Crime and Passion (1976)

          Ivan Passer, a Czech writer/director of considerable skill who emerged in tandem with Milos Forman, has worked steadily in Hollywood but never joined Forman on the A-list. Projects such as Crime and Passion explain way. A discombobulated mess for which Passer deserves much of the blame—in addition to directing, he was one of seven (!) writers—this would-be caper flick lurches tonally from carefree to creepy and back again, often within the space of a single scene. The script combines countless incompatible elements, and the awful leading performances are delivered by two actors who simply don’t exist in the same universe—Omar Sharif acts with his usual swarthy intensity, while Karen Black pitches her portrayal to the level of operatic campiness for which she is (in)famous. Poor Joseph Bottoms forms the third side of a romantic triangle, but his laconic energy is smothered by the work of the other stars.

          The nonsensical story goes something like this. Andre Ferren (Sharif) is a European investment counselor who plays games with his clients’ money. His associate/mistress, Susan Winters (Black), agrees to manipulate a rich aristocrat into marriage, with the intention of divorcing him for a huge financial settlement that Susan will share with Andre. Things get complicated when Susan meets a handsome American (Bottoms) and when Susan becomes convinced that the aristocrat’s castle is haunted. There’s also a subplot about the aristocrat electronically spying on Susan, so the aristocrat may or may not be hip to the fact that she and Andre are running a con. Yet the story isn’t the only bizarre element of Crime and Passion so bizarre—the film is decorated with deeply strange flourishes.

          Andre gets aroused whenever he experiences professional setbacks, so Susan’s pillow talk consists of stock losses and so forth; during scenes featuring this behavior, Sharif seems frightening rather than eccentric, as if he’s about to rape Black. The unpleasant vibe is exacerbated by the film’s heavy-handed score, comprising moody electric-piano music and sudden, horror-movie-style stings. Toward the end of the movie, Bottoms sits in the castle dining room, receiving (offscreen) oral sex from Black until he hallucinates—or does he?—that a knight in full battle armor has entered the room. This bit is topped by the finale, during which Black and Sharif hump outside the castle while Black shoots a dead body out of a cannon into the valley below the castle. How any of this actually got filmed is a mystery. For instance, did anyone think the vignette of Sharif taking a bath and singing “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain” was a good idea?

Crime and Passion: LAME

The Horsemen (1971)

          Macho and savage, The Horsemen is a sports movie for only the hardtiest of viewers. Set in modern-day Afghanistan (circa the early ’70s), the picture concerns the brutal sport of buzkashi—think polo, but with longer playing times and with a headless goat carcass in lieu of a ball. Exploring themes such as male identity and primitive codes of honor, The Horsemen is mildly fascinating as an ethnographic study, but it’s not an easy film for Westerners to embrace. Even though The Horsemen relies on certain clichés that are common to most sports movies (and most stories about fathers and sons), the picture is so thick with virility that it’s a sonnet to manly suffering. In The Horsemen, the best man isn’t the one who wins, per se; it’s the man who endures the most pain in the pursuit of winning.

          Based on a novel by Joseph Kessel and written by the formidable Dalton Trumbo—whose previous collaboration with Horsemandirector John Frankenheimer, 1968’s The Fixer, was just as tough and uncompromising—the movie revolves around a young man trying to win the respect of his unyielding father. Jack Palace, wearing a mist of old-age makeup over his leathery features, plays Tursen, a retired buzkashi player who makes a humble but respectable living tending horses for a wealthy landowner. After grooming his son, Uraz (Omar Sharif), to become a buzkashi champion, Tursen places a huge wager on Uraz’s performance in a match, only to watch Uraz lose. Never mind that Uraz suffers a broken leg; broken pride is all that matters here. Much of the film comprises Uraz’s excruciating quest to rehabilitate his body for a return to the game, and since this is a merciless Frankenheimer film, the cure is far worse than the disease.

          The Horsemen looks amazing, with cinematographers André Domage, James Wong Howe, and Claude Renoir conveying the stark majesty of the Afghan landscape—to say nothing of the ferocious action during buzkashi matches. Unfortunately, neither Palance nor Sharif is sufficiently expressive to deliver all of the subtle nuances inherent to the material. They convey a certain undeniable primal intensity, and each has affecting moments, but the film would have benefited from performers with broader emotional palettes. Faring even worse than the male leads is beautiful Leigh Taylor-Young, cast as a fallen woman who enters Uraz’s life. While she looks blazingly sexy with her long, dark hair and smoky eye makeup, Taylor-Young is merely ornamental to a story that’s all about men and their animalistic drives to impress each other.

