The Ragman’s Daughter (1972)

          A peculiar hybrid of downbeat character study and upbeat romance, The Ragman’s Daughter tells the story of a British thief looking back on his younger years, which are depicted through extended flashbacks of his doomed affair with a beautiful girl from a higher social station. The story moves in peculiar rhythms, because very often when it seems as if the narrative is about to go down a dark road, tension gets diffused; the idea, presumably, was to capture the excitement that the thief and his girl felt when living in close proximity to danger, but the end result is that much of the picture’s running time comprises scenes without impact. (For instance, the lead characters do things like break into houses and stores, but their actions have few lasting repercussions.) Yet The Ragman’s Daughter isn’t as dull an experience as this description might suggest. First-time director Harold Becker, who later made such fine films as The Onion Field (1979), orchestrates visuals beautifully, arranging the equivalent of elegant still photographs to accentuate the gritty locations used for the production—Becker’s imagery lends such rich atmosphere that narrative turns feel less trite than they might have otherwise.

          Additionally, leading man Simon Rouse, who plays the thief as a young man, has a naturalistic style distinguished by jittery physicality. With his scraggly mop of long hair and his wiry build, he’s quite believable as a street punk who can’t believe his luck when he hooks up with a glamorous upper-crust beauty. Playing the girl is Victoria Tennant, who later achieved notoriety as Steve Martin’s on- and offscreen partner in the ’80s and ’90s. Although she doesn’t particularly wow in this, her debut performance, she’s so physically right for her role that her look conveys a great deal of meaning. Long and lean, with silky bands of bright blonde hair framing model-pretty features, Tennant epitomizes an unattainable ideal that could make any young man’s blood boil.

          Perhaps the most interesting question permeating the story is that of whether Tennant’s character genuinely loves her paramour or is merely toying with him for a lark. Alas, this rich vein is not sufficiently explored. Similarly, the dramatic conflict suggested by the movie’s title—how far a wealthy man will go to separate his little girl from an unworthy suitor—fails to generate much heat until the very end of the story. The biggest missed opportunity, though, involves the framing device. Although Patrick O’Connell has a strong lived-in quality as the middle-aged thief lost in memories of happier times, the revelation the movie delivers once the past and present storylines intersect is so disappointing and understated that it’s not much of a reward for watching the entire movie.

The Ragman’s Daughter: FUNKY

The Onion Field (1979)

          Former L.A. cop Joseph Wambaugh forged a new career writing fiction and nonfiction books inspired by his time in uniform, and the moment his debut novel was published in 1971, he started getting attention from Hollywood. Yet by the end of the decade, he was reportedly sick of the liberties filmmakers took in their adaptations of his work—so for The Onion Field, Wambaugh insisted on writing the script and working closely with the director. The result was a highly intelligent look at the unique emotional challenges of police life, shown through the prism of how one detective is scarred by his involvement in a killing.

          As directed by Harold Becker, whose best movies are filled with actual and metaphorical shadows, The Onion Field paints a bleak picture of modern law-enforcement: The policemen in this story are easy targets, while criminals armor themselves with the legal system. Based on a real case, the narrative takes place in the early ’60s, when newly minted Detective Karl Hettinger (John Savage) is assigned to work with slightly older partner Ian Campbell (Ted Danson). Hettinger is an oversensitive ex-Marine, and Campbell is a conflicted soul who plays bagpipes for relaxation and contemplates whether he should quit police work.

          Meanwhile, simple-minded thief Jimmy Smith (Franklyn Seales) has the bad luck to hook up with intense career criminal Greg Powell (James Woods) shortly after Smith’s release from prison. Powell’s a live wire who’s too smart for his own good, since his hodgepodge education leads him to misunderstand as many things as he comprehends. These duos from opposite sides of the law intersect when the criminals take the police officers captive. Soon, Campbell is dead in a roadside ditch near an onion field in the rural community of Bakersfield. Ettinger escapes captivity, though his real trauma has just begun. Haunted by guilt over what he might have done differently, Ettinger spirals into depression and petty crime, eventually losing his badge. He’s also forced to relive his worst moments again and again because after Powell and Smith are arrested, the hoodlums mount endless legal challenges.

          Wambaugh’s close attention to the psychological after-effects of crime ensures that every frame of The Onion Field is compelling, even though his handling of the story’s female characters is weak. Becker’s meticulous images accentuate Wambaugh’s dramaturgy, since Becker uses long lenses to isolate figures and, at other times, deep shadows to smother them.

          Woods’ performance dominates, not only because he’s got the showy role of a psychotic chatterbox, but also because Woods adds textures of deviousness, humor, intelligence, perversion, and self-loathing. (He received his first Golden Globe nomination for The Onion Field.) Savage is touchingly vulnerable, though he sometimes drifts into affected, Method-style twitchiness, and Seales displays wide-open emotion as a loser who stumbles into a situation he can’t handle. Danson is terrific in one of his earliest roles, putting across something memorably humane in just a handful of scenes.

The Onion Field: GROOVY