The Andersonville Trial (1970)

          Calling this made-for-TV production of Saul Levitt’s Broadway play a movie is a bit of a stretch, seeing as how it’s essentially a videotaped recording of a live performance on a soundstage, but the cast is so colorful and the story is so arresting that The Andersonville Trial demands attention. Set four months after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Levitt’s play dramatizes the real-life case of Captain Henry Wirz, the Confederate officer who oversaw a massive POW camp in Andersonville, Georgia, where 14,000 inmates died from abuse, deprivation, and exposure. In Levitt’s humanistic telling, Wirz was complicit in the deaths, but he also unfairly received the brunt of the North’s anger against the South following the Civil War, since he was the first Confederate officer tried for war crimes. Staging The Andersonville Trial for television soon after the My Lai massacre was undoubtedly a conscious choice on the part of the producers, because Levitt’s play explores the thorny issue of how conscientious soldiers struggle to reconcile military and moral obligations, a relevant consideration during the Vietnam era.

          George C. Scott, who played the leading role on Broadway, slipped into the director’s chair for this production, and William Shatner somewhat improbably inherited the part. Save for their flamboyance, it’s hard to imagine two actors who are more different. That said, Shatner attacks the part of prosecuting JAG Lt. Col. Norton P. Chipman with ferocity and passion. In fact, The Andersonville Trial may well contain the best visual record of Shatner’s capacity as an actor. Many of Shatner’s excesses are present here, but so, too, are his sometimes underrated gifts—he orates well, mostly eschewing his famous dramatic pauses, and he shifts nimbly from anger to anguish. If not a remarkable performance, it’s certainly a robust one.

          As the title suggests, Levitt’s play tracks several episodes during a long trial, with each act comprising an extended real-time vignette. The defendant, Wirz (Richard Basehart), is an oddity, a physically impaired European immigrant so proud of his blind service to Confederate orders that he finds the whole trial offensive and ridiculous. He represents the familiar notion that following orders absolves a soldier of personal responsibility for atrocities. Conversely, Shipman represents a higher form of justice, since his prosecution asks whether Wirz should have defied orders in the name of mercy.

          Levitt’s exploration of these complicated issues within the framework of an exciting courtroom duel makes for compelling viewing even though The Andersonville Trial runs two and a half hours. It is also to Levitt’s and Scott’s credit that so many mid-level actors deliver excellent work here. Jack Cassidy is smooth as Wirz’s exasperated defense attorney, Cameron Mitchell conveys an interesting mixture of condescension and dignity as the head of the military tribunal, and folks shining in smaller roles include Michael Burns, Buddy Epsen, and Albert Salmi. Attentive viewers will even spot a young Martin Sheen in a glorified walk-on role toward the beginning of the piece.

The Andersonville Trial: GROOVY

W.C. Fields and Me (1976)

          While not to be taken seriously, seeing as how its attempts at verisimilitude result in campy superficiality, the showbiz biopic W.C. Fields and Me is watchable by virtue of a brisk pace, interesting subject matter, and lush production values. As for the acting, that’s by far the film’s weakest element—ironic, since both leading characters were actors in real life. But then again, star Rod Steiger delivers an over-the-top caricature while playing a man who spent his life cultivating a larger-than-life persona, and costar Valerie Perrine delivers an underwhelming turn while playing a woman who, for 14 years, was overshadowed by her more talented companion. So, in a weird way, the mixture works for creating mindless entertainment, even if W.C Fields and Me is hardly a dilligent replication of history.

          Based on a memoir by Carlotta Monti, a bit player who caught the real Fields’ eye and then spent a decade and a half as his assistant, companion, and occasional lover, W.C. Fields and Me depicts Fields’ trajectory from the end of his vaudeville career to the last days of his life. When he’s introduced, Fields (Steiger) is already a stage star, but his arrogance and drinking alienate him from employers including the legendary Florenz Ziegeld (Paul Stewart). In a weak attempt to portray Fields as psychologically complex, the picture asserts that he used onstage shock tactics (such as risqué humor) to compensate for offstage anxieties, and the filmmakers accentuate Fields’ jealous feelings toward fellow comic Charlie Chaplin. After a financial turnaround, Fields sets out for Hollywood accompanied by his only real friend, a little-person actor named Ludwig (Billy Barty). By writing comedy scripts and submitting them to studios, Fields eventually wins the patronage of studio boss Bannerman (John Marley), who gives Fields his first shot at performing on camera. Stardom follows, as does an excessive lifestyle defined by drunken adventures with pals including John Barrymore (Jack Cassidy). Eventually, Carlotta (Perrine) enters the mix, but her endeavors to wean Fields off booze fail, so she ends up bearing witness to the legendary funnyman’s decline.

