The Last Picture Show (1971)

          While the career of novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry overflows with great accomplishments, there’s a special magic to the 1971 film The Last Picture Show, the screenplay for which McMurtry and director Peter Bogdanovich adapted from McMurtry’s semi-autobiographical novel. The elegiac film represents a magnificent fusion of two gifted storytellers, with Bogdanovich’s precocious classicism providing the perfect frame for McMurtry’s beautifully sad vision of a small Texas town in decline. The director provides elegant cinematography, taut dramaturgy, and vital performances; the author/screenwriter gives the piece its soul. The result of this combined effort is a wrenching little masterpiece about alienation, betrayal, disillusionment, loss, maturation, and sex. Shot in evocative black-and-white by master cinematographer Robert Surtees, The Last Picture Show is one of the highest accomplishments in screen art from any American studio in the ’70s.
          Based loosely on McMurtry’s memories of growing up in Texas during the postwar era, the film takes place in tiny Anarene, Texas, circa the early ’50s. Although it’s basically an ensemble piece, The Last Picture Show focuses on high school buddies Duane (Jeff Bridges) and Sonny (Timothy Bottoms). At first, Duane seems to have the world by the tail, because he’s a good-looking, popular jock who dates the prettiest girl in town, Jacy (Cybill Shepherd). Conversely, Sonny seems like a lost soul as he breaks up with his high-school girlfriend and commences an affair with Ruth (Cloris Leachman), the desperately lonely wife of his football coach. Yet as the months drag on, it becomes clear that Duane’s future isn’t so rosy; Jacy is a manipulative striver willing to do nearly anything to achieve her goal of marrying into money. Partially as a result of his entanglement with Jacy, Duane discovers not only his own personal limitations (culminating in a rueful instance of impotence) but also the bleak realities of the larger world.

          As they stumble from adolescence to adulthood, watching the town around them decay from neglect and population shifts, the boys occasionally receive life lessons from an older friend named Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson), owner of the local movie theater. The ways in which Sam and his beloved business suffer the ravages of time reveal profound metaphysical concepts that Duane and Sonny must come to understand. Bogdanovich and McMurtry weave a complex tapestry in The Last Picture Show, because the story also involves significant characters played by Ellen Burstyn, Clu Galager, Randy Quaid, and—most heartbreakingly—Sam Bottoms, the real-life younger brother of costar Timothy Bottoms. The irony that a story about a small town is densely populated provides just one of the literary nuances permeating The Last Picture Show. The film is also rich in allegory, metaphor, and subtext.

          Yet the movie is just as impressive in terms of cinematic technique. Bogdanovich shoots street scenes in a style heavily influenced by John Ford, so every dirty window and every wind-blown scrap of garbage says volumes. Similarly, the director films interiors with meticulous care, often framing one character prominently in the foreground, with others situated a distance behind, thereby accentuating the inability these people have to form real connections. And the performances! Johnson and Leachman both received Oscars, and rightfully so. Longtime screen cowboy Johnson unveils a lifetime of repressed feeling in his climactic monologue, and Leachman etches a poignant image of longing. Meanwhile, Timothy Bottoms conveys an unforgettably soulful quality, Bridges tempers his signature exuberance with hard-won wisdom, and Shepherd effectively illustrates the cost Jacy pays for her avarice. Fitting the bittersweet tone of McMurtry’s best writing, The Last Picture Show also features one of the most meaningful downbeat endings of the ’70s. Imprudently, most of the principals returned to the material for the 1990 sequel Texasville (again based on a McMurtry novel), but the follow-up is merely adequate, a faint echo of the original’s thunder.

The Last Picture Show: OUTTA SIGHT

The Paper Chase (1973)

          If you have difficulty envisioning a gripping drama about the travails of first-year students at Harvard Law School, your suspicions will be validated—and undone—by The Paper Chase. While the movie is hardly the most dynamic film of the ’70s, it’s consistently interesting, and often very entertaining. Based on a book by John Jay Osborn Jr. and written and directed by James Bridges, The Paper Chase creates tension by treating naïve Minnesotan James T. Hart’s first year at Harvard as a character-defining quest. When we first meet James, he’s an amiable longhair prepared for hard work and ready for a little fun on the side; in fact, very early in the year, he becomes involved with Susan (Lindsay Wagner), a pretty young woman who lives near the Harvard campus.

