Slow Dancing in the Big City (1978)

          If not for its posh production values and the pedigree of its director, the cutesy romance Slow Dancing in the Big City would come across like a mildly diverting but altogether forgettable TV movie. The narrative is slight in the extreme, blending an unpersuasive love story with melodramatic subplots, and if the filmmakers imagined they were rendering some sort of intoxicating modern-day fairy tale, they fell short of that goal. Nonetheless, Paul Sorvino’s affable leading performance goes a long way toward making the picture watchable, because he’s wonderfully cast as a rough-hewn but kindhearted New York City columnist sorta-kinda modeled after the inimitable Jimmy Breslin. In fact, it’s easy to imagine that playing the same character in a more consequential story, such as a political drama or better still a whimsical comedy, could have provided a star-making moment for Sorvino. Instead, Slow Dancing in the Big City flopped in theaters just a month after a better film costarring Sorvino, Bloodbrothers, suffered a similar fate. Thereafter, it was back to the character-actor grind.
          Lou Friedlander (Sorvino) enjoys a pleasant life as a minor New York celebrity thanks to his column featuring stories of everyday city people, but he’s bored in his casual relationship with a dowdy waitress. When he meets a dancer named Sarah (Anne Ditchburn), Lou becomes infatuated. Meanwhile, Lou writes stories about Marty (Hector Mercado), a preteen Latino who may be a musical prodigy but lives in a rough ghetto. Lou dumps the waitress so he can woo the years-younger Sarah, who subsequently experiences a serious medical crisis. And so it goes from there. Filmed in slick but uninspired fashion by John G. Avildsen, notching his first movie since winning an Oscar for Rocky (1976), Slow Dancing in the Big City has intermittent credibility. Since Ditchburn was a professional dancer, she’s impressive whenever she’s moving, less so whenever she’s acting. Yet Sorvino fits comfortably into his role, infusing an uncomplicated character with sweetness and warmth while avoiding mawkishness. The main problem, of course, is that it’s impossible to believe Sarah returns Lou’s affections, so the romantic stuff—which is the heart of the movie—rings false. Lesser problems include dreary pacing and a failure to flesh out supporting characters.

Slow Dancing in the Big City: FUNKY

Shoot It Black, Shoot It Blue (1974)

          The only feature directed by Dennis McGuire, whose sole Hollywood credit outside this project was cowriting the bizarre insane-asylum picture End of the Road (1970), this obscure drama somewhat anticipates the notorious Rodney King incident, because the plot concerns a young man capturing an episode of police brutality on film. Unfortunately, McGuire—who adapted the script from a novel by Paul Tyner—can’t quite figure out where to go from his incendiary jumping-off point. Instead of taking the obvious path by creating a thriller wherein the police officer tries to prevent evidence from surfacing, or even the more challenging path of exploring the societal repercussions after the evidence is released, McGuire opts for a two-pronged character study. Most of the scenes depict the bad cop in his everyday environment, carousing and drinking in between bouts of Catholic guilt and self-loathing. A smaller number of scenes depict the person who shot the incriminating footage, a young, African-American film student. Neither of these characters is put across in a satisfying way, and it doesn’t help that idiosyncratic actor Michael Moriarty plays the leading role—he’s alternately somnambulistic and weird, conveying the surface of the cop without providing much psychological insight.

          The film starts on an interesting note, setting up the possibilities and problems of McGuire’s ambiguous approach. Beat cop Herby (Moriarty) gets caught taking a bribe in exchange for not writing a traffic ticket, so he’s briefly suspended. Meanwhile, young Lamont (Eric Laneuville) spends his time filming a praying mantis for an experimental film project. One day, their lives collide. Back on the beat, Herby casually murders a suspect in an alleyway, and Lamont films the altercation from his apartment window several stories overhead. Then, once Herby is suspended again while the investigation grinds along, the lawyer (Paul Sorvino) representing the dead man’s widow finds Lamont and arranges for him to be a surprise witness at Herby’s trial. Yet much of the picture concerns tangential stuff, like Herby’s debauched exploits with fellow sleazebag Garrity (Earl Hindman). McGuire tracks and resolves the story in an awkward manner, largely ignoring obvious and worthwhile possibilities for expanding the narrative’s sociological impact. Shoot It Black, Shoot It Blue contains intimate and strange details, but it also contains lots of pointless filler. So by the time the picture reaches its fashionably cynical finale, McGuire has lost most of his authorial credibility.

