Essay: On Revisiting the ’70s

             This weekend, longtime fans and newcomers alike will help give the seventh installment of a franchise that began in the 1970s the biggest opening in movie history. Yet somewhat lost in the din of the wall-to-wall coverage surrounding the debut of Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens is a unique coincidence. Another seventh installment of a franchise that began in the 1970s reached theaters during the 2015 holiday season. Although audiences and critics have bestowed quite a bit of love on Creed, a clever revitalization of the Rocky series, I haven’t seen much commentary devoted to the parallels between Creed and The Force Awakens. Nonetheless, these parallels are formidable and meaningful.

            As becomes plain by scanning lists of successful movies from the last few years and/or schedules of upcoming releases, we’re in an unprecedented era of cinematic recycling. The endless sequels. The numberless adaptations of old games, toys, and TV shows. The pointless reboots of cinematic franchises whose corpses aren’t yet cold. It’s all been exhaustively catalogued, and the whole sad spectacle can be summarized by the fact that Marvel and Sony will soon collaborate on a brand-new Spider-Man movie, despite the fact that the (mostly) beloved Spider-Man series starring Tobey Maguire ended just eight years ago, and despite the fact that a middling attempt at rebooting the series with new star Andrew Garfield unspooled in two movies spanning 2012 to 2014. Even without bringing the whole silly “Batfleck” business into the conversation, it’s inarguable that we’ve gone past the saturation point and entered the realm of the ridiculous.

            Still, there’s an interesting difference between rebooting a franchise (which generally seems crass) and simply continuing a storyline (which is fine as long as there’s still gas in the narrative engine). While it’s wonderful that some high-concept movies have been left alone, with no disappointing sequels tarnishing the brand, many popcorn fantasies were designed to introduce universes filled with open-ended story potential.

Among the most striking aspects of Creed and The Force Awakens is that both films combine elements of these seemingly incompatible approaches. They are simultaneously reboots and continuations.

One could argue that the first Rocky (1976) was a self-contained gem for which sequels were superfluous, whereas the first Star Wars (1977) contained a natural ellipsis all but demanding a sequel—the picture’s unforgettable main villain, Darth Vader, survived the climax, representing a plague on the land that our heroes needed to set right before claiming ultimate victory. In that sense, it’s somewhat shocking that we’re still seeing new Rocky movies in 2015, and less so that we’re still seeing new Star Wars movies. (Obviously, commercial success rather than aesthetic necessity is what prompts the creation of sequels, so let’s accept as a given that we’re talking about franchises the public embraced.)

The most noteworthy quality shared by Creed and The Force Awakens is that each essentially remakes the first movie in its respective franchise. In Creed, an underdog boxer gets a chance to prove himself by battling a world champion, thereby facing not only a physical opponent but also the psychological demons that fill him with self-doubt. In The Force Awakens, rebel heroes struggle to destroy a massive weapon that insidious villains can use to control the universe. Creed features a mentor relationship that toggles between antagonism and paternalistic love, as did Rocky. Concurrently, The Force Awakens features a young hero learning to use the Force, the very same supernatural energy field that a young hero learned to use in Star Wars. The synchronicities between the new films and their predecessors are myriad, from familiar music cues to visual references evoking specific scenes from the original movies.

Ryan Coogler, the co-writer and director of Creed, does a more graceful job of balancing nostalgia with originality than J.J. Abrams, the co-writer and director of The Force Awakens, though it must be said that Abrams faced a bigger challenge on every conceivable level.

Expectations for the seventh Rocky film were infinitesimal, because franchise creator/star Sylvester Stallone dimmed the luster of his own creation with too many inconsistent and repetitive sequels. Expectations for the seventh Star Wars film were insanely high. Not only was Abrams tasked with improving on the preceding three Star Wars pictures, which were disappointments creatively even though they made gobs of money, but he was tasked with reintroducing the beloved actors and characters from the original 1977–1983 trilogy—all while finding a way to make Star Wars relevant to audiences numbed by more than a decade of CGI-centric superhero extravaganzas. Whereas Coogler had essentially a blank canvas upon which he could paint a fresh interpretation of the intimately scaled Rocky legend, Abrams was expected to make the biggest movie of all time and withstand the scrutiny of an obsessive and vocal fan base numbering in the millions.

That both men can be proud of their accomplishments is a testament to their creative powers, even if Coogler’s film is superior not just as a cohesive artistic statement but also in ways that are relevant to this conversation about revisiting the ’70s.

