The Cowboys (1972)

          Although John Wayne’s actual cinematic swan song was The Shootist (1976), which depicts an aging gunfighter’s quest for death with dignity, the Duke’s earlier film The Cowboys is in many ways a richer closing statement about the themes Wayne spent decades exploring in Western movies. Instead of merely pondering the question of whether a man who lives by the gun must die by the gun—the poignant central theme of The Shootist—The Cowboys explores all the qualities, bad and good, that defined the Duke’s screen persona. His character, Wil Andersen, combines frontier values, heroic self-sacrifice, macho stoicism, and, of course, that most American of qualities: rugged individualism. The fact that Andersen’s journey inadvertently inspires a group of boys to become young men molded in Andersen’s honorable image perfectly echoes the manner in which Wayne’s characters inspired generations of moviegoers. So, whether you love or hate Wayne’s on- and off-screen politics, it’s easy to appreciate the elegance of this picture’s symbiosis between star and story.

          Based on a novel by William Dale Jennings and adapted for the screen by Jennings and the husband-and-wife duo Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr., The Cowboys tells a simple story about noble characters clashing with craven ones. In the beginning of the movie, rancher Andersen preps for a cattle drive until his crew abruptly quits to join the Gold Rush. In short order, Andersen finds himself interviewing an unlikely set of replacements—several schoolboys, some teens and some even younger. When the kids display unexpected determination, he agrees to hire them. However, word of available work also attracts a gaggle of varmints led by Asa Watts (Bruce Dern), whom Andersen quickly identifies as a dangerous type. Andersen refuses to hire Asa’s gang, and then sets off on the drive with the kids as his crew. A series of frontier adventures ensues, during which Andersen gruffly mentors the boys on what it takes to succeed in the cattle biz. Meanwhile, Asa’s nefarious gang trails the cowboys, eventually leading to an infamous showdown between Dern and Wayne—the climax of the duel won’t be spoiled here, but suffice to say one single moment helped cement Dern’s typecasting as a crazed villain.

          Although the storyline of The Cowboysis so schematic as to seem a bit like a fable, the piece works—mightily—because of immaculate craftsmanship and vivacious performances. Director Mark Rydell, himself a thespian, does a gorgeous job of blending different types of acting, so everything from Wayne’s stylization to Dern’s improvisation feels unified; Rydell also draws fine work from young performers including Robert Carradine, who made his screen debut in The Cowboys. (Grown-ups in the fine supporting cast include Roscoe Lee Browne, Colleen Dewhurst, and Slim Pickens.) Cinematographer Robert Surtees captures the rugged beauty of untarnished landscapes, while composer John Williams’ music strikes just the right balance of excitement and wistfulness. And if the movie’s a bit bloated at 131 minutes, so what? Thanks to its careful treatment of resonant themes, The Cowboysis arguably Wayne’s best film of the ’70s.

The Cowboys: RIGHT ON

Black Sunday (1977)

          Full disclosure: Even though I recognize its many flaws, I lovethis movie for its ambition, intelligence, and toughness—and especially for costar Bruce Dern’s searing performance. Black Sunday is bleak, long, and outlandish, but whenever I watch the picture, I perceive those qualities as strengths rather than weaknesses.

          Based on an early novel by Thomas Harris, who later created Hannibal Lecter and wrote the various books about the cannibalistic shrink’s exploits, Black Sunday is an old-school terrorism thriller. When a Palestinian extremist named Dahlia Iyad (Marthe Keller) surfaces on the radar of merciless Mossad agent David Kabakov (Robert Shaw), David methodically tracks her down to the U.S. and joins forces with an FBI agent, Sam Corley (Fritz Weaver), to identify her plan and stop her. It turns out Dahlia has recruited a PTSD-stricken Vietnam vet, American pilot Michael Lander (Dern), to fly the Goodyear Blimp into a Miami stadium during the Super Bowl, where Dahlia will activate explosives inside the blimp and send thousands of steel darts flying into the crowd.

