Your Three Minutes Are Up (1973)

          Strong acting elevates Your Three Minutes Are Up, a tonally confused dramedy about a straight-laced dude who tries to emulate his carefree buddy, leading to catastrophe. Beau Bridges plays the uptight guy well, articulating how his character envies his friend’s ability to change sexual partners daily and live beyond his means through various financial scams, while Ron Leibman is terrific—which is to say maddening—as the loudmouth swinger leaving a trail of bad debts and hurt feelings in his wake. The point seems to be that the uptight guy could use a little of his pal’s looseness, and the swinger could use a little of his friend’s social responsibility. Unfortunately, both characters come across as jerks. The uptight guy torments his fiancée by disappearing for an adventure, and the swinger is an outright liar and thief. That being the case, it’s hard to know whether viewers are meant to feel excited or repulsed when, say, the guys stiff two young girls with the check for an expensive meal or scam a payoff from an unlucky motorist by deliberately causing a fender-bender. Is this a bummer morality tale or a kicky thrill ride?

          At the beginning of the movie, Los Angeles working stiff Charlie (Bridges) is the typical movie schmuck, the sort of character Jack Lemmon played a zillion times for Billy Wilder and other directors. He slaves away at a soul-sucking job, endures constant criticism from his betrothed, Betty (Janet Margolin), and watches wide-eyed whenever Mike (Leibman) scores with a busty Scandinavian or some other sexpot. Then Mike’s life hits a wall. His bank account runs dry, his car is repossessed, and his unemployment benefits are cancelled because he’s lied about pursuing work. Mike asks Charlie for a lift to the airport, and that leads to an endless drive up the California coast, with mischievous idylls in Santa Barbara and the Bay Area. Charlie has a blast partying with hookers and running scams, though he knows his real life will eventually catch up with him, whereas Mike seems oblivious to the idea of consequences.

          Although the filmmakers clearly meant to imbue Your Three Minutes Are Up with humorous elements, very little of what happens is funny. Bridges’ character seems more depressed than pathetic, and Leibman’s is so obnoxious it’s hard to enjoy his rapscallion excesses. Yet if the movie is viewed a melancholy character study or as a critique of the carefree swinger lifestyle, Your Three Minutes Are Up is somewhat effective. One more thing: The Oscar-winning 2004 dramedy Sideways bears such a remarkable resemblance to this picture that it’s likely Rex Pickett, author of the novel upon which Sideways is based, saw Your Three Minutes Are Up and never forgot the experience.

Your Three Minutes Are Up: FUNKY

Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)

          Not many films merge existential ruminations, horrific re-creations of World War II tragedies, satirical vignettes about the domestic life of a suburban optometrist, and surrealistic sci-fi interludes featuring a topless starlet abducted by aliens. So it goes in Slaughterhouse-Five, the elegantly made but emotionally distant adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s most celebrated novel. Very much like Mike Nichols’ film of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1970), another impressionistic riff on World War II, George Roy Hill’s film of Slaughterhouse-Five boldly attempts to translate uniquely literary devices into cinematic language. And very much like Nichols’ Catch-22, Hill’s Slaughterhouse-Five boasts a handful of effective moments amid a whole lot of eclectic sprawl. In fact, Hill conveys certain elements of Slaughterhouse-Five exquisitely, such as the imaginative visual transitions that bounce the story back and forth between different time periods.

          Alas, bravura editing is not nearly enough to compensate for the way Vonnegut Jr.’s fantastical storyline is pulled down to earth by the oppressive realism of Hollywood filmmaking. Very specifically, the fact that very young leading man Michael Sacks plays his character in many stages of life, all the way to late middle age, forefronts artifice. Furthermore, because Hill creates believable images during outlandish scenes, he robs Vonnegut Jr.’s metaphors of their ability to percolate in the reader’s mind. Everything feels numbingly literal. And, of course, because Hill and screenwriter Stephen Geller dropped whole elements of the source novel, it’s hard to imagine this film fully satisfying either fans of the book (who could rightfully lament alterations) and newcomers (who could rightly claim befuddlement at how the reality-based and surrealistic aspects of the movie are supposed to converge).

          In any event, the movie concerns Billy Pilgrim (Sacks), whom we meet as an aging man living alone in the ’burbs following his wife’s death. Billy claims to be “unstuck in time,” so he flashes back to periods including World War II, when he was a POW in the German city of Dresden during its merciless firebombing by the Allies. (Over 100,000 people were killed in the attack.) The movie tracks Billy’s wartime interactions with fellow POWs including Edgar Derby (Eugene Roche), a well-meaning father figure, and Paul Lazzaro (Ron Leibman), a smart-mouthed psychotic. Other threads of the story include Billy’s relationship with his wife and kids, as well as Billy’s abduction by aliens to a distant planet, where he and starlet Montana Wildhack (Valerie Perrine) are put on display like zoo animals, expected to cohabitate (and copulate) so the aliens can study them.