First, The Force Awakens. (As Yoda might say, fret not for no spoilers here there are.) The key creative team behind the picture, including new Lucasfilm overlord Kathleen Kennedy, Abrams, and once-and-future Star Wars screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, made one crucial choice that defines The Force Awakens. Although the picture is a direct sequel to Star Wars: Episode VI—Return of the Jedi (1983), the heroes of the original trilogy are not the actual stars of the new film. Rather, The Force Awakens introduces the fresh faces whom audiences will follow for at least two more films, the already announced Episode VIII and Episode IX. Smart on so many levels. The story of the original characters has been told, the actors playing those characters have reached ages where their believability in action scenes is dubious, and the introduction of new characters is required to generate story material for future trilogies. (Disney, which acquired Lucasfilm a few years ago for $4 billion, has said it plans to make Star Wars movies for so many decades into the future that the fans who saw the original films as children will not live to see the end of the story—yikes.)

Additionally, Abrams and Kasdan have said they wanted to prioritize brevity, given the tiresome bloat of so many modern blockbusters. Hence The Force Awakens’ running time of roughly two and one-quarter hours, versus, say, the absurd three-hour sprawl of The Dark Knight (2008).

Given all of these circumstances, Abrams faced an impossible job. Reintroduce and service the main characters of the original trilogy, without edging them into leading roles. Generate a handful of new characters and make the audience fall in love with them. Provide a rollicking space adventure that reconciles the comparative visual simplicity of the earlier Star Wars films with the sensory-overload expectations of current moviegoers. And keep the whole thing as close to two hours as possible, figuring that something like six to seven minutes will get consumed by end credits. Did he stick the landing? No. The Force Awakens is a problematic film with myriad dead ends, derivative moments, and plot holes.

I elect to focus on the many things the picture does well. By shooting on film instead of digital and by employing a fair amount of practical effects, Abrams approximates the handmade quality of the original trilogy. He also accentuates the most important tropes from the earliest Star Wars films—themes of destiny, family, heroism, loss, and sacrifice. At its best, The Force Awakens recaptures the fun of seeing relatable human beings juxtaposed with a crazy-quilt backdrop of creatures, magic, and spaceships. The picture even achieves that rare goal in a sequel by legitimately deepening the journeys of returning characters.

Most intriguing of all is the movie’s expression of mortality, a theme that’s embedded deep into the DNA of Star Wars. Rather than venture into story terrain that viewers should be able to enjoy for themselves, I’ll tack to Creed because mortality is just as important to that movie, for the same fascinating reasons.

In case you stopped watching Rocky movies a few sequels back, life hasn’t been amazing for the Italian Stallion since 1990, when the series’ first run sputtered out with Rocky V. At the end of that picture, boxer Rocky Balboa (Stallone) was still happily married to shy Adrian (Talia Shire), and he had a decent relationship with his son. Yet when Rocky Balboa (2006) began, Adrian was dead from cancer, and Rocky was estranged from his now fully grown son. He participated in one more boxing match to exorcise his demons, and then he seemed ready to walk into the sunset.

Enter Coogler, the gifted young filmmaker behind Fruitvale Station (2013). He conjured a story about Rocky becoming the trainer for Adonis Creed, son of the champion whom Rocky fought and eventually befriended during the Rocky movies of the ’70s and ’80s. Coogler persuaded Stallone to reprise his role for the first Rocky movie that Stallone did not write, and the first Rocky movie in which Balboa does not fight. Coogler came up with something quite special, because while Creed honors the earlier pictures, it also gets into the problems faced by young black men raised without fathers—to say nothing of mortality.

The Rocky we meet in Creed is a tired old man waiting for death—just like the Han Solo we meet in The Force Awakens is a haunted old man hiding from life, even though he still has a quick wit and a rascally smile. As of this writing, Stallone is 69 and Harrison Ford, who plays Han Solo, is 73. No other versions of these characters would make sense.

But what does it mean when we watch our heroes age? And what does it mean when the inevitability of our own endings is foreshadowed by watching treasured characters face mortality? I think the answers to these questions address the deepest purposes of storytelling. We look to stories for escape from our daily lives, of course, but we also look to stories for guidance. Simple stories about noble heroes overcoming adversity—like the Rocky films—can seem like platitudes when they’re done poorly, and they can seem like inspirational fables when they’re done well. Layered fantasies about metaphorical characters seeking to balance the benevolent and destructive impulses of the human animal—like the Star Wars films—are stupid when they don’t work, transcendent when they do.

The first Rocky is a shameless tearjerker, just as the first Star Wars is a manipulative crowd-pleaser. It’s easy to regard these movies cynically. On the worthiest plane of audience engagement, however, these films strive to eradicate cynicism. Star Wars presents a galaxy in which good people reject selfishness for the benefit of their community. Rocky revolves around an uneducated man who possesses innate wisdom. Recalling Frank Capra’s optimistic movies of the 1930s and 1940s, the first Rocky and the first Star Wars offer homilies about the great things that young people with their lives ahead of them can accomplish.