The Horsemen: FUNKY

The Last Valley (1970)

          Though he’s best remembered as the author of sweeping historical novels including 1975’s Shogun, James Clavell also enjoyed a significant career in film, co-writing The Great Escape (1963) and directing To Sir, with Love (1966), in addition to working on several other projects. Notwithstanding his subsequent screenwriting contributions to TV adaptations of his books, however, Clavell’s last film work was writing, producing, and directing the intense epic The Last Valley. Big on every level, from the scale of its visuals to the scope of its themes, the picture has many admirers among fans of historical dramas, partly because it dramatizes an obscure chapter in world events and partly because it treats its subject matter with intelligence and respect.

          Set in the early 17th century, the movie involves minor players in the Thirty Years War, a conflict revolving around religious disputes between Catholics and Protestants. Based on a novel by J.B. Pick, Clavell’s screenplay takes place in a secluded, sparsely populated German valley. When the story begins, a mysterious man named Vogel (Omar Sharif) flees through plague-infested Europe until stumbling onto the valley, which has escaped the ravages of illness and war. Unfortunately, a roving armada of mercenaries, led by a character known only as the Captain (Michael Caine), finds the valley at the same time.

          The Captain’s soldiers claim the valley as their private empire, demanding food and women in exchange for not slaughtering the locals. As the convoluted narrative unfolds, the Captain plays his subjects against each other to tighten his stranglehold, with Vogel emerging as the voice of compassion when a local aristocrat (Nigel Davenport) and a local priest (Per Oscarsson) rail against the Captain’s oppression—and the officer’s cavalier attitude toward religion. God is a major topic of discussion throughout the movie, which gets heavily philosophical during many long interludes of extended dialogue; although Clavell spices up the picture by with bloody vignettes at quasi-regular intervals, The Last Valley is primarily an intellectual exercise.

          Unfortunately, vague characterizations diminish the story’s potential impact. Vogel is a cipher, and the Captain so clearly represents Big Ideas that he never emerges as an individual. A clash in acting styles is problematic, as well: Caine tries to employ his usual virile naturalism, but he’s held back by the metaphorical quality of his role and by his shoddy German accent, while Sharif preens through a competent but superficial performance. Still, the pluses outweigh the minuses. Clavell presents many handsome 70mm vistas, and John Barry’s muscular score amplifies the story’s emotions. Furthermore, while The Last Valley sometimes seems like a dry history lesson, the film’s merciless final act underscores the insanity of shedding blood in God’s name.

The Last Valley: GROOVY

Ashanti (1979)

          Briskly entertaining, shallow, and slightly trashy, Ashanti hides its lurid nature behind a veneer of social relevance—since the thriller concerns modern-day slavery in Africa, ponderous opening text suggests the film will be a serious exposé, when in fact Ashantiis simply an old-fashioned potboiler. Taken for what it is, however, the picture is fun to watch (or least as much fun as a movie exploring distasteful subject matter can be), because it boasts ample star power, exotic locations, and a zippy storyline. Sure, some of the plot twists are a bit convenient, but not to such a degree that they disrupt the B-movie flow of what’s happening.

          Michael Caine stars as Dr. David Linderby, a World Health Organization physician working in a remote African village with his beautiful, African-born wife, Anansa (Beverly Johnson). Because Anansa is black and dressed in regional clothing, she’s mistaken for a local girl by an Arabian slaver, Suleiman (Peter Ustinov), whose minions kidnaps her along with several villagers. The movie then cuts back and forth between Anansa’s attempts to escape captivity and David’s efforts to rescue his bride. David’s principal accomplice is a mysterious Brit named Brian Walker (Rex Harrison), who introduces David to a series of mercenary helpers; eventually, Brian puts David together with Malik (Kabir Bedi), a nomad who wants revenge against Suleiman for the death of his family.

          As directed by the versatile Richard Fleischer, Ashanti zooms along from one colorful episode to the next, with Ustinov’s flamboyant performance providing the main driving force. Cooing his lines in a mellifluous accent and peppering his savagery with courtly manners, Ustinov makes Suleiman into an oversized villain straight out of a comic book. Bedi counters him nicely with steely-eyed intensity, and Johnson—famous offscreen as the world’s first black supermodel—smartly operates within her comfort zone of evocative poses and intense glances. Harrison, William Holden, and Omar Sharif provide the comfort of familiar faces during their brief appearances.

          And if Caine gets a bit lost in the shuffle for much of the movie—Ashanti was made around the time he segued to phone-it-in mode for popcorn pictures—that’s fine because he brings the requisite action-hero heat during the pulpy climax. To be clear, Ashanti isn’t special or even all that credible, but it accomplishes everything it sets out to accomplish and it ends before wearing out its welcome. When a movie has nothing to say (despite any intimations to the contrary), there’s a lot to be said for efficiency.

Ashanti:GROOVY