Gene Hackman weird top ten

Okay enough time has passed (arguably) to do a Gene Hackman top ten. Everyone knows the actual good movies so I thought I'd do my top ten weird Gene Hackman movies.

1) Lucky Lady (1975) - Gene has a threesome with Burt Reynolds and Liza Minelli. That is not made up. Burt gives Gene's arm a fondle the morning after. You gentleman, Burt!

2) Two of a Kind (1982) - reteaming of Olivia Newton John and John Travolta that no one remembers except uber fans - Gene Hackman provides the voice of God and does very well.

3) March or Die (1977) - Hackman made a few films for Lew Grade's company ITC in the late 70s- I enjoyed this French Foreign Legion tale where he is, as always, good.

4) Bat 21 (1988) for some reason this movie was on like every few months on Channel Ten on Friday/Saturday nights in the nineties - there was probably a bigger market for pudgy men in war movies than people realised - this film isn't that weird actually it was more weird how it was always on Channel Ten.

5) Zandy's Bride (1974) - when people talk about how great cinema was in the 70s it's always good to say "what, like Zandy's Bride?" in the conversation to be annoying - Hackman is good as always.

6) Superman 4: The Quest for Peace (1987) - everyone took the money on this one - read Daniel Kremer's Sidney Furie bio for the inside scoop on what went down

7) First to Fight/ Covenant with Death (mid 60s) - when Hackman was working his way up through the ranks he had to support actors like Chad Everett and George Maharis in films like these because they were what people thought film stars looked like and Hackman wasn't - he graduated to "supporting people who looked like film stars and actually were" like Warren Beatty, Robert Redford, Jim Brown and Gregory Peck - but I guess you've got to get through Chad Everett first to get to Redford.

8 ) Lilith (1964) forgotten film in which Jean Seberg, who often sleepwalked through her roles, is terrific - so too is Peter Fonda.

9) Doctor's Wives (1971) - sleazy material with a director who had a class rep on TV and. a first rate cast - they manage to still make it sleazy material.

10) Misunderstood (1984) - a male weepie with Hackman and Henry Thomas, coming off ET - I remember it made me cry as an eleven year old but I sense it may be terrible so am afraid to see it again.

Movie review - "Fighting Mad" (1976) **1/2

 When people talk of Jonathan Demme's movies for Roger Corman, most of it focuses around Caged Heat with some on Crazy Mama but this one, his third, gets overlooked. I think maybe because it was for 20th Century Fox than New World, though it is more purely Demme than Crazy Mama.

It's a redneck revenge film, kind of, only the lead is Peter Fonda as opposed to some burly middle aged guy, which doesn't work as well. It could have been adjusted more for its star - Fonda gives off a school teacher vibe and could have made an ideal Straw Dogs type lead, a nerd who is pushed to breaking point, but here he's more of a bad ass.

The villains are enjoyably bad - strip miners kicking people off their land. They are well connected to cops and Senators and it's enjoyable to watch their come-uppance. Scott Glenn is in it as Fonda's brother who is killed along with his pregnant wife in perhaps the film's most shocking scene.

It's got a sort of low-key vibe to it reminiscent of Robert Altman. The shoot out in the basement of a house at the end was a forerunner of Silence of the Lambs. Demme doesn't do much with Fonda's kid - I kept waiting for him to be threatened but it never happens. Ditto the girl that Fonda gets involved with.

Philip Carey is a good slimy villain. 

Other Corman Fox productions: Capone, Moving Violations and Thunder and Lightning.

Movie review - "The Cannonball Run" (1981) ***1/2 (re-watching)

 The story had already been told via Gumball Rally and Cannonball but this is the one to watch with all its stars, and engaging sense of fun. Burt Reynolds is, as ever, a confident center for this gang, there's a superb support cast including Dom de Luise, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jnr (making one wish they'd made more films together), Roger Moore, Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Farr, Burt Convy, Jackie Chan. I loved this as a kid and it has a feeling of infectious good humour that is very winning.

It hasn't all aged well - Jackie Chan playing a Japanese, all the boob gags, Farrah gets abducted for laughs. And it's not fun to know that a stuntwoman was rendered a quadriplegic as a result of making this.

But everyone is having a good time and that comes across. It has a genuine family feel - all the cannonballers living their silly lifestyles, teaming up for a convenient brawl at the end. Dom de Luise is touching as well as funny (he invented this split personality to cope), Burt is relaxed, Farrah is pretty (not as good as Sally Field), Sammy and Dean are hilarious, so is Roger Moore, there are fun cameos by Peter Fonda (as a biker), Bianca Jagger and Valerie Perinne, I like it how (spoilers) the women win, the love theme between Burt and Farrah is sweet, mel Tillis and Terry Bradshaw do a fun double act (they were given their own pilot as a result), Rick Aviles and Alfie Wise do anothe double act, Jack Elam is hilarious as a doctor, Burt Convy is hilarious parachuting out of a plane on his bike and doing a wheelie.