Creed and The Force Awakens recycle those themes by introducing new characters with endless potential for positive change, and yet Creed and The Force Awakens also acknowledge that yesterday’s heroes are today’s teachers. Rocky Balboa’s role in Creed involves passing along what he’s learned even as circumstances remind him that far fewer days lie ahead than behind. The roles played by the original heroes of Star Wars in The Force Awakens are similar. Time to pass the torch. Or the lightsaber, as the case may be.

As a child of the ’70s, it’s bittersweet for me to realize that Rocky Balboa will never step in the ring again, and that change will always visit the Star Wars galaxy with its usual savage caprice. It is for exactly those reasons that I think both Creed and The Force Awakens are markedly more resonant than the average reboot or relaunch or remake or retread. Creed justifies its existence by treating Rocky Balboa as a living embodiment of his own legacy, and by exploring difficult issues pertaining to race. The Force Awakens, despite its flaws, casts the ugly shadows of loss and regret and time over the jaunty textures of outer-space dogfights and swashbuckling sword duels.

And that’s where these two movies have perhaps their greatest impact. Like children who understand their parents once they have children of their own, fans of these two franchises must face complicated feelings by engaging with Creed and The Force Awakens. At various times in these pictures, sobering truths take center stage: age replacing youth, disappointment supplanting optimism, fatigue usurping vigor. In twilight, what matters is what is left behind. Legacy. For the story that began with Rocky and continues with Creed, what remains is the quaint notion that each individual has value. For the story that began with Star Wars and continues with The Force Awakens, what remains is the modest proposal that we’re all part of something bigger than ourselves. As legacies go, you could do a lot worse.

The ’70s are dead. Long live the ’70s.

1980 Week: The Empire Strikes Back

          Heretical though my viewpoint might be among old-school fans of a galaxy far, far away, I don’t subscribe to the belief that The Empire Strikes Back is a better film than Star Wars (1977)—even though, by most normal criteria, the second film in the Skywalker saga is superior. Yes, the acting is better, the dialogue is crisper, the narrative is deeper, and the storytelling is slicker. Even the special effects are more impressive the second time around. Still, two considerations always persuade me to keep the first picture atop the pantheon: 1) Empire doesn’t have an ending, because the resolution of the film’s plot doesn’t occur until the first 20 minutes of 1983’s Return of the Jedi; 2) By definition as a sequel, Empire cannot match the thrilling freshness of Star Wars. Ideas are only new once—even ideas like Star Wars, which was cobbled together from myriad preexisting influences.

          Having said all that, Empire is such an exciting, fast, intoxicating, romantic, and surprising ride that it’s unquestionably among the few sequels to match its predecessor in quality. One need only look at the precipitous drop from Empire to Jedi in order to understand how difficult it is to keep a good thing going.

          In any event, reciting Empire’s plot serves very little purpose, partially because the movie is familiar to most viewers and partially because the storyline will sound impenetrable and/or silly to anyone who hasn’t yet hitched their first ride in the Millennium Falcon. (See, we’ve lost the Star Wars virgins already.) Nonetheless, here are the basics. After destroying the Death Star, rebel forces decamp to the snow-covered planet Hoth, but the Empire’s main enforcer, Darth Vader, leads a successful siege. Escaping separately from the fight are wannabe Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, who heads to the planet Dagobah for training with Jedi Master Yoda, and the duo of mercenary Han Solo and rebel leader Princess Leia. While Luke channels his abandonment issues into supernatural Jedi skills, Han and Leia wrestle with their burgeoning attraction—even as Vader conspires to capture the heroes.

          Fantastical sights and sounds abound. The floating Cloud City overseen by suave Lando Calrissian. The epic lightsaber duel that concludes with perhaps the greatest single plot twist in sci-fi history. And so much more. Although series creator George Lucas stepped away from the director’s chair for Empire, enlisting his onetime USC teacher Irvin Kershner, Lucas’ fingerprints are visible on every frame. Better still, cowriter Lawrence Kasdan (beginning a hot streak of Lucas collaborations) helps introduce grown-up emotions into the Star Wars universe. The principal cast of the so-called “original trilogy” reaches its zenith here, with Mark Hamill transforming Skywalker from a hayseed into a haunted hero, Carrie Fisher elevating Leia into a full-on field commander (albeit with a soft spot for the men in her life), Harrison Ford perfecting his charming-rogue take on Han, and new arrival Frank Oz contributing wonderful puppetry and voice work as Yoda.

