Shadow of the Hawk (1976)

         Something of a cousin to The Manitou (1976) and Prophecy (1979), this loopy flick puts a Native American spin on the horror genre, spicing its thrills with hokey material about ancient curses and sacred destinies. Shadow of the Hawk isn’t scary so much as it’s colorful, thanks to elaborate scenes of the hero fighting a grizzly bear, leading a group of people across a rope bridge over a massive canyon, and so forth. Yet the movie’s intensity level lags dangerously low at times because of phoned-in performances and underdeveloped characters and concepts. Nonetheless, Shadow of the Hawk is watchable in a Saturday-matinee sort of way, because every so often something enjoyably weird happens. In one scene, the dignified Native American actor Chief Dan George yanks the coral snake that just bit him off his face, throws the reptile to the ground, and uses Indian magic to engulf the snake in flames. Later, George applies war paint to the movie’s star, Jan-Michael Vincent, so Vincent can have a mano-a-mano duel with a fellow wearing a bird costume comprising a giant beak mask and feather “wings” extending below his arms. Oh, and rest assured that George utters lots of quasi-spiritual dialogue (“Give her strength—let it flow into her body like the wind in the trees”). Shadow of the Hawk is ridiculous, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

          When the story begins, Old Man Hawk (George) travels from the reservation to the big city so he can seek help from his grandson, Mike (Vincent), who has left Native American culture behind. Through contrived circumstances, Mike agrees to help and brings along Maureen (Marilyn Hassett), a pretty reporter whom he’s just met.  Old Man Hawk persuades Mike and Maureen that he’s engaged in a battle with the spirit of an ancient witch, and that matters of some consequence hinge on the outcome of the battle. The trio ventures into the woods to find and confront the ancient spirit, leading to deadly episodes whenever the witch uses its powers to turn the natural world against the heroes.

          Directed with indifference by TV hack George McCowan, who made a handful of B-movies including the absurd creature feature Frogs (1972), Shadow of the Hawk has some nice scenery, and it’s novel that many of the big fright scenes happen in broad daylight. (Unfortunately, this visual choice reveals that the “grizzly” fighting Vincent is a dude in a questionable bear costume.) The superficiality of the story is helpful in that it’s possible to watch the movie without utilizing any actual brain function, and hurtful in that it’s not possible to care what happens. George manages to avoid looking embarrassed, no small accomplishment, while Vincent seems completely vacant and Hassett merely whimpers her way through silly damsel-in-distress scenarios. Anyway, here’s an odd piece of Jan-Michael Vincent trivia that’s related to this movie: The pilot episode of the cheesetastic ’80s action show Airwolf, in which Vincent plays an adventurer named Stringfellow Hawke, is titled “Shadow of the Hawke.” I’d like to believe that someone on the Airwolf team had a mischievous sense of humor.

Shadow of the Hawk: FUNKY

Two-Minute Warning (1976)

          The premise of Two-Minute Warning couldn’t be more appealing for fans of cheesy ’70s blockbusters: A sniper takes a position in the clock tower of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during a crowded football game, so cops led by Captain Peter Holly (Charlton Heston) must take the sniper out. Chuck Heston versus a psycho against a backdrop of tragic melodrama—pass the popcorn! Unfortunately, the title of Two-Minute Warning is itself a warning (to viewers), since virtually nothing exciting happens until the last two minutes of the game that provides the film’s narrative structure. Most of the movie comprises a long slog of “character development” in the superficial disaster-movie style, meaning Two-Minute Warning is nearly all foreplay with very little payoff.

          That said, if you dive into the movie aware that it’s a slow burn, the combination of enterprising location photography and enthusiastic performances might be enough to keep you interested. The main relationship in the movie is between Captain Holly, who spends most of his time watching the sniper through a video feed originating in the Goodyear Blimp (!), and hotshot SWAT team commander Chris Button (John Cassavetes). Holly wants to remove the sniper without gunplay, whereas Button is itching for a shootout. Watching these alpha males clash provides a smidgen of macho entertainment, though one wishes the filmmakers had found a way to make their conflict more dynamic. The lack of strong leading characters lets supporting players run away with the picture. Brock Peters stands out as a Coliseum maintenance man who tries to be a hero, and Beau Bridges has some sorta-affecting moments as an unemployed dad fighting with his wife and kids in the stands, unaware of the danger lurking behind the end zone.

          Two-Minute Warning hews so closely to the disaster-movie paradigm that the story also includes an aging pickpocket (Walter Pidgeon), a football-loving priest (Mitchell Ryan), and a bickering couple (played by David Janssen and Gena Rowlands). Yes, it’s the old “Who’s going to live, who’s going to die?” drill. Director Larry Peerce rounded out the cast with his then-wife, Marilyn Hassett, the star of his maudlin The Other Side of the Mountain movies, although casting his missus appears to be as close as he got to emotionally investing in this trifling potboiler. Since the Coliseum figured prominently in ’70s pop culture (it was used for Heaven Can Wait, North Dallas Forty, and innumerable TV episodes), the venue provides as comforting a presence as any of the name-brand actors, and Peerce shoots the location well. Overall, however, Two-Minute Warning is a missed opportunity given all the possibilities suggested by the premise. Fumble!