John MIlius' guilty pleasures

Milius, John. Film Comment; New York Vol. 18, Iss. 3,  (May/Jun 1982): 24-26,80.

Let us first examine this idea of Guilty Pleasures. When I was young, the world was so new with promise that it was impossible to find that feeling of self-conscious embarrassment in secrecy that could bring guilt to any pleasure. It is only in early adulthood that we come to measure our passions and, in time, forget them. So it was always in the first light that I was influenced by the movies I liked, as if seeing an ocean for the first time, or being taken to an airport to watch the planes land. There is no judgment good or bad, just noise and movement, intensity and rhythm. This is not to say that I have no guilt. But life hands out few enough pleasures.

Biker movies. This whole genre has been overlooked probably for good reason. One thing that can be said about all of these films, from The Wild One to The Losers, is that they have a rich tradition of social irresponsibility. I mean, these films should make you feel guilty. Of course, they have little to do with real bikers. Real bikers are like real Mongols -nomadic, simple hunters whose only crime is that they are the descendants of Genghis Khan. But the bikers in the movies and the ones on the road share one thing in common which has made them appealing, fascinating, and dreaded. They are free. Next time you drive up to a couple of bikers cruising slowly on their hogs, take a good look. They don’t live like you. They are outside your life, your law. They don’t share your morality, ethics, your humanity, or your conscience. They are free of all that shit.

Let’s talk about the movie that started it all, The Wild One. (1953, directed by Lazlo Benedek). This has to be one of the most important Marion Brando movies ever made. Forget your James Dean-Fifties-introverted-troubled-youth crap. Forget Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront. We’re dealing with guys that rode into town like Tamerlane-no ambitions, no apologies, and little restraint. Where else can you find such a pure sense of anarchy? Who else in modern culture really lived like Vikings? And what for? “What are you rebelling against, Johnny?” occasioned the best line in the movie: “Whaddya got?” That’s it, pure and simple. It’s never been said better in any movie. This is social irresponsibility.

As biker movies progressed, the life style itself changed and became more menacing. We soon learned that bikers were much worse than the mobile white trash we suspected. They were indeed packs of mutant, ursine predators, spawned by some hideous breach of social ecology, and they soon joined the ranks of irredeemable screen sociopaths, the way Indians used to be portrayed and Nazis still are. Soon, the plots simply had to show a horde of swastikafestooned, hairy, drug-crazed, sub-Neanderthals (led by William Smith) descending upon some worthwhile target area that gave ample opportunity for rape and pillage. The rest of the story usually had some reference to community guilt, parents who didn’t understand their daughters, etc., and a strong loner-hero, sometimes a biker himself (who could also be played by William Smith). The loners who stopped the barbarian hordes were, curiously, often Green Berets directly home from disillusioning experiences in Southeast Asia.

These men could only be pushed so far. (This stereotype also helped build the public myth that there were twentyfive divisions of loner-killer Green Berets, and no cooks or clerk-typists.) The loner prevails; a lot of virginity and private property are lost. And the Horde retreats back into the dark recesses of man’s pagan past, waiting. Great visual stuff. Low-slung choppers gleaming in early sunlight massing together gracefully as they come around that bend in the road. Fiends with their hair blowing back, wrapped in armor-like chains, being held by brazen felines who know no limits to promiscuous carnality. There simply are no other movies quite like these. They have titles like Chrome and Hot Leather, Angels from Hell, Born Losers, etc.

A superb piece from the end of the genre’s halcyon days was simply and appropriately called The Losers (1970) Directed by Jack Starrett (vastly underrated), this has the final twist on all biker movie plots: The bikers themselves are sent to Vietnam. That’s right. Bearded, leathern, latter-day Mongols astride gleaming hogs equipped with rockets and automatic weapons take on a rival club: the Viet Cong. They lose. Superb action, interesting political insight.

Another oddity is, of course, Easy Rider (1969, Dennis Hopper). In this, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper aren’t bikers at all, just ordinary citizens who close out their retail narcotics business in order to take a peaceful vacation ride across country. Their mistake is that they look like bikers to the prudish land apes that have seen the rest of these movies and are mistaken as the advance scouts of the Golden Horde. The community rights are upheld and they pay for the sins of William Smith.