          Nearly everything in Empire is so terrific, in fact, that a tumble into mediocrity was probably inevitable by the time Jedi came around. Thus, for fans who were kids when the first Star Wars was released (myself included), Empire represents the last moment when we believed Lucas could do no wrong—a galaxy of possibilities, if you will. To say nothing of outer-space badass Boba Fett. (Now we’ve really lost the Star Wars virgins.)

The Empire Strikes Back: OUTTA SIGHT

Getting Straight (1970)

          Stylishly directed by the singular Richard Rush, a filmmaker who is equal parts entertainer and provocateur, the campus-unrest dramedy Getting Straight has taken a lot of flack over the years for being too glib and polished. After all, the movie engages such inflammatory topics as drugs, sexual liberation, and student protests against the Vietnam war. Yet even though film historians are unlikely to classify Getting Straight as one of the essential counterculture movies, Rush does a great job of capturing a moment from a romantic viewpoint. Specifically, he makes with-it college students seem cool and sexy by showcasing charismatic stars, flashy camerawork, rebellious attitudes, and sharp dialogue—even if, in order to propel his story, he also exposes the ways in which these characters can be hypocritical, ridiculous, and self-important.

          The brisk narrative concerns Harry Bailey (Elliot Gould), a graduate student/Vietnam vet who’s pushing 30 and feels as if he’s outgrown campus activism. Determined to finish his master’s so he can begin a teaching career, Harry tries to steer clear of political demonstrations that are erupting around his campus. Alas, Harry’s beautiful girlfriend, Jan (Candice Bergen), is deeply involved in activism, so she’s part of the very chaos Harry wishes to avoid. The purpose of this storytelling gimmick, of course, is to make Harry choose between apathy and involvement—while also forcing Jan to examine whether she’s committed to political causes for meaningful reasons or simply because flipping off the Establishment is fashionable.

          Working from a script credited to Ken Kolb and Robert Kaufman—but likely co-written by Rush himself—Rush does a bang-up job on Getting Straight, his first studio feature after cutting his teeth on a series of wild biker- and drug-themed exploitation pictures. Rush and cinematographer László Kovács use a fluid camera style combining long lenses, probing movements, and sneaky zooms to create a sense of tension and vitality; one feels as if the very world is being torn asunder by campus conflict. Even the casting feeds into the central theme of generational clashes spinning out of control. With his bushy hair and walrus moustache, Gould bridges youth and maturity, his bitchy line deliveries underlining his character’s constant exasperation. Bergen, conversely, provides a complicated and glamorous vision of entitlement meshed with idealism. (That being said, the movie’s portrayal of women can be a little dodgy, with Jan sometimes coming off as a needy narcissist with bourgeois sensibilities.) Meanwhile, supporting characters played by Jeff Corey and Harrison Ford represent, respectively, conservatism and the apolitical stance.

          Inevitably, the picture climaxes with a full-on riot—after all their debating, joking, and speechifying, the characters in Getting Straight must face the test of civil disobedience with real consequences. And while it’s true that Getting Straight may ultimately be little more than a lavishly produced snapshot of a fraught era, Rush and his team deserve credit for exploring a trend when it was still central to the national conversation.

Getting Straight: GROOVY

The Conversation (1974)

          To fully grasp the hot streak filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola was on in the ’70s, it’s necessary to look beyond the titanic accomplishments of The Godfather (1972), The Godfather: Part II (1974), and Apocalypse Now (1979). Released the same year as The Godfather: Part II—and, amazingly, also nominated for a Best Picture Oscar that year, giving Coppola two slots in the category—was The Conversation, which arguably represents the purest artistic statement of Coppola’s early career. Whereas Coppola’s other ’70s films are adaptations, The Conversation is an original. Moreover, the picture is so intimate that it demonstrates the filmmaker’s preternatural ability to use image and sound as a means of communicating nearly microscopic details about a protagonist’s inner life. Yet beyond simply being an auteurist showpiece, The Conversation tells a resonant story about themes ranging from paranoia to personal responsibility, and it contains one of the finest leading performances of the decade, by the incomparable Gene Hackman. In sum, The Conversation is a pinnacle achievement whether viewed as personal art, social critique, or even just craftsmanship.

          Set in Coppola’s beloved San Francisco, the movie concerns Harry Caul (Hackman), a surveillance contractor revered by fellow professionals for his skill at secretly recording conversations in tricky situations. The opening scene depicts Harry’s team using a trio of strategically placed microphones to eavesdrop on an exchange between young lovers Ann (Cindy Williams) and Mark (Frederic Forrest), who speak while walking in circles through a crowded urban square. Harry merges the recordings until he’s extracted a pristine master tape, and then attempts to make delivery to his client, a director at the CIA. Yet when Harry is denied access to the director, he suspects trouble, so he withholds the master tape. It turns out that in the past, one of Harry’s tapes was used to justify an assassination, so Harry fears history might repeat itself. The problem, however, is that Harry is so reclusive that he has no close friends from whom to seek guidance or support. Therefore, the incredible drama of the movie stems from Harry’s quandary over whether to maintain his personal code of noninvolvement or violate his self-preserving principles in order to serve the greater good.