          Yet James’ illusions of a smooth ride through school are shattered when he encounters Professor Charles W. Kingsfield Jr. (John Houseman), a demanding contract-law instructor. Defined by his open contempt for all but the most exceptional students, Kingsfield terrifies students previously accustomed to being considered the best and brightest. As the year progresses, James struggles to reach the “upper echelon” of the contracts class. Meanwhile, James continues his relationship with Susan—in the move’s least persuasive contrivance, she turns out to be Kingsfield’s daughter—and he wrestles with the strong personalities in his study group. For instance, James’ friend Kevin (James Naughton) represents the low end of Harvard’s academic spectrum, so poignant scenes depict Kevin buckling under pressure. Most of the picture, however, comprises James’ interactions with Kingsfield, whom the student alternately regards as a father figure, a guru, and a tormenter.

          While generally a solid movie, The Paper Chase is not without flaws. James is a bit on the insufferable side, with his unrelenting self-centeredness, although he’s leavened somewhat by the concern he demonstrates for Kevin. And if the rotten way James treats Susan serves a story purpose—demonstrating the problems law students face while seeking life/work balance—it’s not much fun to watch James act like a schmuck. The Kingsfield character is a bit of a cartoon, as well. That said, wonderful performances in key roles compensate for shortcomings. Bottoms fills moments with vulnerability and warmth, while Houseman—a veteran theatrical producer who made an astonishing transition to acting with this film—turns derision into an art form. (Houseman won an Oscar for his indelible performance.) Supporting players Naughton, Franklin Ford III, Edward Herrmann, Robert Lydiard, and Craig Richard Nelson (as the members of James’ study group) portray camaraderie and friction well. Only Wagner, best known for TV’s The Bionic Woman, underwhelms.

          The movie’s secret weapon is cinematographer Gordon Willis, the maestro behind the Godfather movies and myriad other ’70s classics; his elegant frames, filled with empty spaces and shadows, imbue the film with a sense of serious purpose. Bridges, marking his directorial debut, employs methodical pacing that lets Willis’ beguiling images weave their spell. All of this craftsmanship in front of and behind the camera elevates The Paper Chase into something that might be called sophisticated escapism. FYI, The Paper Chase became a TV series in 1978, running for four seasons (first on CBS and then on Showtime); of the actors from the movie, only, Houseman remained in place for the series, earning two Golden Globe nominations for reprising the Kingsfield role.

The Paper Chase: GROOVY

Johnny Got His Gun (1971)

          Full disclosure: My first book was about Dalton Trumbo, the writer-director of Johnny Got His Gun, and in the course of writing the book I became acquainted with Trumbo’s son, who also worked on the picture. Therefore, I’m not completely objective, so some of the virtues I see in Johnny Got His Gun may not be quite as visible to casual viewers. Adapted from Trumbo’s own novel, a legendary antiwar story originally published in 1939, Johnny Got His Gun is an impassioned personal statement about an important theme. That said, the movie is challenging because of problems that stem not only from budgetary limitations but also from Trumbo’s inexperience behind the camera—even though he’d been working in Hollywood since the mid-1930s, Trumbo did not attempt directing until this project, which he made when he was 65. And while it would be heartening to report that Johnny Got His Gun represents one of the great cinematic debuts of all time, it’s more accurate to say that the picture is interesting because of its intentions. It must also be said, of course, that the narrative is not inherently cinematic.

          Set during World War I, the tale concerns an unfortunate Colorado youth named Joe Bonham (Timothy Bottoms), who suffers horrific battlefield injuries. In the “present day” scenes, Joe is an armless, legless cripple; he also lost his ears, eyes, and mouth. What remains of Joe’s body lies in a French hospital bed, and doctors spend endless amounts of time trying to determine why Joe remains alive. Yet while the doctors believe Joe to be unaware of his circumstances, his mind is still active and his sense of touch allows him to develop a sort of communication—he can respond to taps on his body, and can in turn lift his head back and forth to send Morse code messages. The “present day” scenes are intercut with plaintive flashbacks to the life Joe lost—his relationships with his father, mother, and girlfriend.