          Itemizing all the things that are unsatisfying about W.C. Fields and Me would take an inordinate amount of time, so a few key complaints will have to suffice. The central relationship is inconsequential. Fields never evinces any growth as a character. Every showbiz type presented onscreen is a one-dimensional cliché. Steiger’s performance never achieves liftoff, because the actor wobbles between mimicking Fields’ gimmick of speaking from one side of his mouth—making the character seem like Burgess Meredith as the Penguin on the old Batman TV series—and because Steiger’s few moments of effective nonverbal pathos seem like Steiger peeking through the characterization, rather than the other way around. Worse, director Arthur Hiller can’t seem to decide whether the film is a comedy or a drama, so while some scenes include broad farce, others are mawkishly sentimental. Having said all that, the movie looks gorgeous; cinematographer David M. Walsh uses a glamorous combination of painterly angles, romantic filters, and sweeping camera movement to make Old Hollywood look seductive. Furthermore, the movie zips along at terrific speed, never losing clarity.

W.C. Fields and Me: FUNKY

The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County (1970)

The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County represents a failed attempt to make a movie star out of amiable actor Dan Blocker, the man-mountain who played “Hoss” Cartwright on the classic TV series Bonanza from 1959 to 1972. (The series lasted another year, but Blocker died shortly after this film’s release.) A would-be farcical Western about the residents of a small town snookering their beloved blacksmith into marrying a dancehall girl so he won’t uproot his business, The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County features a raft of B-list actors, so folks like Jim Backus, Jack Cassidy, Jack Elam, Nanette Fabray, and Mickey Rooney populate the cast. Every single actor, Blocker included, is guilty of shameful mugging; the type of broad-as-a-barn acting on display throughout this laugh-deficient “comedy” went out of style with the advent of synchronized sound. Furthermore, the story is so contrived that there’s not a single surprise in the entire picture. Blocker’s character is a naïve galoot who learns to accept the seedier realities of life, Fabray’s character is a cynic who secretly longs to be loved, Elam’s character is an incompetent bounty hunter who’s supposed to add danger to the story but never does, and so on. Some performers make the best of this bargain-basement material, so, for instance, Backus uses double-takes and exasperated line deliveries to make his characterization of a flim-flamming mayor as enjoyable as possible. Meanwhile, others—especially Rooney—deliver work that’s best described as cringe-inducing. (This is the kind of sub-sitcom flick in which Elam, whose character has poor vision, spends several minutes grooming himself while looking at a framed portrait that he mistakes for a mirror.) The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County is harmless inasmuch as the jokes are never offensive, but it’s hard to imagine anyone sitting through the whole lifeless flick without subsequently regretting the loss of 99 minutes.

The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County: LAME

Bunny O’Hare (1971)

          The fine folks at Wikipedia report that Bette Davis sued the producers of this offbeat comedy because editing changes transformed what Davis had been promised would be grown-up satire into silly slapstick. And while it’s heartening to see that Davis was still her usual combative self even well into the twilight of her career, the question underlying this factoid is why Davis—or anyone, for that matter—could ever have envisioned Bunny O’Hare as grown-up fare, satirical or otherwise. A juvenile predicated on coincidence and contrivance, the film is marred by pervasively nonsensical plotting. The opening scene tells the tale. Bunny O’Hare (Davis) is a dippy widow who flies into a panic when workers show up to demolish her home after she’s defaulted on bank payments. She inexplicably asks a workman named Bill (Ernest Borgnine) to protect her house even though he’s just there to salvage plumbing items for resale. Then Bunny phones her adult children for help, but the kids are too self-involved to recognize that Mom’s in a jam. Next, after Bill fails to protect Bunny’s house (which wasn’t his responsibility in the first place), he succumbs to guilt and offers Bunny a ride. Huh? A series of unlikely situations ensues, during which Bunny discovers that Bill is actually a bank robber wanted by the police, so Bunny blackmails Bill into helping her rob the financial institution that she feels treated her shabbily.

          Bunny O’Hare is a deeply confused movie. For instance, the filmmakers can’t decide if Bunny is competent or helpless. Nor can they decide if the antagonist is a bank, the cops, or Bunny’s children. Yet the myriad story problems aren’t the worst aspects of this dreadful movie. The central visual gimmick involves Borgnine and Davis masquerading as hippies, so viewers are subjected to the surreal sight of bearish Borgnine and tiny Davis decked out in Day-Glo polyester while they hurtle down city streets on a motorcycle. Proving that Davis was at least correct to complain about the film’s editing, the flick is cut and scored with the frenetic, broad-as-a-barn storytelling style of a Jerry Lewis movie. Plus, many getaway scenes feature out-of-place banjo music, as if the picture aspires to be a cousin to Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Davis strives to retain her dignity and plays certain scenes well, but her crisp line deliveries clash badly with Borgnine’s boisterous energy. Costar Jack Cassidy, as the vain cop obsessed with catching the “hippie bandits,” delivers a tiresome caricature in lieu of a performance, while funnyman John Astin, playing one of Bunny’s kids, fares slightly better.