          Every character surrounding Harry is used by Coppola to illuminate a different facet of the protagonist. Amiable coworker Stan (John Cazale) reveals Harry’s inability to trust; gentle prostitute Meredith (Elizabeth McRae) reveals Harry’s inability to share emotionally; undemanding kept woman Amy (Teri Garr) reveals Harry’s inability to commit; and so on. Meanwhile, edgy supporting characters including ice-blooded functionary Martin (Harrison Ford) and vulgar surveillance-industry competitor Bernie (Allen Garfield) represent the types of avarice and duplicity that first drove Harry to become a recluse. On nearly every textual and subtextual level, The Conversation is a master class in character development.

          It’s also a wonder in terms of technical execution. Coppola and expert cinematographers Bill Butler and Haskell Wexler carve delicate images from light, movement, and shadow, articulating the significance of how different people occupy different spaces. Unsung hero Walter Murch, performing the role of sound designer before that job title existed, works magic with distortion and fragmentation to evoke Harry’s insular life experience, while composer David Shire’s whirling piano figures address the painful tension pervading the story. The performances are uniformly good, from Garr’s slightly pathetic likeability to Garfield’s crass aggression, but, obviously, the brittle textures of Hackman’s work hold The Conversation together. Disappearing behind dumpy clothes, horn-rimmed glasses, and a receding hairline, Hackman sketches Harry Caul with incredible restraint, so the flashes of emotion that the actor makes visible speak volumes. The Conversation isn’t perfect, thanks to occasional directorial flourishes that slip into pretention and thanks to a slightly overlong running time. Nonetheless, in every important way, The Conversation defines what made New Hollywood cinema bracing, innovative, and meaningful.

The Conversation: OUTTA SIGHT

The Frisco Kid (1979)

The runaway success of Mel Brooks’ Western spoof Blazing Saddles (1974) inspired many underwhelming imitators, including pictures by a handful of directors who should have known better. For instance, Robert Aldrich, whose career includes several great action films and melodramas, had no business helming an “outrageous” romp about a rabbi-turned-outlaw—although whether anyone could have made a watchable movie from this gimmicky premise is open to debate. Anyway, Blazing Saddles star Gene Wilder is Rabbi Avram Belinski, a wide-eyed rube who travels from Poland to America in order to assume his post as the leader of a San Francisco synagogue. After getting robbed by hooligans upon reaching the East Coast, Avram finds work on a railroad as a means of making his way West. This brings him into the orbit of Tommy Lillard (Harrison Ford), an outlaw who takes sympathy on the hapless traveler. They become unlikely companions for a series of what presumably were conceived as “wacky adventures.” In Aldrich’s hands, however, the episodes comprising The Frisco Kid are loud non-events, spasms of shouting and slapstick connected by exhaustingly exuberant music—the vignettes look and feel like comedy without actually being funny. While much of the blame falls to Aldrich and his screenwriters for failing to summon inspiration, Wilder is complicit, too. Succumbing to his worst excesses, notably bulging his eyes at regular intervals and screaming most of his dialogue, Wilder presents such a broad caricature of Jewishness that he’s almost unbearable to watch, to say nothing of borderline offensive. This isn’t Wilder at his worst (alas, he was even more grating while acting in the first couple of movies he directed), but this sure ain’t Wilder at his best. As for Ford, caught in the post-Star Wars transitional period of his career, he doesn’t really have a character to portray, so he overcompensates with unearned intensity that doesn’t suit the comedic milieu.

The Frisco Kid: LAME

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

Force 10 from Navarone (1978)

          An unnecessary but harmless sequel to a classic action movie, Force 10 from Navarone slots replacement actors into the leading roles from The Guns of Navarone (1961); it also substitutes the simplistic men-on-a-mission vibe of the earlier film with a convoluted storyline comprising rampant double-crosses. As a result, Force 10 lacks the clarity and star power of its predecessor. At the end of The Guns of Navarone, World War II British commandoes Mallory (Gregory Peck) and Miller (David Niven) head home for England after blowing up an enemy installation in Nazi-occupied Greece. Force 10 picks up a short while later, when Mallory (Robert Shaw) and Miller (Edward Fox) are recruited to kill a dangerous double agent embedded with rebel forces in Yugoslavia.