          Many previous attempts to film Johnny Got His Gun ran aground, but as he neared the end of his incredibly colorful career, Trumbo decided to adapt the book himself. (Determination was nothing new for Trumbo; he’s the screenwriter credited with breaking Hollywood’s anticommunist blacklist, of which he was an early victim.) Some of Trumbo’s directorial flourishes work better in concept than in practice, like shifting between color, black-and-white, and an intermediary muted color scheme; the device has intellectual heft but little emotional impact. Further, Trumbo’s lack of visual panache exacerbates the claustrophobic nature of the story—a more experienced director could have “opened up” the material without harming the spirit of the piece. The worst shortcoming, however, probably involves Trumbo’s weak attempts to apply a Fellini-esque veneer to certain dream sequences. Yet the underlying story is so powerful, and the key performances are so heartfelt, that Johnny Got His Gun packs a punch.

          Bottoms delivers incredibly sensitive work when performing onscreen in flashbacks and when voicing narration during the “present day” scenes; the psychic pain his character experiences from start to finish is harrowing. Jason Robards brings palpable world-weariness to the role of Joe’s father, and cameo player Donald Sutherland offers a sly interpretation of Jesus during a memorable hallucination scene. To his credit and detriment, Trumbo honored the unrelentingly grim tone of the novel, which means Johnny Got His Gun has integrity to burn but is also a tough picture to sit through. Nonetheless, Johnny Got His Gun is a fittingly idiosyncratic statement from one of the 20th century’s most irrepressible voices.

Johnny Got His Gun: GROOVY

The White Dawn (1974)

          With its colorful cast and impressive location photography—to say nothing of the admirable use of indigenous actors and language—The White Dawn should be engrossing. Set in the late 19th century, the story depicts what happens when three American whalers become stranded in Eskimo country, first assimilating into the local culture and then clashing with their Native hosts. The whalers are played by Timothy Bottoms, Louis Gossett Jr., and Warren Oates, all of whom are interesting actors, and director Philip Kaufman—helming only his second big-budget feature—displays his signature interest in sociopolitical subtleties. Yet not even Kaufman’s ethnographic approach can enliven the dull and unmemorable storyline, which unfolds in a predictable way and suffers from a paucity of significant events. Very little about The White Dawn lingers in the memory except for a general wintry vibe, because while the cinematography is tough and vivid—director of photography Michael Chapman operates way outside his usual New York milieu, to impressive effect—the narrative lacks surprises.

          Producer Martin Ransohoff, who also wrote the underlying adaptation of the James Houston novel upon which the film is based, took a bold route by featuring extensive scenes of Inuit dialogue, and the fact that most of the cast comprises Eskimo performers gives The White Dawn authenticity other adventure pictures set in the Great White North lack. Yet one longs for a storyline as virile as those found in, say, the tales of Jack London. That said, it’s moderately diverting to watch vignettes of the white characters reacting to the strangeness of life in the Arctic Circle—as when they’re awoken by water from the melting ceiling of their igloo—and the picture features a few informative scenes showing Eskimo rituals. The White Dawn isn’t a bad film, of course, because it’s using the white characters as a means of exposing viewers to a rarely seen world, but the tone runs so close to that of a drably educational documentary that Ransohoff might have been better off just ditching the fictional contrivance altogether.

The White Dawn: FUNKY

A Small Town in Texas (1976)

