The Man in the Glass Booth (1975)

          Although best known as an actor, for extensive work on the London stage and for Hollywood endeavors such as his spectacular performance as Captain Quint in Jaws(1975), the late Robert Shaw was also a novelist and playwright. His most famous literary endeavor was the 1967 novel The Man in the Glass Booth, which he adapted into a 1968 play of the same name. Set in modern-day New York, the story concerns Arthur Goldman, a wealthy Holocaust survivor who spends his days haranguing employees with outlandish opinions about Judaism even as he seems to teeter on the brink of a nervous breakdown. One day, Israeli secret agents break into his home and reveal that Goldman is actually a Nazi war criminal living under an assumed identity. Next, Goldman is illicitly extradited to the Middle East for prosecution. (During the court action, he’s placed in the titular glass booth for his own protection.) All through the trial, Goldman proudly wears his SS uniform and outrageously lectures the Israeli audience with justifications murdering Jews. The story ends with a bizarre twist that raises as many questions as it answers.

          Although the play of The Man in the Glass Booth was presented in New York with an acclaimed production directed by Harold Pinter and starring Donald Pleasance, changes were made after the piece was selected for production by the American Film Theatre, a short-lived production company that filmed plays for limited movie-theater exhibition. The project got a new director (Arthur Hiller), a new star (Maximilian Schell), and a new script (by Edward Anhalt). Shaw was sufficiently displeased with the alterations that he removed his name from the film’s credits. Setting aside the matter of fealty to its source material, the movie version of The Man in the Glass Boothis a strange experience. Hiller does an okay job of opening up cinematic potential, using intricate sets to create separate spaces and thereby divide long scenes into smaller sequences; similarly, he also employs close-ups to accentuate the weird rhythms of Goldman’s euphoric monologues.

          And if Hiller’s filming is lively, Schell’s performance is positively supercharged—though not necessarily in a good way. Flamboyant, loud, and sensual, Schell’s interpretation borders on camp. One can make a strong argument that Schell chews scenery in proper proportion to the way his character does, but it gets suffocating after a while to watch the actor cackle and gesticulate and scream. Still, many found his work impressive, since he got Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. The real challenge of The Man in the Glass Booth, however, relates to the story’s ending, which won’t be spoiled here—suffice to say, the denouement is such a surprise, and such a head-scratcher, that it retroactively colors every preceding scene. Nonetheless, The Man in the Glass Booth offers a unique combination of ideology, philosophy, provocation, and wit—so even at its most questionable, the movie is arresting and sophisticated.

The Man in the Glass Booth: GROOVY

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)

          Representing a great opportunity for historical spectacle that was sacrificed on the altar of its own leviathan scope, Tora! Tora! Tora!was conceived by Twentieth Century-Fox chief Daryl F. Zanuck as a companion piece to his epic war movie The Longest Day (1962). Whereas the earlier film was a star-studded reenactment of the D-Day invasion, focusing primarily on the heroism of a successful Allied assault, Tora! Tora! Tora! paints across a bigger canvas. The picture follows both American and Japanese forces before, during, and after the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941. Zanuck’s intentions were basically honorable, since he put together a coproduction with a Japanese team that was responsible for portraying their country’s soldiers in a humane light; Zanuck even hired the great Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa to develop and direct the Japanese half of the picture, although Kurosawa was replaced once production got underway. Journeyman Richard Fleischer, an efficient traffic cop not known for his artistry, handled the English-language scenes.

          Yet Zanuck’s overreaching vision of an opulent super-production almost inevitably generated a bloated movie in which hardware overwhelms humanity. The leaden screenplay, credited to Larry Forrester and Kurosawa allies Ryuzo Kikushima and Hideo Oguni—and based on two different books—is a dull recitation of names and dates without any memorable characterizations. In the American scenes alone, venerable actors including Martin Balsam, Joseph Cotten, E.G. Marshall, Jason Robards, and James Whitmore get lost amid the generic hordes of men in military uniforms wandering through command centers and battleship bridges. In the admirable effort to explain how and why the Japanese military caught American forces unaware, the movie provides dry description when it should provide intense drama—paradoxically, trying to do too much led the filmmakers to do too little.

          Nonetheless, the movie gets exciting whenever it departs from its inept attempts at personal interplay and focuses on battlefield spectacle. Employing a huge assortment of boats and planes (plus a whole lot of pyro, of course), Fleischer stages lavish scenes of wartime destruction, all of which are jacked up by composer Jerry Goldsmith’s invigorating music. Thus, it’s no surprise that the lasting legacy of Tora! Tora! Tora! is as a stockpile of endlessly reused footage—according to Wikipedia, clips and outtakes from this film appear in Midway (1976), The Final Countdown (1980), several TV episodes and miniseries, and even Pearl Harbor (2001). So, if you’re a military-history buff, you’ll probably find a lot to enjoy in Tora! Tora! Tora!–otherwise, you might have a hard time trudging through the movie’s 144 impressive but inert minutes.