Shoot It Black, Shoot It Blue: FUNKY

Bloodbrothers (1978)

          At his best, director Robert Mulligan was a uniquely gifted observer of subtle human behavior—witness To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Summer of ’42 (1971), and The Man in the Moon (1991). To his great credit, Mulligan often ventured outside his comfort zone of gentle character drama, even though the results of his artistic walkabouts were inconsistent. As a case in point, Mulligan was not the right person to direct this adaptation of Richard Price’s novel about a family of volatile Italian-Americans, because Mulligan proved incapable of restraining certain actors from venturing into overwrought caricature. Plus, since Bloodbrothers was released at a time when Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese were exploding Italian-American stereotypes, the movie feels pointlessly regressive. To be clear, it’s an entertaining picture with many heartfelt moments, and not all of the performances are shrill. Nonetheless, it’s an aberration from the era of The Godfather (1972) and Mean Streets (1973).

          Set in the Bronx, the movie follows the adventures of Thomas “Stony” De Coco (Richard Gere), a young man trying to figure out what to do with his life even though his hotheaded father, Tommy De Coco (Tony Lo Bianco), expects Stony to work alongside Tommy and Tommy’s brother, Louis “Chubby” De Coco (Paul Sorvino), in construction. Whereas Chubby and Tommy are animalistic he-men who spend their time chasing women and getting into fights, Stony is a sensitive sort who wants to work with children. His nurturing instinct manifests in protective behavior toward his little brother, Albert (Michael Hershewe), because the X factor in the De Coco family is Tommy’s wife, Marie De Coco (Leila Goldoni). Worn out from years of Tommy’s infidelity and physical/verbal abuse, Marie has become an abuser herself, so she’s traumatized Albert into developing anorexia. Meanwhile, Stony finds something like romance with women including Annette (Marilu Henner), a barmaid known as the “town pump” because of her promiscuity.

          There’s a lot of story in Bloodbrothers, all of it pitched to a histrionic level, even though modulation and restraint would have been required to find the universal truths in the material. Mulligan films scenes well, but he lets actors run wild. Gere, Henner, and costar Kenneth McMillan (as a local bar owner) deliver nuanced performances, and Sorvino’s over-the-top work would have been more effective had he been the only outsized actor. Alas, Lo Biano’s genuinely terrible performance throws the whole enterprise off-kilter. Playing a cartoonish version of a macho asshole, Lo Biano toggles between screaming, pleading, and whimpering. Worse, his ridiculous energy level causes other actors to amplify their work just to ensure they’re not overwhelmed. By the time the story resolves into a coming-of-age narrative about Stony breaking from his family’s toxic influence, the potential for genuine emotion has been bludgeoned away.

Bloodbrothers: FUNKY

1980 Week: Cruising

          No one in Hollywood ever sets out to make a dud. Take, for example, Cruising, the notorious William Friedkin thriller starring Al Pacino as a straight cop who infiltrates New York’s gay-nightclub scene while hunting a killer who is targeting homosexuals. It’s easy to imagine why Friedkin and Pacino, both of whom enjoy testing limits, saw the pulpy story as an opportunity to investigate a mysterious subculture. Concurrently, it’s useful to remember that the gender-politics climate of the late ’70s was still rotten with prejudice. Fearful the movie might propagate ugly stereotypes about predatory gays, activists staged noisy protests during filming in Manhattan, thereby creating a widespread perception that Cruising was antigay. These circumstances all but guaranteed a hostile reception from audiences and critics, rendering the filmmakers’ original intentions moot.

          But that was then. In trying to arrive at a modern understanding of Cruising, one must wrestle with the fact that the naysayers who attacked the film before and during its original release were both right and wrong. While Cruising absolutely features the “gay killer” trope, which had become a raw nerve after too many movies along the lines of Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), Cruising is too complex to earn a label as narrow as “antigay.” More than anything, Cruising is perverse. Predicated upon a deliberately unsolvable whodunnit, it is about a man who loses his personal and sexual identity while pretending to be someone else, set against the backdrop of a nightclub community populated by individuals who celebrate their truth and by individuals who disguise themselves.

