Journey Through Rosebud (1972)

          A well-intentioned meditation on the plight of the modern Native American that can’t quite lock into a storyline worthy of its themes, Journey Through Rosebud scores a few decent emotional hits but fails to make a lasting impression. The title describes a young man’s visit to the South Dakota town of Rosebud, and the lack of a hidden meaning in the title reflects an overall dearth of literary ambition. If the apex of narrative reach is a grand statement, then Journey Through Rosebud is a small assertion at best.
          Fresh-faced Kristoffer Tabori plays Danny, a longhaired draft dodger hitching his way through the American West. One day, he happens upon an Indian reservation, where he befriends bespectacled drunk Frank (Robert Forster). Although Frank is the nominal chief of his tribe simply by dint of heredity, Frank is so consumed with despair and self-loathing that he’s unwilling to comport himself with dignity, much less assume the mantle of leadership. Danny watches various white people abuse, cheat, and humiliate the Native Americans living in Rosebud, so Danny and Frank engage in philosophical discussions about one’s responsibility to combat injustice. Sometimes Frank assumes moral high ground because he performed military service, accepting a burden that young Danny shuns, and sometimes Frank undercuts himself with pathetic episodes of brawling and public drunkenness. Meanwhile, pretty Native American woman Shirley (Victoria Racimo) gets caught in the middle—when the story begins, she’s Frank’s lover, and when the story ends, she’s taken up with Danny. This being a bleeding-heart ’70s drama, everything builds toward a tragic climax that’s meant to be laden with emotion and meaning.
          While director Tom Gries stages scenes with his usual competence, Albert Ruben’s plodding script precludes the creation of genuine cinematic energy. Neither the circumstances nor the stakes of the story are made especially clear, and the character relationships feel writer-convenient. What keeps blood pumping through the movie’s veins are the performances, although even those are underwhelming. Tabori incarnates an acceptable if unimaginative vision of the arrogant youth who talks a good line about questioning authority even though he takes very little action, while Forster captures the dejected quality of his character without fully revealing the warrior that the script implies is buried inside Frank’s soul. So even though Journey Through Rosebud is more restrained than, say, Billy Jack (1971), it is yet another flawed attempt by Hollywood to dramatize the challenging realities of life on the rez circa the volatile American Indian Movement era.

Journey Through Rosebud: FUNKY

Helter Skelter (1976)

          Offering a painstakingly detailed dramatization of the notorious “Manson Family” murders and their aftermath, the made-for-TV movie Helter Skelter features, among many other worthwhile things, one of the creepiest performances of the ’70s. Playing wild-eyed cult leader Charles Manson, Steve Railsback delivers indelible work. With his gaunt frame, quavering voice, and relentless intensity, he captures the real Manson’s disturbing mixture of messianic charisma and psychopathic menace. Even though he’s probably onscreen for only one hour of Helter Skelter’s original three-hour-and-twenty-minute running time, Railsback dominates the whole project. Watching Railsback-as-Manson preach about the beauty of an impending race war and the glory of rattling the establishment by committing mass murder feels very much like looking into the eyes of pure madness.

          Based on a nonfiction book cowritten by Manson prosecutor Charles Bugliosi, who secured convictions against the cult leader and several of his accomplices despite the rigors of a complex trial, Helter Skelter gives equal weight to the activities of law-enforcement personnel and to the macabre exploits of the killers. Moreover, the movie blurs lines by showing the occasional ineptitude of people investigating the murders, and by showing the twisted joy Manson’s people took from following a man they considered to be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ. If there’s a major flaw to the project, it’s the way that Bugliosi is portrayed as a superhero in a three-piece suit, making logical connections that evade other people, rendering impassioned courtroom speeches, and standing up to the formidable Manson during one-on-one encounters. Rose-colored as the movie’s vision of Bugliosi may be, the portrayal ultimately works in the project’s favor because the straight-laced Bugliosi represents the order of The Establishment, while Manson and his people represent the chaos of the counterculture’s lunatic fringe.

          Produced and directed by Tom Gries, whose filmogrpahy includes such robust action pictures as 100 Rifles (1969) and Breakheart Pass (1975), Helter Skelter unfolds in a quasi-documentary style. As narration and title cards provide connective tissue, the picture shows episodes involving cops, criminals, witnesses, and victims, eventually replicating the intricate tapestry of clues and leads and mistakes and victories that led to Manson’s conviction. The investigative stuff is compelling because of how many near-misses occurred before the Manson Family was finally incarcerated, and the courtroom stuff—much of which features speech taken directly from transcripts—is dynamite. The extensive testimony of former Family member Linda Kasabian (Marily Burns) shows what happens when a morally healthy individual survives a brush with monsters, and the many scenes featuring killers Leslie Van Houten (Cathey Paine) and Susan Atkins (Nancy Wolfe) suggest the incredible sway Manson had over compliant followers. Almost as maddening to watch is Manson’s attorney, Everett Scoville (Howard Caine), who batters the prosecution with endless objections.