Nobody makes these movies anymore. They’ve gone the way of Italian muscle pictures and blaxploitation movies. They will leave no mark even in the annals of trivia collectors. No French critics will ever enshine them in Cahiers du Cinéma. But next time you see that bro and his old lady heading off with the wind in their hair, the light dazzling from the lacquer and polished chrome, and the big V-Twin like a quickened heartbeat and thunder, give them a thumbs-up for poor Dennis Hopper.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974, Tobe Hooper). Yeah, I know it has a cult following. But I really like this movie. It’s really good. Best of breed in my estimation. Made for nothing, extraordinarily inventive, it just reeks of style and other things. It has horror with the best of them. Nicely achieved in that nothing in the film is supernatural. Every object is common; lots of the film takes place in broad daylight.

Things happen you just don’t expect, like the girl with the sexy backless halter-top being hung up on a meat hook. You just don’t expect that. The guy in the wheelchair being chainsawed and the great scene in the barbecue store also take you by surprise. It’s not that the scenes are unexpected, it’s just that they go so far. But what I like best is the irresistible visual humor, so sick you don’t believe it’s really happening. Leatherface-gigantic, masked, aproned-wielding the great sputtering snarling title weapon, is chasing the one surviving girl. She is nubile, buxom, and agile as a sports car as she darts in and out of the trees in headlong terror. He follows, but like a truck out of control, spinning out on the corners, shattering branches, kicking up dust, always trying to keep the saw pointed in the right direction.

Also, the great ending shot where Leatherface holds his chainsaw up to the rising sun in some ritual dance to the harvest god. I could go on and on, but see it for yourself. It deserves its rep.

Return to Paradise (1953, Mark Robson). After my other two guilty pleasures I feel I should swing the pendulum the other way. This is undoubtedly one of my favorite movies. It is faithfully adapted from a James Michener story of the same title and shot entirely on location in Fiji or Tonga or somewhere using non-actors for most of the cast-giving it a rudimentary authenticity that is to me thoroughly enchanting.

I don’t know when I first saw this film, but it was probably at a particularly idealistic and emotional stretch of adolescence, during which I was a fanatical surfer. Being a suffer in those days was like belonging to a hallowed brotherhood-a noble tribe of timeless drifters and beach bums that shared a solemn adventurism and a longing for primitive tropical places that lay in the path of the great swells. These places often had rich-sounding names, and were sparsely populated by strong simple men and lithe, brown-skinned women. White men there were regarded as higher beings and often went bad with the weight of that responsibility. All of this was majestically set forth in the works of Melville, Conrad, Stevenson, and Gauguin. I would sit in the winter classroom, spin the globe, and read the names of the islands: Atuona, Rarotonga, Manihiki, even Guadalcanal. Rich stuff, and it was all still there, all of it possible.

When I saw Gary Cooper wading ashore through the waves in the first minutes of Return to Paradise, he became an immediate role model. He is put ashore, to be exact, for reasons we’re never told, except that he has an intense dislike for authority. On the beach he is met by a crowd of exotic, innocent islanders, who are being ruthlessly suppressed under the regime of a misguided Christian missionary and his gang of truncheon-wielding wardens. All manner of oppression is levied on these children: They have to wear clothes, work steady hours, not breed freely, and attend church daily and sing hymns. Mr. Morgan (Cooper) only wants to be left alone, but he is a glaring example of individual will to the others, and must be made to bow and kiss the ring. Not Gary Cooper, no way. You’re dealing with Yankee independence, the reason America was founded and settled. Besides, he has a shotgun. His hut is eventually torn down and he asks the community, “Who will help put it back up?” In a scene that’s etched in my memory forever, a simple dark-eyed girl steps forward where all the others cower. This is romance. This is love. Nothing else will really do. Where are these women, these men? How many of you have wives, husbands, or lovers who will step forward when the odds are thrown down, when the community, the police, Fortune, and God are on the other side? With nothing in it, who will stand by your side?

With the aid of the shotgun, Mr. Morgan becomes the unwitting instrument of revolt. The people are freed, the wardens banished, and even the old missionary left in peace with his church because he was only misguided. An idealized society, no government, lots of food, sex, surf, and the intoxicating sound of the drums and the dances. Of course, it is here that Conrad always warns us that white men go bad-at the point of moral choice. They either lose control like Mr. Kurtz, or drift on because they have no anchor and can’t really be, just left alone. Mr. Morgan is the latter. He never marries the girl. She dies bearing him a daughter; he realizes he’s lost the only thing he ever had, and leaves, embittered.

It’s here that the story seems to take on an added dimension. Cooper wanders the winds, becoming a hardened, friendless man. World War II starts and something brings him back. He returns to the island to find himself a legend of the past, a part of their history and folklore. He also finds his daughter and, eventually, himself.