          Like the best of Friedkin’s films—a category to which Cruising doesn’t necessarily belong—Cruising is designed to get under the viewer’s skin and distort perceptions. Just as The French Connection (1971) and The Exorcist (1973) revel in moral ambiguity, Cruising revels in sexual ambiguity. In fact, the picture takes Friedkin’s penchant for incertitude to an infuriating extreme by including several moments even the director cannot (or will not) explain. The movie doesn’t play fair, but clearly playing fair was never Friedkin’s intention.

          That leaves unanswered, of course, the burning question: Is Cruising a good movie? That all depends on the kind of experience the viewer wants. Those craving sensitive insights into gay culture will be left wanting, since Cruising focuses almost exclusively on the rough stuff—exhibitionism, leather, S&M, etc. As a mystery, the movie is a total bust.

          Yet buried within the frustrating rhythms of Cruising are moments of great intensity and surprise. Paul Sorvino brings genuine ache to his role as Pacino’s supervisor, a homicide investigator who has seen too much misery in his life. Karen Allen lends sensitivity as the lead character’s long-suffering girlfriend. And Pacino attacks the starring role with his signature go-for-broke intensity. Whether he’s dancing in a nightclub while wearing a black tank top or wrestling with angst about the emotional places his assignment forces him to explore, he’s an open wound of ambition, confusion, and pathos. (Accentuating all of those tonalities and more is Jack Nitzsche’s eerie score, a mixture of pounding rhythms and ethereal waves.)
          Cruising doesn’t “work” in any conventional sense, and many people justifiably find it offensive, but it’s a singular piece of filmmaking. Its worst moments are irresponsible, its best moments are truly haunting—and not infrequently, it straddles both extremes at once.

Cruising: FREAKY

A Touch of Class (1973)

          Despite receiving considerable acclaim during its original release—including an Oscar nomination for Best Picture—the tart romantic comedy A Touch of Class has not aged well. The leading performances by Glenda Jackson (who won an Academy Award for her work) and George Segal are entertaining, and cowriter/director Melvin Frank orchestrates battle-of-the-sexes repartee efficiently. The problem is that the social values represented by the film reflect a peculiar transitional moment between the Bad Old Days of rampant male chauvinism and the era of women’s liberation. Accordingly, Segal’s character spends the entire movie treating Jackson’s character like garbage, and yet the audience is expected to accept two things as true—firstly, that Segal’s character is sympathetic as a put-upon male trying to satisfy his normal sex drive, and secondly, that Jackson’s character is enlightened because she has an affair with a married man in order to avoid the complications of an emotional entanglement.

          Similar scenarios powered many romantic films that were made before mainstream culture reflected more sophisticated understandings of the female experience—for instance, the Marilyn Monroe favorite The Seven Year Itch (1955)—but the way A Touch of Class tries to blend antiquated attitudes with fresh ideas simply doesn’t work, or at least it doesn’t work anymore. Having said all that, some viewers might find things to enjoy in the picture simply because of strong performances and occasional flashes of wit.

          Segal stars as George Blackburn, an American businessman living in London. He’s married with kids, but indulges in frequent extramarital affairs. George meets the elegant and self-confident Vickie Allessio (Jackson), a divorcée who works in the fashion industry, and proposes an affair. She accepts, fully aware of George’s situation, but insists on a suitable setting. George then arranges a romantic trip to Spain, and a comedy of errors ensues. Predictably, the lovers develop feelings for each other in between farcical scenes of George throwing out his back during sex and/or Vicki trying not to arouse the suspicions of George’s friend Walter (Paul Sorvino), who conveniently happens to be in Spain at the same time as George and Vicki.