Tora! Tora! Tora!: FUNKY

Summer of ’42 (1971) & Class of ’44 (1973)

          Featuring one of the most lyrical love scenes in all of ’70s cinema, Summer of ’42 is an offbeat romance involving a teenage boy and a grown woman. Compassionately directed by Robert Mulligan, the film takes a bittersweet look at characters moving through profound life changes, conveying a sense of how deeply two people can comfort each other in times of need despite coming from different worlds. Screenwriter Herman Raucher, who adapted his original story into a novelization after completing the script—the book version eventually became a best-seller, just like the movie eventually became a sleeper hit—has said that the tale is autobiographical.

          According to Raucher, he was a confused 15-year-old vacationing with his family on Nantucket Island during World War II, and he became friends with a beautiful woman named Dorothy and her husband, a U.S. soldier. After the soldier was summoned to active duty, young Raucher remained friendly with Dorothy. Then, one afternoon, young Raucher arrived at Dorothy’s house moments after she learned of her husband’s death in combat. Distraught and lonely, she took young Raucher to bed, and then departed the island the next day, leaving her adolescent lover only a note.

          In the film version of this story, young Raucher is “Hermie” (Gary Grimes), a curious and kind-hearted teen spending the summer with his pals Benjie (Oliver Conant) and Oscy (Jerry Houser). Dorothy is portrayed by the mesmerizingly beautiful model-turned-actress Jennifer O’Neill. The teen high jinks that comprise much of the movie’s first half are forgettable, but all of the scenes with O’Neill have a certain magic. Not only does Mulligan guide O’Neill to a higher performance level than she ever reached in another project, but Mulligan captures the wonderment Hermie feels at connecting with a sophisticated adult. The entire movie has a nostalgic feel, with cinematographer Robert Surtees capturing the stark beauty of East Coast shorelines and composer Michel Legrand contributing tender melodies. Yet the appeal of the picture stems almost entirely from that one key scene—handled with unusual elegance and restraint, Hermie’s encounter with Dorothy is beautiful and bewildering and sad. The sequence is poetry.

          Alas, the success of the movie compelled Raucher to write a thoroughly unnecessary sequel titled Class of ’44, which was produced and released two years after the original film. Neither director Mulligan nor costar O’Neill returned, though Grimes reprised his role as Hermie. (Conant and Houser return, as well, portraying Hermie’s pals, but they remain in supporting roles.) Set during Hermie’s college years—which are heavily fictionalized extrapolations of Raucher’s real-life experiences—the bland and meandering picture primarily concerns Hermie’s romance with Julie (Deborah Winters), a high-strung coed. Julie comes off as difficult and domineering, and Winters’ performance is strident, so it’s difficult to get excited about the prospect of these two forming a lasting bond.

          Worse, Hermie emerges as a deeply ordinary collegiate who neither changes significantly during the course of the story nor has a major impact on those around him. Yes, he suffers a few coming-of-age blows, such as the death of his father, but these events feel trite compared with the transcendent experience Hermie had in Summer of ’42. The likeable Grimes does what he can with bland material, however, leavening the story’s inherent navel-gazing quality with admirable toughness. In sum, while the execution of Class of ’44 is more or less acceptable—particularly in terms of period details and production values—the whole enterprise feels perfunctory.

Summer of ’42: GROOVY

Class of ’44: FUNKY

The Eagle Has Landed (1976)

Representing a middling finale to an impressive career, The Eagle Has Landed was the last movie directed by action guy John Sturges, whose previous output included such classics as The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963). Considering Sturges’ skill and the caliber of the film’s cast, The Eagle Has Landed should be terrific, but the story is hopelessly convoluted, and the film never quite overcomes the problem of featuring Nazis as protagonists. Based on a novel by Jack Higgins and written by Bond-movie veteran Tom Mankiewicz, who was generally better suited to tongue-in-cheek escapist fare, the narrative concerns an outlandish Third Reich plot to kidnap British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the height of the war’s European action. Some of the Germans behind the scheme are, in descending order of rank, Hitler confidante Heinrich Himmler (Donald Pleasance), an officer named Radl (Robert Duvall, complete with eye patch), an IRA double-agent named Devlin (Donald Sutherland), and a disgraced Nazi officer named Steiner (Michael Caine). The overcooked plot also includes American soldiers (played by, among others, Larry Hagman and Treat Williams), plus a British lass (Jenny Agutter) who shares romantic history with Devlin. (In case you’ve already forgotten, he’s the IRA guy.) Just describing the plot of The Eagle Has Landed is exhausting, and while watching the movie is not quite as much of a chore as this synopsis might suggest, The Eagle Has Landed lacks the jaunty quality of Sturges’ best action pictures. On the bright side, there’s some low-wattage fun to be had in watching Caine play a snotty officer who openly expresses contempt for his superiors, or in watching Sutherland play one of his signature romantic rogues. Plus, Duvall has a few strong moments as the put-upon Radl, a mid-level officer who endeavors to follow orders while slyly working the Third Reich political system to protect himself from punishment in the event of failure. Good luck, pal!

