To Kill a Clown

This movie contains some of the worse dialogue and direction I've seen in years. No one seems to know what the hell is going on. What's the point? The dialogue and acting is uncertain and the little photographic tricks like freezing the frame at the end of every scene is ridiculous. Who is Alan Alda's character suppose to represent and why is he torturing these people? Although his character has presence and conviction, his inane dialogue betrays him every step of the way. What are his motives? Anyone?? The movie starts out like a 1960's hippie comedy(check out the opening credits and music) but then goes straight downhill. It looks like it might have been an interesting story(great location- a nearly deserted beach) but someone forgot to write a coherent story. Too bad. What a terrible waste of a young, cute Blythe Danner(in a bikini for the most part) and a young Alan Alda just before MASH. The movie feels like it's trying to make a point. Wish I knew what it was.

This movie is strange. First of all, Alan Alda is TOTALLY different from his noticeable character from M*A*S*H. This story tells about a couple that rents a house on the beach from Alda who plays a veteran and is now handicapped from the knees down. As the couple starts settling down, Aldo starts snooping around the house offering friendly gestures such as wine and beer. He likes the wife who can do without the raspy, whiney voice and all she talks about her immature husband. Then he discovers that the husband is all she is into and Alda looses interest and just likes her as a friend. Alda ownes two vicious Dobbermans that attack and guard on command and scare them half to death. As the story continues, Alda decides to party with the couple and invites the husband to come out with him at sunset. Nothing is mentioned of what he is to do, but the next morning, Alda is angrily waiting the husband to come out and he finally does. Then Alda starts action crazy like he is a drill sargent and treating the husband like a recruit giving out commands and ordering them to be carried out. The husband acts as if this is silly, but finally obeys. After all of this, the couple is held hostage in their own house guarded by the ferocious dogs. They find a way to get out and Alda has made it so that they wouldn't. The couple and Alda fight it out and something happens, but it should have been the other way around. Alda was good as the crazy Mr. Richie but his character could have been pepped up a bit to make him more crazier. The people that played the couple were foolish. I give it a 5.

"To Kill a Clown" is a really strange movie, one that could have only come out of the 1970s. For starters, it doesn't seem to know what kind of movie it wants to be. It starts off being really goofy (even the opening credits are comic), but the movie ends with a climatic sequence that seems to have been inspired by the previous year's "Straw Dogs". Throughout there are bizarre touches like the many freeze frames the movie uses when moving from one scene to another. And there is the atypical casting of Alan Alda as someone who is mentally disturbed. All this may make the movie sound like it's a gold mine for people who are into bizarre cinema, but it isn't that much entertaining. It starts off slow and soon gets to be pretty boring; you have to wait until an hour has passed before some juice starts to flow. And even when that happens, what follows is not really worth the wait. Ultimately, there seems to be no point to the movie; what writer/director George Bloomfield was trying to say or accomplish, I'm not sure. It's no wonder why this movie hasn't been given a DVD release. By the way, while the movie was slapped with an "R" rating, what's displayed barely gets to "PG" status by the standards of today (or even back in 1972.)

This movie would frequently appear on late-night TV in the late 1970s. Years later, in the home video rental days, this movie would appear on the video rental shelves waiting for a rental.

The one thing I remembered about this film was that the film was edited with a chainsaw. It seemed that big chunks of the film were left on the cutting room floor, making the movie almost senseless.

I found a used copy of the video at a thrift store. I immediately snapped it up. I put the video in my trusty VCR player, and it was the same version I remembered when I would watch this on late-night TV. This version may be the late-night TV print that played back in the days of the Movies-'til-dawn programs of yesteryear.

I did some research on the film's background. The film was over 100 minutes, not eighty-two minutes as stated on the Media VHS tape. The TV prints seemed to be edited to fit ninety-minute time slots.

If this is true, what is missing?

I got a kick out of Alan Alda playing a deranged Vietnam vet terrorizing a Bohemian couple on his island, played by Blythe Danner and Heath Lamberts.

I would like to see the unedited version so I can see what is missing, and would the original edit make a difference?

In TO KILL A CLOWN, a couple (Heath Lamberts and Blythe Danner) rent an ocean beach house, in an attempt to resurrect their crumbling marriage. It's pretty obvious that a lot of the spark has gone out of their relationship. When they meet the man from whom they rented the property (Alan Alda), he seems like a nice enough chap, in spite of his intimidating Dobermans. As the days go by, it becomes evident that this man might not be as harmless as he appears to be.

This is a slow-building film that doesn't really get going until around the halfway mark, which is right in line with many movies from this era. So, having some patience is required, and will enhance the viewing experience.

Mr. Alda is outstanding in his unbalanced role, going from congenial to sadistic in a natural, believable way. If you've only seen him in M*A*S*H, or other comedic fare, then you really need to see him here! He's actually scary, making what starts out as a lighthearted story, wind up in horror-thriller territory.

Highly recommended, along with other horror outings from Mr. Alda, like THE MEPHISTO WALTZ and ISN'T IT SHOCKING?...