          Even though Frank has a good light touch for everything from physical to verbal comedy, he can’t help but come off as a second-rate Billy Wilder, and the choice to situate George as a hapless hero—instead of an outright heel—betrays an unattractive perspective on gender relations. Plus, for all of her character’s protestations about being a strong modern woman, Jackson ends up seeming shrill and submissive simply because she spends so much time arguing and making accommodations for the boorish behavior of the Segal character. FYI, most of the film’s principals—Frank, Jackson, Segal, and Sorvino—reteamed in 1979 for another romantic comedy, Lost and Found, which enjoyed a far less impressive commercial and critical reception than its predecessor.

A Touch of Class: FUNKY

Lost and Found (1979)

          Despite being made by the same creative team as A Touch of Class (1973), which received four Oscar nominations and won a Best Actress prize for leading lady Glenda Jackson, the middling romantic comedy Lost and Found did not enjoy as warm a reception. Although Jackson and her Touch of Class costar, George Segal, both deliver highly professional comic performances, the script by Melvin Frank (who also directed) and Jack Rose is screechy and strained, wobbling between half-hearted slapstick sequences and overwritten dialogue scenes. Worse, both of the film’s lead characters come across as demanding, nasty, and smug, so there’s not much pleasure to be found in watching their courtship. Accordingly, while the movie is handsomely made and peppered with bright moments, the overall enterprise feels unnecessarily laborious. Adding insult to injury, Lost and Found also comes across as a hyperactive strain of the same narrative DNA that playwright/screenwriter Neil Simon explored much more effectively in a subsequent 1979 release, Chapter Two. Both movies try to amuse and touch audiences in similar ways, but Lost and Found tries harder and with less success, making for a somewhat tiresome viewing experience.

          Lost and Found starts at a European ski resort, where American professor Adam (Segal) and British divorcée Tricia (Jackson) crash into each other—twice!—in a wheezy example of the romantic-comedy staple, the “meet-cute.” After transitioning from acrimony to affection, the couple marries and returns to Adam’s home in the U.S., where he teaches at a small college. Marital strife ensues, because Adam hides several important facts from his new bride: He doesn’t tell her that his shot at tenure is endangered, that he’s fallen behind on his dissertation, and that one of his research assistants is a former lover. Oh, and he’s also got an overbearing mother, Jemmy (Maureen Stapleton), and a circle of academic friends who degrade themselves by kissing up to administrators. Tricia makes a valiant attempt at learning to love her new circumstances, but once Adam’s duplicity and narcissism become intolerable, she lashes out with barbs and tantrums.

          On the plus side, since writers Frank and Rose both earned their stripes as jokesmiths for Bob Hope, a number of the one-liners in Lost and Found crackle. For instance, the embittered Tricia describes the average nubile home-wrecker as “age 22, bust 38, intelligence negligible.” Frank and Rose also have fun with supporting character Reilly (Paul Sorvino), a motor-mouthed cab driver who becomes important in the movie’s final act. Yet because the myriad extended Jackson-Segal scenes are the main attraction, the absence of magic from those scenes is nearly a fatal flaw.

Lost and Found: FUNKY

The Gambler (1974)

          While not a flawless film by any measure, The Gambler is one of the sharpest character studies of the ’70s, combining elegant filmmaking with exquisite writing and an extraordinarily nuanced leading performance. The picture offers a mature examination of addiction, portraying every troubling aspect of deception, manipulation, and risk that addicts manifest in pursuit of their illicit thrills. First-time screenwriter James Toback famously based the script on his own life, so protagonist Axel Freed (played beautifully by James Caan) is a respected college professor from a wealthy family. Driven by self-destructive compulsions, Axel regularly courts danger by making reckless bets with bookmakers. When the story begins, Axel gets in debt for $44,000 after a bad night of cards, and the pain Caan expresses in his face demonstrates that even for someone accustomed to losing, an impossible obligation triggers bone-deep fear. As the story progresses, Axel hustles for cash every way he can, whether that means hitting up family members or placing outrageous new bets.

