable space for actors, but the twin shortages of a shallow script and unexceptional acting limit how much he can accomplish. Still, the last half-hour of the picture, when the lives of the characters take a bleak turn, has a little bite, and deft character actor Robert Walden shows up for a memorable one-scene role. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Our Time: FUNKY

Capricorn One (1978)

Peter Hyams’ loopy conspiracy thriller has the American government faking a Mars landing to score political points, a storyline so ’70s it almost hurts. The outrageous concept is rich with visual and narrative potential, only some of which writer-director Hyams mines in his entertaining but inconsistent narrative. The main problem with the movie is also its main contrivance: After participating in the hoax, three astronauts learn that the government expects them to crash during their spaceship’s staged return to terra firma, because they’ve got to disappear for real in order to sell the illusion. Quick question No. 1: If the astronauts can’t be trusted, then how can the dozens of technicians involved in mounting the conspiracy be trusted? Quick question No. 2: How does a crash landing give the government the PR win they’re seeking by staging a fake Mars landing in the first place? Don’t look for answers, because logic takes a backseat to pulpy fun as plot twists slam into place so quickly they cause cinematic whiplash. The bits depicting the actual fabrication of the Mars landing are colorful, but oddly enough a long sequence of leading man James Brolin trapped in the deserts of the American Southwest is more vivid. Hal Holbrook shines as the main conspirator, delivering an epic monologue toward the beginning of the picture that lays out the particulars of the plot; with his mesmerizing scowl and lilting voice, Holbrook’s one of the few actors who can make that many minutes of unbroken speech compelling. Elliot Gould plays a combination Woodward and Bernstein as the intrepid reporter who tracks the case, doing his amiable bumbling-schnook routine, and the endangered astronauts at the heart of the story are portrayed by a truly eclectic trio: Brolin, O.J. Simpson, and Sam Waterston. They’re so mismatched that they represent of sliding scale of American acting, from Simpson’s cheerful incompetence to Brolin’s vapid professionalism to Waterston’s earnest skillfulness. Ace character players James B. Sikking and Robert Walden are in the mix too, as is Telly Savalas in a gonzo cameo that adds gleeful absurdity to the climax.

Capricorn One: GROOVY