          Although Helter Skelter is widely available in a shortened, feature-length version, the original cut—which was broadcast over two evenings—has special allure because of how deeply it pulls viewers into a legal quagmire. In either version, the performances are never less than solid, even if George DiCenzo’s portrayal of Buglioisi is a bit flat, and the use of music—including cover versions of the Beatles songs associated with the murders and a creepy original score by Billy Goldenberg—is wonderfully precise.

Helter Skelter: GROOVY

The Hawaiians (1970)

          James Michener’s 1959 novel Hawaii was a major bestseller, but it was also a monster in terms of narrative scope: Sprawling over nearly 1,000 pages, the book traces centuries of history from the formation of the islands by geological forces to the present day at the time of the book’s publication. Therefore, even though Hollywood was eager to capitalize on the novel’s success, putting the entire story onscreen was impossible. Taking a creative approach to the challenge, producer Walter Mirisch decided to film the book as a pair of epic features, but the first picture to be filmed, Hawaii (1966), barely covered one chapter of Michener’s story. Hawaii did well enough that Mirisch pressed forward with the second film, which, given the nature of the source material, is less a continuation of the first picture’s story and more of a companion piece.

          Whereas Hawaii dramatizes early conflicts between European missionaries and Hawaiian natives, The Hawaiians takes place a generation later, when the son of the first movie’s protagonist has grown into a middle-aged bureaucrat named Micah Hale (Alec McCowen). Yet the real center of The Hawaiians is Hale’s cousin, sea captain Whip Hoxworth (Charlton Heston). When the story begins, Whip returns from the sea to accept an inheritance from his recently deceased grandfather. Unfortunately, the estate was left to Hale. Incensed, Whip starts a plantation on the meager stretch of uncultivated land he owns.

          His workers include a pair of impoverished Chinese immigrants, Mun Ki (Mako) and Wu Chow’s Auntie (Tina Chen). (The relationship between these characters is way too complicated to describe here.) To endow his plantation with a unique cash crop, Whip sails to French Guiana and steals pineapples, which are not yet being grown in Hawaii. Wu Chow’s Auntie proves adept at nurturing the plants, so Whip gives her some land to start a small farm of her own. Thus, the foundations of two parallel dynasties are formed. The movie tracks Whip’s ascension to supreme wealth as an agricultural tycoon, and the rise of Wu Chow’s Auntie as the matriarch of an expansive immigrant clan. The picture also features subplots about leprosy, mental illness, political unrest, and other intense subjects.

          The Hawaiians crams an enormous amount of narrative into 134 minutes, and much of what happens onscreen is interesting, like the arcane workings of the Chinese community in Hawaii. However, tackling so much material gives the picture a diffuse quality. Director Tom Gries handles individual scenes with workmanlike efficiency, but neither he nor screenwriter James R. Webb are able to forge a unified statement. One episode unfolds after another, time passes, and a resolution of sort arrives, but it’s all somewhat random.

          It doesn’t help that the film’s central performance is its least compelling, since Heston grimaces and growls in his usual blustery manner. Chen and Mako do much more nuanced work, although the age makeup applied to Chen in later scenes is unconvincing. (McCowen is too polite to make much of an impression.) The Hawaiian locations are, of course, quite beautiful, so the land itself becomes the most arresting character—it’s easy to see why generations of people battled for control over this vast paradise of adjoining islands. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

The Hawaiians: FUNKY

The Greatest (1977)

          As a keepsake depicting the heyday of one of modern sports’ most celebrated figures, The Greatest is priceless, because boxer Muhammad Ali plays himself in a brisk overview of his illustrious career’s most notable moments. As a movie, The Greatest is, well, not the greatest. Setting aside the issue of Ali’s amateurish acting, since he never claimed thespian skills among his gifts, the picture is so flat and oversimplified that it’s more of a tribute reel than an actual film. At its worst, The Greatest is outright ridiculous. For instance, the opening-credits montage features Ali jogging while George Benson croons a maudlin version of “The Greatest Love of All,” which was composed for this movie even though most people know the song as a Whitney Houston hit from the ’80s. The problem is that the main lyric, “Learning to love yourself/is the greatest love of all,” doesn’t really apply to the former Cassius Clay, whose bravado is as famous as his pugilistic skill; for this man, self-love was never in short supply.

          Nonetheless, it seems the goal of this picture was to portray Cassius/Muhammad as a simple man trying to find his identity while he clashed with racist white promoters and, during his Vietnam-era battle against being drafted into military service, the U.S. government. Unfortunately, the picture doesn’t dig deep enough to feel believable as an examination of the inner man, especially since most of the events depicted in the picture are familiar to everyone, from Ali’s friendship with Malcolm X (James Earl Jones) to his conversion to Islam. The movie’s credibility is damaged further by the filmmakers’ use of actual footage from Ali’s biggest bouts: The movie frequently cuts from shots of a well-fed 1977 Ali to clips of the same man looking leaner in earlier years, even though the disparate shots are supposed to be contiguous.