         This fascinating protagonist’s entire life is a high-wire act, a nuance that Toback’s script explicitly articulates in myriad ways. Whether Axel’s telling a classroom full of students about a self-revealing analogy or explaining his behavior to long-suffering girlfriend Billie (Lauren Hutton), Axel says he’s after self-determination. In the twisted worldview of Toback/Axel, the threat of ultimate failure is the only acceptable proof of ultimate existence—he’s a daredevil of the soul. As such, Axel isn’t a sympathetic character, per se. Quite to the contrary, he’s a scheming son of a bitch whose idea of honor is tied in with revealing that everyone around him is a schemer, just like him. That’s why it’s so painful to see Axel inflict his lifestyle on the few innocents he encounters, such as his mother, Naomi (Jacqueline Brookes). And yet Toback carefully surrounds Axel with people who exist even lower on the moral spectrum, such as jovial loan shark Hips (Paul Sorvino) and vulgar mobster “One” (Vic Tayback).

          Director Karel Reisz, a Czech native making his first Hollywood movie, serves Toback’s script well. Among the film’s many effective (and subtle) directorial flourishes are a trope of slow zooms into Caan’s anguished face at moments of critical decision and the repeated use (via composer Jerry Fielding) of variations on a taut Mahler overture to suggest a life that’s all prelude. (After all, each climax in Axel’s existence is merely a fleeting high soon replaced by insatiable hunger.) Caan is on fire here, playing the cock of the walk in confident scenes (the tic of fixing his hair before important encounters illustrates Axel’s vanity) and quivering with ill-fitting anxiety during moments of emasculation. Vivid supporting players including Brookes, Sorvino, Tayback, Morris Carnovsky, Antonio Fargas, Steven Keats, Stuart Margolin, M. Emmet Walsh, James Woods, and Burt Young echo Caan’s intensity; each player adds a unique texture, whether guttural or sophisticated. Hutton is the weak link, her gap-toothed loveliness making a greater impression than her weak recitations of monologues. And if The Gambler sputters somewhat in its 10-minute final sequence—a love-it-or-hate-it microcosm representing Axel’s risk addiction—then a minor misstep is forgivable after the supreme efficacy of the preceding hour and 40 minutes.

The Gambler: RIGHT ON

The Day of the Dolphin (1973)

          It’s easy to pick apart The Day of the Dolphin, not just because it’s an awkward hybrid of loopy ideas and straight drama, but also because it was such a bizarre career choice for screenwriter Buck Henry and director Mike Nichols, who previously collaborated on the social satire The Graduate (1967) and the surrealistic war movie Catch-22 (1970). Yet even though The Day of the Dolphin doesn’t bear obvious fingerprints from either Henry or Nichols, it subtly reflects both artists’ focus on meticulous character development and thought-provoking concepts. As to the larger question of whether the movie actually works, that’s entirely a matter of taste. Undoubtedly, many viewers will find the central premise too incredible (or even silly). As for me, I find the picture consistently interesting even when believability wavers.

          The plot revolves around Dr. Jake Terrell (George C. Scott), who operates a privately funded marine laboratory where he studies the communication behaviors of dolphins. Or at least that’s what he tells the public. In secret (known only to his staff), Terrell has trained two dolphins, Alpha and Beta, to speak and understand a handful of English words. Predictably, problems arise when Terrell shares this information with his chief benefactor, Harold DeMilo (Fritz Weaver). Shadowy forces learn about the dolphins and kidnap the animals for an evil purpose—the bad guys want to train the dolphins to assassinate the U.S. president by delivering underwater bombs to his yacht while the president is on vacation. (As noted earlier, the premise borders on silliness.)

          What makes The Day of the Dolphin watchable is how straight the material is played. During the movie’s most evocative scenes, Terrell bonds with Alpha and Beta through underwater play that’s scored to elegant music by composer Georges Delerue; for viewers willing to take the movie’s ride, it’s easy to develop a real emotional bond with the animals, and to sympathize with Terrell’s desire to protect them. In that context, the assassination conspiracy isn’t the driving force of the story so much as a complication that tests an unusual relationship.