The Eagle Has Landed: FUNKY

Too Late the Hero (1970)

          After making an influential and popular World War II action picture, The Dirty Dozen (1967), it was inevitable that eclectic filmmaker Robert Aldrich would return to the milieu, and almost just as inevitable that his foll0w-up picture would fall short of the high bar set by its predecessor. While Too Late the Hero features the same muscular combination of provocative drama and slick production values that made The Dirty Dozen so vital, Too Late the Hero suffers from a diffuse storyline and a padded running time, to say nothing of an ineffectual leading performance. So, although the picture is more or less watchable, even if one is tempted to hit the fast-forward button during repetitive sequences, Too Late the Hero fails to make much of an impression.

          Cliff Robertson stars as Lt. Lawson, an American junior officer whose assignment as a command-center translator in the Pacific theater keeps him away from combat. The cushy gig doesn’t last, however, because Lawson gets reassigned to a British commando unit tasked with taking out a Japanese radio installation. Serving under uptight Capt. Hornsby (Denholm Elliot), Lawson and his new comrades trudge through dense jungle, avoiding Japanese patrols, until a series of skirmishes change their circumstances for the worse. Eventually, Lawson and a snarky British enlisted man, Hearne (Michael Caine), inherit responsibility for completing the mission, forcing the unlikely predicament of Lawson becoming a valiant leader. The idea of the movie is strong—exploring the question of whether heroes are born or made—but the execution is not.

          Aldrich, who also co-wrote the picture, lets the narrative drag through unnecessary sequences (there are lots of marching montages), and his contrivance of a combat-averse protagonist means the main character spends a great deal of time watching other people do interesting things. Exacerbating the problem, Robertson simply isn’t expressive enough here to make Lawson’s journey fascinating—in fact, both Caine and Elliot upstage Robertston whenever the British actors share screen time with their American leading man. Caine is largely underused until the last stretch of the picture, when his acidic line deliveries become meaningful on a story level, and Elliot actually comes off the best of the three by portraying a stalwart man whose desire to demonstrate bravery leads him to take foolish risks.

Too Late the Hero: FUNKY

Underground (1970)

          While the prospect of a tough World War II thriller starring velvet-voiced Broadway and TV star Robert Goulet might not be enticing in the abstract, Underground is actually quite palatable. Featuring a clear story, a handful of decent surprises, and a steady stream of effective suspense scenes, the picture gives Goulet all the ammunition he needs to deliver a respectable performance, and while it’s true he does a bit of preening here and there, he makes an okay (if somewhat wooden) action hero. When the story begins, mysterious American commando Lt. Dawson (Goulet) breaks into an airbase and slips onto a plane that’s departing for a secret mission. He then subdues the man who’s supposed to jump from the plane into enemy territory and makes the jump himself, joining up with a group of French resistance fighters led by the chrome-domed Boule (Lawrence Dobkin). It seems the American whose place Dawson took was slated to attack a convoy delivering Nazi Gen. Stryker (Carl Deuring) through France. Further, not only does Dawson have history with Stryker, but Dawson’s task is to kidnap rather than kill the German officer.

          While executing his mission, Dawson engages in a battle of wills with Boule, who doubts the American’s credibility from the moment they meet, and has a steamy tryst with Yvonne (Danièle Gaubert), a member of Boule’s team. Although the basic story of Underground is uncomplicated, a few unexpected dimensions give the film texture. For instance, Stryker is in disgrace following a major strategic error, so he’s on a de facto suicide watch by his fellow members of the Third Reich; similarly, Dawson’s haunted by nightmares stemming from a past episode of imprisonment and torture. Since Goulet is the definition of a whitebread entertainer, it’s a kick to see him playing rough, though another actor could have done more with the role. (Dobkin and Gaubert are well-cast and efficient.) Still, TV-trained hack director Arhtur H. Nadel presents the story without adornment, giving the movie a grungy edge even though the production values are slick, and reliable composer Stanley Myers puts some blood in the flick’s veins. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Underground: FUNKY

Hornet’s Nest (1970)

          Despite some egregious miscasting and a terrible title, Hornet’s Nest is a solid World War II action thriller with an offbeat angle—the guerilla group at the center of the movie is composed entirely of teenagers and children. Set in Italy, the story begins with a horrific scene during which Nazis under the command of the ruthless Captain Von Hecht (Sergio Fantoni) slaughter the women and seniors in a small village because the area’s young men, who are hidden in nearby woods, are insurrectionist partisans. Led by the hot-tempered Aldo (Mark Colleano), the surviving youths swear to exact revenge. Then, when a U.S. parachute drop goes awry, resulting in the deaths of nearly all the paratroopers, Aldo’s gang recovers one American commando, Captain Turner (Rock Hudson), and drags him back to their remote lair. Since Turner is unconscious and requires medical attention, the youths kidnap a Nazi physician, Bianca (Sylva Koscina), and force her at gunpoint to care for Turner. Once the American recovers, he reluctantly agrees to help Aldo’s group attack the Nazis occupying their village before pursuing his own mission of blowing up a strategically important dam.