Man, if this one lived up to its poster, the movie would be killer. Unfortunately, A Small Town in Texas is not the lean, mean exploitation flick one might expect. It awkwardly straddles drive-in sleaziness and legitimate dramatic terrain, and a movie trying to be two things succeeds in being neither. For instance, leading man Timothy Bottoms, a strong presence when playing sensitive souls, is miscast as a rootin’-tootin’ wild man with a penchant for bikes, booze, and brawling, so the actor’s endearing persona is neutralized and the potential of the role is unrealized. When we meet Poke Jackson (Bottoms), he’s just gotten out of jail following a pot bust, and he’s ready for vengeance against Sheriff Duke (Bo Hopkins), the small-town cop who sent Poke up the river. Poke’s grudge against the lawman grows deeper when he realizes that the whole time he’s been in jail, Duke has been courting Poke’s girl, Mary Lee (Susan George). Had that been the whole story, A Small Town in Texas could have been a tidy little package of low-rent nastiness. Yet screenwriter William Norton adds a layer of political corruption that never quite coalesces into a worthwhile subplot, with Duke and rancher C.J. Crane (Morgan Woodward) executing some sort of power grab over their municipality. As a result of this extraneous material, the promising Duke/Poke tension gets dissipated, and poor Mary Lee gets relegated to whimpering while Duke threatens bodily harm against her once-and-future significant other. The action in A Small Town in Texas doesn’t get underway until the 40-minute mark, and even though things eventually become gruesome—beatings, deaths, explosions—the movie never tips over into the gleeful excess of gen-yoo-wine Southern-fried trash cinema. It’s all a bit too restrained, with tasteful widescreen compositions and solid production values, so in the most important particulars (for this sort of picture, that is), A Small Town in Texas fails to impress. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

A Small Town in Texas: LAME

The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder (1974)

 

Vietnam-vet movies came in all shapes and sizes during the ’70s, but it’s nonetheless startling to realize that someone thought PTSD was a suitable subject for light comedy in 1974, when the war was still raging. The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder takes place primarily at a VA hospital in Los Angeles, where mischievously charming ex-soldier Julius Vrooder (Timothy Bottoms) lives in a mental ward with several other vets suffering from shellshock. Able-bodied but emotionally fragile, Julius spends his days cavorting around the hospital campus, pulling childish pranks on his doctors and flirting with sensitive nurse Zanni (Barbara Hershey). Accentuating just how disconnected Julius is from reality, he even has a secret underground lair that he’s created across the street from the campus, complete with electricity that he’s illegally siphoning from the city’s power grid. (Never mind the logical questions of how Julius got the equipment and free time needed to build his fortress.) As the story progresses, Julius tries to woo Zanni away from her other suitor—Julius’ uptight shrink, of course—and he tries to evade municipal authorities who want to find out who’s stealing their electricity. And that’s basically the whole movie, excepting a few inconsequential subplots. Among the film’s many problems is the fact that we’re supposed to sympathize with Julius’ unique plight even though he doesn’t seem especially unwell—he treats his hospital stay like a vacation from responsibility, faking seizures or sharing sad war stories whenever he wants sympathy. Were it not for Bottoms’ inherent likeability, Julius would be insufferable; as is, the character is merely uninteresting. Similarly, the fact that the shrink isn’t a formidable romantic rival precludes any tension in the love story—Zanni seems to worship Julius unconditionally, so the resolution of the triangle is a foregone conclusion. As directed by the efficient Arthur Hiller, The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder is too innocuous to dislike, but it’s also far too vapid to make a significant impression.

The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder: FUNKY

Rollercoaster (1977)

          Pure escapism, Rollercoaster combines many styles of pulpy entertainment that thrived in the ’70s: It’s a disaster movie, a police procedural, a terrorism thriller, and a theme-park romp all rolled into one. So, while it might be exaggerating to call Rollercoaster a good movie, it’s a lot of fun to watch. The movie begins when a psycho identified only as “Young Man” (Timothy Bottoms) begins a killing spree by blowing up the tracks on a rollercoaster in Virginia. Ride investigator Harry Calder (George Segal) arrives to survey the damage, suspecting foul play instead of a simple accident. Soon, the Young Man strikes again and issues a demand for $1 million to prevent further attacks. Although hard-nosed FBI Agent Hoyt (Richard Widmark) is placed in charge of the investigation, Harry insists on remaining involved, which turns out to be a bad mistake, since the Young Man identifies Calder as his preferred courier for ransom payments.

          Thus begins an enjoyably silly cat-and-mouse game that climaxes with a showdown at the Magic Mountain theme park near Los Angeles (which fans of ’70s kitsch know and love as the setting for the TV movie Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park). Plus, as happens in these sorts of contrived cinematic situations, Calder’s teenaged daughter (Helen Hunt) gets caught up in the danger, so catching the crook becomes a personal matter for Our Hero. Although Rollercoaster is padded with a few tiresome sequences, like an extended concert by the New Wave band Sparks and lengthy point-of-view rollercoaster shots designed to showcase the “Sensurround” format in which the picture was released, the bulk of the movie is suspenseful and zippy.