          John Frankenheimer, a seasoned pro at tightly coiled action stories, directs the film in an expansive style, taking equal care with intimate scenes of Dahlia manipulating Michael’s fragile psyche and big-canvas action sequences. What makes Black Sunday unique, however, is its sensitive exploration of Michael’s mental state—despite being neither the film’s hero nor its villain, Michael is by far the picture’s most developed character, and this peculiar storytelling choice delivers fascinating results. As the story progresses, we learn that David (the Mossad agent) is a cold-blooded hunter for whom the ends justify the means. Dahlia, meanwhile, is a kind of psychic counterpoint to David, and the biggest distinction between them is Dahlia’s willingness to kill bystanders for dramatic effect. Therefore, the conflict between these characters is a draw, morally speaking.

          Caught between them, literally and metaphorically, is Michael, a haunted man who endured torture as a prisoner of war, only to return home to an ungrateful society. Even when Michael is carefully preparing explosives, he acts more like an artist than a potential mass murderer; we feel his suffocating angst and wish for him to escape Dahlia’s destructive influence. Dern soars in this movie, adding dimension upon dimension to a role that’s perfectly suited to his offbeat gifts.

          Keller is good, too, presenting a creepy sort of sociopathic sensuality, and Shaw, though regularly upstaged by Dern and Keller, has many vivid moments. His is not, however, a true leading man’s performance—his characterization is far too cruel for that. Adding greatly to the movie’s appeal is a robust score by John Williams, which jacks up the tension, and muscular cinematography by John A. Alonzo. Black Sunday goes overboard during the finale, during which the laws of physics take a beating and during which iffy special effects dull the film’s impact, but even with its goofy denouement, Black Sunday is a popcorn flick executed with a rare level of craftsmanship behind and in front of the camera.

Black Sunday: RIGHT ON

Thumb Tripping (1972)

An awful picture that only comes alive when it succumbs to lurid extremes, Thumb Tripping is a road movie in which neither the travelers nor the journey is interesting. Michael Burns plays Gary, a sweet-natured college kid who drops out of mainstream society for a summer of hitchhiking in Northern California and thereabouts. He soon hooks up with Shay (Meg Foster), a spaced-out hippie chick, but for the first 20-ish minutes of the movie, nothing happens. Gary and Shay mill around small towns including Carmel, occasionally getting hassled by the man, and they camp in a seaside cave with other hippies. (There’s literally a five-minute scene in the cave during which the four characters discuss the virtues of soup as a dietary staple.) Then the movie shifts to a series of episodes revolving around the weird people who give Gary and Shay rides. The best sequence features Bruce Dern as Smitty, a quasi-psychopath who threatens the kids with a knife; although Dern is typecast as a violent nutter, he’s so vital he almost makes the movie seem purposeful. Almost. Michael Conrad, later of Hill Street Blues fame, plays a horny trucker eager to get into Shay’s pants, and the final major characters are Jack (Burke Byrnes) and Lynn (Marianna Hill), hard-partying drunks who lead the heroes through high junks such as bar-hopping and skinny-dipping. Thumb Tripping is beyond pointless, not only because the story never goes anywhere, but also because the lead characters are twits. Gary’s an inactive cipher who simply watches things happen, except when he’s demonstrating squaresville hang-ups, and Shay is such a reckless wastoid that it’s bizarre we never see her drop acid. As for the acting, Burns is fine in a nothing role, Foster’s icy-blue eyes are as striking as ever, Conrad is effectively sleazy, and Byrnes and Hill are awful—hyper and screechy from their first frames to their last. Worst of all, the movie lacks a point of view: It’s neither a celebration of the counterculture lifestyle nor a condemnation, and since Gary’s just a visitor in this world, it’s not a docudrama, either.

Thumb Tripping: LAME

Posse (1975)