          As does the 1972 John Wayne picture The Cowboys, this Italian-U.S. coproduction explores the fraught dynamic between a veteran killer and young men pulled into bloodshed by circumstance. The storyline is clean and linear, steadily moving toward a climax in which both Aldo and Turner must face the consequences of their violence, and the filmmakers show Bianca suffering badly for the poor luck of ending up near animalistic males. In fact, Hornet’s Nest is such a tough picture that it represents one of Hudson’s boldest departures from harmless-heartthrob territory. The picture is also made quite well, with nimble camerawork and vivid lighting complemented by a plaintive Ennio Morricone score. One big problem, however, is the use of Italian actors in nearly every role—the Germans in the movie sound like they’re straight outta Sicily. Furthermore, Colleano’s performance borders on camp because he’s so overly emphatic, and Koscina is competent but unmemorable. Still, this is a nasty little picture filled with dead children, rape, and throat-slashings, so it can’t be accused of pulling its narrative punches as it seeks to depict the horrors of war. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Hornet’s Nest: FUNKY

Hell Boats (1970)

How exciting is the World War II thriller Hell Boats? Well, let me put it this way: Watching the movie took me four different sittings, because each time I started the flick, I fell asleep. Allowing that the picture may have fallen victim to my busy schedule and corresponding fatigue, I’ll be generous and say my head-dives weren’t entirely the film’s fault—but, still, “lively” ain’t exactly the right word for Hell Boats. Part of the problem is the meandering storyline, which tracks an American-born British Naval officer’s efforts to blow up some sort of Nazi encampment near Sicily, and part of the problem is the hopelessly bland persona of leading man James Franciscus. Handsome, lean, tan beyond reason, and suitably emphatic, he sure seemslike he’s giving a performance, whether he’s quarreling with subordinates about strategy or romancing the cynical wife (Elizabeth Shepherd) of his superior officer, but every note Franciscus hits is painfully obvious. His brand of bad acting is particularly unfortunate, because he comes across as lacking not so much talent but imagination—it’s as if he can’t inhabit a moment without striking a pose he’s seen some other actor strike in another movie, so even though he always steers clear of embarrassing himself, nothing resonates. And so it goes for every other aspect of this movie, which throws together familiar elements--friction among soldiers that sorta recalls The Dirty Dozen; high-adventure military espionage in the mode of The Guns of Navarone; wartime romance reminiscent of From Here to Eternity; et cetera. Plus, the villains are interchangeable, the supporting characters are one-dimensional ciphers, and the technical execution is mediocre, with cheap-looking process shots taking the luster off otherwise adequate location photography. In sum, Hell Boats is that rare movie it’s possible to forgetduring a viewing. But, hey, we all need a nap sometime, right? (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Hell Boats: LAME

Baby Blue Marine (1976)

          Even though Baby Blue Marine tries to accomplish too much, resulting in narrative muddiness, every quality to which the movie aspires is commendable. Set during World War II, the picture follows the exploits of Marion (Jan-Michael Vincent), a gung-ho youth who gets kicked out of the Marines during basic training for failing to meet basic proficiency requirements. (Never mind that Vincent is in extraordinary shape, or that his character is shown to possess bravery, intelligence, and leadership—not exactly the traits of a likely washout.) Making his way home from boot camp to St. Louis, while wearing the demeaning “baby blue” uniform of a reject, Marion gets assaulted by a combat veteran (Richard Gere) who steals Marion’s clothing as a ruse for escaping the military. (Again, never mind that Gere’s character could simply have bought street clothes.) Now dressed as a decorated soldier, Marion hitchhikes toward a small town in the Northwest, where he’s taken in by sweet-natured teen waitress Rose (Glynnis O’Connor) and her family. Eventually, Marion gets called into action when three young Japanese-Americans escape from an internment camp, so Marion—oh, the irony!—becomes the voice of pacifism when hotheads seek to hunt down the escapees.

          TV-trained writer Stanford Whitmore’s script is contrived but offbeat, while director John Hancock’s storytelling is blunt and mechanical, but Baby Blue Marine means well. Themes of courage, decency, and humanism are always welcome, and everyone learns a tidy little lesson at the end of the picture, Afterschool Special-style. Plus, the movie looks much better than it should, because the great cinematographer László Kovács fills Hancock’s bland frames with nuanced lighting. The acting is generally underwhelming, with Vincent going for a babe-in-the-woods dreaminess that makes him seem detached during many scenes; meanwhile, supporting players including Dana Elcar, Katherine Helmond, and Burt Remsen are hamstrung by trite dialogue. (O’Connor comes across as sweet and warm, but her work is not especially memorable.) However, Bruno Kirby makes a strong impression in the opening scenes as one of Marion’s fellow ne’er-do-well recruits, and Art Lund provides gravitas as a small-town dad mourning the battlefield death of his son.

Baby Blue Marine: FUNKY

Midway (1976)

          This old-fashioned combat flick picks up where the great 1944 war drama Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo left off—Midway dramatizes one of the many retaliatory air strikes the U.S. and Japan exchanged following Japan’s initial 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. When the story begins, the U.S. Navy is struggling to replace ships destroyed at Pearl Harbor. When an intelligence officer (Hal Holbrook) intercepts communications suggesting the Japanese are planning to attack U.S. ships stationed at Midway Island—potentially a devastating repeat of Pearl Harbor—various officers spring into action preparing defensive maneuvers. Like 1970’s Tora! Tora! Tora!, this picture cuts back and forth between American and Japanese strategy sessions. In addition to humanizing the enemy, this technique lets viewers see how luck and tactical errors have as much bearing on military success as heroism and leadership.