In this final sentimental confrontation, he discovers what all adventurers and drifters really seek, that which most people had all along-a home. It’s a simple powerful emotion, one that the cynicism in all of us constantly tries to reject. But it gnaws at the back of my heart and has colored all of my work. I’ve written parts and shades of this story into everything I’ve ever really cared about, from Jeremiah Johnson to Conan. I guess I do it unconsciously. Maybe it’s just because I, too, really want to be like Gary Cooper at the end of the movie: standing on the dock, listening to the music with my arm around my daughter, and letting the boat sail away without me.
AuthorAffiliation
 

Copyright Film Society of Lincoln Center May/Jun 1982

Movie review - "Lilith" (1964) ***

 After Splendor in the Grass, every movie that Warren Beatty starred in flopped at the box office, but all had some sort of life, all tried to be works of significance.

This was the final movie from Robert Rossen, coming off The Hustler. He clashed with Warren Beatty on the set.

The action takes place in a mental hospital. Beatty is a new therapist there, as messed up as the patients who include Jean Seberg and Peter Fonda.

Beatty is very good, though he played this sort of role a lot - a hesitant, handsome man, basically nice, a little messed up. Seberg and Fonda are both superb. Seberg especially. She often seemed to sleepwalk through her parts eg Moment to Moment. But she's alive here.

It's been pointed out Seberg's part is very Warren Beatty esque - a chronic seducer. Seberg here goes for women and men but Beatty was notorious for flattering gay men (William Inge, Tennessee Williams). Maybe the film would've been a bigger hit had Seberg and Beatty swapped roles.

It's intelligent. Long. A little pretentious. Involving. Not entirely successful but I enjoyed myself. Beatty stretched in his choice of material, I'll give him that. Rossen isn't talked about much but he was smart and talented.

Movie review - "The Last Movie" (1971) **

 Dennis Hopper's attempt to be Jean Luc Godard isn't terrible but isn't a masterpiece. It's interesting. I love that Julie Adams got a big role.

It's pervy - Hopper has this Peruvian woman, Stella Garcia, who he takes by a waterfall, and struts around in a bikini and whines about wanting more clothes. People who worship 70s cinema never bring this up.

There's a lot of impro and Goddard style moments and cameos from people like Peter Fonda, Kris Kristofferson, Dean Stockwell.

It looks amazing. Those Peruvian locations are still a novelty. I think if this hadn't been made by a studio it would have been more accepted. Hopper clearly had talent.

Movie review - "The Victors" (1963) ***

Carl Foreman cashed in his Guns of Navarone chips to turn director with this strikingly cynical look at war. It's epic in scope - two and a half hours - with a strong cast of semi names: George Hamilton, George Peppard.

It's not highly regarded - I think its ambition annoyed people. And some of it is annoying to watch today - Foreman doesn't show battle sequences and a lot of the action is the Americans schtupping European women and hanging out on leave. Vince Edwards has a woman in Italy, Eli Wallach scores Jeanne Moreau, George Hamilton scores Romy Schneider and Elke Sommer, George Peppard scores Melinda Mercouri.

Foreman tries to downplay the predatory sexual nature by softening the encounters - Moreau is scared of bombing and Wallach comforts her, Schneider is actually a whore working for sleazy Michael Callan, Sommer's sister Santa Berger is money hungry and banging a Russian, Mercouri is a black marketeer who encourages Peppard to defect. Apparently in the original cut there was a sequence where an 11 year old French boy tries to sleep with Peppard and Hamilton for food.

But the non sex stuff is remarkable - the troops witness the execution of an Americans soldier, Peter Fonda adopts a dog who is shot by his fellow troops, white Americans beat up black Americans, the liberation of the camps, Eli Wallach is in hospital with his face blown off, Hamilton dies in a pointless knife fight with Albert Finbney.

The acting is strong - Peppard and Hamilton are excellent. Edwards' role is distractingly small - a few links/references to what happened to people like him would not go astray.

A film that has many irritating bits but also scenes of great power.

Movie review - "The Hostage Tower" (1980) **

This should have been good. A story from Alistair MacLean about criminals taking over the Eiffel Tower. Location filming in Paris, including the tower. A cast including Peter Fonda, Maud Adams, Britt Ekland, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Rachel Roberts, Keir Dullea, Billy Dee Williams.

But it's dumb. Annoyingly dumb. And bad.

It's directed with this dopey bad 70s TV way complete with silly music stings. The handling is far too light. I loved Fairbanks and Rachel Roberts as this duo running a crime fighting organisation but it didn't make sense... they knew Keir Dullea was up to something bad... so got Maude Adams and Billy Dee Williams to go undercover in the group... and went along with it as they took over the Eiffel Tower. Instead of, you know, stopping it.