          Segal’s dry humor fits the thriller genre well, offering a sly wink at the audience whenever the plot gets too preposterous, and the idea of a madman hiding amid the huge crowds at an amusement park is consistently unsettling. (Casting the boyish Bottoms was a clever choice that adds to the queasiness.) Justifying the disaster-movie element of its cinematic DNA, Rollercoaster delivers several harrowing highlights, though the flick never slips into gory excess. After all, producer Jennings Lang was an ace at the disaster genre, having made 1974’s Earthquake and most of the Airport movies. Widmark and fellow supporting player Henry Fonda ground the movie with their familiar personas, and it’s a kick to see future Oscar winner Hunt at the apex of her child-acting career. All in all, Rollercoaster is a tasty trifle with the added benefit of capturing vintage theme-park scenes that will make any former ’70s kid nostalgic for simpler times.

Rollercoaster: GROOVY

The Other Side of the Mountain (1975) & The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2 (1978)

          The blockbuster success of Love Story (1970) reminded studios about the moneymaking potential of over-the-top tearjerkers, which explains why Universal put its muscle behind The Other Side of the Mountain, even though the bummer material seems more suitable for a TV movie. Based on the unfortunate experiences of real-life American skier Jill Kinmont, The Other Side of the Mountain depicts what happened to Kinmont (played by Marilyn Hassett) before, during, and after an accident that left her paralyzed from the shoulders down, ending her promising athletic career and confining her to a wheelchair. Adding to her woes, Kinmont became engaged to skier Dick “Mad Dog” Buek (played by Beau Bidges) after her accident, surmounting the many issues separating able-bodied persons from the disabled, but Buek died in a plane crash before they got married.

          The movie frames these sad events with a quasi-uplifting prologue and epilogue, showing Kinmont looking fulfilled in her second career as a schoolteacher, but the point of the movie is bludgeoning viewers with the particulars of Kinmont’s misery. As directed by feature/TV journeyman Larry Peerce, The Other Side of the Mountain is so perfunctory it occasionally borders on self-parody—every time Peerce shows the heroine smiling, it’s a sure sign something horrible is about to happen. Even Kinmont’s best friend, fellow skier Audra Jo Nicholson (Belinda J. Montgomery), suffers the whims of fate, losing full mobility in her legs after a bout of polio.

          The workaday nature of the picture is not aided by Hassett’s performance: Though sincere and wholesomely pretty, she alternates between extremes of sweetness and hysteria. Luckily, Bridges has fun with his daredevil role, and Montgomery lends sass whenever her character castigates Kinmont for self-pity. (The great comic actor Dabney Coleman appears in a minor role as Kinmont’s pre-accident coach.)

          Audiences gobbled up The Other Side of the Mountain, generating enough interest for a sequel that offers an uplifting change of course from its predecessor. The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2 shows Kinmont finding love again, this time with simple but soulful truck driver John Boothe (Timothy Bottoms). The sequel also delves deeper into Kinmont’s occasionally fraught relationship with her mother-turned-caretaker, June (Nan Martin). However, whereas the first picture moves briskly by jamming years of experiences into a single feature, the second picture feels padded and thin. Nonetheless, Bottoms is appealing, exuding vulnerability even though his acting sometimes lacks polish; in a strange way, he and Hassett make a potent screen duo because the strain of their respective efforts feels compatible.

          Taken together, these two movies are meant to be inspirational celebrations of Kinmont’s triumph over despair, but they also contain three and a half hours of almost relentless human suffering. So, if schadenfreude takes you to your (un)happy place, then a world of wonder awaits on you on The Other Side of the Mountain. (Available as part of the Universal Vault Series on Amazon.com)

The Other Side of the Mountain: FUNKY

The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2: FUNKY

Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973)

          Best known for the Oscar-winning adapted screenplays of Julia (1977) and Ordinary People (1980), Alvin Sargent has spent his career writing stories about troubled characters. Some of these stories hit a perfect target of idiosyncratic sensitivity, and some of them, well, don’t. An example of the latter circumstance is Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing, the tale of an emotionally disturbed American youth and an uptight middle-aged Englishwoman who fall in love while traveling through Spain. The story is reasonable enough, since we discover why each character has fled home and why each character feels sufficiently adrift to latch onto an unlikely paramour, but the execution is awkward.