Two-Minute Warning: FUNKY

The Bell Jar (1979)

          A perennial favorite of adolescent women suffering fraught emotional lives, poetess Sylvia Plath’s sole novel, The Bell Jar, is a thinly veiled account of Plath’s real-life experiences as a young woman who fell from the heights of academic overachievement to the depths of electroshock therapy after emotional problems led to a series of suicide attempts. In the right hands, this book could be adapted into a bold and honest drama, providing a sensitive exploration into the mysteries of mental illness. In the wrong hands, as is the case here, The Bell Jar becomes fodder for cheap manipulation.

          Director Larry Peerce and his on- and offscreen muse, actress Marilyn Hassett, reteamed for this project after their success with The Other Side of the Mountain (1975) and The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2 (1978), which were about a real-life skier who became a paraplegic. Nothing in those trite films suggested Peerce or Hassett were predisposed toward investigating the intricacies of the human mind—and, sure enough, their take on The Bell Jar is sincere but numbingly superficial.

          Furthermore, the script, by Marjorie Kellogg, departs in significant ways from the source material, conjuring a gruesome climax that’s absent from the book; Kellogg also streamlines Plath’s narrative in a way that makes the lead character’s trip down the rabbit hole seem like a brief detour on the way to wellness. In short, the filmmakers blew a powerful opportunity to depict what it’s like to feel trapped in one’s own mind, instead focusing on the garish sensationalism of a beautiful young woman experimenting with sex before succumbing to personal demons.

          As in the book, Esther Greenwood (Hassett) is a gifted student who wins a summer internship at a ladies’ magazine, where she’s challenged by a tough editor (Barbara Barrie) to explore new literary frontiers. Meanwhile, Esther and her summer roommate, Southern party girl Doreen (Mary Louise Weller), fall into steamy situations like a threesome with an overbearing disc jockey (Robert Klein). Esther’s emotional troubles manifest suddenly, since the filmmakers fail to convey the textures of Esther’s inner life, so it’s hard to grasp why she’s so unhappy about a summer filled with excitement and opportunities.

          Eventually, Esther returns home to her needy mother (Julie Harris), and Esther’s anguish over falling off the fast track to success drives her to attempt self-destruction. This implied cause-and-effect relationship insults the source material and the subject matter, and the dubious interpretation is exacerbated by Hassett’s weak performance. Though Hassett clearly gave this project her all, she simply can’t summon the darkness needed to bring this character to life. Having said all that, The Bell Jar is quite compelling if one overlooks the gulf between what the movie should have been and what the movie actually is, simply because the underlying story is arresting and lurid. And, to the filmmakers’ credit, their contrived finale, which involves a disturbing reunion between Esther and her college pal Joan (Donna Mitchell), has a painful poetry the rest of the picture lacks.

The Bell Jar: FUNKY

The Other Side of the Mountain (1975) & The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2 (1978)

          The blockbuster success of Love Story (1970) reminded studios about the moneymaking potential of over-the-top tearjerkers, which explains why Universal put its muscle behind The Other Side of the Mountain, even though the bummer material seems more suitable for a TV movie. Based on the unfortunate experiences of real-life American skier Jill Kinmont, The Other Side of the Mountain depicts what happened to Kinmont (played by Marilyn Hassett) before, during, and after an accident that left her paralyzed from the shoulders down, ending her promising athletic career and confining her to a wheelchair. Adding to her woes, Kinmont became engaged to skier Dick “Mad Dog” Buek (played by Beau Bidges) after her accident, surmounting the many issues separating able-bodied persons from the disabled, but Buek died in a plane crash before they got married.

          The movie frames these sad events with a quasi-uplifting prologue and epilogue, showing Kinmont looking fulfilled in her second career as a schoolteacher, but the point of the movie is bludgeoning viewers with the particulars of Kinmont’s misery. As directed by feature/TV journeyman Larry Peerce, The Other Side of the Mountain is so perfunctory it occasionally borders on self-parody—every time Peerce shows the heroine smiling, it’s a sure sign something horrible is about to happen. Even Kinmont’s best friend, fellow skier Audra Jo Nicholson (Belinda J. Montgomery), suffers the whims of fate, losing full mobility in her legs after a bout of polio.

          The workaday nature of the picture is not aided by Hassett’s performance: Though sincere and wholesomely pretty, she alternates between extremes of sweetness and hysteria. Luckily, Bridges has fun with his daredevil role, and Montgomery lends sass whenever her character castigates Kinmont for self-pity. (The great comic actor Dabney Coleman appears in a minor role as Kinmont’s pre-accident coach.)

          Audiences gobbled up The Other Side of the Mountain, generating enough interest for a sequel that offers an uplifting change of course from its predecessor. The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2 shows Kinmont finding love again, this time with simple but soulful truck driver John Boothe (Timothy Bottoms). The sequel also delves deeper into Kinmont’s occasionally fraught relationship with her mother-turned-caretaker, June (Nan Martin). However, whereas the first picture moves briskly by jamming years of experiences into a single feature, the second picture feels padded and thin. Nonetheless, Bottoms is appealing, exuding vulnerability even though his acting sometimes lacks polish; in a strange way, he and Hassett make a potent screen duo because the strain of their respective efforts feels compatible.

          Taken together, these two movies are meant to be inspirational celebrations of Kinmont’s triumph over despair, but they also contain three and a half hours of almost relentless human suffering. So, if schadenfreude takes you to your (un)happy place, then a world of wonder awaits on you on The Other Side of the Mountain. (Available as part of the Universal Vault Series on Amazon.com)

The Other Side of the Mountain: FUNKY

The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2: FUNKY