It's so jokey and light. Keir Dullea's crack team includes not only Adams and Dee Williams but Peter Fonda who is out for revenge against him. The action isn't that fierce. You never fear for hostage Celia Johnston.

Adams makes a great thief/spy - ideal for this sort of thing. I liked seeing the others.

But this was stupid.

Movie review - "Dirty Mary Crazy Larry" (1974) ** (warning: spoilers)

A big hit at the time -this was from Jim Nicholson, who was going to make it for his new post-AIP company. He died before filming began.

 It's a 70s car chase movie so has a nihilistic tone and some cool cars. Peter Fonda looks groovy as the robber in cahoots with Adam Roarke. I always thought this was a Fonda-Susan George film but really it's about a trio - Roarke is with them the whole way! As Edgar Wright says the title should really include his character's name.

Roarke starts the film busting a girl in a shower and tying up her and her daughter who are both terrified - to blackmail Roddy McDowall into giving Fonda money. So I didn't like Roarke or Fonda much. I did like sexy sulky Susan George getting in their car without knowing what was going on.

But these aren't terribly interesting people having interesting adventures. Vic Morrow glowers in the seat of a helicopter or behind a desk. It quite like the shock ending where they died all ploughing into a train but really Roarke should have died earlier to give this some extra kick. 

A big hit when it came out - one of Fonda's most successful movies.

Book review - "Hank and Jim: The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart" by Scott Eyman

There's been plenty of books about film star romances... here is perhaps the first about a film star bromance, between Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda, one of the most famous Hollywood friendships where no one's ever really tried to claim they're gay (ec Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, Laurence Olivier and Danny Kaye).

It's a good book - Eyman biographies always are. Stewart and Fonda were both very admirable men with a lot in common - both loved Margaret Sullavan, both solid Americana types who worked for Ford, both excellent war records, both close to Josh Logan. Stewart was a bit less volatile and fond of the stage; Fonda married more often and was a bit more of a prick.

Both were bascially decent men... which makes them at times a little dull as subjects. But there's a colorful support cast - manic depressive Josh Logan, swashbuckling Leland Hayward, mad Margaret Sullavan, sexy Jane Fonda, the Vietnam War.

A very good book.

Book review - "Director's Cut: My Life in Film" by Ted Kotcheff

Ted Kotcheff has had a really, really strong career - lots of first-class television in Canada and the UK, plenty of stage productions in London (something of which I was unaware before reading this book), broke into directing features in Britain relatively young, moving over to a Hollywood career, turning out a fair few classics in all genres - Canadian coming of age (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravtiz), Australian movies (Wake in Fright), gritty football dramas (North Dallas Forty), comedies (Fun with Dick and Jane, Weekend at Bernies), action (First Blood) - and nicely winding up his career with a long stint on Law and Order SUV as well as publishing some poems.

You wonder then why he's such a whinger. He whinges about how poor his family was when growing up, how his parents smacked him around, how the Canadian government were useless, how the Canadian funding authorities didn't give him more money, how the US government wouldn't let him into the country. Ted has a healthy sense of entitlement which presumably helped power him through a long career.

To be fair the book isn't all whining I was just surprised that there was so much in it... especially considering the opportunities Kotcheff got in Canada and the UK and Hollywood (good luck if you were a person of colour or a woman, Ted.. or maybe a bit older or younger at the time). Still, an interesting read.

Book review - "Roger Corman: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers Series)" by Constantine Nasr (2011)

Very good collection of interviews with the great Corman. I particularly enjoyed the earlier ones he did before he'd ossified into this great figure - making movies in his prime. Lots of stuff I didn't know, like his dissatisfaction with John Ireland's direction on Fast and the Furious and disliking working with Edward Small on Tower of London.

The book became less effective as it went on and could have done with an edit to remove repetition - we get too many of the same stories, esp about the 60s (Poe, unhappiness with AIP etc). I would've liked more about the less known Corman stuff i.e. post New World. In fairness, maybe Corman is happier to talk about the 50s through to early 80s than after that. Still a worthy addition to Cormon-ology.

Movie review - "Spirits of the Dead" (1968) ***1/2

Anthology films were all the rage in Europe in the 1960s - they were reasonably popular in Hollywood too. Roger Corman had done an Edgar Allan Poe anthology, Tales of Terror - some enterprising producers had the idea of getting art house darlings to do one. This has Fellini, Vadim and Malle, not a bad line up (Orson Welles, Chabrol, Visconti and Bergman were also approached).