          For reasons that are never particularly clear, the duo gets attached to “Force 10,” an American commando unit headed to Yugoslavia for a mysterious mission, and this understandably irritates Force 10’s no-nonsense leader, Barnsby (Harrison Ford). Thereafter, the movie’s narrative gets really contrived. First, an American soldier under military arrest, Weaver (Carl Weathers), escapes captivity and sneaks onto Force 10’s plane. Then, upon arrival in Yugoslavia, Mallory and Miller must track the shifting allegiances of a monstrous Yugoslavian (Richard Kiel), a beautiful rebel fighter (Barbara Bach), and the man who may or may not be their assassination target (Franco Nero). Oh, and there’s also the whole business of Force 10’s mission, which involves blowing up a bridge.

          Force 10 from Navarone is so over-plotted that character development is a casualty, but the movie zips along nicely thanks to attractive location photography and crisp direction by Bond-movie veteran Guy Hamilton. The picture has some enjoyable macho highlights, like Weathers’ duel with Kiel—how totally ’70s to see a knife fight between Apollo Creed and “Jaws” from the 007 movies! Additionally, Bach provides the requisite sex appeal, Nero smolders as we try to determine whether he’s a hero or a villain, and Fox scores a few laughs as a pip-pip Brit with a perpetual even keel. The climax has some groovy miniature effects, too.

          However, the movie hinges on the leading performances, and they’re a mixed bag. Shaw, apparently enjoying his post-Jaws run of action-hero roles, is atypically lighthearted, but Ford is lifeless. Shooting his first big action movie after Star Wars, he seems determined to present a characterization with more gravitas than his Han Solo performance, but this movie is far too slight to support understated acting. Nonetheless, Ford’s participation is probably why Force 10 from Navarone has been a cable-TV staple since the early ’80s, and it’s interesting to see the actor finding his way before Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) secured his status as a cinematic icon.

Force 10 from Navarone: FUNKY

Heroes (1977)

          Sincere and well-intentioned but not particularly good, Heroes takes a seriocomic look at the traumas plaguing Vietnam-era combat vets trying to assimilate back into normal life. The picture is most noteworthy as a star vehicle for Henry Winkler, who was well into his phenomenally popular run as ’50s greaser Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli on the sitcom Happy Days (1974-1984). Leaving the leather jacket and pomade behind, Winkler plays a delusional vet named Jack Dunne, who flees a New York City mental hospital to pursue his bizarre dream of opening a worm farm with several combat buddies. He lands on a cross-country bus, seated next to conflicted city girl Carol Bell (Sally Field), who has also fled Manhattan; she’s ditching her impending nuptials for reasons that are never particularly clear. What ensues is an odd sort of romantic comedy, with these mismatched souls getting closer to each other as they experience colorful adventures.

          One of these exploits is a long visit with Jack’s Army pal Ken Boyd (Harrison Ford), a simple-minded Midwesterner with a self-destructive streak; he spends his time entering (and losing) stock-car races when he’s not getting hammered and shooting off his M16 in the fields of his family farm. Jack and Carol also run afoul of an ornery bus driver (Val Avery) and the slimy denizens of a redneck bar. Excepting the visit with Ken, the movie’s episodes feel contrived and random, a problem exacerbated by screenwriter James Carabatsos’ vague characterizations and, especially, by the casting of Field and Winkler. Carabatsos can’t figure out how to balance between the film’s comedic and dramatic elements, so the movie’s tonal shifts induce audience whiplash.

          As for Field and Winkler, they’re so inherently likeable that it’s hard to buy them as edgy characters, and the script constantly undercuts their work by going for cutesy jokes at the expense of emotional reality. Nonetheless, Heroes isn’t bad so much as sloppy. Many stretches of the film are charming, and Field and Winkler conjure flashes of sweet intimacy whenever the storytelling calms down enough to let them do serious work. It’s also interesting to see Ford playing a character role instead of a lead, since Heroes was made before his ascension to superstardom in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). He clearly relishes the hard work of inhabiting a troubled individual, and he has many strong moments.

Heroes: FUNKY

American Graffiti (1973) & More American Graffiti (1979)

          The most relatable picture in his entire filmography, American Graffiti offers an engaging riff on a formative period in George Lucas’ life, when being a kid on the verge of adulthood meant cruising for chicks in a great car on a cool California evening. The fact that Lucas once conceived and directed a story this full of believable characters makes it frustrating that so many of his latter-day projects lack recognizable humanity; it seems that once he departed for a galaxy far, far away, he never returned. Yet that frustration somehow deepens the resonance of American Graffiti, because just as the story captures a fleeting moment in the lives of its characters, the movie captures a fleeting moment in the life of its creator. Utilizing an innovative editing style in which brisk vignettes are interwoven to the accompaniment of a dense soundtrack comprising familiar vintage pop tunes, Lucas confounded his Universal Studios financiers but thrilled early-’70s moviegoers by conjuring the cinematic equivalent of switching the dial on a car radio. As soon as any given scene makes its statement, Lucas jumps to the next high point, repeating the adrenalized cycle until it’s time to call it a night.