Even though he’d been producing many of his own movies since the late ’50s, the venerable star Kirk Douglas didn’t try directing until the early ’70s, and it’s surprising how little skill he brought to the task. Both movies that Douglas directed—this one and the pirate flick Scalawag(1973)—suffer from middling storylines and tonal chaos. Posse is the better of the two, but it’s a messy endeavor in which Douglas’ admirable ambition far exceeds his directorial abilities. A failed attempt at a postmodern Western in the Sam Peckinpah mode, Posse revolves around U.S. Marshal Howard Nightingale (Douglas), who tries to curry political favor with frontier types by tracking down ruthless bank robber Jack Strawhorn (Bruce Dern). Nightingale organizes the mob of the film’s title, only to get captured by his quarry. Then, in what was undoubtedly meant to be an ironic twist, Nightingale’s posse must turn criminal in order to raise money with which to pay Strawhorn for Nightingale’s release. It all ends with lots of preaching and violence, so viewers are supposed to walk away from the movie contemplating issues of justice and mob rule and so forth. Had the movie been written with more clarity—and, quite frankly, had Douglas’ lead performance been more subtle—Posse might have become the hard-hitting statement Douglas surely envisioned. But while previous Douglas productions about the murky intersections between morality and violence had shattering power (consider his remarkable Stanley Kubrick collaboration from 1957, Paths of Glory), Posse is simultaneously overwrought and underdeveloped. The biggest moments are delivered with bludgeoning obviousness, an issue exacerbated by Douglas’ over-the-top acting, and the heaviest thematic elements are subverted by mixed narrative messages. In the end, the film says so many things, so loudly, that it’s a muddle. Still, the intentions are good, the production values are fine, and supporting player Dern’s performance crackles with his unique energy—few people play villains with anywhere near the level of humanity and nuance that Dern brings to the task.

Posse: FUNKY

Silent Running (1972)

          Special-effects mastermind Douglas Trumbull has only directed two features in his long career, and they’re both fascinating. His first picture, Silent Running, is one of the most deeply felt statements within the small but noteworthy genre of ecology-themed sci-fi dramas, and his sophomore effort, Brainstorm (1983), is a problematic but provocative examination of what might happen if technology allowed us to experience other people’s thoughts. Obviously, the fact that both films are rooted in man’s complicated relationship with machines means that Trumbull didn’t stray far from his strong suit of special effects and technological themes—but there’s a lot to be said for any artist operating within the idiom he or she finds most comfortable.

          Silent Running takes place entirely in space, specifically aboard the scientific vessel Valley Forge. The setting is a future date when plant life has disappeared from the surface of the Earth, so the Valley Forge tugs geodesic domes in which the planet’s last forests are lovingly maintained by botanist Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern). Lowell has a tough time getting along with the other humans aboard the Valley Forge, partially because of his antisocial nature and partially because they don’t share his passion for preserving plant life. Instead, his main companions are three robots, whom he dubs Huey, Duey, and Louie (borrowing the names of Disney cartoon character Scrooge McDuck’s nephews). When the Valley Forgereceives orders to destroy the geodesic domes (including their precious cargo) and then return to Earth—a decision’s been made that greenery isn’t worth sustaining anymore—Lowell takes extreme measures to protect as many of the plants as he can.

          Some viewers might find this storyline bizarre, either because they can’t imagine anyone prioritizing plants over people or because the film’s conservation message is too overt, but the perfect casting of Dern in the lead role both accentuates and justifies the strange premise. On the most obvious level, Dern built his career playing unstable characters, so it’s not hard to accept his drift into idiosyncratic behavior. And yet on a deeper level, Dern’s intensity underscores Freeman Lowell’s self-perception as a reluctant savior—he sees the prevention of plant extinction as a higher calling. This aspect of the film pays off wonderfully in the finale, which has a strong emotional hit that’s grounded in the offbeat colorations of Dern’s exceptional performance. And though the most memorable quality of Silent Running is the humane nature of Dern’s acting—ironic, given Trumbull’s background and directorial inexperience—the special effects don’t disappoint. Using some of the same technology he brought to bear on 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Trumbull creates outer-space environments with genuine dimension, all the while ensuring that visual gimmicks never overwhelm the offbeat story.

Silent Running: RIGHT ON

Coming Home (1978)

          Inarguably the best movie made during the ’70s about the unique difficulties facing American veterans returning from Vietman, Coming Homeis at once moving, political, provocative, and tender—and it’s also the apex of actress Jane Fonda’s anti-Vietnam War activism, even though it was released three years after the fall of Saigon. While “Hanoi Jane” alienated as many people as she inspired while the war was raging, she used Coming Home—which she developed—to focus her rage at needless conflict through the prism of war’s impact on individuals. Rather than being polemic, even though some detractors saw the film that way, Coming Home is poetic.