Vadim's segment is the campiest fun - Jane Fonda is a vixen who runs around her estate killing people, having orgies and seducing unwilling women as part of threesomes.  She falls in love with the boy next door... played by Peter Fonda! Which is a bit perverse, even for Vadim... but they don't kiss or anything he's not keen until so she accidentally kills him and then lives to regret it. Its all garish and not particularly well made but the Fondas make it fun (Jane really, that is - Peter is only in it briefly).

Malle's segment is much better directed, more serious. Alain Delon is very effective as a nasty piece of work (it's a shame Delon didn't play more villains, he suits them) who tackles his own conscience - manifested as an actual person. Brigitte Bardot is not convincing in a black wig and feels wasted but I enjoyed this bit - it's not as highly regarded, I'm not sure why.

Fellini's segment is superb. It's a sort of companion piece to La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2  with Terence Stamp, at the height of his sixties groovy-ness, playing a Shakesperean actor who is in Rome to make a Christian Western. He's hassled by various parties - the paps, director, interpreter, press, random women etc. Its done with flair and vivacity. The "horror" is more muted but Stamp hooning along the highway is genuinely scary - I wish Fellini had made a horror film or two.

A strong, entertaining film with gorgeous colour.

Book review - "Warren Oates" by Susan Compo (2009)

Warren Oates was a grizzly character actor who has inspired a devoted cult for a few reasons: genuine talent, a hard drinking lifestyle, collaboration with auteurs like Monte Hellman and Sam Peckinpah, and some odd cult-y movies on his resume (Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Two Lane Backdrop, Cockfighter). He's been given a wonderful biography from Susan Compo - every actor should be so lucky to have a biographer as tenacious as her, you really couldn't wish for a more definitive account.

Oates came from Kentucky, spending the first few years of his life in a small town, the moving to the larger Louisville. Oates always looked like a former soldier and indeed spent two years in the Marines although it was in peacetime. It meant he could attend college where he got the theatre bug. He moved to New York where he succeeded in getting an agent and some work, plus making friends (including a young Steve McQueen), developing a drinking problem and a tendency to womanise.

What really got his career going was moving to Hollywood in the late 1950s. It was the heyday of the TV Western and Oates' rough, beady-eyed look made him perfect to play rustlers, outlaws, etc - once he hit town he was rarely out of work, even if it was often not particularly distinguished. He was lucky enough to find Sam Peckinpah, a director who liked Oates and used him well; his career also got a fillip from the TV series Stoney Burke and a stage performance of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (which I was unaware he'd done) plus the leads in some Monte Hellman Westerns like The Shooting.

In the early 70s Oates became kind of a star - maybe "character leading man" would be a better description. He played the leads in a number of movies, few of which were hits but all of which had a certain critical cachet today - The Hired Hand, Two Lane Backdrop, Kid Blue, White Dawn, Alfredo Garcia, 92 in the Shade. His biggest hits were more consciously trashy: Race with the Devil, Drum. He was greatly admired by the Movie Brat generation and worked with John Milius (Dillinger), Walter Hill (The Thief Who Came to Dinner), Spielberg (1941), Terence Mallick (Badlands), Dennis Hopper (Kid Blue).

To many people he was kind of a 70s Bogart - a character actor who developed into a star. Indeed, he played many Bogart like roles - Dillinger and a TV remake of The African Queen. But he never had a really popular star making vehicle like Bogart had with The Maltese Falcon or High Sierra and drifted back into support roles - though good ones since he was such a strong actor and so castable (Stripes, The Border). He died relatively young at 53 but considering how he punished his body with booze, drugs and alcohol, he had a decent innings.

I didn't know a lot about Oates but this fills in all the gaps - constant womanising; a surprising ability to get good looking women (he had an affair with Millie Perkins, which is a pretty good score); theatre scene of the mid west during his college years; the bo ho life of LA in the 60s, living on a boat in Marina del Rey and having drinks with Steve McQueen; the Montana scene of the 70s where you had Oates, Thomas Guane and Dennis Hopper running around sleeping with each other's wives; a surprisingly hippy nature.

Oates does come across as a bit of a wanker at times - a not very good father, lover or husband, irresponsible and clownish. But he was an artist and so much of his art remains and he's lucky to have been the subject of such a good book.

Movie review - "Escape from LA" (1996) **

Kurt Russell enjoyed a run of box office hits in the 90s which enabled him to get finance for a (very) late sequel to his 1980 hit Escape from New York - which had given Russell one of his favourite, if not favourite, roles: the enigmatic anti-hero Snake Plissken.  It's not hard to see why Russell loved the part so - he rarely looked more bad-ass, with his eye patch, three day growth and leather pants; the swagger and one liners; the back story that incorporated all sorts of mysterious missions; the nihilistic past. And he's as good as ever in the role. If anything the years have added a bit more shade.