          Set in Lucas’ hometown of Modesto circa 1962, American Graffiti follows the adventures of four recent high school graduates trying to figure out the next steps in their lives. They interact with a constellation of friends and strangers during a hectic night of romance, sex, vandalism, and vehicular excess. Some of the characters and relationships have more impact than others, but the various threads mesh comfortably and amplify each other. For instance, the melodramatic saga of Steve (Ron Howard) and his girlfriend Laurie (Cindy Williams) resonates with the obsessive quest by Curt (Richard Dreyfuss) to find a mysterious dreamgirl (Suzanne Somers). Moody greaser John (Paul Le Mat) and tough-guy drag racer Bob (Harrison Ford) add danger, while precocious Carol (Mackenzie Phillips) and hapless Terry (Charles Martin Smith) add humor. With wall-to-wall tunes expressing the characters’ raging hormones, Lucas weaves a quilt of adolescent angst and teen longing that simultaneously debunks and romanticizes the historical moment immediately preceding John F. Kennedy’s assassination. It’s a testament to Lucas’ craft that audiences fell in love with the exuberant surface of the movie despite the gloom bubbling underneath. The picture’s success did remarkable things for nearly everyone involved, helping Howard land the lead in the blockbuster sitcom Happy Days (1974–1984) and giving Lucas the box-office mojo to make Star Wars (1977).

          More American Graffiti is a very different type of film. Written and directed by Bill L. Norton under Lucas’ supervision, the picture explores what happened to several characters after the events of the first film. Howard, Le Mat, Smith, and Williams reprise their roles, and Ford makes a brief appearance. (Dreyfuss is notably absent.) A dark, experimental, and provocative examination of the tumultuous years spanning 1964 to 1967, More American Graffiti would have been nervy as a stand-alone film, so it’s outright ballsy as a major-studio sequel to a crowd-pleaser. Norton follows three storylines, giving each a distinctive look. Scenes with Howard and Williams are shot conventionally, accentuating the everyday misery of a couple drifting apart. Scenes with Smith’s character in Vietnam are shot on grainy 16mm with a boxy aspect ratio (even though the rest of the picture is widescreen). Trippiest of all are scenes with Candy Clark (whose character in the first picture was relatively minor); set in hippy-dippy San Francisco, these sequences use wild split-screen techniques. LeMat’s character appears in an extended flashback to which Norton frequently returns, like the chorus of a pop song. Tackling antiwar protests, draft dodgers, drug culture, women’s liberation, and other topics, the film is a too-deliberate survey of ’60s signifiers. That said, More American Graffiti has integrity to spare, bringing the shadows that hid beneath the first movie’s shiny surface to the foreground.

American Graffiti: RIGHT ON

More American Graffiti: FUNKY

Apocalypse Now (1979)

          One of the definitive cinematic statements of the ’70s, Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War drama is indulgent, pretentious, and undisciplined, but the film’s narrative excesses perfectly match its theme of men driven mad by an insane world. Famously adapted from Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness by gonzo screenwriter John Milius, then rewritten by Coppola and sprinkled with evocative narration by Michael Herr, the harrowing movie follows the journey of military assassin Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), sent by his U.S. Army masters to take out a rogue Green Beret, Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has established an ultraviolent fiefdom in Cambodia. The irony of the Army condemning one of its own killing machines for being too bloodthirsty is just part of the film’s crazy-quilt statement about the obscenity of war in general and that of the Vietnam conflict in particular; even though the narrative wanders into many strange places along the way, it always returns to the maddening central idea that murder is acceptable as long as it’s done according to plan.
          Moving away from the classicism of his early-’70s triumphs and entering a vibrant period of expressionist experimentation, Coppola oversees a string of bold and inspired sequences, many of which have become iconic. The opening salvo, with hallucinatory intercutting of jungle imagery and a sweaty Saigon hotel room while the Doors’ menacing song “The End” plays on the soundtrack, goes beyond masterful and enters the realm of tweaked genius. And how many scenes in other movies match the audacity of the helicopter attack scored with Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries”? The film’s dialogue is just as vivid, from “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” to “The horror, the horror.” Sheen is extraordinary, channeling his intensity and remarkable speaking voice into a performance of perverse majesty, while supporting players Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper match him with crystalline personifications of two different brands of lunacy. Famously overpaid and uncooperative costar Brando gives Coppola fragments of brilliance that the director stitches into something weirdly affecting, and the fact that Brando’s performance works is a testament to the heroic efforts of a team of editors including longtime Coppola collaborator Walter Murch.
          Speaking of behind-the-camera participants, it would be criminal not to sing the praises of Vittorio Storaro’s luminous photography, which somehow captures not only the heat but also the suffocating humidity of the jungle. Actors Sam Bottoms, Laurence Fishburne, Albert Hall, and G.D. Spradlin all contribute immeasurably as well, and Harrison Ford pops up for a bit part. After consuming the powerful 153-minute original version, consider exploring the fascinating (and even more indulgent) 202-minute extended cut titled Apocalypse Now Redux, and by all means seek out Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, possibly the most illuminating behind-the-scenes documentary ever made.