          Hill shoots every scene of Slaughterhouse-Five beautifully, even if some aspects of the picture undercut his skillful direction. Sacks’ uninteresting non-performance is the biggest flaw, and it’s disheartening that the movie becomes, in its final scenes, a bit of a feel-good homily. Still, Slaughterhouse-Five is fundamentally ambitious and artistic, so there’s a strong temptation to seek hidden virtues, and, indeed, many viewers have found much to praise. The picture won the Jury Prize at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for a Golden Globe and a WGA Award. The lingering question, however, is whether Slaughterhouse-Five actually does justice to Vonnegut Jr.’s novel—or, for that matter, whether it truly succeeds as a filmic statement.

Slaughterhouse-Five: FUNKY

Norma Rae (1979)

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

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

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

Norma Rae: GROOVY

The Hot Rock (1972)

          Lightweight and never quite as laugh-out-loud funny as it should be, The Hot Rock is nonetheless a fun caper flick featuring one of Robert Redford’s most effortlessly charming performances. The movie also boasts a thoroughly entertaining screenplay by William Goldman, the wiseass wordsmith who penned Redford’s breakout movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). In fact, Goldman and Redford clicked so well whenever they collaborated, it’s a shame their friendship dissipated after behind-the-scenes strife during the development of All the President’s Men (1976). Anyway, The Hot Rock was adapted from a novel by Donald E. Westlake, whose special gift is creating likeable crooks and outlandish plots. The Hot Rock begins with career thief John Dortmunder (Redford) getting released from his latest stint in prison—although he’s a talented robber, he has a bad habit of getting caught. Dortmunder is picked up, after a fashion, by his brother-in-law, Kelp (George Segal)—Kelp stole a car he doesn’t know how to drive, so he nearly runs Dortmunder over.

          And so it goes from there: Dortmunder’s life becomes a comedy routine of incompetent criminality once he agrees to pull a job with the amiable but unreliable Kelp. The duo are hired by Dr. Amusa (Moses Gunn), the U.N. ambassador of a small African nation, to steal a gigantic diamond, but each attempt at nabbing the prize ends up a pathetic failure. Over the course of several weeks, Dortmunder and Kelp try stealing the diamond from a bank, a museum, a police station, and a prison, abetted by neurotic explosives expert Greenberg (Paul Sand) and reckless getaway driver Murch (Ron Leibman).

          Goldman and versatile British director Peter Yates keep things moving along smoothly, balancing jokes and tension during elaborate heist scenes, so while The Hot Rock never explodes into raucous chaos, it sustains a solid energy level from start to finish. Yates shoots locations beautifully, capturing a vivid sense of Manhattan as an urban playground for the film’s gang of chummy nincompoops, and the acting is lively across the board. Redford plays everything so straight that he grounds the film’s comedy in emotional reality (while still cutting a dashing figure), and Leibman and Segal complement his work with motor-mouthed hyperactivity. Sand contributes a quieter vibe of sedate weirdness, and Gunn incarnates exasperation with great poise. Overbearing funnyman Zero Mostel pops up for a featured role about halfway through the picture, but luckily he’s only onscreen for short bursts, so he doesn’t wear out his welcome.

The Hot Rock: GROOVY

The Super Cops (1974)

          To get a sense of how The Super Cops uses wiseass humor to satirize rampant police corruption, think Serpico with jokes. Directed by blaxploitation vet Gordon Parks and written by the witty Lorenzo Semple Jr. (from a book by L.H. Whitemore), The Super Cops depicts the early adventures of real-life New York City cops David Greenberg and Robert Hantz. Hungry to become detectives, the boys started making busts while they were still cadets, which put them in opposition with the corrupt cops pervading the NYPD in the days before the storied Knapp Commission cleaned house.

          At first, cadets Greenberg (Ron Leibman) and Hantz (David Selby) are mistaken for shady operators looking for payoffs, but when it becomes clear they’re genuine do-gooders, the folks profiting from the status quo target the eager newbies as threats. After graduating from the police academy, Greenberg and Hantz get assigned to a dangerous precinct in Brooklyn, where drug dealers hire gunsels to take out overzealous cops. Undaunted, Greenberg and Hantz make like cowboys by staging brazen busts. Their swaggering ways make waves in the district attorney’s office, so Greenberg and Hantz run into trouble getting convictions. Eventually, the resourceful heroes engineer a bold double-cross, framing crooked cops who are trying to frame them.
          All in all, the adventures of Greenberg and Hantz are thoroughly entertaining (although their characterizations were undoubtedly whitewashed for dramatic effect), and Semple’s playful dialogue gives the movie whimsical flair. Parks does well meshing the tough realism of his blaxploitation pictures with the pithiness of Semple’s approach, ensuring that the movie zooms along.

          That said, the story is episodic and the ending is anticlimactic. Furthermore, Leibman and Selby try hard to develop a buddy-movie dynamic, but their vibes are incompatible; Leibman is consistently cocky and overbearing, while Selby waffles between macho stoicism and streetwise sensitivity. The supporting cast is merely passable, with Sheila Frazier the standout as a world-weary hooker/informant and Dan Frazer providing amusing work as the boys’ skittish commanding officer (“Get me outta this meshugana precinct!”). Oddly, however, the weakest element of The Super Cops is probably its title, which suggests a broad comedy. Nonetheless, it’s easy to understand why the most likely alternative wasn’t a viable option: On the street, Greenberg and Hantz were known as “Batman and Robin.” (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

The Super Cops: GROOVY