The film isn't much though. It's hopeless muddled, a combination of a remake of the original, a campy cartoon satirical action piece, and a platform for Russell's libertarian political views. The three things do not mesh.

It's disappointing how much it copies the original while making it worse. In many respects the structure is almost identical: instead of Lee Van Cleef there's Stacy Keach and Michelle Forbes (and Cliff Robertson, I guess); there's a maguffin and Plissken thinks he's injected with something; instead of Donald Pleasance as the macguffin holder there's AJ Holder; Steve Buscemi replaces Ernest Borgnine, Georges Corraface replaces Isaac Hayes, Valerie Golina replaces Season Hubley, Pam Grier replaces Harry Dean Stanton. Even Plissken's double cross at the end is the same.

Yet there are some key, disastrous differences. I know John Carpenter was thinking "well Howard Hawks remade Rio Bravo with El Dorado and Rio Lobo" but Hawks maintained the basic dramatic tension of the concept i.e. a siege picture with baddies outside. Escape from New York had a very clear idea - New York was a prison and a horrible nightmarish place to be. It never went in to too much detail about what the outside world was like - it was clearly tough and not super fun, but was infinitely superior to the prison; all the prisoners in New York wanted to get out.  Here Los Angeles is a prison, but one where the prisoners preferred life inside to that on the outside. In Escape from LA the nightmare is modern day America - ruled by a dictatorial president who is in power for life, ruled by a religious fundamentalist regime who are also politically correct (banning smoking, red meat), outlawing muslims and leather jackets, threatened with invasion from the third world. LA is wild and wooly and dangerous but not to a good libertarian like Russell/Plissken and prisoners such as those played by Valerie Golina and Pam Grier would actually rather stay there. Which means it's not that scary, there's not the same impulse to leave, which undermines the drama.

Politically it is interesting. Plissken at the end removes power from the entire world - you don't get more libertarian than that. I'm sure patients in hospitals and people depending on refrigeration and heat to survive might feel differently but at least Russell had the guts to propagate his lunatic theories.

It's in the outlandish, campy comic book sections that I felt this movie was most successful, where it seemed to get its tone right: the underground sub Russell uses, the decaying aspects of Los Angeles (including remnants of Disneyland); Plissken having to play basketball in a court for survival; Plissken surfing a wave with Peter Fonda; the cameos from players such as Fonda, Robert Carradine (a skinhead), Bruce Campbell (fun as a plastic surgeon), Pam Grier (transsexual); the colourful production design.

Like I say the three movies don't mesh - they pull in different directions. But Carpenter completists, Russell fans and libertarians will get stuff out of it.

Movie review -"The Cannonball Run" (1981) **1/2

Dopey early 80s car racing movie which I remember loving as a kid. It hasn't aged that well but it maintains a genuine good natured air of mischief and fun - you do feel everyone who worked on it got along, and just wanted to have a good time. It presumably helped everyone would have gotten paid a decent amount of money and Burt Reynolds and Hal Needham were friends.

The chief appeal of this is the cast - Burt Reynolds as the nominal hero (a relaxed and self-kiddying performance), and Dom de Luise as his sidekick (who turns into Captain Chaos, which is fun); Farrah Fawcett as the girl who gets dragged along (I always liked her theme song in this); Jack Elam as a crazy doctor; Roger Moore poking fun of his James Bond image (which he kind of did anyway playing James Bond but still entertaining); Jamie Farr playing up the stereotypes as an Arab; ditto Jackie Chan as a technology obsessed Asian; Burt Convy as a tycoon competing for fun doing a wheelie most of the way (this always cracked me up); Tara Buckman and Adrienne Barbeau as a female driver with massive boobs (at least she's allowed to win); Peter Fonda as the head of some bikies, the third act villains (how is that for times are a changin'); Dean Martin and Sammy David Jnr hilarious as priests.

The movie is ramshackle and silly but it works (despite the fact there's actually not that much driving). It has a spirit that is hard to repeat though - so when they did for Cannonball Run II (and also Stroker Ace) it didn't work. (Maybe a crucial element was also Brock Yates, who wrote this - he's a car journalist and added a lot of verisimilitude).

Movie review - "Tammy and the Doctor" (1963) **

Props to Ross Hunter for ensuring the Tammy series maintained continuity - this one picks up with Tammy still at college looking over the little old lady from the second film. Said old lady gets sick and so a handsome older doctor (Macdonald Carey) suggests she go to the hospital for an operation.  This entails a move to Los Angeles where Tammy charms yet another grumpy old person, annoys some more stuck up bitches (nurses) who eventually sees what a sweetheart she is, encourages another aging woman devoted to her career to find love, is eyed by a lech (Adam West) and finds romance with a handsome young man (Peter Fona).