          As directed by the venerable Alan J. Pakula, who specialized in heavy drama, Love and Pain has an oppressive seriousness that inhibits Sargent’s attempts to blend comic and dramatic elements. Pakula anchors shots in deep shadows that create distractingly ominous portent, and his handling of performances is almost too sensitive: Pakula lets Bottoms and Smith go so deep into their characters’ traumas that viewers are more likely to be frightened for these people than to root for them. It doesn’t help that vignettes in Sargent’s script range from generic to silly.

          On the generic end of things are many aimless scenes of the couple walking around historical sites, and on the silly end is the sequence in which the guests encounter a strange duke (Don Jaime de Mora y Aragón), who literally rescues Smith on horseback after she suffers a fall. Sargent also occasionally succumbs to hippie-era psychobabble, like this speech delivered by Bottoms: “We’re free, we’re coming alive, we’re talking to each other—what do you want to go back to crying in the dark for?” Complicating matters further, the picture features dissonant moments of lowbrow physical comedy, like the bit of Smith tripping on her panties while fleeing an interrupted sexual liaison.

          Ultimately, Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing is an extremely odd movie, with a jumble of erratic tonalities and fleetingly touching performances; though the picture has such admirable intentions and genuine feeling that it can’t be dismissed, it’s an aesthetic hodgepodge.

Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing: FUNKY

Operation Daybreak (1975)

          Adapted from the true story of a bold Allied assassination attempt against a high-ranking Nazi officer, Operation Daybreak offers terrific verisimilitude but only so-so dramaturgy. The location photography, period details, and re-enactments of harrowing incidents are persuasive, creating a palpable sense of time and place, and the film’s matter-of-fact recitation of real-life heroism presents a sobering alternative to the usual war-movie derring-do and overwrought battlefield melodrama.

          The leading characters are Jan Kubis (Timothy Bottoms) and Jozef Gabcik (Anthony Andrews), Czech-born soldiers currently stationed in Britain. Given their lineage and other special skills, they are recruited for a mission requiring them to parachute into Czechoslovakia, rendezvous with the local resistance underground, and take out Reinhard Heydrich (Anton Diffing). An urbane but cruel Nazi oblivious to the suffering of civilians under his authority, Heydrich is considered by Allied commanders a potential successor to Hitler and therefore a symbol of Third Reich power; the idea is to shake German confidence by demonstrating that even the highest officials are vulnerable.

          From the first, the Czech commandoes’ mission is fraught with mishaps: They’re accidentally dropped 200 miles from their intended landing zone, and one of them breaks an ankle during the jump. Yet the locals aiding their efforts rise to the occasion, eager to depose a lethal tyrant; underground accomplices include the pastor of a Prague church and fiery resistance operative Anna (Nicola Pagett), who happens into a doomed romance with Kubis.

          As written by Ronald Harwood, from Alan Burgess’ novel Seven Men at Daybreak, the film gets minute-to-minute details so right, generally speaking, that it’s a shame the film’s approach to character lacks similar precision. Though many isolated exchanges are effective, the picture never presents complete characterizations; the film’s people are flatly generic amalgams of whatever qualities seem expedient for the story at any given moment. (The only satisfying character arc is that involving Heydrich and his Czech attendants, who sharply transition from reluctant deference to open contempt after the assassination attempt.)

          Operation Daybreak gains energy as it goes along, since rising tension makes character motivations plain through circumstance, and the twin climaxes of the assassination attempt and the Germans’ retaliatory assault on the conspirators’ hiding place are exciting and expertly filmed. The film’s performances are basically sound (though, of course, inhibited by thin writing), and Bottoms and Andrews generate affectingly bittersweet camaraderie during the final moments. Operation Daybreak doesn’t come close to fulfilling its potential, but watched for its strongest elements—and as a tribute to a significant historical incident—it’s quietly engrossing. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Operation Daybreak: GROOVY