          Accentuating the cheesy approach are distracting cameo appearances by Jones, Robert Duvall, David Huddleston, Ben Johnson, and Paul Winfield, all of whom breeze in and out of the movie very quickly. (Ernest Borgnine has a somewhat more substantial role as trainer Angelo Dundee.) FYI, cult-fave director Monte Hellman provided uncredited assistance during post-production after the death of the film’s credited director, reliable journeyman Tom Gries; Hellman performed similar duties two years later on the misbegotten thriller Avalanche Express, joining that production after director Mark Robson died.

The Greatest: LAME

Breakheart Pass (1975)

          Though he spent most of the ’70s starring in ultraviolent thrillers, Charles Bronson also displayed a lighter touch in occasional escapist adventures. One of the most diverting of these efforts is Breakheart Pass, adapted by bestselling novelist Alistair MacLean from his own book. Breakheart Pass is a Western thriller gene-spliced with bits and bobs from the espionage and murder-mystery genres, set primarily on a passenger train barreling through the wintry wilds of the Midwest. Governor Fairchild (Richard Crenna) is on board the train to oversee the delivery of medical supplies to a fort that’s suffering an outbreak of diphtheria. During a routine stop in a frontier town, U.S. Marshal Pearce (Ben Johnson) talks his way into passage on the train, bringing along his prisoner, medical lecturer-turned-suspected murderer Deakin (Bronson). Once the train gets moving again, several passengers are mysteriously killed, so Deakin sniffs around and discovers that the diphtheria outbreak is a ruse invented to cover a heinous conspiracy to which the governor is party. So, in the classic mode, Deakin has to figure out whom he can trust as he smokes out the bad guys, all while racing the clock before the train arrives at a rendezvous with destiny.

          Breakheart Pass is enjoyably overstuffed with manly-man excitement: The picture has bloodthirsty criminals, fistfights atop moving trains, marauding Indians, revelations of secret identities, shootouts in the snowy wilderness, unexpected double-crosses, and even a spectacular crash. As with most of MacLean’s stories, credibility takes a backseat to generating pulpy narrative, so trying to unravel the story afterward raises all sorts of questions about logic and motivation. Still, Breakheart Pass is thoroughly enjoyable in a cartoonish sort of way. Veteran TV director Tom Gries keeps scenes brisk and taut, and he benefits from a cast filled with top-notch character players, including Charles Durning, David Huddleston, Ed Lauter, Bill McKinney, and others. As for the leading players, Bronson presents a likeable version of macho nonchalance, while Crenna essays his oily character smoothly. Predictably, the female lead is Bronson’s real-life wife, Jill Ireland, who costarred in a dozen of her husband’s ’70s pictures.

Breakheart Pass: GROOVY

The Glass House (1972)

          For an early-’70s social-issue telefilm, The Glass House has an impressive pedigree: Truman Capote co-wrote the story, and ace scribe Tracy Keenan Wynn (The Longest Yard) wrote the teleplay. Alan Alda stars as Jonathan Paige, a college professor convicted of manslaughter for inadvertently killing the man who injured Paige’s wife in a car accident. He’s sent to prison on the same day that an idealistic guard, Brian Courtland (Clu Gulager), starts work at the institution, and as these unsuspecting men fall into the web of corruption and violence spun by prison overlord Hugo Slocum (Vic Morrow), a brutal killer incarcerated for life, the heroes come to realize the hopelessness of escaping, much less changing, the merciless status quo inside the big house.

          Paige’s descent is tied to the abuse visited upon a sweet-faced young man (Kristoffer Tabori) whom Paige fails to protect, and Courtland’s disillusionment stems from his realization that the aged warden (Dean Jagger) is content to let inmates kill each other. Unobtrusively directed by journeyman helmer Tom Gries, the picture moves at a strong pace from the bleak opening sequence to the horrific finale, making a simple statement about the seeming impossibility of retaining humanity inside a maximum-security lockup.

          Abetted tremendously by Alda’s characteristically sensitive performance, the script does a strong job of depicting Paige as a man who can’t win: Keeping to himself doesn’t steer the professor clear of danger, and neither does taking a principled stand. What’s more, the script expertly weaves together various strong personalities, with Morrow commanding the screen as a predatory monster, and Tabori giving a poignant turn as innocent doomed by circumstance. Billy Dee Williams shows up in an important featured role, and the film slyly employs his super-cool swagger to present a complex character who’s part peacenik, part revolutionary, and part straight-up badass. Depressing but focused and purposeful, The Glass House is solid stuff.

The Glass House: GROOVY