          Obviously, having an actor of Scott’s power in the leading role makes all the difference. His gruff quality steers the animal scenes clear of Disney-esque sweetness, so when the movie finally goes for viewers’ heartstrings, the bittersweet crescendos of the story feel as earned as they possibly could. There’s not a lot of room for other characters to emerge as individuals, but Nichols stocks the movie with skilled actors who lend nuance where they can. Edward Herrmann and Paul Sorvino stand out as, respectively, one of Terrell’s aides and a mystery man who infiltrates Terrell’s laboratory. A key behind-the-scenes player worth mentioning is cinematographer William A. Fraker, who captures the beating sun and lapping waves of the film’s oceanside locations with crisp realism while also creating a magical world underwater.

The Day of the Dolphin: GROOVY

Oh, God! (1977)

          Gently satirizing the commercialization of religion and the changing role in everyday American life of traditional spirituality, Oh, God! became an unexpected hit during its original release. However, the movie plays like a time capsule today. In addition to exuding such sweetness that it seems hopelessly naïve by modern standards, the picture ends where a 21st-century take on the same material would begin. Yet because Oh, God! was made in an era when less was more, much of the film’s charm stems from the fact that it concludes before the central contrivance wears out its welcome.
          When we first meet Jerry Landers (John Denver), he’s a soft-spoken everyman working as an assistant manager in a grocery store and building a quiet life with his wife, Bobbie (Teri Garr), and their son. Jerry starts receiving mysterious invitations to meet with God, which he figures are gags. But then, one morning, God appears in Jerry’s home. Taking the unlikely form of a short 80-year-old in thick eyeglasses, a ball cap, and a windbreaker, he seems a lot more like an escapee from a senior home than an all-powerful deity, but after several meetings—and after the performance of tiny miracles like starting a rainstorm inside Jerry’s car—God makes a believer out of Jerry.
          Thereafter, He explains that Jerry has been chosen to be a modern-day Moses, spreading the word about God’s existence and reminding people about their responsibility to treat each other well. In addition to making Bobbie worry that her husband has lost his mind, Jerry’s claims of a divine mission put him in the crosshairs of skeptical religious scholars and of charlatans like Reverend Willie Williams (Paul Sorvino), a showboating evangelist whom Jerry calls out as a fake. The whole affair climaxes in an understated courtroom scene, during which Jerry challenges his critics with an appealing mixture of common sense and faith.
          As written by ace satirist Larry Gelbart, from a novel by Avery Corman, and as directed by light-comedy veteran Carl Reiner, Oh, God! is less about the tenets of Christianity and more about the role of decency in 20th-century society. As such, casting wholesome singer-songwriter Denver in the leading role was clever (even if fans later learned he wasn’t actually so wholesome). With his childish bowl-cut hairstyle and kind eyes, Denver seems like a personification of guilelessness. Conversely, Burns’ casting as God was effective on many levels. Funny, knowing, and sly, Burns comes across like the grandfather everyone would like to have, so it isn’t much of a leap to accept him as the Father everyone might like to have.
          Thanks to its enjoyable acting, gentle comedy, and humane themes, Oh, God! is an endearing flight of fancy for those willing to meet the movie on its own terms. The picture did well enough to inspire two sequels, Oh, God! Book II (1980) and Oh, God! You Devil (1984), but neither is worth much attention even though Burns reprised his title role for both movies.

Oh, God: GROOVY

Cry Uncle (1971)

Truly vile, this low-budget attempt at spoofing the private-eye genre features excitable character actor Allen Garfield in one of his few leading roles, but the picture’s real claim to notoriety is that it’s an early effort by director John G. Avildsen, who later rose to fame with the Rocky and Karate Kid franchises. Whereas those series comprise feel-good family entertainment, Cry Uncle is a gutter-level sex flick; in fact, thanks to copious amounts of nudity, a few unpleasantly realistic sex scenes, and a generally depraved atmosphere, Cry Uncle carried an X-rating in its original release. The story is the usual film-noir gobbledygook about a private detective getting embroiled in a morally complex blackmail case, and (of course) the detective becomes sexually involved with someone related to the case. On the plus side are a few amusing throwaway moments, like the scene with a chain-smoking cop (Paul Sorvino in an early role) who can’t stop coughing. Additionally, some viewers might find Garfield’s performance amusing, since he takes his exacerbated-everyman persona to a greater extreme here than in most other films. However, it’s difficult to see beyond the movie’s grimy sexual content, since lowbrow smut infuses nearly every frame (in the few scenes when characters aren’t actually screwing, they’re talking about screwing). Given that most of the carnal scenes involve Garfield, whose physique is not exactly that of an Adonis, it’s evident that Avildsen was after something other than titillation—there’s nothing remotely sexy about watching hairy, overweight, sweaty Garfield mount one woman after another. Presumably, Avildsen was trying to mock the film-noir trope of private dicks being sexual catnip for all the women they meet. Whatever the intent, humor is nowhere to be found in scenes like the jaw-dropping moment when Garfield’s sex-crazed character rapes a corpse. The irony is that if Cry Uncle didn’t have so much sleaze, it might have been a watchable spoof. As is, however, the plot-driven scenes are probably boring for viewers who prefer the raunchy bits, and the sex scenes are so unpleasant they sour the experience of following the story.