Apocalypse Now: OUTTA SIGHT

Star Wars (1977)

           First off, the title of the damn movie is Star Wars, not Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. No matter how much writer-director George Lucas enjoys rewriting history, there was no way he could have known when he was shooting this film that he would get to make one sequel, much less two sequels and three prequels. Thus, despite its eventual status as the first installment of a long-running franchise, the beauty of the original Star Wars is that it’s a complete, self-contained statement about the thrill of a young man discovering his destiny—and one of the film’s many charms is the parallel between Lucas and guileless protagonist Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Just as Luke becomes an intergalactic hero by embracing previously unknown possibilities, Lucas changed the film industry by combining old-fashioned storytelling with groundbreaking FX.
          The basics of the story are familiar to most moviegoers: When agents of the evil Intergalactic Empire kidnap rebel leader Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), her trusty robots R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) and C-3P0 (Anthony Daniels) are sent to recruit aging Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guiness) to rescue her. Circumstances instead lead the robots to young Luke, a restless orphan living with his aunt and uncle on a remote farm but dreaming of life as a star pilot, and eventually Luke delivers the robots to Kenobi and discovers their true mission. When soldiers from the Empire wipe out Luke’s family, he joins Kenobi on the quest to rescue Leia, and sets out on the path to becoming a Jedi Knight, which is sort of an outer-space samurai with supernatural powers. Viewers also learn about the Force, an energy field binding everyone in the universe together; Jedis get their powers by channeling the Force.
          The heroic crew soon expands to include self-serving smuggler Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and his hirsute first mate, a gigantic alien called Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew). Their journey leads them to the Death Star, a massive space station, where they must confront villains including the Jedi Knight-turned-bad Darth Vader (physically performed by David Prowse and voiced by James Earl Jones). Along the way, Luke finds a surrogate father in Kenobi, a comrade-in-arms in Han, and a love interest in Leia. This is all fun stuff, of course, but the story is really just part of the appeal; with Lucas at the height of his visionary powers, the real magic of Star Wars is in the physical reality and the storytelling.
          At the risk of hyperbole, there’s simply no explaining what a thrill it was to discover this movie as a child of the ’70s. The production values were intoxicating, and the mixture of archetypes and classic themes made Star Wars feel like a tale that had existed for generations. Yet perhaps the sheer confidence of the filmmaking was the most overpowering aspect on first blush: Leaping from one colorful cliffhanger to the next, the movie was edited to travel as fast as any of the spaceships Lucas put onscreen. At the time, Star Wars hit youthful bloodstreams like a cinematic sugar rush, but with something deeper underneath.
          During my interview for the documentary The People vs. George Lucas, I was asked why I thought the first film had such an impact on kids my age. I noted that the mid-’70s was a murky time in American life, with Vietnam and Watergate topping the list of recent front-page downers, and Star Wars was a much-needed infusion of optimism. As a boy feeling the effects of social change (this movie was released around the time my parents’ marriage became a ’70s statistic by ending in divorce), I think I was primed for the hopeful idea that some Force for good existed in the universe. The movie’s staggering box-office returns, and the decades of devotion showered upon the Star Wars franchise by millions of Gen-Xers, indicate I wasn't alone in my reaction.
          You begin to see why it’s difficult to completely set aside larger examinations of this deceptively simple movie, since anything embraced by untold millions means something, whether good or bad—but beyond its pivotal place in ’70s sociology, Star Wars is simply one of the great rides in the history of popcorn cinema. The monstrous spaceship swallowing the tiny rebel vessel at the top of the movie. The otherworldly cantina. The outer-space dogfights. Han Solo’s last-minute heroism. Darth Freakin’ Vader. Escapist adventure doesn’t get any better, even if the actors (including the preceding plus Hammer veteran Peter Cushing) have to struggle through wooden characterizations and tongue-twisting dialogue. With John Williams’ indelible music giving coherence to all of Lucas’ mad-tinkerer ideas, Star Wars is pure cinematic pleasure from start to finish. And if it means something to you, as it does to me, then so much the better.

Star Wars: OUTTA SIGHT