I normally like Dee but she's irritating for the most part as Tammy, mugging and overacting. In one or two places she pulls back on the hayseed and is a lot more effective.

Peter Fonda is very gawky and young as the doctor with whom she romances; it's not much of a love story - unlike Debbie Reynolds and Leslie Neilsen in the first movie there's no inherent conflict, he's just a anxious young man, not particularly handsome, who is into his career. He doesn't seem that smarter or more wordly than Tammy and they don't have much charisma. I wish more was made of the love triangle between Adam West, Fonda and Dee - but all that really happens is West makes some lecherous eyes at her and Dee figures out he's no good.

Also this is the third time Tammy has fallen in love and she's beginning to feel flippant - the second film they got away with John Gavin being her love interest because we'd think "oh well Leslie Nielsen was just a puppy love" but then when she bats her eyes at Fonda... how are we meant to think about Gavin? It's as if she's not capable of true love, she's just up for whatever handsome man she comes across when she moves to a new place. Which is an interesting character trait but tends to reduce the stakes of their romance.

They're still making jokes about Tammy's father being in gaol for moonshining; Tammy manages to turn around some bitchy nurses and make them feel ashamed of themselves with one (badly written) monologue. There is more religion in this one - Tammy quotes the Bible a lot, prays to God to help her old lady friend recover.

In fairness, the script has some bright lines and at least Tammy has a job, working hard at the hospital. Dee sings "Tammy's in Love".

Movie review - "The Dunwich Horror" (1970) **

Dean Stockwell was a great actor as a child (Kim), teenager (Compulsion), and adult (Blue Velvet, Quantum Leap) but here he's terrible. He plays a mysterious chap who's meant to be charismatic (the script gets characters making several references to his looks and appeal), so much so he cons undergrad Sandra Dee into lending him a copy of the Necronomicon. This is a Bad Thing, apparently, because it enables Stockwell to raise the dead or something. (Peter Fonda was meant to play the lead and he would've been better.)

There are some interesting bits: the novelty of Sandra Dee writhing orgasmically under the thrall of Stockwell; the groovy opening credits (by the same guy who did Three in the Attic); an attack on a friend of Dee's (which results in her clothes being ripped off under way-out visuals).

But there's not nearly enough. Director Dan Haller was an excellent designer for Roger Corman in those Poe films but isn't much as a director (in his defence, this is contemporary not a period story so he doesn't have that to fall back on). It badly lacks atmosphere and there simply aren't the actors to pull it off - not just Stockwell but also Lloyd Bochner and Ed Begley.

The ending hints at Rosemary's Baby but this is nowhere near that league.

Play review - "Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole" by William and James Goldman

James Goldman went on to write several Broadway classics, his brother Bill is/was a major novelist who wrote brilliantly on theatre, but this early effort from theirs isn't much. It's a service comedy that isn't that funny. It's basically about a master sergeant in the peacetime army who needs to be educated to keep his job in the modern day service; he is helped by a nervous yokel intellectual with a gift for teaching (Peter Fonda played this on stage). That doesn't sound like a great idea and it doesn't read much better either.

The character of the sergeant is drawn well enough but his problems and dilemmas aren't that interesting - is it about putting one over the man or discovering the joy of education? It's theme wasn't clear to me. The yokel genius teacher didn't convince either. There are some effective scenes like the bit with the bayonet and the finale.

Movie review – “Corman’s Kingdom” (2011) ***1/2

Fun, well made doco on the legendary director/producer which won’t reveal much for the fan but has some great footage and talking heads (John Sayles, Jonathan Demme, Julie Corman, Frances Doel, Jack Nicholson, Joe Dante, Polly Platt [who was executive producer], Peter Bogdanovich, David Carradine, Peter Fonda.

It’s positive about Corman but not uncritical – for instance it’s noted how he couldn’t make the step up to bigger budgeted films in the 70s and how he kind of lost his way as an important filmmaker since the 80s. Some clue for why this happened is given with some observational footage of Corman on location with one of his new films in Mexico – he makes an impatient comment about how long the star takes to get her make up on and is always encouraging the director to shoot faster. I think economy was just too ingrained in his bones.

Best bits: Jack Nicholson crying with emotion over Corman (“I don’t think people realise how much he is loved”), Quentin Tarantino after the Oscars (the "other night" Oscars, when Corman got his special achievement) wondering if speaking at the awards got him in the Roger Corman school, Peter Bogdanovich cracking a smile and laughing when talking about Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (I don't think I've ever seen him smile before!); Polly Platt saying that after Bogdanovoich left her, Corman rang her up and said she could direct a film whenever she felt like it (you should have done it).