Bunny O’Hare: LAME

The Eiger Sanction (1975)

          The mountain-climbing flick The Eiger Sanction is one of the silliest action movies Clint Eastwood ever made. Working outside his comfort zones of cowboy melodramas and urban crime thrillers, Eastwood plays a college professor (!) who moonlights as a hit man (!!) and must employ his mountain-climbing skills (!!!) to smoke out the identity of an elusive murderer (@#*#!!!!). Based on a novel by one-named ’70s escapist-fiction phenom Trevanian, The Eiger Sanction features a plot so contrived it would give Alistair MacLean pause. Every single element of the film, from the ridiculous lengths government agents take to whack one inconsequential killer to the presence of an albino control freak running a vicious black-ops organization, stretches credibility way beyond the breaking point.

          The Eiger Sanction is also one of those movies in which so much time is spent preparing for the big event (in this case, a treacherous climb up a sheer mountain face) that the purpose of the mission gets hopelessly obscured. If several mountain climbers are suspects, for instance, why not simply capture and interrogate all of them instead of wasting so much time? Furthermore, the idea that reluctant hired gun Dr. Jonathan Hemlock (Eastwood) is the only man for the job is laughable: He’s expensive, famous (and therefore ill-suited to undercover work), insubordinate, and unpredictable, yet somehow hiring him is deemed pragmatic. Still, movies like The Eiger Sanction ask viewers to turn off their brains in order to groove on visceral thrills, and with Eastwood pulling double-duty as director and star, thrills are never in short supply.

          Eastwood stages exciting chase scenes in European cities, enjoyable training montages in which his character is coaxed and teased by a shapely coach (Brenda Venus), and, of course, death-defying climbing scenes set on the rocky surfaces of snowy mountains. Eastwood’s efforts to conjure crowd-pleasing nonsense are aided by the work of composer John Williams, who contributes rousing adventure music, and by the enthusiastic performances of supporting players Jack Cassidy (as a queeny international operative), Thayer David (as the aforementioned albino), George Kennedy (as Eastwood’s friend/trainer), and Vonetta McGee (as Eastwood’s duplicitous love interest). So, even though The Eiger Sanction is preposterously overlong at 123 minutes, and for that matter simply preposterous, at least it’s energetic and good-looking.

The Eiger Sanction: FUNKY

The Phantom of Hollywood (1974)

As the title suggests, this enjoyable TV movie relocates the gimmick of Gaston Leroux’s classic 1908 novel The Phantom of the Opera to a decaying Hollywood backlot: A physically and psychologically scarred madman haunts the abandoned dream factory, killing anyone who invades his domain. What makes The Phantom of Hollywood fun to watch is the verisimilitude of the location. The picture was shot in the old Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer backlot just before demolition, so viewers get to witness the last days of showbiz landmark. Seeing once-beautiful facades overrun with rust and weeds is so poignant that it’s easy to empathize with the nutjob who considers the backlot hallowed ground. That said, The Phantom of Hollywood’s narrative, credited to George Schenck and Robert Thorn, is perfunctory at best: When a fictional studio decides to sell its long-unused backlot, the Phantom (who wears in a medieval costume and wields old-school weapons like a bow and arrow) starts whacking interlopers, so the studio has to smoke out the psycho. Feeling trapped, the Phantom kidnaps the studio head’s daughter (Skye Aubrey), causing her boyfriend, PR man Ray Burns (Peter Haskell), to rush to the rescue. Not much in The Phantom of Hollywood will surprise (or really frighten) most viewers, but the picture benefits from brevity, delivering a steady stream of melodrama and thrills over the course of 74 fast-moving minutes. And though the incredible location is the real star of the picture, reliable actors including Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, and Peter Lawford lend authority. As the Phantom (and also in a secondary role), journeyman actor Jack Cassidy has a field day spewing Shakespearean quotes and other overwrought dialogue—in fact, he sounds rather like Claude Rains, who played Leroux’s original Phantom in Universal’s 1943 monster-movie take on the tale. There’s also creepy irony to Cassidy playing a burn victim; the actor, perhaps best known as the real-life father of ’70s teen idols David and Shaun Cassidy, died in an apartment fire two years after The Phantom of Hollywood was broadcast. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

The Phantom of Hollywood: FUNKY