          When the movie opens in early 1968, Sally Hyde (Fonda) is happily married to a Marine officer named Bob Hyde (Bruce Dern), and both unquestionably accept the rightness of U.S. involvement in Indochina. Once Bob leaves for his tour of duty, Sally begins to hear different opinions about the war, notably from her feminist friend Vi (Penelope Milford); Sally also begins to question the subservient role she plays in her marriage. Eventually, Sally volunteers at a VA hospital, where she meets returning soldiers including embittered but passionate Luke Martin (Jon Voight), who is paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair. As part of her larger spiritual awakening, Sally recognizes Luke’s humanity, and they become lovers in a crucial scene that director Hal Ashby executes with a memorable combination of eroticism and poignancy. The fragile world that Luke and Sally build together is upset, however, when Bob returns from Vietnam, having been changed in disturbing ways that echo the film’s theme of how war affects different people differently.

          Placing Sally’s character at the center of the story was a genius move on many levels. First and most obviously, the role gives Fonda a way to express her deep feelings about the war; she dramatizes the ravages of conflict by meticulously charting Sally’s shifting attitudes. Second, making the central character a witness to the horrors of Vietnam—rather than an active participant—allows the audience to see soldiers as real-world people instead of battleground heroes. What does it mean when a draftee is rewarded for his service by wounds that will last the rest of his life? What does it mean when a career soldier encounters horrors during combat for which he wasn’t prepared? How can those left behind in the homeland ever hope to understand the experiences of soldiers?

          Coming Home is a deeply compassionate film, with Ashby and cinematographer Haskell Wexler capturing a spectrum of complex emotions in soft, painterly images; the movie is a tapestry of souls making connections and, alternately, slamming against insurmountable barriers. Coming Home is also a showcase for spectacular acting. Fonda and Voight both won Oscars, Fonda for her precise demarcations of stages in one woman’s life and Voight for his deeply touching openness. (His show-stopping speech to a group of young people near the end of the picture, while a bit of a narrative digression given its length, is among the finest moments Voight’s ever had onscreen.) Dern, unluckily overshadowed by his costars because he’s playing yet another in his long line of screen psychos, gives a performance every bit as powerful as Fonda’s and Voight’s—portraying a man who’s betrayed by the ideals to which he’s dedicated his life, Dern is frightening and yet also completely sympathetic.

Coming Home: RIGHT ON

The Great Gatsby (1974)

          While this much-maligned adaption of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic Jazz Age novel is highly problematic, it’s not the disaster its reputation might suggest. And while the movie’s biggest shortcomings are indecisive direction and poorly conceived leading roles, it must be acknowledged that the source material’s inherent ambiguity prevents easy translation to the cinematic medium.

          The basics of the movie’s storyline are intact from the novel. In 1920s Long Island, carefree young socialite Daisy Buchanan (Mia Farrow) endures a financially comfortable but loveless marriage to the abusive and adulterous Tom Buchanan (Bruce Dern). One summer, Daisy’s life is brightened by the arrival on Long Island of a favorite cousin, comparatively penniless Nick Carraway (Sam Waterston). Nick resides in a small cottage next to the palatial estate of Jay Gatsby (Robert Redford), a mystery man who throws lavish parties that he doesn’t attend.

          Jay befriends Nick as a means of arranging a meeting with Daisy, whom we learn was in love with Jay prior to her marriage. The Daisy/Jay romance was originally thwarted by Jay’s poverty, so in the intervening period he acquired great wealth through dubious means. A dreamer mired in the past, Jay hopes to steal Daisy away from her unworthy husband and reclaim the idylls of yesteryear. Fitzgerald’s novel is a meditation on the blithe manner in which the rich trifle with the lives of the poor, and the book explores such rich themes as ambition, jealousy, self-delusion, and self-destruction.

          The screenplay, credited to Francis Ford Coppola but reportedly tweaked by director Jack Clayton and producer David Merrick, simplifies Fitzgerald’s story in hurtful ways, accentuating some of the novel’s least interesting aspects—the seductive glamour of Roaring ’20s clothing, the silly revelry of Prohibition-era parties, the trashy extremes of a subplot involving Tom’s déclassé mistress, Myrtle Wilson (Karen Black). Clearly, when the adaptation of a book famed for its internal qualities gets mired in surfaces, there’s a major disconnect on some level.