          For instance, some of the best scenes take place aboard a Japanese carrier, where Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo (James Shigeta) wrangles with doubtful subordinates, resulting in indecisiveness. There’s some great stuff buried in Midway, but, unfortunately, lesser material is given the primary focus—the main storyline involves Captain Matt Garth (Charlton Heston), a strong-willed junior officer whose role in the battle is relatively inconsequential. The filmmakers waste gobs of time, for instance, on the melodramatic romance between Garth’s son and a Japanese-American civilian, which leads to trite discussions about race relations. Plus, once the bludgeoning air/sea battle gets underway, the movie introduces so many characters that text appears onscreen to identify new people.

          Even with these visual aids, however, it’s hard to track which ships are where, whose plane took off from which airstrip, and, for that matter, which side is winning. Still, before things get too hectic, Midway lets a handful of charismatic actors shine in showcase moments. Holbrook is a hoot as the excitable code breaker; Henry Fonda lends authority as the top U.S. admiral; Glenn Ford is effectively stoic as a soft-spoken naval commander; and Robert Mitchum plays an enjoyable cameo as a cranky admiral consigned to bed rest. (Cinema legend Toshiro Mifune essays a small role as Fonda’s Japanese counterpart, but his lines were dubbed into English by actor Paul Frees, the voice of Rocky & Bullwinkle villain Boris Badenov.) While these virtues aren’t enough to lift Midway out of mediocrity, any American war picture that resists the temptation to demonize the opposing side is inherently admirable.

Midway: FUNKY

The Passage (1979)

          Yet another lurid adventure flick set in occupied Europe during World War II, The Passage is mildly fascinating for what it lacks—depth and restraint. The plot is so thin that it can be described in one sentence without excluding any significant details: Members of the French resistance ask a farmer living near the French-Spanish border to help an American scientist and his family reach safety while a psychotic SS officer chases after them. That’s the whole storyline, give or take a couple of incidental characters, and the preceding synopsis also describes nearly everything we learn about the characters. Especially considering that the script was written by a novelist adapting his own work—a gentleman named Bruce Nicolaysen—it’s astonishing to encounter a narrative this underdeveloped.

          Furthermore, director J. Lee Thompson, a veteran who by this point in his career seemed content cranking out mindless potboilers, lets actors do whatever the hell they want. In some cases, as with sexy supporting player Kay Lenz, this translates to bored non-acting, and in others, as with main villain Maclolm McDowell, the permissiveness results in outrageous over-acting. Alternating between bug-eyed malevolence and effeminate delicacy, McDowell presents something that’s not so much a performance as a compendium of bad-guy clichés; he’s entertaining in weird moments like his revelation of a swastika-festooned jockstrap, but it seems Thompson never asked McDowell to rein in his flamboyance.

          That said, The Passageis quite watchable if one accepts the movie on its trashy terms. The simplistic plot ensures clarity from beginning to end (notwithstanding the lack of a satisfactory explanation for the scientist’s importance), and Thompson fills the screen with energetic camerawork, nasty violence, and, thanks to Lenz, gratuitous nudity. It should also be noted that leading man Anthony Quinn, who plays the farmer, invests his scenes with macho angst, and that costar James Mason, as the scientist, elevates his scenes with crisp diction and plaintive facial expressions. (The cast also includes Christopher Lee, as a gypsy helping the fugitives, and Patricia Neal, as the scientist’s frail wife.) Even more noteworthy than any of the performances, however, is the gonzo finale, during which Thompson’s style briefly transforms from indifferent to insane—for a few strange moments, The Passage becomes a gory horror show. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

The Passage: FUNKY

Which Way to the Front? (1970)

          Funnyman Jerry Lewis’ screaming-nincompoop shtick was beyond passé by the time he made the painfully unfunny World War II comedy Which Way to the Front? The film’s barrage of brainless sight gags and witless verbal jokes makes the lowbrow WWII-themed TV series Hogan’s Heroes seem inspired by comparison, because Lewis’ idea of a show-stopping joke is having Adolf Hitler idiotically rhapsodize about the Jewish snacks (e.g,, knishes, etc.) that Eva Braun prepares for him. Worse, Lewis plays the leading role in his typically oppressive manner, mugging nonsensically when his character goes into gibberish-spouting spasms and shouting nearly all of his lines in the second half of the picture, when his character masquerades as a German officer.