Cry Uncle: SQUARE

Made for Each Other (1971)

Actors Joseph Bologna and Renée Taylor have been married in real life since the mid-’60s, and they’ve written and performed a number of lighthearted projects together for film, television, and theater. One of their earliest endeavors was this low-budget romantic comedy about a pair of neurotic New Yorkers who meet in an encounter group, embark on a whirlwind romance, and bicker their way to the realization that they love each other. The premise is fine, and the offscreen history that Bologna and Taylor share lets them get totally comfortable with each other onscreen; their interplay feels credible and spontaneous from start to finish. Unfortunately, the characters that Bologna and Taylor wrote for themselves are unrelentingly shrill. Gig (Bologna) is a nasty blowhard who perceives himself as a world-class stud, while Pandora (Taylor) is a lunatic who fancies herself a cabaret performer even though she can’t dance, sing, or tell jokes. To the duo’s credit, Bologna and Taylor don’t take the obvious route of showing these misfits supporting each other until their crazy ol’ dreams come true. However, in eschewing predictability and cheap sentiment, the writer-stars overcompensate by showing their characters berating each other so incessantly that it’s hard to see what they enjoy about each other. It’s true that Gig and Pandora would be intolerable to anyone except fellow basket cases, but still, where’s the fun in watching overbearing narcissists realize they’re stuck with each other? If Bologna and Taylor had some sort of satirical intent in mind, perhaps skewering the extremes of Me Decade self-centeredness, it’s not evident amid the screeching arguments and suffocating self-loathing. FYI, Olympia Dukakis and Paul Sorvino show up in supporting roles as Gig’s loutish parents.

Made for Each Other: LAME

The Brink’s Job (1978)

Since director William Friedkin is mostly known for making intense pictures like The Exorcist (1973), it should come as no surprise to report that his occasional ventures into comedy aren’t among his most impressive achievements. So, even though The Brink’s Job has many of his trademarks (naturalistic acting, realistic locations) it fails in a rather significant regard: It’s not the least bit funny. Telling the real-life story of a group of brazen thieves who broke into a Brink’s building in late ’40s Boston and boosted almost $3 million, the picture is supposed to be a farce about a gang of nincompoops who slipped through cracks in the Brink’s security system, then became folk heroes once FBI director J. Edgar Hoover made catching them a top priority. Instead, it’s a good-looking but flat recitation of events involving people who aren’t admirable or interesting. The ensemble Friedkin assembled couldn’t be more appropriate for this sort of thing, with Peter Falk leading a gang that includes Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield (billed as Allen Goorwitz), Warren Oates, and Paul Sorvino, but they all play dull stereotypes: Falk is a cantankerous mastermind, Boyle is a hot-headed career criminal, Garfield is a simpering idiot, Oates is a shell-shocked war veteran eager to kill people, and Sorvino is a seen-it-all dandy who prefers jobs that don’t require him to get his hands dirty. The performances are fine, but they’re not specific enough to elevate the ho-hum screenplay by Walon Green; although some of Green’s dialogue has street-level authenticity, his narrative is plodding. Plenty of crime films have surmounted turgid narratives, however, so The Brink’s Job might have fared better if audiences hadn’t been told to expect laughs that the movie never delivers. (Available as part of the Universal Vault Series on Amazon.com)

The Brink’s Job: FUNKY