          Furthermore, it’s no coincidence that Clayton didn’t direct another Hollywood movie for nearly a decade after The Great Gatsby: His storytelling is so awkward that he sometimes contrives complex tracking shots that land in the wrong place, with a key character obscured while delivering dialogue, and Clayton gets completely lost during party scenes, lingering on unimportant details like the flailing hem of a flapper’s skirt while she’s doing the Charleston.

          The lead performances are similarly unfocused. Farrow is far too stilted to evoke Daisy’s signature quality of intoxicating carelessness, and Farrow’s clumsy reactions during the most dramatic scenes recall the over-the-top mugging of silent films. Redford fares better, nailing several important nuances, though he seems like he’s in a different movie from everyone else—he’s striving for quiet depth while other actors settle for loud melodrama. Waterston finds a comfortable middle ground between the extremes of Farrow’s and Redford’s performances, and the scenes between him and Redford are the movie’s best.

          Dern is very good, too, though he’s boxed in by a one-note characterization, and supporting player Scott Wilson is quietly moving in a key role. As for Black, there’s a reason a punk band bears the ironic name The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black—the operatic style she displays here is an acquired taste.

          The commercial and critical failure of this movie was enough to scare Hollywood away from Fitzgerald’s book for decades, as had happened previously with a reckless 1949 adaptation starring Alan Ladd; notwithstanding a bland TV version broadcast in 2000, Hollywood avoided The Great Gatsby until 2012, when flamboyant director Baz Luhrmann mounted a lavish new version (in 3D!) starring Leonardo Di Caprio as Gatsby.

The Great Gatsby: FUNKY

The Driver (1978)

          Fast, stylish, and taut, The Driver is an audacious experiment in cinematic minimalism. Eschewing conventional elements like backstory, character names, and emotional life, writer-director Walter Hill presents an action movie comprised merely of situations and forward momentum; the fact that a certain kind of ambiguous character study emerges from this Spartan storytelling speaks not only to Hill’s craftsmanship but also to the depth of his commitment to themes of individuality and male identity.

          The Driver (Ryan O’Neal) is a Los Angeles wheelman who freelances for crooks, providing his expensive services during high-speed getaways. The Driver’s reputation has spread beyond the criminal community to the world of law enforcement, so the Detective (Bruce Dern) devotes himself to catching the Driver. Caught between them is the Player (Isabelle Adjani), a casino gambler who witnessed the Driver performing a crime but refuses to ID him for the Detective’s benefit. When these characters converge, the Detective forces a situation that puts the Driver in league with reckless thieves willing to betray anyone and everyone for the right price.

          Taking place mostly at night, and set in evocative locations like a cavernous warehouse and L.A.’s iconic Union Station, The Driver is a sleek underworld poem. Nobody trusts anybody, and yet people must rely on each other to get their jobs done, so disconnected souls rise and fall based on their luck in picking the right partners. For viewers who buy into Hill’s singular approach, The Driver is a metaphorically rich meditation on the bleak moral relativism shared by killers. Yet others might find The Driver pretentious and vacuous, merely a symphony of attractive actors, cool shots, and exciting sequences.

          For me, the beauty of the picture is that it justifies both reactions—it’s a deep statement if you’re inclined to explore its enigmatic textures, and it’s empty fun if all you want to do is enjoy its visceral pleasures.

          Cast for their surface qualities rather than their acting chops, O’Neal manifests a cynical swagger that works well in this context, while Adjani’s dark beauty suits Hill’s nocturnal aesthetic. Dern manages to slip in a bit of characterization despite the script’s restraint, so he steals the movie by dint of presenting a recognizable personality. However, the acting in The Driver is really just part of Hill’s overall palette, because this is the action movie as art piece—whenever Hill commences a chase scene or a tense standoff, he reveals his innate mastery of primal signifiers and visual economy. In his hands, a car zooming across a nighttime highway is a brushstroke across a canvas, and a fragment of dialogue is a world of implied psychology.

The Driver: GROOVY