          However, it’s not as if producer-director Lewis would have done himself any favors by hiring a different star—every single aspect of Which Way to the Front? is as tiresome as Lewis’ performance. The silly story begins when billionaire Brendan Byers (Lewis) gets drafted for Army service—never mind that Lewis was about 43 when he made the picture—only to get classified 4F. Determined to help the war effort, Byers uses his fortune to build a private army comprising a handful of fellow 4F losers. Decked out in anachronistic uniforms that look more late-’60s than mid-’40s (oh, the turtlenecks!), Byers’ militia crosses the Atlantic on his private yacht, breaks into the stronghold of a Nazi officer who resembles Byers, and lures Hitler into an ambush. There isn’t a single worthwhile comedy idea here, and Lewis seems to know it; he often ends scenes by freeze-framing, jacking up big-band music on the soundtrack, and cutting to a bright swirl, Batman-style, as a means of hiding inanity behind momentum. So, need we even discuss the sequence of Byers learning German by listening to the album Music to Mein Kampf By? Or the scene at the end in which Byers masquerades as a Japanese officer by putting on Coke-bottle glasses and gigantic buck teeth?

          Inexplicably, Lewis stuck with the WWII theme for his next picture, the notorious unreleased concentration-camp film The Day the Clown Cried. After that production derailed, Lewis was sidelined for several years with health problems, and didn’t return to directing features until the 1981 flop Hardly Working. Given the quality of Which Way to the Front?, he probably should have quit while he was behind. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Which Way to the Front?: LAME

Brass Target (1978)

          Crammed with big-name actors, colorful locations, and complex schemes, Brass Target should be a rousing thriller. Unfortunately, the team behind the picture tried to do too many things, and the starring role was unwisely given to John Cassavettes—who by this point in his career preferred directing low-budget films to acting in Hollywood flicks—so the combination of a confusing script and a phoned-in leading performance makes it difficult to appreciate the picture’s many admirable qualities. Set in 1945 Europe, just after the defeat of the Nazis, Brass Target begins with an exciting robbery: Mysterious criminals attack an Allied train and steal a fortune in Nazi gold. The theft divides Allied powers, because Russians blame Americans for the loss, so belligerent U.S. General George S. Patton (George Kennedy) vows to recover the gold and prove his country’s innocence. And then the movie veers off-course.

          Instead of focusing on Patton and the conspirators who want to impede his investigation, the picture shifts to an Amy detective, Major Joe De Lucca (Cassavettes), who digs into the robbery while dealing with myriad personal melodramas. Among other things, he’s got a fractious friendship with Col. Mike McCauley (Patrick McGoohan), a schemer who trades in stolen war loot, and both men love Mara (Sophia Loren), a European who survived the war by sleeping her way to safety. The movie’s plot gets even more complicated when the conspirators—primarily Col. Donald Rogers (Robert Vaughn) and Col. Walter Gilchrist (Edward Herrmann)—hire an enigmatic European assassin (Max Von Sydow) to kill Patton lest the general discover their crime.

          Any one of these storylines would have been enough for a satisfying movie, so Brass Target ends up giving each of its component elements short shrift. More damningly, the best scenes, which depict the assassin’s meticulous planning of an attempt on Patton’s life, feel like repeats of similar scenes in the acclaimed thriller The Day of the Jackal (1973). Nonetheless, Von Sydow gives the picture’s best performance, especially since the other acting in the movie is highly erratic.

          Cassavettes preens and scowls like some sort of irritable peacock; Loren looks lost, which is understandable seeing as how her character is anemically underdeveloped; Kennedy plays Patton as a foul-mouthed bully, his acting inevitably suffering by comparison to George C. Scott’s Oscar-winning turn in Patton (1970); and McGoohan is terrible, his accent shifting inexplicably from one line to the next. Still, Brass Target has tremendous production values, and the milieu of the story—postwar Europe as a lawless frontier—is fascinating. Plus, the central gimmick of the narrative, a conspiracy-theory explanation for the real Patton’s death in 1945, is imaginative. One suspects, however, that the premise was explored to stronger effect in the Frederick Nolan novel from which this film was adapted. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Brass Target: FUNKY

The Night Porter (1974)

          Disturbing and provocative, the Italian film The Night Porter belongs to a small subgenre of movies exploring the sexual depravity of Third Reich officers. Yet instead of taking the obvious route by simplistically portraying black-hearted Nazis exploiting innocent victims, co-writer/director Lilina Cavini presents a more complicated vision in which predator and prey become symbiotic; accordingly, The Night Porter can be taken literally or as a cruel metaphor representing the human tendency to embrace humiliating entanglements that generate electrifying sensations.
          The story takes place in 1957 Vienna, where Max (Dirk Bogarde) works the night desk at a posh hotel. One evening, he spots a beautiful woman in the hotel’s lobby, and recognizes her immediately as Lucia (Charlotte Rampling). Over the course of several flashbacks, Cavini reveals the nature of the couple’s relationship during World War II. Max was part of a group of SS officers who transformed prisoners into sexual playthings, and while Max grew infatuated with Lucia (he refers to her as “my little girl”), she succumbed to his aristocratic handsomeness despite his sadism. Now, years after the war, Lucia is married to an American orchestra conductor, and Max is associated with a cabal of former Nazis who purge war records in order to shield themselves from war-crimes prosecution. Initially, Max worries that Lucia will expose him, but when he confronts her, their old psychosexual attraction rekindles—so Max hides Lucia from his fellow Nazis, creating a private world of pain and pleasure.

          The first movie that veteran Italian filmmaker Cavini made in English, The Night Porter is challenging and perverse, with the film’s glossy surfaces and classical-arts milieu (ballet recitals, orchestral performances) communicating the thorny concept of sophisticated savagery. For instance, Max is a fastidious gentleman with immaculate grooming and manners, but he also derives erotic glee from hurting Lucia. Similarly, Lucia is something other than a mere victim; she finds satisfaction in subjugation. Throughout the film, Cavini toys with traditional associations. In the picture’s most famous scene, Rampling serenades a group of Nazis while wearing an officer’s cap, black leather opera gloves, and men’s trousers tethered to her rail-thin body with suspenders; Rampling’s casual toplessness and Cavini’s brazen mixture of contradictory signifiers elevates the scene into a study of abnormal desire.

          Despite consistently graceful camerawork and editing, The Night Porteroccasionally succumbs to excess—the pacing is precious and slow—and some viewers will find the central relationship impossible to accept. Plus, Bogarde and Rampling are so icy that we mostly observe their dynamic from the outside, rather than getting drawn into their passions. Yet while The Night Porter probably alienates as many viewers as it intrigues, it’s inarguably a bold film bursting with artistry, ideas, and integrity.

 

The Night Porter: GROOVY

Hanover Street (1979)

          While not a career zenith for any of its major participants, except perhaps leading lady Lesley-Anne Down, Hanover Street is a respectable World War II romance filled with old-fashioned themes of heroism and sacrifice. The movie’s reliance on narrative coincidence is a problem, and one wishes writer-director Peter Hyams had moved past archetypes to investigate his characters more deeply, but Hanover Street delivers much of what it promises—the stars are attractive, their onscreen love affair is complicated by unusual circumstances, and the movie spins inexorably toward an action-packed climax. So, even though it’s all a bit rudimentary in conception, the full package—accentuated by David Watkin’s shadowy cinematography and John Barry’s plaintive musical score—goes down smoothly.

          Harrison Ford, giving the most satisfying performance of his wilderness years between Star Wars (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980), stars as David Halloran, a U.S. pilot stationed near London circa 1943. After a quick meet-cute with British nurse Margaret Sellinger (Down), David persuades his new acquaintance to join him for a long afternoon of tea and conversation. Although they fall in love almost instantly, Margaret reveals she’s married—but then the trauma of being caught in an air raid pushes them together. They begin an affair. This affects both of their lives badly, because David loses his combat edge while worrying about when he’s going to see Margaret again, and Margaret introduces a chill into her marriage to Paul Sellinger (Christopher Plummer). Paul was a teacher during peacetime, but he’s now an officer with British Intelligence—and when he feels Margaret drifting away, he recklessly volunteers for a mission behind enemy lines, hoping to win back her respect.

          The coincidence with which Hyams merges the fates of these characters stretches believability, but Hyams commits wholeheartedly to the ensuing melodrama, and the second half of the movie—when the story shifts from romance to thrills—is brisk and tense. As far as the actors go, Ford sulks a bit too much, though he’s sufficiently dashing during action scenes to compensate for his moodiness; and if Down fails to provide much substance behind her mesmerizing beauty, that’s acceptable as well, since she’s primarily meant to be an object of desire. Plummer is, predictably, the picture’s saving grace, lending elegance, humor, and vulnerability to his characterization. FYI, Hanover Street is far more palatable than the similarly themed Yanks, which was released later the same year—although the latter picture, directed by John Schlesinger, is more sophisticated, it’s a lifeless museum piece compared to Hyams’ fast-moving crowd-pleaser.

Hanover Street: GROOVY

Patton (1970)

          Despite being bold, provocative, and smart, Patton should not have curried favor during its original release, since the movie arrived at the height of America’s misguided war in Vietnam. Surely, there couldn’t have been a worse time to release a feature-length tribute to one of World War II’s most famous American generals. Yet Pattonis much more complicated than any hagiography, and the movie’s greatest strengths are undeniable. The script is insightful and witty, the direction and production values are impressive, and leading man George C. Scott’s performance ranks among the highest achievements in screen acting. The movie is imperfect, of course, suffering such flaws as an excessively long running time, but the audacity with which the filmmakers engage themes of hubris, militarism, and patriotism are still startling 40 years after the movie was made.

          Notwithstanding a riveting prologue (more on that in a minute), the movie begins in North Africa, when General George S. Patton Jr. (Scott) is first recruited to battle Germany’s “Desert Fox,” tank-division commander Erwin Rommel (Karl Michael Volger). As the movie progresses, Patton is moved from Africa to the European theater, his battlefield victories overshadowed by his outrageous behavior. Gaudy and vainglorious, Patton openly cites his belief in reincarnation, describing himself as the latest form of a soldier who has existed during the great wars of previous centuries; although Patton bolsters his claims with brilliant strategizing, his otherworldly pomposity spooks subordinates and unsettles superiors.

          Worse, Patton behaves abominably when confronted with GIs he regards as cowards or shirkers. In one of the picture’s unforgettable moments, Patton loses his cool upon meeting an enlisted man hospitalized for shell-shock, a condition whose existence Patton denies—Patton violently slaps the GI and seems ready to shoot the young man until Patton is subdued by aides. Thanks to such transgressions, Patton never consistently occupies the forefront of the Allied command, so the movie tracks his humiliating slide from active duty to elder-statesmen status.

          Although Patton has a large cast of characters and a sprawling number of locations, it’s not precisely a war epic—rather, it’s an intimate character study that plays across a massive stage during wartime. So, while costar Karl Malden is a steady presence as Patton’s staunchest Army ally, General Omar Bradley, other actors in the movie serve as mirrors reflecting facets of Scott’s performance. Scott justifies this approach with a thunderous star turn. His Patton is funny, inspiring, intimidating, maddening, pathetic, strange, and a dozen other things, whether he’s melodically quoting ancient poetry or impotently shooting a pistol at a fighter plane during a strafing run.

          Director Franklin J. Schaffner does a remarkable job of keeping the story forceful and clear, often through the use of elegantly gliding camerawork; screenwriters Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North provide brilliant dialogue and evocative vignettes; and composer Jerry Goldsmith’s clever score uses echoed horn figures to accentuate the idea of Patton as a figure from myth let loose on the modern world.

          Yet the film’s most indelible moment is also its simplest, the mesmerizing two-minute monologue that starts the movie with shocking directness. Stepping in front of a gigantic American flag, an ornately uniformed Patton barks out a hard-driving, vulgar speech about American can-do spirit, featuring a line that epitomizes the character’s philosophy: “No bastard every won a war by dying for his country—he won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.” FYI, Scott returned to his Oscar-winning role years later for an underwhelming TV miniseries, The Last Days of Patton(1986), though few consider that project a true sequel to the 1970 movie.

Patton: RIGHT ON

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

          No discussion of this notorious Italian movie can begin without a warning: The subject matter of Salò is so disturbing, and the onscreen content so gruesome, that merely hearing descriptions of the film is enough to turn some people’s stomachs. So, if you get squeamish when the subjects of child abuse and sexual deviance are raised, please read no further. Make no mistake, Salò is a movie that one doesn’t watch so much as endure. Yet while some pictures exploring the outer boundaries of what can be captured on film are plainly exploitative, Salò is far more complicated. This is an artful meditation on anarchism, depravity, fascism, nihilism, and other unnerving tendencies of the human animal.

          In fact, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s movie is such a serious-minded endeavor that it’s almost impossible to say when and where he crosses the line between clinically observing abuse and salaciously relishing abuse—yet since Pasolini could have expressed his provocative thematic ideas without including some of the ghastly images that fill Salò, it’s inarguable the filmmaker got lost in the ugly maze he created.

          Based on an unfinished novel by the Marquis de Sade written circa 1785, Pasolini’s storyline takes place in 1944 Italy. Four wealthy fascists establish a secret fortress in the Republic of Salò, a short-lived nation established by Nazi Germany within Italy during the height of World War II. The fascists kidnap 18 teenaged boys and girls for use as sexual playthings during a 120-day festival of inhumane debauchery.

          Aided by a support staff of willing adults, the fascists stage a bizarre daily ritual. While congregating in a large room to listen to filthy anecdotes that are told by middle-aged prostitutes, the fascists indulge their perverse whims on the teenagers. These whims include beatings and rape in endless variations, and at one point the youths are put on leashes and forced to walk on all fours up and down stone staircases. Another favorite pastime is feeding the children human excrement. The fascists grow more depraved with each passing day, gaining arousal from the despair of their victims and competing with each other to see who can travel further down the abyss of amorality.

          Viewed from the most forgiving perspective, Salò is a merciless commentary on the subjugation of citizenry by any group with absolute power, and many intelligent critics consider Salò an important achievement in 20th-century cinema because of its boldness and political insights. Viewed more harshly, the movie seems sensationalistic.

          For instance, Pasolini’s clinical visual style evokes a Kubrickian coldness even though Pasolini lacks Kubrick’s photographic sophistication. At times, this approach renders stomach-churning results, as in the finale—once sex games give way to bloodsport, Pasolini observes various torture scenes through the remove of long lenses tricked up to resemble the view through binoculars, putting the audience in the position of the fascists who watch the torture with voyeuristic fervor. At other times, however, Pasolini’s unflinching eye creates a sense of unseemly luridness, as when the filmmaker lingers needlessly on close-ups of genitals.

          Furthermore, the film’s over-the-top dialogue exists on a plane far beyond realism; the fascists speak with academic formality, saying things like, “In all the world no voluptuousness flatters the senses more than social privilege.” It’s tempting to call this aspect of the movie pretentious, but it’s just as likely Pasolini considered his characters metaphors, thereby aesthetically justifying their unwieldy speech patterns. In any event, Salò is unique—virtually no other movie contains this many repulsive images. Salò offers no escape or salvation, instead immersing viewers in a cinematic dungeon of psychological punishment and sexual savagery.

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom: FREAKY